Ch 2.

“Come one, come all! Come look at my spells! Magic for those that cannot use magic on their own! Earth ponies, pegasi, griffins, deer, zebra, donkeys, and even unskilled unicorns can use my advanced magic charms!” Red called out to the market. Ponies were starting to wander over to his stand, entranced by his claims. A skinny amber colored colt walked up to the stand.

“Uhhh… What kind of magic?” the colt asked. Red noticed the short horn on his head. The colt looked a little young for his magic to be very strong.

“Ohh… all kinds. Charms, illusions, wards, hexes. You name it, I’ve got it. If I don’t have it, I can make it, for the right price. Here,” Red said, passing a black notebook to the colt. “Take a look through here. See if anything catches your eyes.”

The colt opened the notebook and began to flip through it. He stopped on a particularly complicated rune and asked, “What’s a sensory deprivation curse?” That got Red a few odd stares from the crowd.

“Oh buck. Wrong notebook. Sorry,” Red said, snatching the notebook away. “That’s my personal collection. Not for sale, especially not to minors. Here, this is the right one.” He passed a dark blue notebook to the colt and stowed away the black one into his saddle bags.

“Ooohhh… This looks cool!”

“Ahh the quick hoof charm,” Red said. He lowered one of his bandages that was supporting the charm in question. “Really useful when escaping. It makes you run five times as fast as normal for a minute. Be careful though. You won’t think any faster, so it’s easy to trip. And you’ll exhaust yourself five times as fast, too. But it’s well worth the money, so what do you say?”

“Wow! How much is it?”

“Normally, I’d sell it for 3 bits, but because you’re my first sale of the day, I’ll sell it for 2. How does that sound?”

“Deal!” the colt cheered. He hoofed over the bits and took his charm.

“Now to use that particular charm, you just have to wear it and really WANT to go fast. It will take care of the rest. To stop, you just have to want to stop. Easy, right? Now go on, give the crowd a demonstration.”

“Uh… Okay!” and with that, the unicorn colt zoomed off at a speed that would rival a flying pegasus. The crowd was awed by his speed. Moments later, Red’s stand was swarmed by ponies wanting to see what he offered.

The sun was hanging low in the afternoon sky. By this point, most of the market stalls had packed up for the day. Rarity walked up and down the rows of empty or soon to be empty stalls. Spike trailed behind her, little hearts filling his eyes. “I must know where those charms were coming from,” Rarity said to Spike. “They seem absolutely marvelous!”

The pair spotted the bandaged stallion packing up his stand. His back was turned to them as they approached. “Excuse me, darling. Are you the stallion who was selling those marvelous charms?” Rarity asked.

“Yeah, I am-m-m-mother of FAUST!” he screamed as he turned to look at Rarity. At the sight of the gorgeous mare, Red’s nose violently gushed blood with enough force to knock him over. “I can die a happy stallion!” he said from a growing puddle of his own blood. “To think that such beauty exists in this world! I am such a lucky stallion. I am not worthy to behold such… a sexy mare.” He slowly stood up, and with a wave of his hoof, cleaned himself of his blood.

From the size of his blood puddle, Red should have been in shock from blood loss. Yet he seemed unaffected by the loss. Rarity, worried by this fact, asked, “Darling, are you alright? You lost an awful lot of blood. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No, no. I’m quite alright. In the presence of such a beautiful mare, I could bleed forever and not lose any of my strength.” Spike growled at Red’s attempts to flirt with Rarity. “Haha! Is your little dragon friend trying to ‘guard’ his ‘treasure?’ Don’t worry. I get it, she’s yours.” Red gave a slight chuckle, “In all honesty, though, I quite literally can bleed forever. My special talent is blood magic, after all. What kind of blood mage would I be if I let myself bleed to death? Name’s Red, by the way.”

"My name is Rarity, and this darling little gentle dragon is Spike. I was wondering, were you the stallion that was selling those charms? They're the talk of the town and I wanted to get one for myself."

As Rarity made her request, Red's lone visible eye constricted to a pinprick. 'Oh no no no no. I've got to have some left. I can't have sold out. There's no way I can let such a beautiful lady down!' He set his saddle bags down on the ground and began to dig through it's contents. He produced the blue notebook and handed it to Rarity. "Feel free to look through this while I look for more paper. Excuse me." Red dug deeper into his bags. Not finding any, he went even deeper on his quest for paper. Soon almost his entire body had contorted itself into the bag, with only one hind leg sticking out of the bag that had no right to hold a stallion his size.

"Is this guy related to Pinkie Pie?" Spike asked. Rarity could only wonder the same thing.

"I'm sorry, Miss Rarity. I seem to have sold every last one. If you have any paper or cloth on you, I could make you one. Or, depending on your choice, I could make it on your own fur."

"Oh dear. I do believe I have some paper. Now as for the charm I want, do you have any recommendations?"

"That's a first," Red said, taking the scroll from Rarity. "Well, I have some illusions or transformations. This healing rune is good for you aches and pains. Of course, if you really want something that really screams 'Rarity,' then I would recommend getting your personal rune."

"Ooh, what's that?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, 'you don't know?' You made all of these. How can you not know what they do?"

"I've never met you before. I couldn't have made your personal rune before today. But I can now. Lift your chin up." As soon as Rarity's thought was exposed, the silver quill shot out and stabbed her in the jugular vein. She screeched out in surprise.

"RARITY!" roared the small dragon. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU CREEP?!?!"

"Just watch."

Rarity was confused that the quill didn't hurt very much. Blood flowed quickly from the wound, turning the silver quill red. Once Red was satisfied, he pulled the quill free. A wave of his hoof sealed the wound and cleaned the area up until it was impossible to tell that she had just been stabbed there. "That was quite uncalled for, you ruffian."

"Sorry about that. It's the only way. Don't worry, I already cleaned the area. It won't get infected or anything. Now, for your personal rune..." Red held up the bloody quill and pulled back his mask. Behind is lay a pair of very sharp fangs. He took the quill and dripped a few drops of her blood into his mouth.

"V-v-v-vamp-p-pony!" Spike cried out.

"I can understand the confusion, but I am not a vampony." 'Similar, but not the same thing. Now, AB+, healthy Red blood cell count, healthy iron levels, slightly dehydrated. Ahhh, there we go' the image of a new rune filled Red's mind. He quickly drew out the rune on the parchment.

"Here you go. This should make whatever you're concentrating on temporarily appear to be made out of crystal when you invoke the rune. 12 hours base time, 24 hours because it's your rune and you are still alive, 48 hours because it's written with your blood, and then 96 hours if you are the one to use it. Under these conditions, that scroll will make anything crystalline for four days. Go ahead, try it out."

Rarity grabbed the scroll with her rune and looked at her bag of cloth. A light flashed and the whole bag glittered in the setting sunlight. She reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a flexible sheet of ruby. Spike was drooling at the cloth. "How much do I owe you for this wonderful charm?"

"Not a thing. I never charge money for personal runes. I learned a new one today, and that means you've paid in full." Red picked up the blue notebook and began to fill in a new entry for the crystallization charm. Rarity had turned to leave, when Red called out to Spike, "Hey, dragon! I need to tell you something!"

"Oh, what is it?"

"Two things. One, you have a beautiful mare there. Don't let anything happen to her. And two, dragon blood makes powerful runes. If anything happens to Rarity, I may have to... restock, if you know what I mean." Spike found himself unable to control his body. The killing intent in Red's fanged smile sent shivers down the paralyzed dragon's spine. A small stream of blood was forced out of the young drake's mouth and drifted over to the unicorn who lapped it up out of the air. Suddenly, Spike found himself in control of his body once more. "Now, run along. She's waiting for you," Red said without any of the former hostility. He smirked as the youth bolted away.

Red's quill returned to his notebook, quickly drawing another rune. 'Fire transport charm. Who would have thought?'

Tomorrow, Red had large scale runes to sell.

Author's Note

*Ding* Have a chapter.

Snails is now fast. Go figure.

Red made his own bag of holding.

The rules for Runes:
~Basic rune = effect x1
~Owner of special rune is alive = effect x2
~Special Rune is made with it's owner's blood = effect x2
~Special rune is used by owner = effect x2

So rarity had a x8 effect when she uses her rune, while Red would have an x4. If he used his own blood, it would become an x2 effect. If Rarity dies, all copies of the rune half in strength.

Oh, and he wasn't lying when he said he could bleed forever.

As for what happened with spike. See Legend of Korra or Avatar: The Last Airbender about blood benders.