Lifeblooms

The rest of the night passed rather uneventfully. The two spent it checking and rechecking there translation to be absolutely sure there were no mistakes. After all any mistakes no matter how small increased the danger Bloom was going to be put in. After the fifth check ended cleanly the two called it a night and headed for bed.

The following day was one that Bloom and the rest of her graduating class had been fretting about for weeks. It was the day the tests for graduation were announced. Normally the professors all got together to decide on a test for each of the paths of shamanism. The tests requirements would then be pinned up in the main hall on the board for everypony to see.

When Bloom arrived at the main hall everypony was crowded around waiting for a teacher to arrive with the test requirements. It took almost twenty minutes for anypony to show, and when they did something was off. Murmuring spread from the front of the crowd, followed by stunned silence. The only sound being the laugh of what must be the teacher as he walked away.

“What’s it say,” called a zebra in the back.

Most years the tests were hard, meant to challenge the students but always had a clear goal. This year however they either ran out of ideas, got lazy or just wanted to watch the students squirm because there was only two words. “Impress us,” called a masculine voice from the front. For a moment no one spoke. Then being the graduating class, full of students that were nearly shamans in their own right, they responded quickly and decisively. They panicked.

No one knew what would impress the teachers; they so rarely seemed genuinely impressed by anything. Kind and encouraging sure they had that in spades, but impressed? Judging by the rising panic as the students wracked their brains for something truly impressive, this wouldn’t be easy.

Bloom quickly slipped away from the growing commotion as her class tried to find an answer where there wasn’t a question. With a bit of a spring in her step she trotted off towards the library. Things were looking up for her at least, but she was going to need more books.

Bloom held her smile all the way to the library. Here was a chance to kill two birds with one stone as they say. Bloom for one wasn’t about to turn down anything involving lessening the population of those damn birds. Blasted things acted as if they owned the place, singing at such an ungodly hour. She would be glad to be rid of the creatures once and for all if at all possible. But now she was wondering off topic, books, yes she needed books.

Six hours later Bloom wondered aimlessly out of the library, her mind full of thoughts that made her considerably less happy than when she arrived. So far she had learned quite a bit more about elementals, none of it good. Her plan was looking less and less inspiring the more she studied.

It seemed that ‘true’ elementals could only be made with the base elements; fire, water, earth, and air. Elementals made of plants, or nature elementals weren’t ‘true’ elementals at all because they all had innate souls. The base elements themselves don’t have souls, so when elementals are made from them one of the spirits that govern said element acts as a stand in.

At first glance this didn’t seem to be a problem to Bloom. After all as an end result both of them end in the same state. But with a bit more digging on the subject it soon became clear why nature spirits would be an issue. The spirits of the base elements are never truly alive to begin with, as such apart from there standard behavior, they don’t have emotions or individuality for that matter. Nature spirits on the other hand are all alive, and as such act as any other creature with their own personality’s, wants and needs.

From what little Bloom could find on the subject it seemed that there behavior could be generalized by the type of plant they were. But even that left open a wide range of differences overall. So when one attempted to make a nature elemental, what they are really doing is simply twisting and evolving the plant or plants into a form more fitting for combat. What they cannot do is change the soul of the plant. This makes nature elementals volatile, unpredictable and difficult to control.

Bloom had wondered why whoever wrote the journal never mentioned using nature elementals. Now she knew, they would be a cluster fuck to control, and simply not worth the effort involved.

I haven’t seen you here in a while.

The sudden voice in her head broke Bloom out of her inner musings. Taking note of where she was for the first time in what must have been a half hour; Bloom found herself standing before a young oak tree. “Simply lost in thought,” she said, “my hooves must have taken me here out of habit.”

You’re always welcome here m’lady please have a seat.

Bloom just smiled as she sat beneath the oak tree, the vary tree she planted her first year at the university. “When did you become so polite?”

Please, I’ve always been polite, unlike some ponies. Even without sound, the trees voice held a playful feel to it. So tell me old friend, what troubles you?

With a sigh Bloom began to tell the oak about her plans for sight, as well as the problems that came with said plans. When she finished she wasn’t sure just what to expect from the tree. Laughter however was the last thing she thought she would hear.

“What?” she demanded, a little taken aback by the odd response.

Forgive me m’lady,  the tree said with a chuckle, I simply find it amusing how you can be so clever yet miss the obvious.

“Explain.” Bloom said, now more curious than angry.

All this studying and planning can only take you so far, and do you see why?

“Oh ha ha, aren’t you funny.”

It’s because you m’lady are a pony not a zebra. The tree said ignoring Blooms comment. And not just any pony at that, you seem to be somepony special.

“What do you know about me?” Bloom said, a little too defensively.

I know you’ve been blessed by the Everfree that alone is enough to know you’re not normal.

”Blessed by the Everfree? Wait how do you even know about the Everfree?” Bloom was sure she never spoke of the forest or anything from her past for that matter.

The oak just laughed again, what kind of spirit would I be if I didn’t know of that place? If there was ever a place left where nature was still wild and well, free, it would be there.

“Ok so I’ll just forget the fact that you’ve never been to the Everfree, and the fact that it’s a three day train ride away. What was that part about me being ‘blessed’ about?”

Oh no, the oak said after a few moments, you really don’t know anything do you.

“Know what?” The anger was coming back, and her patience was slipping away slowly but surely.

Have you never been taught what it means to be a true Forest Walker? Has no pony showed you how your magic truly works?

“What do you think I’ve been doing here all this time?”

Oh you poor thing, the oak said with genuine sadness, and was that regret? I thought you knew m’lady. I’m so sorry I never said anything I just… she paused, as if looking for the right words. All this time I thought you simply wanted more knowledge, not that you lacked it to start with. Why did you never ask me for help…?

“What are you talking about?”

Please sit m’lady, I will explain everything to you as I should have years ago. I’m such a fool to have not seen the signs myself sooner.

To Blooms surprise she was in fact standing. She didn’t remember getting up but it didn’t seem like the oak had any intentions of going on until she sat. With a defeated sigh she retook her seat and patiently waited for her friend to continue.

Where to start… let’s see, I should start by saying that what those shamans have been teaching you is not truly how the Nature Walkers Path was meant to be used. Those damned zebras seem to believe themselves above any spirit, as such they strive to bind and control us. As if our relationship is that of a master and his servants. Not earth ponies though, as children of nature they have a natural connection with us.

“Wait, ‘children of nature,’ what does that even mean?”

It means just what you think it means. Being a child of nature means that you have an innate connection with nature, just as unicorns are children of the arcane, and pegasi are children of the skies.

“Are all creatures children of something?”

No, in fact most aren’t children of anything. The only others are dragons, children of fire. The children of the sea have been dead so long they don’t even have a name in your language.

“How do you know all this,” Bloom asked. “You’re only about nine years old.”

Unlike you, nature spirits aren’t born blank. We are born with quite a bit of knowledge from our parents. But we’re getting off topic m’lady, as I was saying children of nature treated us as equals, friends even. So when the spirits saw how hard it was for the earth ponies without much magic in the world. They decided to help the only creatures to be so kind to them, and so a contract was made with the first Nature Walkers.

The deal was that any nature spirits who saw a pony worthy of trust would be allowed to place their mark upon the pony’s soul. The mark shows the good will said pony has built with nature. With enough good will when a pony asks nature to bend to its will, nature may just listen.

“That explains why you said I was blessed, but why is a mark for plants in the Everfree so impressive?”

Because the Everfree is one of only three forests that could be consider feral, and is by far the most grand. To gain the trust and blessing of even part of the forest is impressive indeed.

“So nature spirits always listen to me because of the Everfrees blessing?”

Of course not, there marks simply stand out more than the others. There’s a whole host of trees that gave you there blessing. Seem to be apple trees for the most part.

”The orchard,” Bloom whispered.

With such a ridicules amount of trees that love you it’s no wonder why you never have problems when you ask for things.

“So I’m always going to be restricted to nature magic,” Bloom mused; she was up and pacing back and forth in front of the tree. A nervous habit born from loss of her eyes, she couldn’t say why but it helped. “I guess that’s not bad, it’s not extremely flashy but still very functional.”

Well that’s not entirely true…

This perked Blooms interest instantly, “how so?”

Well, so long as you’re within a few miles of a plant that’s marked you its possible to borrow there raw magic for your own uses. Normally not to useful for an earth pony but you’ve studied shamanism so…

As she trailed off Bloom picked up her line of thought, “so in theory at least I should be able to use most if not all of shamanism. That is so long as I’m within range of plants that have marked me.”

I’ve never heard of anypony pulling such a thing off, but it might just be possible m’lady.

“So can I…” she trailed off, a little embarrassed to be asking so blatantly, “can I borrow some of your magic?”

She got a light chuckle at this, no need to be shy m’lady, this works like any other time you do magic. All you have to do is ask and we will handle the rest.

At first all Bloom could feel was a slight pressure in her chest, she was beginning to believe something had gone wrong when it hit her. The rush of magic that flowed over her was like standing under a waterfall. Having such a small amount of magic naturally as an earth pony it felt like drowning without water. Even though she could breathe, every breath Bloom took seemed weighted with more than just air.

It became hard for Bloom to focus with so much magic in her, but she didn’t think far enough ahead to have a plan. This was so much more than she expected so she threw it all into the first spell that came to mind. Had she been in a more stable state of mind Bloom might have thought better than to super charge her bracelets with many times more magic than they were designed to use. Unfortunately for her such thoughts couldn’t be heard over the cacophony of silence the magic brought with it.

For a split second everything was back to its old peaceful nature, and then the magic of her spell came crashing back like a tidal wave. For just one moment Bloom could see it all, in perfect color and detail she could see everything for miles around herself. Everything from the smallest pebble to the clouds in the sky stood before her. Then she passed out.