Levitation For Beginners: A Unicorns First Steps
The crisp knock of unshod hooves rapping against aged wood echoed throughout the entirety of Golden Oak Library; within these walls atop of a spiralling staircase carved into the heartwood of the tree sat a particularly gifted lavender mare, whose head turned briskly at the sound and, with practiced ease, placed the myriad of levitating scrolls and tomes back into their respective places before beginning her descent to the main floor.
The door swung open with perpetual ease revealing Fluttershy to be standing in the open doorway- looking chipper as ever.
"Good morning Fluttershy, come in! come in!" Chimed Twilight as she stepped to the side, peering her head around the door, checking as to whether any more of her friends had come to visit as the cream mare stepped inside.
"Oh, hello Twilight" Replied the mare, her demure tone combing its way through every word she spoke "How're you?" Twilight giggled as her friend showed her usual level of compassion, cocking her head to the side as she replied in turn, masking the fact that she knew her friend had only called to pick up a book.
"I'm just fine Fluttershy, I take it you've come for your book?" The pegasus nodded raptly, sporting a warming smile while she watched the unicorn disappear up the winding staircase, returning to her study as she waited in the emptiness of the ground floor.
Back upstairs in the confides of her study the unicorn walked along the ochre bookcases that lined the walls, reciting the classification of the volume in question; her amethyst eyes scanned along the different colours of the hardbacks that rested in the cosiness of their neighbours, some having remained unmoved for years, but… she loved them all.
"Tutorials:' Calligraphy: a year in ink', 'Glass Blowing',' Cooking for beginners', mental note- add that to spikes required reading list…hmmm… aha! 'Hutch Assembly and Maintenance' "
After a few moments of vigilant examination of the small lettered titles emblazoned onto the spines of the books Twilight simply enveloped the tome in an aura of soft purple light and plucked it from its resting place. As she tugged the text from the age induced cohesion to its neighbours it jarred slightly, in response the mare simply tugged harder and after the book was free a small clatter and the rustle of pages moving through the air followed it.
A heavy sigh escaped her lips as he instinctively clutched the fallen item in her magic, not noticing what had fallen she gripped it with all the force she would a leather bound book and heaved it into the air, only to be slapped in the lower jaw by something all together lighter. The shock took her back a bit, her grip on the other book weakening as she felt her footing beneath her give way, falling back onto her hind as both items fell to the ground with an audible 'Thud!'.
After regaining her composure the mare ran a hoof under her maw, grumbling a light curse under her breath as she pressed the fur back into order, a distasteful frown evident on her features as she looked down at the offending object through irritated eyes. Slowly her sour feature melted away, her eyes widening as she leaned forwards, disregarding all instincts to pick up the item in her magic as she read the bent, torn and aged front cover.
"Levitation For Beginners: A Unicorns First Steps" The muted remnants of emotions long since passed washed over her as the over read book fell open to a random page of its own accord. The book had been a gift to her from the Princess, the first book that had ever been gifted to her by the goddess and even now the sense of gratitude that enveloped her as she held it for the first time, remained after all these years.
She instinctively turned to the contents page of the book, her soft hooves brushing over the rough paper with great reverence, paying a great deal of respect to the 'leaflet' as the soft crinkle of the well worn pages tantalised her senses, the sound as familiar to her as any of her friends voices, distinctive in its pitch and timbre.
Cut up pages speckled with abyssal black singe marks from errant magical sparks dotted every page, blotting out key words and likening each page to a small beige Dalmatian, not that it mattered, she knew the paperback inside and out, word for word, she could still feel her own lips curling and contorting to mouth out the most important phrases.
"Focus on the weight… Block out all of your senses… Forget the world around you…" And forgotten the world she had, whilst she bathed in the sun of her own sentimentality her friend sat downstairs curious as to what was taking the princesses student so long to find a book… she had practically grown up in a library after all.
The book was one of the few things Twilight had taken from Canterlot to Ponyville with her in her, stuffed to the brim, saddlebags and had all but forgotten that it existed; for her it was more than just a simple book, it was a doorway into the past, a medium through which she experienced the very best… and the very worst of her past. The immense frustration of trying time and time again to levitate a simple orb or dropping a book after failing to concentrate 'and' the elation that came with successfully holding the object in the air for the first time, aloft with nothing else to hold it up but her own will.
Even as she traced her hooves down the contents page she saw the differences that came with effort, notes that she had written in an all too filly like sense of writing: poor grammar,words spelled incorrectly and little to no punctuation
"1: Focus- Months 1-2
Princess celestia says I need to consentrate more and imagine myself and the object alone, nothing and no one else around. She says I need to understand this before lerning step too.
2:Levitation- Months 3-5
The Princess told me that no one sucseeds on the first try and that even she couldnt raise the orb this early. I must try harder to be better, I am begining to understand how the magic should feel in my horn and am beginning to come up with better ways to lift the objeckts.
3: Suspension- Months 6-9
Finally I have managed to lift and hold the orbs, more than one in fact, two at the same time! The princess was remarkable pleased with me and was "Impressed by how far I'd come" I could get used to this." Amongst the concluding statements the writing had began to improve in aesthetics, gradually changing from a crude chicken scratch to a smooth, but not perfect, cursive.
She tittered at her young fallings, the simple spelling errors and shortcomings in her grammar were more of a joke now than anything else, such simple things that she had struggled to overcome in her youth now came without thinking: reading, writing, levitating objects, all came with effortlessness.
As she eyed the text of the book something clicked in the back of her mind, the feelings that she had been revelling in for the past five minutes or so were brushed aside as fast as they had occurred, swept under the rug as she slipped the book back into its place, hurriedly gripping the original text in her magic as she trotted down the steps, looking more than a little flustered.
"So sorry about the wait Fluttershy" She apologised "I must have… filed it in the wrong place, it was under maths" She had always been a terrible liar but, in any case, it slipped under the pegasus' radar.
"Oh don't worry Twilight, I needed a sit down anyway, but, thankyou" The cream mare flashed her friend a soothing smile as she left the library closing the door shut with a wing as she passed by.
With her friend gone Twilight looked over her shoulder, back upstairs with a small knowing smile, the book wasn't anything special to the outside observer, it was a book and there were many like it, but… that one was hers.
