Lifeblooms

Bloom woke in a cold sweat to a pair of hooves shaking her awake, and Ellennara’s voice telling her it’s just a dream. She tried to speak, to say she was alright now, but found her throat raw making words painful. She presumed the screaming she heard waking up must have been hers; it would explain why her throat hurt and why her friend woke her up.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Bloom whispered.

“It’s fine,” Ellennara said around a yawn. “Was it the same nightmare as always?”  Living with Bloom all these years meant she didn't mind getting woken up from screaming in the dead of night. But the pony had never said what the nightmare was exactly, only that it was how she lost her eyes. And if the scars where they use to be were any indication, it was no wonder she still had nightmares about it.

“Yeah,"Bloom said, her voice trembling just a bit, "same as always.”

“Want some water?” Ellennara asked, “Your voice sounds even worse than it normally does.”

Bloom grimaced and nodded, most ponies didn't comment on her voice, and after years of listening to it, it didn't even sound strange anymore. And by most she meant everyone but Ellennara had the good graces to not bring up how broken and raspy it was now. Still with most everypony ignoring her strange voice, it was easy to forget anything was wrong.

The sound of Ellennara’s hooves on the hardwood as she went to fetch the water had a calming effect on Bloom. The normalcy of the sound helped take the edge off her nerves, and slowly her hooves stopped shaking and her heart rate slowed. By the time the zebra returned with the water, Bloom had calmed herself down from the nightmare enough that she wouldn't be in danger of spilling it.

Slowly she reached out a hoof to take the glass, but to her annoyance nothing came. Her forehead knitted together in fake frustration as she spoke through gritted teeth. “Karma will get you for taunting the blind, you know that right?”

“But I've been doing that for years now and I haven’t seen her yet,” Ellennara replied. Even without eyes Bloom could hear the smile in her voice. “It seems karma likes to take her sweet time with these things.”

Bloom was trying her best to keep the mask of anger on her face, and was failing miserably. Her zebra friend had been like this ever sense they first became roommates, and at first it had bothered her. Ellennara had been extremely insensitive when it came to her ruined eyes and voice, choosing to outright ignore them most of the time. But was not above a blind joke so long as she thought it was funny. It would frustrate Bloom to no end trying to understand where this zebra found the nerve to treat her as if she was normal. To treat this scared and traumatized filly like she would anyone else. But as she grew older and more accepting of her own broken self, she grew to love that part of her friend. She didn't see a broken pony, someone in need of pity. She only saw a friend, no missing pieces, no cracks, just a friend.

“You OK there Bloom?” Ellennara asked, her voice betrayed a hint of concern, “you spaced off there for a bit, just sitting there with a slightly creepy smile on your face.”

At this Blooms lips spread into a devilish grin. “I was just contemplating what my revenge will be if you don’t give me that water.”

That only got a round of giggles from the zebra as she placed the glass of water in Blooms outstretched hooves. Taking care to be sure of her grip before letting go of the glass, she noticed the large crack running down the rune on Blooms left bracelet.  “You broke your bracelet again,” she said frowning.

“Not again…” Bloom groaned in defeat. She broke her bracelets more often than she would like to admit. The damn things were so fragile, and being positioned on her ankles gave them a rather unfortunate life span. As her roommate, poor Ellennara had gotten quite good at fixing the runes over the last nine years. Seeing as she had to fix them at least once a month or so, more than that when at first Bloom was getting use to wearing bracelets. Still having to do repairs was infinitely better than not having them. After all the bracelets were the closest thing Bloom had to sight.

They were constructs of shamanistic air magic, and worked by taking the excess raw magic in the air, condensing it into waves, and then attuning those waves to the pony wearing the bracelets. This assured that when the magic was fired off it wouldn't be picked up by other pony’s, and instead bounce off them back to Bloom.  It was in essence, echo location with magic instead of sound. And once a body became acclimated enough with the spell, they could feel not only the shape of something, but also a texture.

The waves felt different coming back depending on what they bounced off of. It took Bloom a long time before she could ‘see’ anything more than the basic outline of rooms. And it wasn't like the magic was perfect; holes for example wouldn't show up in her magic sight. The waves would go down and get stuck down there. Not being a unicorn also meant that she wasn't magically sensitive enough to ‘see’ color or fine details. Her world was a bland, minimalistic black and white. But even that was far and away better than being without the bracelets, left with the nothingness.

“Are you almost done?” Bloom asked, tilting her ears towards the corner of the room Ellennara had taken her bracelets to.

“What do you care,” came the reply, “you’re going to bed anyway. Don’t worry I’ll leave them where you can find them when I finish.” Turning back to her work the zebra heard a sigh from the bed across the room, but no argument came. Smiling she set about fixing the broken part of the bracelet before reapplying the missing runes in the spell. After years of practice it didn't take long to repair the damage and double check for any mistakes, before placing all four bracelets in a small tree beside Blooms bed.

The earth pony wouldn't have a problem finding them in the morning due to her natural connection with nature. A connection that still somewhat confused Ellennara to this day. Bloom had on multiple occasions tried to explain just how it was that the plants "talked" to her, but it had never made much sense.

While it wasn’t at all uncommon for a shaman to talk to spirits of nature or the elements, they rarely if ever spoke back. Sure they could speak if so inclined, but the only time they ever did was in defiance of an order from a shaman. Never more than a few words and certainly not a conversation like Bloom seemed to have.

Truth be told, Ellennara had always been a bit jealous of her friends natural skill with nature magic. Shaman had to not only master the spells they wished to cast, but also establish control over enough spirits to have them cast it. The harder the spell, the stronger the spirits needed that had to temporarily be bent to the shamans will. Runes and incantation were normally used as a sort of safe guard in case the spell was cast wrong, or the shaman lost control over the spirits. They helped not only protect the shaman, but also minimize the collateral damage of a rogue spell.

Though at their base runes are nothing more than preconstructed spells using an incantation as there trigger. Ideal for a quick defensive or constraining spell to fix or stop a spell gone wrong, that’s not how Bloom adopted them. Her spells never seemed to backfire or run rampant and out of control, so rather than defense the runes housed all her spells.

Ellennara wasn’t completely sure just how her pony friend came to be here, or just how her own personal brand of shamanism worked. But somehow the blind pony had made it all the way to their school in the center of the zebra lands. Convinced the head master she could be taught, and that she was worth teaching. And now stood only a few weeks away from her exit exams and receiving the title of Forest Walker. Looking down at the sleeping pony with her fire red hair, Ellennara couldn’t help but be in a bit of awe at what she had accomplished. With a smile she gently pulled the blankets from the foot of Blooms bed, and draped them over the sleeping pony before heading off to bed herself.

Morning came bringing birds and there incessant chirping with it. Groaning Bloom reached out with her mind, asking the plants around the room just where Ellennara had left her bracelets.  This turned out to be completely unhelpful as they all began talking at once. The flowers were the loudest, but within two half formed sentences they were off rambling nonsense about sunshine and butterfly’s. Bloom facehooved for being stupid enough to ask the whole room full of plants at once, before demanding quiet. Once the room calmed down and she could hear herself think, Bloom asked again where her bracelets were placed. This time she made sure to only ask the two small trees in here room, as they were the only plants old enough to answer properly.

As it turned out Ellennara had placed the bracelets in the branches of the oak tree, a smaller version of the one she planted outside. With a thought she bent the branch of the tree, depositing the bracelets within reaching distance on the bed. Placing them on her ankles Bloom spoke lsrm, returning her to the world of sight, or close enough to it. With a small sigh the earth pony trotted off to the showers to begin her morning routine.  Freshly washed and after grabbing a quick breakfast in the cafeteria, she headed off to the library to begin preparing for her exit exams.

The size of the library had always impressed Bloom, the building was a massive four story beast made of solid stone. The size wasn’t just for show either; the building held more books than anypony cared to count. As the only school devoted solely to shamanism, Axum’s library had long sense become a hub for any and all forms of shamanistic knowledge.

As Bloom approached the building the two large wooden doors came into ‘sight’ giving off the same warm feeling they always did. As far as she could tell they only felt warm and soft to her magic sight because of the shear amount of runes carved into them. Ignoring how odd the doors felt for the time being, Bloom made her way inside and began searching for the closest zebra. Spotting two zebras at a desk off to her right she quickly trotted over and asked if they would mind finding the librarian for her.

A side effect of being not only the sole earth pony on campus, but also very obviously blind, was that everypony knew you. And no pony is going to turn away the little blind filly; it became an unspoken rule that you must help the blind pony if at all possible.

”Can’t you see I…” his sentence was cut short when he looked up to see who had the nerve to interrupt his tutoring with such a stupid request. “I…umm… Miss Bloom, yes of course I can help you, just wait here a moment I’ll go get the librarian for you.” With that he got up and all but dragged the younger zebra with him.

As they left Bloom could hear the smaller zebra ask who that pony was and why they were helping her. If they hadn’t been in a library bloom wouldn't have been able to pick up his response, “She’s Life-Bloom, and we are going because you don’t ask a blind pony to look for anything.”

Must be a first year, she thought with a smile. Is it that time of year already, where has the time gone.  Musing about the past Bloom found a bench to sit on until the first year and her tutor came back with the librarian. Fortunately she didn’t have to wait long, as the pair came back with an unmistakable zebra. The librarian they found just so happened to be one of blooms favorite zebras in the university, Eliszzanxy or Elis for short. Still Bloom thought her full name was more fun to say so she never bothered shortening it.

After thanking the zebras returning to their lessons, Bloom turned to the librarian with a grin on her face. “I need some books in braille; can you help me out Eliszzanxy?”

The mare’s voice was soft and low from years of working in the library. Still it held a motherly tone that put the soul at ease. “Strange to see you in here Bloom, what kind of books are you looking for?”

“It’s a bit of a long shot but do you have anything in braille on continuous energy absorption, or raw magic transmutation?”

Eliszzanxy was quiet for a few moments before answering, “We might have something on the subjects in braille. It’s such an underused part of the library; I doubt theirs a zebra alive that knows all of what’s in the braille section.”

“Is it really that untouched,” Bloom asked as she followed the librarian up to the fourth floor where the braille section was kept.

“It’s not like there are a lot of zebras that read braille, after all we had to ask around to find you a teacher. The only parts of the books that are written are the titles, and it’s been about one hundred and fifty years sense a librarian here bothered to learn braille and try to sort that place. Even then it’s not like he could go through and read every book,” Eliszzanxy said with a giggle as they reached the top floor.

“Wait, so how have you always gotten me books when I asked for them?” Bloom was more than a little surprised about the librarian’s lack of knowledge. She had always assumed that she could either read braille or that the books had words printed under the bumps.

The librarian stifled another giggle at the pony’s shocked tone. “I read the titles and guessed at the content,” she said with a smile in her voice.

“Well,” Bloom said still a little shocked, “remind me never to play a guessing game with you. Every book you’ve gotten me has always been spot on.”

The two stopped in what Bloom guessed was the braille section. It was hard to tell just where she was in the library, after all every bookshelf looked the same to her ‘sight’. And the floor to ceiling shelving made it impossible for her to see more than the thin strip of walkway she stood in. When she was younger, and still reluctant to ask for any kind of help, Bloom had gotten lost in the library more times than she’d like to admit.

It took the both of them searching -or Eliszzanxy searching and Bloom doing something that loosely resembled searching- most of the morning and they only found 3 books that looked promising. The first was Transmutation and Transmogrification, a large book that was bound to have way more information than Bloom cared for, still beggars can’t be choosers. The second was A Nature Walkers Guide to Magic Absorption, and while it was as large as the first it also promised more relevant information. The last one peaked Blooms interest not because of its content but the book itself. It was a journal of sorts written in braille for some odd reason. It seemed highly impractical to have one’s personal notes printed in braille and made into a journal, so of course Bloom had to check it out. After all it wasn’t large by any means, so she could fit reading it in without neglecting her studies.

With the hard earned books safely tucked away in the saddlebags, and having thanked Eliszzanxy for all her help Bloom left the library. Heading back to the dorm room to begin the dreaded studying, but first she was going to find out why anyone would go through so much work to make a braille journal.