I settle in and pour over the first few chapters of A Pony Guide to Growing Up, checking the table of contents for anything that strikes me as immediately relevant.

Hmmm…Behavioral Changes Post Cutie Mark? That's not relevant to me. Estrus Cycles and Rut? Huh. I don’t like that. Proper Fur, Mane, Tail, and Hoof grooming? I’ll bookmark that for later…

Eventually, I settle on a chapter that seems immediately important: Care of the Thaumic System and Avoiding Arcane Afflictions. It catches my attention based on some of Cheerilee's earlier comments regarding my lack of magic use. How she spoke about it makes me think I should look into it as soon as possible.

Not only did this turn out to be an excellent idea, but the material is quite fascinating. According to the er…what I am assuming are simplified explanations meant for a younger audience, most creatures that utilize magic as a significant part of their survival strategy have a Thaumic System, which allows them to absorb magic from their environment and diet, as well as distribute that magic to the parts of their body which require it to serve their functions, serving as a sort of secondary circulatory system which transfers a substance serving as a sort of biological store for magical energy throughout the body.

This substance, called Ichor, becomes saturated with magic over time. At that point, the excess is shed into the areas of the body with the greatest concentration of Ichor vessels, resulting in a series of increasingly severe, unpleasant effects depending on the extent and duration of the saturation. In Unicorns, this manifests primarily in the brain and horn, resulting in the phenomenon known as Shimmerhorn Disorder.

The effects begin with the namesake, a continuous, soft, glimmering aura around the horn. If left unattended, other effects manifest, such as disruption to standard sleep patterns, mood swings, discoloration of the eyes' sclera, and the color of one's typical aura.

More severe long-term symptoms include the crystallization of the shed magical energy in the most heavily afflicted parts of the body, which are the horn and brain. Once this symptom manifests, permanent damage to the afflicted areas will occur, which can lead to inhibition of motor skills and language, erratic changes in behavior, death, and/or acute spontaneous detonation.

Yeah, okay. It’s a good thing I checked this first. Exploding is very low on the list of things I wish to experience a second time.

A bit more reading gives me some suggestions on avoiding this, although they all seem to circle back to “use magic.”

The chapter also provides an exercise for unicorns to perform that is meant to make performing magic less difficult, akin to doing stretches. In addition to increasing the ease of casting, the exercise promotes overall thaumeovascular health and increases the circulation rate of Ichor through the body. That seems like something I should see about before trying any magic. I wouldn’t want to pull something.

I sit on the floor, setting the book down in front of me as I start to look over the instructions for the exercises and follow along with them one step at a time. First, I close my eyes and steady my breathing. I allow myself to not focus on anything in particular at first, and from there, I slowly zero in on the feeling of my breath entering and exiting my body.

I sink into a pleasant, almost meditative state as I do so. After a while, I begin to feel a faint ebb and flow within myself. I can hear the beating of my heart, familiar enough on its own. Alongside it, I can feel something else. On the opposite side of my chest, a second, independent beating rhythm, accompanied by an ever so tingly, warm sensation that attaches itself to the ebb and flow I felt before. It must be the organ that pumps the ichor through my body.

As I become aware of the pumping, the flow of ichor through my body, the sensation becomes more readily discernible, more distinct. I trace it from my heart upward to and through my horn, then down my body, chest, and forelegs.

Down further now, through my midriff, my hindquarters and tail, down through my hind legs and back up along my back the way it came, back through my heart, then up into my horn again. The cycle of circulation is complete, unbroken, and continuous.

I feel almost a faint popping now again in my body, a crackling not unlike the sound of pop rocks fizzing through the vessels that carry my ichor. Over time, they increase in frequency, and with each one, I feel ever so slightly more there. The taste and scent of old paper in the air becomes accentuated, crisp, and imparted with a faint tinge of decay and dust.

The sound of my two hearts beating, of my circulation, becomes louder in my ears. Not deafening, not overwhelming. Simply more apparent, more appreciable. I feel more connected to the ground, almost as if in some faint capacity, the circulation of magic does not end with me but extends into the ground, into the air itself, as if the world has its own rhythms, its own ebb and flow upon which my own is merely superimposed. I feel…small, but comforted. It makes me feel secure to be a part of something so much greater than myself. I feel myself smile contentedly, and my body relaxes further.

Eventually, the crackling sounds begin to recede and lessen in frequency and intensity to the point where I only hear a very faint one every few seconds. At that point, I open my eyes. I immediately wince at how much brighter the room seems to have become, giving a slight hiss. My eyes quickly adjust, and I open them fully. The colors around me seem significantly more pronounced than before, making the way I had seen them earlier appear faded by comparison. As I stand up, I feel lighter, and my body feels oddly energized despite my long and eventful day. My head feels clearer, and my thoughts come to me more readily. It’s as if there was a veil between me and the world that has receded enough to allow me to see just past it and realize just how much I have been missing. I’m inundated with a gentle but insistent feeling that everything will be okay, and I feel my shoulders slightly sag as I give a small, relaxed sigh.

All in all, I have to say that doing that certainly did something for me. Now, let’s move on to Simple Spellcasting. Frankly, I’m tired of putting my mouth all over things to pick them up, and my hooves aren’t that much better. Your Horn and You can wait until tomorrow. Picking shit up feels like the priority right now, and I still have a little bit of time until I need to get on my way.

I sit at the table again, closing and putting away the first book before opening the second. I take a deep breath and exhale through my mouth, my heart beating faster as I open the text.

I quickly find my interest piqued as I decipher it line by line. I had always been fascinated by all sorts of power systems in my previous life, especially arcane ones, so this naturally has me enraptured. The prospect of hands on-or, er…hooves on learning how to harness arcane forces has my undivided attention.

Magic, at least for Unicorns, takes the form of Spells. Essentially, Spells are magic, shaped and woven into a particular pattern to achieve a specific effect.

First, you must draw forth the magic from yourself, visualizing it as an amorphous mass, which you then turn into thin fibrous strands.

From there, you spin those strands together into threads of one of five base configurations, corresponding with one of the five Primal Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Aether, which represents pure magical energy.

Once you have created the threads, you proceed to weave them into the pattern corresponding to the effect you are attempting to achieve. Once the spell has been woven, you “tie off” the weave by wrapping it around your horn. At this point, the spell is considered complete and will execute the desired effect (or fizzle out if it has been executed improperly). As a general rule of thumb, the more you focus on the weave and impress your will upon it, the more potent the effect will be, and the more magic will be required to fuel that increased potency.

Once you have finished casting the spell and no longer need to sustain it, you must dissipate the magical energy contained within the spell weave over a couple of seconds to prevent the spell from…backfiring. Huh, that sounds unpleasant. Let’s try to avoid that.

Alright, this all seems simple enough! The first spell the book introduces a reader to is Light, a single strand of fire woven over itself. The second spell is Grasp, which seems to be what I’m looking for. It is slightly more complex, being two strands of aether woven together. Still, it does allow me to levitate and manipulate with a decent level of precision any object I can muster up enough willpower and magic to move.

I briefly hesitate but quickly steel myself as I elect to start with Grasp. It should be fine. After all, it’s a very common spell and one of the simpler ones to boot. It’s damn close to being the most simple, I’ve got this!

I take a few minutes to analyze the diagram of how the spell is meant to be cast, doing my best to memorize it. Since it is a simple spell, the actual weave itself is not terribly complex—just a few over-and-under loops here and there, nothing too crazy.

Once I am confident I have it committed to memory (at least in the short term), I close my eyes and begin to visualize. I allow myself to slowly slip back into that state from before, feeling my magic flow through my body and into my horn.

From there, I imagine the magic being pulled out of my body at the horn, starting as an amorphous mass surrounding it, enshrouding it. I hear a faint sound reminiscent of wind chimes and feel a soft, comforting warmth surround the appendage. I smile softly. So far, so good…

From there, I imagine pulling at the shroud, spinning its essence into a few fine threads. I only need two for now, so I intertwine the magic in on itself in two places to form dual strands of aether.

Once I have my two threads ready and waiting, I begin to weave them together slowly and carefully. I take the time to truly understand the motion and properly visualize what I am doing in my head.

There! I feel the weave almost double back in on itself as something almost clicks into place, but something about it feels missing…

Oh. Of course, I forgot to select a target.

Opening my eyes slowly, the aura produced by my horn forces me to squint. Although the color is a hot shade of pink that is quite soothing to the eyes, my horn is glowing a bit brighter than I can comfortably stand. I direct what focus I am not using to hold the weave to the book in front of me and enshroud my horn anew in the weave to complete the spell as I imagine the book floating upwards.

The book immediately accelerates toward the ceiling in a blur, whistling past my face, barely avoiding smacking me squarely in the snout as it passes. Before I can process what is happening and try to dissipate the spell, it slams into the ceiling with a dull, loud THUD.

I give a startled, strangled yelp as I realize my error. Hurriedly, I begin dissipating the weave’s energy as the book falls towards the table again.

Not quickly enough, it seems. At the tail end of my panicked, sloppy dissipation, the book smacks me squarely in my horn, and I give another yelp as the collision roughly stimulates the appendage.

With a thunderous POP, the remainder of the now untethered magic rapidly expends itself as a flash of light, sound, and heat right in front of my face. I throw myself backward from shock, tumbling out of the chair and onto my ass as my ears ring, and a slight hint of the acrid scent of burnt fur fills my nostrils before I lose consciousness.

I awaken sometime later with a small groan. My horn feels a bit…tender, and a minor headache pounds insistently into my skull from the base of my horn, but aside from that, I seem to be mostly intact.

I carefully slide my hoof along my horn and give a slight wince. Yeah, it's definitely tender, but nothing seems chipped or fractured. A small W to savor alongside such a monumental L.

I think back to the book's guidance and remember that focus drives the amount of power the spell has. I must have focused a lot harder on that spell than I needed to and consequently poured on the juice way too fucking hard.

I shake my head, rubbing at one of my temples in annoyance. Well, it was my first time, so I should have expected some snags, especially since I did skip a step. I look back at the book, which had landed on the desk again after its untimely collision with my noggin.

Squinting at it slightly, I gather my magic again, not content to hold this L without at least one more try. The effort is more than a bit uncomfortable with how sore my horn is. I can feel the headache I was already nursing notch itself into a higher level of discomfort for a moment. But as the magic begins to flow again, it dissipates somewhat, as if the magic itself is soothing the injury.

Knowing that I do not have to try so hard, I keep my eyes open and keep my gaze fixed on the book as I am weaving the spell. I try not to psyche myself up like last time, keeping the same attitude I would use if I were reaching my arm out towards something I intended to grab. The light is far less intense this time. The rosy glow of my aura is faint, nearly ephemeral, and accompanied by only the lightest hints of the chimes from before.

Lo and behold, as I complete the spell, the book is enshrouded by the same aura as my horn and is lifted from the table, floating at about eye level. I giggle softly, doing an excited little shimmy in place, exhilarated by what I’ve accomplished.

Which, Holy Shit, I’m doing magic. Joy swells in my heart as I feel the happiest, the most content I have been since this entire debacle began. For a few precious moments, I feel like a little kid again, back in my room pouring over old encyclopedias, genuinely entranced by the natural wonders of the world around me.

I take a victory lap, trotting around my room and softly laughing as I levitate the book about a foreleg length out in front of me as I prance about. About ten minutes into this escapade, I look out the window and notice the sun. In particular, how low it’s getting.

Oh! Oh shoot, I almost forgot with all the excitement! How long was I even out for it to be this late anyway? Ech, it doesn't matter, I have a dinner to get to!

I rush back to the table and, using my magic, place the books into my saddlebag one by one, shifting the target of the spell with each book. I chuckle at what I’m doing, still a bit giddy, but shake my head and smack my hoof against the side of my snout a few times. There will be plenty of time to brainrot over this later; social obligations are now!

With everything packed, I sling the saddlebags back over my back. I slip out the front door and use the key Cheerilee had told me about to lock the place up before putting it back where I found it and heading back toward the farm at a hurried clip. I softly and repeatedly curse under my breath and hope the Apples do not find me rude for being late to dinner. They’ve been quite nice to me today, and I would hate to make a bad impression.

Another one down, and quickly approaching the end of day one! Rose sure has had a busy day huh? I'm sure he'll have plenty to discuss with the apples over dinner. Hopefully he makes it over to Sweet Apple Acres before the food is cold.