Twilight focused on the apple before her. She took note of every single detail, every scratch and imperfection on its skin. Her eyes traveled over the clipped stem, stalling as she memorized the direction and curvature, and let her sight rest over the single tiny green leaf curling on top of it. She stood completely still, the only part of her given to motion were her eyes, the irises moving erratically as they zeroed in on each tiny dimple and discoloration. Twilight's horn lit as she picked up the object of her scrutiny in her manipulation of the magic field, and gently, oh so gently and carefully, rotated the apple one eighth of its diameter to the left before restarting the whole process.

The operation proceeded smoothly. It was slow going, sure, and she would have to repeat it twice over, so she could entrench in her memory the bottom and the top of the apple from their respective views. Success hinged on the meticulousness of her actions, and Twilight Sparkle, personal student of Princess Celestia and protege extraordinaire, would not be found wanting.

At least not for the 18th time in a row.

She shook her head, the smallest shudder possible so as to not dislodge or blur her vision, and removed these petty distractions from her mind. Magic was calling. Success was calling.

After a great ,unknown number of minutes, time spent being one of the unimportant aspects of her venture, she felt ready. The red, shiny apple now existed in two places at once. One was right in front of her. The other rested in her mind's eye, ready to be manipulated and mirror its changes to its material brother.

She closed her eyes. Everything she needed laid right in her perfect memory. She channeled magic in her horn, slowly and subtly bringing change to the magic field that clung on the seemingly spotless flesh of the fruit before her. Spotless, she scoffed. She knew every weakness and sore that lay on that apple. And now she would take away the one that dared to affront her so.

Her spell ended. This was it. The fruit of her labors, in a most literal way, was right in front of her. She opened her eyes slowly, exulting in the approaching view of her triumph.

The apple was orange.

It wasn't red anymore. It was orange. Orange as in orange, the color that isn't yellow. The color that the apple hadn't changed to due to her failure. Again.

Eighteen failures in a row.

The young filly picked up the apple in her hoof, and with a bellowing cry of rage, not a high pitched scream -the distinction was important- chucked that Celestia-damned apple to the furthest reaches of the Canterlot Royal Library.

The eleven year old unicorn took some satisfaction in that throw. She made it as far as six reading tables away. That was a new record at least.

Well, that one and the eighteen fail-she would not think about that!

She pouted and looked down at her book. 'The Illustrated Illusion Instruction Itinerary' by Pipe Dream. The theory section had been practically inhaled, and the book was open on the practical exercise section. Page two.

She looked around. The library expanded over most of a whole wing of the Castle, the rest of it shared by the Royal Archives and some rooms and offices for their attendants. The shelves were stacked high, up to 5 times a pony's height with small rolling ladders positioned intermittently around. The library space was separated into smaller wings, each wing containing a category or sub category of a subject on their own, with small walled spaces that formed reading sections for ponies to bring their books and read in silence. Each reading room, she knew, was enchanted with a sound dampening spell that kept noises down, both those that came from outside the room, but also from outside to inside.

Having heard, and caused the deafening, echoing explosion of sound that came from the fall of a book from it's shelf to the stone floor, she understood why. Giant rooms with hard surfaces turned themselves into acoustic chambers that could bombard somepony's nerves every time anypony just walked around.

She was in such a reading room right now. Nopony else was around which was a small miracle by itself since this room, being the closest one to the entrance, was usually the first in line for anypony to put to use. But for hours now it had been her sole domain. Well, not just hers. She did have some company with her. Which explained why they were left in peace for so long.

The apple, now sporting exciting new bruises, was placed in front of her again. She looked up and saw the tall, bipedal form of her bodyguard, friend and surrogate father, titles not ordered by importance, gently bend over at his midpoint as he rested his hands inside his crude jacket's pockets and used one of his long legs to hook and drag a stool beneath him in a coordinated movement that baffled her every single time. That kind of balance on two legs was just plain unnatural.

Raegdan's black eyes, smaller that any pony's, locked into hers as he examined her.

"Someone is getting frustrated." He said in his broken accent. It was getting better but the curious mix of the hard and soothing tones of his mother tongue were still there beneath it all.

"Oh, no, what possibly made you think that?" she mocked.

He gave no answer beyond narrowing his eyes a bit and quickly turning his head to watch as her manipulation of the field evaporated from the apple, turning it back to its natural red. "How many times have you tried this so far?"

Twilight's young face frowned in defeat. "Eighteen." Her horn lit up furiously once again. "Well, I am getting it now though. Just watch."

His hand whipped out and grabbed the apple before she could begin her ministrations. "I think not. You should stop."

"I can't stop!" she protested. The very thought filled her with indignity. She wouldn't let a stupid apple stop her from completing her homework assignment. That's what students who did not wish to be mentored by Princess Celestia any longer would do. "I have to finish my homework."

He threw the apple up in the air in a straight line. As she followed the motion, he caught it again and threw it up again and again in a single handed juggling, each time giving the apple a new rotation that nevertheless didn't affect its straight orbit upwards.

"You cast the spell eighteen times so far. Tell me", he asked, "did you cast the same spell the same way you did on this try as you did on your first one?"

"Of course." Raegdan kept launching the apple at the air, slowly increasing the height and speed of rotation. It was starting to actually wobble a little, she noticed. He had to make small adjustments to his hand's position to catch it before it landed on the table.

"I see." He furrowed his eyebrows as he thought. "So explain to me. Why did you think you would get a different result than you did on your first one?"

She was mystified at this. The answer was plain after all. "Because I would cast it better."

More throws. "Did you do exactly what the book told you to do the first time?"

"Yes." Another question with a self evident answer. She always did as the books said.

"Exactly as the book said? Did you follow every little detail?"

"I cast the spell perfectly. I am sure I did." Watching the apple was kind of relaxing actually. The spins were getting very intense and really affecting the fruit's balance. It was fascinating in its own way.

"I believe you." He assented. "Now, I want you to answer this next question carefully. I am a little dumb and I might have missed something so..."

"You are not dumb," she said annoyed.

"Well, I am at a lot of things. This might be another one of them. Now, my question."

She waited. He threw the apple up one last time. He quickly brought his arm up and caught it mid descent with a satisfying "thwap" sound as it made contact with his palm. He crouched himself down on her eye level.

"If you cast the spell perfectly the first time, how could you cast it better on the next seventeen attempts?"

Her brain lurched. Slowly it started working again, though not before stopping her from doing a charade of a fish trying to feed.

"Just, you know. Better." Ok, maybe she needed a few more seconds for her brain to go back to full power.

He drew his torso back. "If it didn't work as it was supposed to with a perfect casting then there is only one reason it didn't. You made a mistake."

"I did not make a mistake!" she protested. "I cast the spell exactly as the book instructed and the spell's composition in the book is perfectly correct. There is no mistake in the spell."

"You misunderstand my little one." He placated her. "I didn't mean that the spell or the book had a mistake."

She puffed her chest. Darn right there was no mistake. Books do not make mistakes.

"I meant that it was you who made a different mistake altogether."

So that's how balloons feel when the knots untie. "What."

"You are trying to turn the apple yellow right?"

"Actually, I am trying to compile the magic field that surrounds it into an selective reflective surface so that the naked eye sees a yellow coloration. The apple itself won't change at all.", she explained.

"Ha!" He pointed at her with one of his fingers, the rest of them curled into a fist. "But when you do that the apple turns orange instead."

"This isn't funny," she complained, "I have spent hours on the same spell and I have nothing to show for it." She frowned, rubbing her face with a hoof. The repeated failures and frustration were getting to her. She could feel her eyes dampen and fought back the urge to cry.

Raegdan's face turned worried and he quickly hurried off his seat. He placed himself next to her and started stroking her mane with one hand, the other lightly scratching her back at that place, right between her shoulder blades, that she could never really get on her own.

"I'm sorry my little one. I didn't mean to make fun of you by laughing. I just meant that I think I know what went wrong."

"You do?" This made zero sense. Raegdan had absolutely no magic in him. He couldn't manipulate the magical fields in any way, shape or form. Best he could do was disrupt it with his touch. He had no idea how it felt to have magic flow through you or the sensitive pressures in was shaped under. All he had was what he had garnered from her studies as he escorted her around, mainly in magical theories.

It was another one of his tricks to helping her actually that enabled him to know as much as he did without having a sense for magic. Every time she happened upon a subject that gave her trouble he would have her give him a lecture about it.

She liked that one. It made her feel like she believed Princess Celestia did when she taught her. It was a type of make believe game that worked wonders for her understanding of the subject she would struggle with. Attempting to explain a magical theory or anything else, say history, to Raegdan would quickly either reveal her own holes in her knowledge or even more astonishing, facets of facts she had read would connect with each other and shine through in a sudden burst of understanding.

Was it any wonder then how infuriating it was that he often found answers to magic problems while unable to make use of it?

"Yes I do my little one." he hugged her close to his warm body. "And guess what, I got the answer for you all packed in your favorite form."

"What do you mean?" she asked from her snugly position.

Raegdan didn't answer with words. Instead, he reached for a book she hadn't noticed on the table before and brought it in front of her so she could read the title.

'Basic Painting Techniques and Color Theory' by Dry Brush.

She felt like screaming. She couldn't believe how simple it all was once she read about color mixing. It was so stupidly simple and terrifyingly brilliant how the spell worked once she had more proper context that she could hardly hold her voice in.

Too bad she was in a library. Making some loud noise would be so satisfying right now. She looked next to her at Raegdan as he skimmed through a book about the old Caravan Trade Guild. What did he do to express his own frustration? Ah, right...

She gritted her teeth and growled like he often did. Much better.

Raegdan put his book down. He picked up the yellow apple and held it up proudly, its real coloration returning with his touch fizzling the spell off it.. "See, I knew you would get it in the end. You always do. Plus, all that practice helped you cast the spell almost instantaneous."

"For simple objects, sure." She groaned. "I can't believe I didn't see the problem before. I cast the exact same spell on a white page and it worked. It was so obvious."

"Everything is in..." he faltered. "Twilight, is there a word for when you look back at something you did and see the wrongs after the fact?"

The dictionary in her mind flipped over a few pages. "The word is 'hindsight'".

He pronounced the word a few times to himself. "Everything is obvious in hindsight?" She nodded at his questioning look. "You got it now, that's important."

"How did you figure it out anyway?" she asked curiously. "I don't remember anything like that in my lessons."

He grinned. "Ah, I got the edge on you on that because of my kind's education." Twilight stopped reading what was in front of her and instead paid extra attention to Raegdan's words. If she was right he was going to let slip a few rare words about his past life.

"It's actually early in our physics education where we learn about how light is actually made up of," he made a waving motion with his hand hesitantly, "wave things, I don't know the correct word, each wave a certain color. So, when you look at the apple you just see the light that reflects on it which has had some of its waves absorbed by the apple so instead..."

She followed the hesitant explanation and completed the thought. "So instead of seeing white I see the apple as red." He nodded. "So I see the white page as white because..."

"Because white surfaces reflect light without absorbing waves."

Understanding dawned. "So, it really works like color mixing. When I cast the spell I added yellow to a surface that had no coloration so it became yellow. It didn't work on the apple cause it was like mixing red and yellow and it turned orange. But when I just took the red out..."

"Yeah, that's about it. Though I guess the spell does a lot of the translation between how you define color and what the light waves really are." He seemed to be pondering on that.

All of this sounded extremely interesting to her. And she bet Princess Celestia would think the same too. "The way this spell is made I think it was put together by trial and error to figure out the color changes. You should share all that you can remember about light with the Princess. Knowing how light works is safe enough isn't it?" She tried to entice him. Oh stars, it would be so great to know more about his kind's knowledge of physics.

Raegdan alternated between looking at her and the apple in his hand. He is thinking about it. Come on, come on, come on, say yes, say yes, say yes...

"It seems harmless enough I guess. But then, make the right spell and you could use light to cut through steel as if it was mist."

...She did not just hear that. There is absolutely no way you can do that. Can you?

"Then again," he continued, smirking teasingly at her, "you could use the same principles to see the building blocks of creation and measure them."

She was thirsty. When was the last time she drank anything? Her mouth felt as dry as the badlands.

"You can do that?" she whispered. She was being pranked, she had to be.

"No," he admitted. Hah, she didn't fall for it. Twilight still felt oddly disappointed though. To be able to do that... her thoughts were interrupted when he continued "I don't know the exact science needed behind building those kind of devices. But with magic and knowing what you want to achieve? I guess you guys can make some pretty good imitations of our stuff."

'See the building blocks of creation and measure them'. Of course his kind didn't have magic. If they did it would be unfair to the rest of the world. From the precious tidbits Twilight could get from Raegdan, his unnamed kind were on their way of becoming gods.

He breathed deeply and turned back to her. "I'll write some stuff down and get it to Celestia I guess, along with my notes on biology, when I am done with them. Now, homework. What's next?"

Biology? She'd ask about it but previous attempts told her that once he changed the subject away from his kind or himself he would clam up on any following questions. Instead, she turned over to page three of the practical exercise section. Then she quickly flipped through a few of the next. "I am gonna need a multicolored object for most of the next exercises. I have to manipulate the spell so I can change colors selectively in various numbers and combinations."

Raegdan scanned around. "I'll go find something. Wait here for me. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"Ok, dad," she sang.

Raegdan paused on his way out and flashed a wide smile at her, showing off his sharper cutting teeth. She blushed as he turned around the shelves.

She didn't really mean to call him that. It just popped out every once in a while. She knew he wasn't her dad, her real dad lived just outside Canterlot. Raegdan himself escorted her to her parents' home weekly. At least, Raegdan didn't mind, nor did her dad when Raegdan told him about her increasing habit to do so.

She had overheard them without them knowing about it. Raegdan was... timid about it. Almost ashamed actually. It was very jarring because he wouldn't hesitate to stand up even against Princess Celestia and make snarky comments about her... size. To see him fidget and worry across her relatively tiny father was one of the weirdest sights of her young life. Her father had picked up on that very fast however and reassured him.

"A father's main job is to protect his foal. The way I see it, you are there every day, all day, doing my job. I think you earned the right for her to call you dad every once in a while. Just understand, we wouldn't mind seeing her here a little bit more often, eh?"

It cut off some time from her studies but Raegdan made a point to bring her to her parents every chance he got for a long enough visit or even sleepover. It made her family much happier and even with the increased contact she had with her parents again the slip of the tongue increased in volume.

Worse, she was pretty sure she called Princess Celestia 'mom' before she fell asleep last night.

She needed to take those thoughts out of her head. She picked up the book Raegdan brought her and turned to the color theory section again. She gave off another growl for good measure. That felt really good. Aggressive and challenging. Come at me, laws of magics and science. You are no match for my brains.

She spent the next minute revising the chapter, taking care to growl at every paragraph.

"Shameful."

Twilight dropped the book as she jumped her way up towards the ceiling. She could feel her heart thumping a fast beat as if it was practicing for a new career as a drum soloist. Shaken, she looked behind her seat to see an old unicorn mare looking down at her. The sneering mare's mane was a deep pink with a few lighter and gray hairs peppering through while her coat was a pale yellow. Twilight tried to get a glimpse at her cutie mark but the unicorn was dressed in a long white coat that covered it.

Her demeanor didn't instill a lot of hope in the young student that this would be a happy meeting but she opted to remain courteous as she had been taught. "Excuse me, can I help you?" she asked as politely as she could.

"Look at you," the unnamed mare said with contempt dripping from every syllable. "Not only do you bear with that thing's presence, you even adopt its crude mannerisms."

Twilight tried to rebuke her, "His name is Raegdan, he is my friend and..."

"A name!" the mare exploded, disgust in her face. "That monster is not fit to have the same dignity that is afforded to a pet. And you!" Twilight had to cross her eyes to keep the offending hoof in her sight as it was placed not a centimeter away from her muzzle, "You call it a friend? I knew there were even unicorns who could fall so low but to see the Princess' own student do so? Are you so starved for attention you cling to a thing like that? Imitate it so it will grunt its approval to you?"

Twilight realized what this was all about. The offended mare was either a noble or part of their supporters. And one of the few things that almost everypony of Canterlot's Nobility would agree on was their utter disapproval of someone not of their ranks enjoying any kind of recognition from the Princess. Twilight herself was an often coveted target for their ire those last two years. Every move or word of hers would be misconstrued as a fault or insult towards them or the Princess at every opportunity. There were only two things shielding her from almost all of their attempts to hurt her in any way they could conceive. The first one was Princess Celestia herself, with only the most conceited ponies even entertaining the thought to attempt anything near where Celestia could witness it.

The second was Raegdan. He kept her away from their attention by simple virtue of being a much more hated target for their anger. What they saw as a beast had been offered quarters in the Palace and had the attention of the Princess of the Sun seemingly on demand, joining her almost daily in her public and private activities. They harbored nothing but hate and contempt for him and Raegdan knew it. Of course, this being Raegdan, instead of the slightest attempt to mollify them he had decided to up the ante on his own ways.

But right now? He wasn't here. And this mare was determined to bring Twilight as low as she could while she was vulnerable.

Knowing what the pale yellow unicorn was trying to do wasn't offering her any ways to protect herself however. Twilight could only stammer and tear up as the noblepony twisted every trembling word that she managed to speak through the incoming tears to plunge her daggers deeper into her.

"I... I am not... not wasting Celestia's time..." Twilight struggled to pull the syllables out of her chest.

Her accuser's eyes were wide, filled with anger and malice. "You dare evoke the Princess' name without her proper title? You conceited, arrogant foal. You will be cast out of Canterlot soon, mark my words." Twilight's back was forced against the table, the mare's face only inches away from her, her mouth throwing spit on her with every sentence she roared at her. "Once I notify our Monarch of her student's," she said with derision, "remarks, you will be lucky if she just sends you packing back to your worthless parents."

Twilight did not believe her. Princess Celestia would believe her over this mare but a part of the little filly, a part that was growing in size and filled with fear and doubt was shouting 'what if she is right'. Twilight could do nothing to stop herself from crying while insults and condemnations were piled upon her.

"Stop... please, stop..." she begged.

The pink haired demon smiled wickedly at her and made a show of looking around. "I hope you have enjoyed your short time at this library you insolent riffraff cause you are not seeing it again once you walk out of here." Her triumphant smile was quick to run and hide however when an appendage unique in the lands of Equestria landed on her right shoulder and its unbelievably strong fingers dug into her coat.

"She is going to walk out of here alright. And do you know why? Because I don't want her to see why you won't be able to."

Raegdan had crouched low enough to bring his mouth next to the unicorn's ear, his other hand wrapped around her horn, effectively blocking her from casting any spell with his disruptive abilities towards magical fields. His face was expressionless but Twilight could almost see the pure hate bleeding out of his eyes and voice.

"Raegdan, don't do..." she tried to stop him from doing anything to make things worse for himself but he wasn't going to let her.

He whipped his attention towards her, taking in the horrible sight she was sure she was in, her face must have been covered in snot and her coat matted down with her tears. His pupils shrunk and the terrified mare inhaled sharply as his fingers tightened their hold. He lost his frightening visage and some warmth slipped in his voice when he addressed her. "Twilight, I want you to go outside and get the guards there to escort you to Celestia. I am going to be busy here for a bit exchanging... words with my new friend."

The casual way he talked about the Princess gave the mare some courage or enough indignation to speak up. "How dare you talk about our Princess like that you vile beast?" That turned to be a mistake as she once again became Raegdan's sole focus.

And he responded to her post haste by pulling her up by the horn, up on her back legs, only to bring her head back down on the table with unrelenting force, blood spurting from her broken muzzle in a splash around her head like a painted halo.

"Go now, Twilight," he ordered.

She didn't hesitate. She didn't want to see this. She ran towards the Royal Library doors, the mare's whimpers echoing behind her along with Raegdan's chuckles. She would do as he said. She would get the guards outside. But not to bring her to Celestia. That mare was horrible, but she didn't deserve to be left alone with Raegdan when he was like that. She would tell the two guards outside to stall him long enough for her to get the Princess here.

The Princess would be able to stop him.

Almost an hour later Twilight was cowering deep in a pile of cushions in Celestia's bedroom. She had used the luxurious bathroom to clean up and tried to rest as she had been told. But sleep escaped her while doubts and fears where buzzing inside her.

As soon as she burst into the huge Throne Room where Celestia was holding her Sun Court she quickly shouted out to the Princess as loud as she could over the bustling of the crowd. "Raegdan... A mare... he is going to kill her!"

That was all she was able to breath out in her exhaustion but Princess Celestia understood all too well. She paused long enough to give directions to her aides to cancel the rest of the Court and then teleported to Twilight's side, wrapped one wing around her and with another explosion of magic brought them both to her quarters.

"Where is he Twilight?" Celestia asked her calmly.

"At the Library, the reading section near the entrance. Princess, he..." Celestia shushed her with a wing and nuzzled her softly.

"It's alright, Twilight. Wait here and rest. I'll take care of it." And then she was gone in another teleport.

She hadn't heard anything yet from either of them. The absence of news and her fears were filling her up with dread. She shouldn't have told Celestia that Raegdan was going to kill that pony. Oh, he would hurt her enough but not outright murder her. He didn't do that.

Sometimes she wondered if that was because he didn't want to kill or because he wanted them hurting more. She removed the disturbing question from her mind and examined the white tiled floor of the bedroom in an attempt to divert her musings. The white tiles were large but smaller sections had been cut from them to make room for the flowing gold metal that formed Celestia's cutie mark. The same relief was mirrored identical right on top of it on the ceiling. Now that she thought about it, Celestia's cutie mark was all over her rooms. Her doors had the same design, the bed's wooden headrest, the white curtains had light gold stitching which she suspected would form the same design when they were pulled closed. Did Celestia ask for everything to be decorated like that or did some designer do it to impress her? Was it because of what the Princess called "poor phrasings" that made everyone think she wanted her cutie mark plastered everywhere in sight?

Her own poor phrasing might be what pushed Princess Celestia to be harsher than she should. What if she really hurt Raegdan in her belief she was stopping him from murdering one of her subjects? It would be her fault, hers because she overstated his intentions.

And even if she didn't hurt Raegdan... She did just betray him, didn't she? She sicced two guards on him, plus a couple others who were patrolling nearby and then sent the Princess against him. And the reason she did that? Because she couldn't defend herself from a verbal assault from an unknown mare. He rushed to her aid and she... tattled on him immediately.

Twilight closed her eyes and once again tried to get some sleep. She felt exhausted and the pillows were so amazingly soft and warm, saturated with mom's soft scent...

She was nudged awake an unknown amount of time later. The sun no longer shined through the windows so that meant she had slept the day away at least. Next to her, sitting on the bed was Raegdan, smiling sadly at her. At the soft white light coming from the scones next to the bed she could easily see the swelling around one of his eyes and the bruises covering half his face. Questions about what happened where forming with astounding speed but were all pushed aside so she could jump on him and hug him as hard as she could.

"Hey little one." He whispered, his voice as soothing as always when she was scared or alarmed. "Are you feeling better?"

"I'm fine." Twilight answered and kept busy for a while just holding onto him and nuzzling the side of his face that wasn't hurt.

"What happened to you?" His bruises were worrying her. She relaxed her hold on him, realizing that if he was hurt that bad on his face his body must have been as bad, she just couldn't see it with the clothes he wore. "How did you get hurt? Did Celestia..."

"No, she didn't have to kick my face in." He interrupted her, tightening his own hold at her. "When Celestia popped in she told me to drop her, so I did." From the tittering way he said that she could compose a scenario of how that drop occurred.

"And the bruises?"

"Well, the guards weren't going to just kindly ask me to back off, you know? I am impressed though, I didn't expect an earth pony to be able to do that kind of jump for an air kick." He gently rubbed his swollen eye.

"Did you hurt them?" The guards were sent to stop him because of her, she didn't like the thought of any of them having to be hospitalized.

"Nah, I just threw them around on each other and they in turn tapped me a few times while one of them was trying to drag the bitch out of reach." He frowned, glancing to the closed bedroom doors. "Don't tell Celestia I swore in front of you, ok? It just slipped out."

She giggled. At least nopony was really hurt. "I'm sorry I tattled you out," she apologized, her mood turning morose fast again. "I shouldn't have done that."

He unwrapped his arms from her, grabbed her and deposited her on his side, on top of a white pillow. "This is what you are worrying about? Really?"

She nodded.

He huffed and covered his face with his hands. He stayed like that for a few seconds before removing them and addressing her again. "Little one, you did the right thing."

She didn't say anything, just waited, her questions written on her face.

He got up from the bed and kneeled in front of her, putting their heads on the same level. "Listen, what I did, what I was going to do, was wrong."

"But you were just defending me from her."

"I was, my little one. That was right to do. But you know what I was going to do to her, right? That I was going to hurt her really, really bad?" He waited for her nod. "I am not a good person, Twilight, no, don't try to say anything. I am good to you and a few others but that doesn't mean a lot to everyone else now, does it? I would overdo it and she would have ended up in a hospital or worse, not because I needed to do so to protect you, but because I would enjoy hurting her too much to stop."

"I don't get it. You know you shouldn't do things this way. Why don't you just... stop yourself?"

He shrugged. "I can't? I don't want to? I realize I take it too far only in hindsight," he chuckled and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand when it failed to get the same reaction out of her. "Oh, come on, not even a little smile for remembering a tough new word?"

She afforded him a small fleeting smile. Very small. Barely curled the corners of her mouth. Raegdan's face lit up like the sun even at that little. Was it any wonder how she loved him when he would respond like this to her every tiny move?

"So I did the right thing?" she asked desperately.

He patted her head. "I heard what she called me, little one. Many ponies here call me a monster too. And sometimes, I kind of become one. I don't seem to mind that however, do I?"

"No," she agreed.

"Do you know why I don't care?"

She shook her head.

"Because I know that if I become a monster, you and Celestia will do the right thing and be there to stop me."