I hate hospitals.

The endless white, the stench of alcohol based cleanser, the feeling of plastic. The endless waiting of recovery as nothing happens at all. Just wasting time as your body repairs itself in an agonizingly slow process. The not-quite silence that makes the small, normally unnoticed noises stand out so much more. Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tock tock tock tock tock....

"The clock is stuck." 3:58 pm, and 43 seconds. Tock tock tock. The second hand tries and fails again and again to reach second 44, to resume it's singular duty to keep track of the seconds spent in this wretched room. Time spent in boredom, time wasted. Time, time, time.

I want to fix the clock. I want it to be the right time. I want it to resume it's work. Function as you are intended, you pile of springs and gears!

Tick. Tock tick. Tock tick tock.

The clock begins to move again, but it will forever be 38 seconds late. 38 seconds spent in this place.

When the mind lacks stimulus, the first effect is to focus on what little there is. Every sight, every sound, they become etched in your mind as your brain fixates on them in an attempt to keep active, to try and stop itself from becoming useless mush. Failing that, it begins to make it's own as hallucinations set in. Sights and sounds that aren't real, memories of the past, daydreams that overlay with reality.

There's a dead fly in the corner. It couldn't survive the hostile environment. Too much cleaner. Or perhaps it simply reached the end of its short lifespan.

Laying here, alone, in my recovery room, counting the seconds until the doctors let me go back to my room, so I can get back to the books Twilight gave me. That's right. Go over what we know.

Magic is the power of the soul giving an effect to the physical world. The body is a container. If the magic becomes too great for the body to hold, it reforms itself in an ascension. This brings immortality.

Blood is a part of the body, and is a medium for magic. That's why drinking dragon blood improved my magic, and why it was ineffective if the dragon it belonged to was dead. It's also why I was able to charge Hades with magic, while other magic bounced off. By taking a part of the magic into myself, I became connected with the scale, as though it were a part of me.That's also why Ember's knife stayed with my human body when I used my transformation spell, but my dragon scale armor wouldn't.

What else? Friendship is elements of harmony is tree of harmony is magic is immortality. All of the mane six have the potential for ascension, if they can figure out how to access the power at will, but they simply don't have the interest in magic Twilight has.

Changelings feed on love. The crystal heart is powered by love. The crystal heart is magic. So both friendship and love are magic. Changelings eat magic. Changelings are immortal as long as they have magic.

The underworld is anti magic. Magic is the essence of the soul, yet the land of the dead is nothing but souls and has an anti magic field. To keep them from escaping? I fell in the river, and now my magic is strong, but uncontrollable. Which means the river gave me more magic than I can handle, but I didn't have a reformation, so I'm not immortal.

If I follow these lines of reasoning, the river I fell into was filled with the magic, likely siphoned from the souls of the dead, which then infused into me. Hades wanted me to fall in the river because he said it would make me stronger, but he didn't know how because it's different for everybody. The most likely outcome is a drastic increase in magic strength, but I'm not used to it yet so it's going all wild. So then really, it's just a matter of getting used to being juiced up...

"Griffin?" A nurse called my name from the door.

"Yes? Come in."

"The doctors say you're free to return to your room, so long as you take it easy and keep that arm in a sling."

Finally! Fuck! It's about freakin time!

"Thank you for telling me."

She left after I got off the bed, ensuring that I didn't fall. Before I exited the room I pulled the annoying clock down off the wall, flipped the switch on it's back to turn it off, and placed it in the drawer. The next poor sap who is kept in that room at least won't have to suffer with the inane ticking of a clock that's 38 seconds late.

I had spent a couple days in ICU so by the time I got back to my room I was more than glad to see it. The books Twilight brought me were neatly piled in the corner. First thing I did is grab them all and lay them out on the floor haphazardly. I spent the next hour or so translating the first spell in the ultra basic unicorn beginner spell book. Given Twilight's explanation that the ancient unicorn's insisted on rhymes made understanding it a lot easier. Okay, no it didn't. It was still absurdly difficult trying to figure out what the rhyme was, but at least it was possible now. The simplest spell, one even a newborn unicorn could do, but apparently not Sweetie Belle. Levitation.

As per the explanation I just have to reach out with my magic and 'tag' the item to label it as the spell target, after which I just have to pick it up. I decided what I wanted to pick up was the book I was reading. So, just reach out and tag...

I gave the book the slightest nudge and it proceeded to fly across the room with incredible force, making a loud 'whap' noise and putting a slight indent in the plaster.

"This could take a while."

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the long time between updates. I have been working SO MANY HOURS. But they're not the same hours. No, they're days, and then nights, and then afternoons. I went 40 hours without sleep because I came home from a night shift and my dog wouldn't SHUT THE FUCK UP and my family didn't take care of her like they promised to so I could sleep because they're JERKS. And then I sleep for like, 2 days straight. I have made SO MUCH MONEY. My brain is kicking me in the face from inside my head! He wants out, but the skull cage is keeping him there so he just clinks a tin cup against the bars for hours on end singing prison songs.

Also, I had a memory surface of a time I was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital a couple years ago and I sat there for forever and I was there because I was having a panic attack but by the time the doctor came to see me it had been over for THREE HOURS because despite having a good system for paying for healthcare in Canada the actual SYSTEM sucks and takes an eternity because some genius in Ottawa KEEPS TAKING MONEY out of healthcare! And no, not you Stephen Harper, Ontario's provincial guy.

M'lord! A thousand apologies for the short chapter! Thou must know I put forth a great effort into each and every word! Quality of this sort cannot be rushed, and the strain placed upon me by the dozen task masters and their constant whipping may expedite the process, but I have several thousand lashes upon my back and the scars wane my concentration.