[DISPLACED] Trespasser's Journey

Silphen was running away from three mares. Three very angry mares. Ok, two were angry, and the third just wanted to see what Silphen could do in a fight, but still.

"Ah said stay still, ya dog!" Applejack yelled, whipping her rope out to trip the mage.

"And I said I never let them get hurt!" Silphen shouted back as he jumped over the rope, and under the terrifyingly sharp battlescarf the local seamstress unicorn used as a weapon.

“You never even asked!” Rarity said, her scarf shaving off a few hairs as it bent down. She put a hoof over her barrel. “I would have said no, such a thing is unbecoming of a lady, but it’s the thought that counts.”

"And yet, THEY approached US to start this whole ordeal!" Silphen called out, casting a quick heal into his robe to repair it. He then swore as he saw a streak of rainbow colored lightning fly past him. "AND WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU MAD AT ME!?"

“They’re foals.” The rainbow maned pegasi said, skidding to a stop several feet in front of Silphen. “They’ll obviously try and copy their best role model, me!”

“Eheh, I mean, you should have… sorry girls, I just can’t find a reason myself, this is fun though.” Rainbow dash said after the other two gave her looks of disappointment, before she took off in a blur once more.

"Dagnabbit, Rares, Ah done told you Rainbow wouldn't take this seriously!" Applejack scolded, axe kicking a tree and then launching it at the mage.

"Why me…?" Silphen asked as he stared at the wall of green coming at him, trying to recall how this all started…

Silphen groaned and popped his back as he finally made it back to Ponyville. Most of the townsfolk were cautious around him, but didn't seem to actively hate him anymore. Except for a certain mare that just seemed to hate him for the sake of hating him… stupid spoiled bitch…

He stopped outside of the house Aurana bought, and knocked on the door. "Aurana? Jade? Sam gave me a day off. Things are… contained, somewhat, within the Heart so no worries about it expanding."

Instead of Aurana, the small adorable Jade was there as the door swung outwards, with her large smile and her excitement, the door was the only thing holding her back from tackling Silphen in a hug.

"Woah! Hey there, Jade! You know where Aurana is?" Silphen asked with a smile and a chuckle. He then glanced around and leaned in to whisper her the next question on his mind. "And have you been eating enough love? Not sure how much you need…"

She nodded at the second question, before her large smile dimmed and she pointed inside. “Sis is.. She’s in there…”

Silphen frowned a little as he saw her smile fade slightly. He nodded and got up, going in to meet her. "Hey, Aurana… you holding up alright?"

“Huh...?” She asked, blearily looking up from the newspaper she had been head deep in. Her eyes had obvious signs of lack of sleep. “Oh… hi Silphen… yeah, Just peachy.”

"And that's a clear lie and a half. Nightmares?" Silphen asked as he sat beside her, careful not to make her panic. Again. Still had the scar on the back of his hand from when she smashed his hand to 'escape' when she thought he was gonna eat her because he surprised her into wakefulness once.

“No, it’s-” She paused as Jade scrambled up beside them. “Jade… why don’t you go and get the project you made a few days ago to show Silphen.”

Jade nodded, scrambling off the couch in the way foals do before dashing through a doorway. Silphen watched her with a smile then kissed the top of Aurana's head. He was worried for her, her and Jade.

"Would it be easier for you to show me?" He asked, holding out a paw that was glowing a faint blue, almost like that of Luna's magic.

“No!” She said hurriedly. The thought of him looking through her mind giving her flashbacks to Fuego and his dragons. “No… just… no…”

Silphen put his hand down, letting the glow fade as he decided to take a pot shot, seeing as she was looking in the job section of the paper. "It's about your work, isn't it? You know I could ask Sam for some help there, right? Or get you with one of the Six…"

“I don’t need- I just have to…” She sighed and slumped back into him. “I can’t do a lot of things… you know that… I’m not strong enough to buck trees all day… I’m not artsy and you know as well as I, I don’t have the power or spell knowledge needed to work with the weather… Besides, what actual help does your ‘prince’ even need? You do know everypony saw the carts carrying iron from the everfree last week, right?”

Silphen smiled warmly and sighed. "You know there's only so much a familiar can do, even Minxie, the most reliable and intelligent of them all, gets overwhelmed sometimes. Sam occasionally has to help out and give them a little bit more instruction when they suddenly run out of space in the chests, or a chest runs out of what they need. I'm pretty sure Sam could use you and Jade to help with, basically, house keeping up at his castle. That, or to act as guinea pigs for how Minecraftian Potions and spells work on ponies, your choice."

“I’d like to… but I can’t. Jade has been making friends here, and I can’t leave her alone… Which you’d know if you actually visited us more than once a week.” She said, shaking her head.

Silphen winced and sighed, nodding. "Yeah… I'm sorry for the delays… But, with things calming down I should be coming by more oft- Oh, hey! Is that the thing you wanted to show me Jade?" He asked, a smile returning instantly back to his face as he very deliberately tried to redirect Aurana's attention.

“Mmhmm!” Jade nodded vigorously, showing off a small clay statuette floating in her magic. It was a mishmash of different colored clay, and he had a hard time telling what it actually was supposed to represent. As there were obviously claws at the end of its arms, but it’s feet were just two stumps, and the head seemed to be more in the shape of a boulder with eyes and a nose than any animal.

"Huh… What is it? A… Boulder bug?" Silphen asked jokingly.

“It’s you!” Jade said, her eyes still clear and wide, waiting for him to praise her on her impeccable art skills. Silphen blinked, then tried to decipher how such a thing that looked like a boulder could be him…

Luckily a knock from the door saved him from his embarrassment. "I'll get it. And you might have missed something important." Silphen winked and flapped his robe as he went to answer the door. "Have you ever seen me without this?"

"Howdy. Y'all mind tellin' us why y'all're teaching our sisters how ta fight?" Applejack from the other side of the door, Rarity and Rainbow Dash with her.

“Really?! It was just dreadfully awful when I found these- these- crudely made things under sweet Sweetie Belle’s bed!” Rarity piped up, the chakram from the fight earlier floating beside her.

“Yeah, they aren’t even sha-” Rainbow Dash was cut off by a glare from the other two as she sheepishly shrugged in the air. “I mean, getting them to fight you is terrible.” She said half-heartedly.

"Aurana… Jade… I gotta run now, I'll be back later!" Silphen said as he bolted past the trio of mares, causing Applejack to yelp and run after him.

"GET BACK HERE YA JIT!" AJ yelled, giving chase.

Silphen then teleported to the side, barely evading the tree the farm pony had thrown at him. He then promptly kept running. Only to leap through the crossweave of Rarity’s scarf, skidding along the ground like a baseball player. The rush of wind above him told him that Rainbow Dash had just missed colliding with his spine.

"For fuck sake, ladies, if it helps any, we're not letting them use anything dangerous! And the chakrams were requested by Sweetie Belle, damn it!" Silphen yelled, coming to a stop as Applejack landed in front of him. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he swore he saw a bit of a red line of light flow out from under her stetson.

"That so…?" Applejack asked, dangerously calm.

"My poor Sweetie Belle, such distasteful implements of violence! I shall have a talkk with her about her choice of ensemble afterwards!” Rarity bemoaned, her scarf twisting on her magic.

“Aaalso, the wingblades you gave Scootaloo aren’t really that safe. One wrong hit and her wing could fracture.” rainbow yelled from high above nonchalantly. This declaration caused the two other mares to look at him more fiercely.

"Hey, she made those! Sam and I said she should look into them, that's all!" Silphen said, jabbing an accusatory finger into the sky, unable to really see Rainbow Dash through the trees.

"And mah sister's shovel things?" AJ asked, taking a step towards him.

"Also made by her. Sweetie Belle would be using a frisbee with a hole in it if it wasn't for Sam and me stepping in when she asked to borrow a hand saw…" He replied, taking a step back, still thoroughly worried AJ would attack him purely on principle.

“You still encouraged our little sisters… And scootaloo, to be barbarians!” Rarity cried out.

"What did you expect us to do, Rarity?! Let them beat us and cause them to go off and try to fight Timberwolves?" Silphen asked in response.

"Ah doubt Applebloom would do that, doggie," Applejack said as she whipped her rode out and brought Silphen to the ground.

“You could have dissuaded them from this dreadful notion in the first place.” Rarity said, her scarf wrapping around Silphen in a knot.

“Eh, still think Scoots could- I’ll be quiet.” Rainbow started before shutting up at another glare from the other two.

"Hey, before you guys kill me, I'd like to say two things… The first being that I can't respawn like Sam can, and the second being a question. Have any of you actually talked to your sisters about this, or did you all just get together and agree to jump me!?" Silphen asked, teleporting again to try and hide from the clearly murderous earth pony.

Applejack paused… then blinked… then turned to Rarity. "Ah didn't… did you…?"

“Of course not, I was too preoccupied with… well, eheh” Rarity sheepishly stopped herself before blushing.

“I mean, you two woke me up from my nap then dragged me along.” Rainbow said, landing.

"So maybe you three should sit them down and ask why they're doing this…?" Silphen suggested from behind the felled tree AJ had thrown at him.

"Ah mean… Ah guess we should…" Applejack said with a nervous chuckle. "Sorry fer… ya know… chasin' ya an' all that…"

“I mean, I’m completely fine with this. Scoots is tough, and you already know what’ll happen if you harm her.” Rainbow said, giving a one two hoof punch to the air. “Next time you fight though, don’t run away so much, for Celestia’s gigantic plot, you’re supposed to be some dark and powerful wizard and all that, aren’t you? All I saw you doing was teleporting.”

“Rainbow!” Rarity looked at the Pegasi in shock.

"No no, she's right on that. And as for why, is that I have an ace I didn't want to use in town, because of collateral…" Silphen then took a deep breath and willed the Vibranium Adamantium alloy suit of armor he was keeping on his wrist back onto his body. The metal flowed across him like water, hiding his robes beneath it, or in a pocket space, Silphen couldn't tell at the moment. "Now then… Rainbow Dash? You wanna give it a try?"

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Rainbow Dash yelled, at first, Silphen thought she was just excited to hit him, but instead of doing that, she grabbed him, flying up high into the air to where the houses were specks.

"Rainbow… if you drop me, there's going to be an explosion of kinetic energy! Basically imagine hitting the ground after doing a Rainboom and instead of you getting hurt, everyone around you gets hurt!" Silphen shouted, suddenly very nervous about her intentions.

“This is exactly what I mean!” She yelled over the wind as she ascended higher. “Even Rarity knows that you don’t let your opponent dictate the battle! You just stand there and wait for your opponent to do something, take the initiative! With my speed, I could have already flown to the bogg and dropped you!”

Silphen blinked, then took a deep breath… and roared as he expelled all the shadow magic he could to create a ball around them, trapping her inside with him, and keeping them airborne. "In that case, let's do this."

“Good, but you’re still following my initiative! Do something crazy, something that I can’t expect!” She yelled as she pushed off of him, using the inertia to push them both out to opposite sides of the ball.

"Planned on it!" Silphen called out, creating a crystal baton and throwing it at her before teleporting to her side to kick her into it. She pushed her hooves against his leg, using them to corkscrew around the baton.

“You think I haven't fought unicorns before! The Wonderbolts are more than just an aerial stunt team!”

Silphen chuckled as he followed the kick through, hitting the baton and sending it into the barrier of shadow magic and causing it to start bouncing around the ball erratically while faint purple arcane runes began to flow across his metal form. "Not what I was aiming for, Dash! Remember what I said about the suit?"

“Alright! Time to go full speed!” She said excitedly, as she landed upside down on a cloud, before kicking off of it, destroying it and speeding off to the side as a blur. The only way he could track her was by the Clouds being destroyed as she used the clouds to change her direction. But he let her do so, allowing the baton to keep bouncing, building up a charge of kinetic energy until the runes on his armor were glowing with an intense purple light.

"Taste this!" Silphen yelled as he grabbed the baton and swung, releasing the kinetic charge as a cone of force that he slashed across the orb he had her trapped inside of.

The final cloud she jumped off of, instead of breaking apart, let off a large thunderbolt that bypassed the cone of force, zapping into Silphen. When the cone hit, the cloud dissipated and Rainbow was knocked back into the edge of the sphere. She fell for a few feet before shakily flying back up and looking at her handiwork.

Silphen slid to the bottom of the orb, unconscious. She smiled, hoof pumping as she slowly flew on down to him, her entire body sore. Silphen then exploded into motion, grabbing her by her foreleg and slamming her against the orb and pinning her there while holding the baton to the base of her neck.

"Little detail I should've told you lot about… I'm immune to electricity," Silphen said, tapping her lightly to mark his win.

“Pfft, fine, no way I could have known about that though.” she said indignantly, crossing her hooves.

He grunted and got up, willing his armor back into its inert state as he healed them both. While his gambit worked, he still had to work on the heating problem of the armor. Shit got really hot, really fast when getting hit like that. "Sorry about the slam, by the way…"

“Barely felt it!” She said quickly, stretching her wings. “Pretty sure AJ and Rarity went on to go talk to their sisters… For the record, I’m not actually mad about any of that, Scoots is a tough filly, and if this gets her mind off all her… issues, I don’t really mind. Now, I’m going to go continue napping.”

"Ha! I had a feeling that of them all, you'd care the least. Take it easy, Dash. Oh, and before I forget, you mind helping her with those wing extensions? That filly somehow turned her wings into buzzsaws with them…" Silphen shuddered as he recalled a branch that got between himself and the filly, watching it get turned to sawdust.

“Yeah yeah… I’ll see how to do that.” She said with a wave of her wing before taking off.

Silphen watched and willed the piece of the orb she was flying towards to open, letting her out as the rest of it began floating back down towards Ponyville. He did have a promise to Aurana and Jade to keep now that those three mares weren't trying to kill him.

When he landed back outside of Aurana's house he knocked again. Things might not have been as rocky as before, but that didn't change the fact that she had once hated him. He may have snuck the kiss in earlier today, but he wasn't about to risk it a second time.

“Oh thank Cel- somepony that you’re back!!” He was surprised by Aurana opening the door, pulling him in for a hug.

"Uh… Aurana, are you ok…? I know we've been getting along better lately, but… Did not expect this. Not complaining though." Silphen said as he returned the hug with a smile.

“You idiot. Three elements of harmony come knocking on my door, and you run off… I was worried you killed somepony…” She sniffed, preventing any snot from getting into his cloak.

Silphen sighed and carried the mare inside. He had some explaining to do about the training he did with the Doom Marines… "So… I do have a small confession to make… It won't affect our world, so no worries there, but…"

“Shh.” She shushed him with her hoof. “No bad news right now… just… please?” He smiled warmly and held her close, humming a quiet tune to her to calm her down.

Silphen then began singing, a deep soothing sound with lyrics that Aurana couldn't place. The only thing that let her know he wasn't casting was the distinct lack of a glow coming from his hands.

She just closed her eyes, leaning against him. She hadn't said anything about him carrying her inside. Eventually, she whispered out, “I didn’t want to stay at first… but Jade wanted to wait for you… then she made friends here, and I couldn’t make her leave after that…”

"Heh… Ain't that just about how life goes…?" He whispered back, leaning against the couch he had Sam make for them. He refused to let her go, no matter what… The only thing he was going to let take her was age or disease… but for now, he sang. The lyrics flowed from him as he let his soul form them… Ashton was silent during the whole thing.

“I… didn’t know how to feel about you after Fuego… you killed a bunch of creatures… and then said you did it because you loved me… nopony normal does that and… And I admit, what you did to those three dragons still scares me…”

"It scares me at night, Aurana… Part of the reason why I stay away is so that I don't accidentally cast something in my sleep and hurt you or Jade. Sam says I've blown holes in his castle no less than eight times by now."

“I know that’s stupid Silphen. I might not be a powerful Unicorn, but even I know that magic requires intent and will.”

"Oh… huh… W-well that still doesn't explain why there's holes in the roof each morning… had to start using mana exhaustion and obsidian cages to keep me safely contained at night…" Silphen said in a disheartened tone. "Or the nightmares…"

“Just… I don’t know either. But I’m sure it’ll pass…” Aurana finally said. She didn’t entirely know what to say. So she just nuzzled into his cloak. He smiled faintly at the sight, and sighed in contentment as he relaxed back into the couch.

"Jade didn't take it too hard when I mentioned the robe, right…? I'd've hated to have made her upset…" He said as he recalled the clay statuette she made of him.

“She already knows it’s terrible. So no, she was more upset that you said that and left instead of telling her though.”

Silphen winced and groaned. "Shit… knew I should've been a bit more honest… Lying to her is hard enough with how adorable she can be, add on her emotion sensing and it becomes impossible…"

“I don’t really think she would have minded if you lied and said it was great either… While I’ve tried taking care of her all this time… She sees you as a father figure.” Aurana said, her eyes closed as she laid in his arms.

"Does she now…? Hope it's not because of my magic… really should've checked to see what would happen before I tossed her through the portal to Twilight's place that night…" Silphen mumbled, the warmth of Aurana in his arms making him start to feel somewhat drowsy.

“Silly. It’s because… well, it’s because this.” She surprised him as she moved her head up, giving him a peck on the side of his snout, which meant the side of his mouth. Before he could reply, she was already drifting off. Silphen blinked at her in surprise, then smiled and cuddled her closer and drifted off to sleep.

Silphen slowly woke up a few hours later, stretching slightly before he realized where he was due to the faint mumble of discontent from his lap. He looked down and saw Aurana still sleeping there and froze, thinking he was in another nightmare before looking around and seeing that he wasn't.

"Oh…" Was all he could say before Jade came in humming a little tune.

“I think you frown too much, Aurana says that if you make a face too much it’ll freeze like that.” She said as she stopped prancing in.

"Ah, right. Hey, Jade, you uh… you can tell if I was having a nightmare, right? And you would've woke me up?" Silphen asked nervously, trying to act like he wasn't having a mild panic attack. He had fallen asleep outside the cage, but was lucky enough to not have been casting in his sleep.

“Why would you be having a nightmare if you’re this happy?” The filly asked like he had said the dumbest thing in the world. “I really think your face is broken.”

He chuckled and patted her on the head. "Right, right… heh… Thanks, Jade. Want me to get you anything? I need to go talk with Twilight about her studies into the book."

“What book?” Jade asked, causing Silphen to facepalm.

He glanced down at Aurana's sleeping form then back up to her. "The darker parts of my book, the one I've had this whole time? Had to transcribe it into equish for her, but I gave her a copy so she could study the magic it contained." Silphen explained, carefully watching Aurana in case she wasn't truly asleep. "But that's a thing I'm going to have to deal with Aurana yelling at me for later… Want me to get you anything from Pinkie's or… yeah, Pinkie is the only one that would have something you'd probably like that I'm on good terms with so far, wow my life sucks here…"

“But you’ve got a job at a fancy castle, you don’t go hungry, and you’re more powerful than a majority of the world, how does your life suck? Oh, and appleberry tart!” She said, remembering that he just offered her free food.

"Hehe… Because even though I have all that, Jade, I still only have enough friends to fill one hand. You, Aurana, Pinkie, Sam, and I feel like I can count Luna with how often she pops in to complain about some weird dream or another," Silphen explained, holding up a finger for each name he gave her. Then booping her on the nose as he carefully extracted himself from Aurana's hold and kissed her on the forehead. "Sleep well, my anchor…"

“Obviously you’re good enough friends with Twilight, and the three mares from earlier didn’t kill you, so that’s three more! Oh, the CMC have also talk about you a lot, so they count!” She said after going cross eyes and shaking her muzzle.

Silphen took a moment to think about that, then smiled faintly and give Jade a kiss on the forehead as well. "Never thought about them… thanks, Jade. Just what I needed to hear. Oh, and I'm sorry about how I treated the statue earlier… I know you were trying your best, but I did just blow it off, didn't I…?" He then opened his palm and created a small marble statuette of the three of them. Aurana on his back, Jade in his lap, and a book in his hand as he was shown reading to them.

He held it out to her with a weak smile as he said,"As an apology… I'll get you three, deal? Just don't let Aurana hear about what I'm asking of from Twilight, ok?"

“Hm… four, and she’ll never even know you were at Twilight’s.” The bundle of fillyness replied conspiratorially after levitating the statuette from his palm.

Silphen chuckled as he gave her a nod. "Four it is then. Just don't spoil your dinner, ok? Last thing I need is her to be mad I got you sweets. Though given how much you eat anyways, I doubt that's gonna be a problem, eh?" He then gave her a wink before heading for the door. "I'll be back in an hour."

She waved goodbye before wandering into the kitchen, entirely unconcerned now that her bargaining of sweets was complete.

Silphen knocked on Twilight's door, whistling the accompanying tune that she had all but demanded that he use so she knew he was alone and wanted to ask about her studies on dark magic. He grumbled slightly as he finished, still waiting for the door to open. The door opened with her magenta shade of magic, although she wasn’t at the door.

He found her downstairs, in a room even Spike knew not to disturb her in, lest he gets turned polka dotted again. She was levitating three books, one of which was his copy, as her horn manipulated a solid piece of rock into different shapes, most of which were non-euclidean, and he had to avert his eyes as he swore one of them was fourth dimensional.

"So… how goes the study into warding your place? She found it yet?" Silphen asked, pinching the bridge of his nose to suppress the headache he had just witnessed. Some things were better left well enough alone, and creating 4D non-euclidean shapes out of stone was one of them since that kind of thing made it shift under different heights, view heights, lighting, and a whole bunch of other things he couldn't even begin to comprehend yet.

“Not really, recently my mentor has been really distracted worrying about her subject's perception of Sam. And still no luck on figuring out warding that wouldn’t alert someone knowledgeable that I’m hiding something. Although this passage on strange entities is promising.” She said, her magical ministrations continuing on as she spoke.

"Strange enti- Ah. Be careful with them. Eldritch and primordial entities are fickle and very hard to perceive the entirety of. You may think you're look at their face, but it could just be a single cell, or their being as it spans all of space-time. Very hard to understand even with Ashton telling me what to relay to you." Silphen said, tapping the side of his head for clarity. "That aside, how goes the shadow magic study? Still slow?"

“Very slow. Quite frankly, most of this magic is liable to kill the pony casting it rather than actually do anything. It’s most advanced applications are basically self transfiguration, and I’m sure I don't have to go into details about how that’s really dangerous.” Her stone shaped into an intangible shape before returning to being rock.

"Yeah, not sure how it all works, but apparently having an affinity for the magic helps out quite a bit. That, and being able to fully envision the spell and what it's doing. I've mainly been running off instinct, so I'm really only good with external offense magic and healing right now," Silphen said as he reached out to tap the stone and make it turn into a perfect sphere. "Getting better with the transfiguration spells though."

The ball of stone turned into a spikey ball before seeming to deflate and inflate at the same time. Soon it seemed to just lay there still, simultaneously inflating and deflating somehow as twilight finally looked at it and with a face of effort, and a bit of sparking of her horn, finally got the sphere to turn back into a perfect circle.

“But apparently haven’t learned the knowledge behind it, while a disrupted transfiguration spell would normally just turn the object or creature back into its normal state, I’ve been casting so many of those spells on this one that when you disrupted mine, it had no idea what to turn into.” She looked at him annoyed, but not more than usual. “So, any new revelations with Sam? Particularly about his whole Interdimensional storage space? It’d be really useful to store stuff in.”

"Ah, actually yes. One of the spells in the enchantment and illusion section should be called 'Bag of Holding'. Should allow you to do something similar to what Sam has, but portable. More along the lines of what I have, actually…" Silphen noticed her raised eyebrow and sighed. He grumbled to himself about keeping quiet and inverted the bag he always carried around, spilling its contents onto the table she had down there. It was far more than should've been able to fit, that much was for certain… and far more than what it's shape entailed.

“So no progress in figuring out how Sam stores entire warehouses of stuff in a single chest?” She asked, disappointed.

"Nope. And honestly, it's best that we don't. Minecraft logic and the laws of reality do not mix. Like the pink one and science." Silphen said pointedly.

“Shame, I really want to know how he does that, since it makes more sense than Pinkie Pie. Any luck in actually finding out about his source?” She asked, putting the sphere of stone down.

"That part we actually have looked into. And… No luck. Ashton tried giving him a tracking Ward to put in his inventory and promptly blacked out, dragging me with him. When we woke up, Sam was shouting at us trying to get one of us to answer him. Ashton still doesn't want to say what he felt happen to it…" Silphen said in a disheartened tone before stumbling.

"Indeed. And I would kindly appreciate it if we stopped trying to find out how Sam's storage works. It's dark and cold in there…" Ashton replied, shivering at the memory before letting Silphen take back control.

“How can a storage medium be dark and cold? Actually, where is the energy to supply all of his feats coming from? At least I can theorize that Pinkie converts all the sugar she eats to perform her feats of impossibility, Discord makes some sort of feedback loop of chaos, but Sam… Most of his feats don’t even give off any ambient magic! Let alone seem to exhaust him.”

"Bucket." Silphen said, slapping the Minecraft Water Bucket he had Sam make him one to see if it would work for him as well. To both of their shock, it did. Somehow…

“I could still theoretically do that with infinite magical power. But I’d have to have enough to practically rewrite the laws of physics. There’s seriously nothing off about him you’ve noticed? You say you and him are from similar places.”

"Originally, yes. Originally, he and I are from a place of no magic. A dead zone. Originally. Now, well… we might as well be apples and oranges getting compared to grapes with all the shit we do. Did you not notice the floating pillar of perfectly cut one meter cube of stone he left just hanging in mid air last week because he fucking could?" Silphen asked, pointing in the general direction of the town hall where said cube of stone was still floating in clear defiance of gravity and reality.

“Don’t remind me, nothing we do can remove it, and discord says it, ‘spices up the joint’, whatever that means, so he refuses to remove it. I know I seem like I’m going overboard on this, but something about Sam is just… off. He admitted that he thought this was a dream when he first came to Ponyville, but he still acts like it is one. I’ve tried telling Celestia about how dangerous this is, but she seems to think it’s normal!” She was worked up, so much so that she gently closed the books behind her and set them down.

"I'd also like to point out, Sam can't sleep without fucking with the day night cycle."

“Okay? Alicorns can function without sleep for weeks at a time… I’ve tried. I’ve never even seen bags under his eyes, let alone any symptoms of sleep deprivation!”

"Twilight… His mind is still that of a mortal, though immortal he may be. How long do you think a standard mortal mind can go before it starts to break if it believes everything it sees as reality?" Silphen asked. "Not very long can it? Sam treats almost everything as a dream to avoid that. It's a disconnect that keeps him sane. Relatively speaking that is, considering he chose the one place more dangerous than-." Silphen snapped his mouth shut to keep from spilling the beans on a certain threat that he was certain wouldn't come to pass, considering Tia was murderous.

He glanced up at the clock and sighed, thankful for the walk back for once. "Sorry for cutting it short today, Twi, but I said I'd be back in an hour. And I still need to go buy Jade's bribe sweets… Want me to leave the bucket here, or take it with me?"

“I’ve already looked at it, take it with you… But just be careful around him, okay? The fact that he’s acting out more and more should say something…” She said, looking at him with a pleading expression.

"I know. I'm worried about him, but I'm more worried about myself. Study long, Twilight." Silphen said as he waved a hand, removing his transfiguration spell on the orb of stone, making it jump as it reverted back to its original shape. Once he had left Twilight's, he went over to Sugarcube Corner bouncing some bits in his palm.

"Hi Pinkie." Silphen said as he stepped inside, ducking below a tackle hug from the pink mare. "Bye Pinkie. Hi Mrs. Cake. Four appleberry tarts, a blueberry muffin, and a slice of green raspberry cake please."

“Coming right up dear.” the light blue mare said as she prepared a paper bag, completely unfazed by what just transpired. Soon she dropped the items in and handed it over. “Thirty seven bits.”

Silphen pulled out his bit bag and counted out the necessary bits, rounding it to 45 as a tip. "Thank you. And if Aurana asks where Jade got them, you never saw me."

“Yup, just another pony buying sweets.” The mare said with a smile, taking the bits.

He chuckled slightly and tipped an imaginary hat to her, rolling out of the way as Pinkie tried to tackle him into a hug from behind. "Hi Pinkie. I'll tell Jade and Aurana you said hi."

"Big meanie! Let me hug you!" She shouted at him, shaking a hoof in mock anger, earning a couple chuckles from some of the patrons at her antics.

Silphen hummed as he returned to Aurana and Jade's, knocking on the filly's window to slide her the tarts before he went for the door. "Hey Aurana." He called out, holding the slice of cake in his hand.

The unicorn in question mumbled as she opened the door. Her mane was messier than usual, and her eyes still had crust in them.

"Here. Figured you'd like a pick me up…" Silphen said as he stepped inside and kissed the top of her head. He did still have the rest of the day to stick around after all.