Alter: Lineage

"Richter," I heard my Aunt Twilight sigh in an annoyed manner, my azure eyes darting back over to her with an eyebrow cocked.

"Yes?" I asked.

"You're doing it again," the dark-skinned Alicorn said, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at me.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I shrugged, drumming my fingers on the woollen legs of my brown trousers as I sat cross-legged just in front of the smaller princess.

"You're ignoring me and my instructions," Twilight said.

"Inconceivable," I said with a chuckle, looking her up and down. "I've been hanging onto every word of this marvellous lecture."

"Alright then, smart-ass," she said, standing up onto her feet and dusting her dyed purple pants off. "Repeat to me what I just told you if you weren't off daydreaming about women as usual."

"Very well," I nodded, clearing my throat. "'Magic, by it's very nature, is constructed in the mind and enacted by the body. One can possess a natural pool of magic large enough to drown the heavens themselves, but it shall be as useless as a three-legged mule unless the wielder has the cognition to properly visualise and focus their casting into something tangible, lest they risk releasing naught but a splurge of energy, or, in the more embarrassing moments, naught at all.'"

I got to my feet and dusted myself off just as curtly, looking around the area we were in. Twilight had taken me to a secluded area of the forest a few miles out from the capital city of Equestria. It was a peaceful area, full of summer greens, chirping birds, and flowing rivers that brought a beautiful ambience to the ears of all those around it.

Behind me was a small campfire, crackling and emitting a warmth that bordered on uncomfortable in the summer heat, but one that Twilight had deemed necessary to 'assist with accurate visualisation in the mind's eye of the concept of fire'. She waffled a lot, but she was rarely ever wrong. She'd been my magic tutor ever since I was young, and despite my Alicorn heritage, it was something I struggled with like you wouldn't believe. Now, while I was far from magic-less, having gotten down some advanced spells regarding elemental manipulation here and there, I was nothing compared to the magical prodigies that came from both sides of my bloodline.

"Okay, so maybe you were listening," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes. "But do you remember who I was quoting?"

"Uh..." I said, mind drawing a blank at that specific point. "No... that was when I stopped paying attention."

"Of course it was," Twilight said, shaking her head. "Always quote your sources, Richter. It's almost as important as the facts you're quoting from them."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, stretching my arms and back before yawning loudly. "So, are we done with the theory now? Can we get onto some actual spell-casting?"

"You this eager to skip through the basics?" she asked, placing her hands on her wide hips and tilting her head. "You the same way when it comes to foreplay? Only focused on your own enjoyment?"

"Mhm, slip out of that robe and I'll be more than eager to show you," I smirked, bouncing my eyebrows suggestively.

"Ah, no. Not a chance," Twilight said with a quick shake of her head only to falter moments later as her eyes fell down to the ground. "At least... not until we've finished training."

"Is that a promise?" I asked.

"It's a chance at a reward," she said, waving me away with her hand. "But one you won't get unless you impress me. Now, ready yourself for casting. We're going to go through a few basic fire spells before seeing if you can handle bigger casts."

"As you wish," I nodded, taking a deep breath and exhaling through my nose, closing my eyes as I did so and walking myself through the steps Twilight had told me when I'd started training with her years ago.

In order to access your magical pool, you must first visualise it. Look deep within yourself and see the glowing, flowing depths of your own strength. Imagine pushing your hand into it, taking hold of the power inside you. Once you can feel that power in your hand, use your cognition to turn it into something else. You are not holding raw power, you are holding a lightning bolt. You are holding a rope that you can use to rip rocks out of the ground and throw them at people. You are holding an orb that will call the water around you to your hand. Now once you've used your cognition to create this object... unleash it!

My eyes shot open, launching my hand forwards with a grunt and firing off a brief stream of crackling fire. The air simmered and the heat was palpable for those short seconds before I killed off the spell. I darted my eyes over to Twilight, relaxing my posture slightly as I smiled at her. She nodded in response, giving a sarcastic round of applause for my 'performance'.

"Congratulations, Richter, you're excelling at every magically-gifted child's first proper cast," she said sarcastically.

"Hey, start small," I shrugged.

"And stay small, judging from your progress," she jabbed.

"That hurts my feelings, Twilight," I said with a faux-crying tone.

"I'll hurt your bloody feelings in a minute if you don't quit yapping and go back to casting," she said, crossing her arms once more. "Up the ante. Both hands, mixed streams, four seconds. Go."

I did as ordered, conjuring up the 'tools' I needed to cast from within my core before throwing both hands out and stumbling back slightly as a result. I killed the stream off after wobbling around, Twilight rolling her eyes in a disappointed manner before giving me another fake clap.

"You knew that was gonna happen, didn't you?" I asked.

"Yup. I noticed from the second you started that your feet weren't squared," she said, pointing at the leather boots I was wearing where both feet where next to each other instead of the 'casting stance' she'd taught me. The casting stance was basically just a fighting stance, putting your good leg forward so you had the ability to shift your weight around and compensate for force in a lot of directions. I always forgot to do it when casting for a simple reason:

I'm a moron.

"Go again," Twilight said, watching me correct my stance and make a second attempt.

I did as instructed, using the stance to brace myself against the push-back and keeping the mixed stream up for the required four seconds.

"Right, nice and good," she said, walking over to me and poking me on the shoulder. "Do you see now why I make you go through the basics every single time we train?"

"Yeah, can't fault you for that one," I nodded, shaking my hands off as the sweat began to build up from the heat. "Can't wait to throw a fire tornado or something and end up setting myself on fire and nobody else."

"Only you," she chuckled, looking over the scenery around us and settling her gaze on a flat outcropping of rocks, bleached from years of exposure to the sun and the elements. "Right, I want you to cut out a cube of rock from there and cut it into four pieces."

"Alright, sounds easy enough," I nodded, refocusing myself once again and holding a hand out, conjuring the image of a single cube of neatly-cut rock in my mind's eye.

I balled my fist and attempted to throw it upwards, as if I were ripping the cube out from the rock itself, only for my arm to his a 'tether point' where the energy I was using was insufficient to overpower the natural strength of the rock itself.

"Try again, but visualise using more of your magic," she said with a guiding tone. "Hear the rock crumbling, convince yourself that you can see the rock being torn away from it's place rich in front of you."

I followed her advice, putting my mind's eye to work once again, truly convincing myself that the rock before me was breaking apart and revealing the cube. I tore my hand upwards once again, slamming into the tether point as the rock's structure stayed strong. I strained for a brief moment, teeth gritting and a strange feeling of emptiness appearing in my chest, before the tether point was broken and the rock shattered as the cube was torn from inside it.

I released the cast, allowing the smooth cube of rock to drop to the floor, only to suddenly be overwhelmed with a sense of exhaustion. I hunched over, panting as if I'd just ran fifteen miles in full armour. I looked up at Twilight, seeing her walk over to me before producing a small vial of golden liquid with a snap of her fingers.

"Here," she said in a kind tone. "Drink up. It'll make you feel better."

I did as instructed, taking the vial and uncorking it. The aroma of the mixture was quite pleasant, possessing a clean, lemony odour to it that I hoped was telling of the taste. I downed the small vial with a short gulp, the lemon taste crackling on my tongue in an extremely acidic nature, before it flowed into my gullet. I perked up almost immediately, that sense of exhaustion that had overwhelmed disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"What was that?" I asked, handing the vial back to her as I stood up straight.

"Energy restorative," she answered. "I keep a few of them on hand whenever we train so that you don't try to lift a tree and die."

"What if I want to though?" I questioned.

"Then too fucking bad," she said, petting me on the cheek with a soft smile on her lips. "Right, seeing as how you've pretty much broken yourself in half over cutting a cube out of a rock, I'm gonna draw a few new conclusions as to where you stand magic-wise."

"This should be fun," I said, placing my hands on my hips and sighing.

"So long as it's something you conjure and not something that has a large amount of weight, you seem to be doing exceptionally well with it. Fire and other things like lightning, wind, and things like that should be no problem. But as for manipulating rocks and water, or intensive telekinesis, moving objects, or anything in that category... you haven't got a chance," she explained. "This was something we'd hoped would improve as you aged, as one's magical energy reserve tends to increase year after year as they get older before peaking at eighteen... but that's where you're at. You're fully grown, a mature specimen, no more inches to gain. With where you've maxed out at this point, you're on par magic-reserve-wise with a human. A rather talented human... but a human all the same."

"So, basically, I'm shit?" I asked.

"If I were to put it in less than ten words, yes, exactly that," she nodded. "But fear not. Once we've managed to get you to master the basics of conjuration and manipulation, we can start getting you educated on other magical skills like healing injuries or transmogrification."

I blinked blankly at her for a long moment, and the purple-haired Alicorn returned the same gesture as the silence stretched on for a long moment.

"That's going to avoid a lot of studying, isn't it?" I asked.

"Of for fuck's sake, Richter, if you never apply yourself to anything, you'll never succeed at anything," Twilight snapped, crossing her arms and glaring at me in an irritated manner. "And I'm not gonna be the shoulder you want to cry on when you get your nuts kicked out your eyeballs by somebody who studied magic more than you did and you wanna feel sorry for yourself."

"Pff, that doesn't sound like me at all," I scoffed, waving the accusation away immediately.

"Mhm-hm, yeah, okay," Twilight nodded. "I really don't get you sometimes."

"Why's that, sweetie?" I asked.

"Because when it comes to specific subjects, whether it was hunting, tracking, or monster slaying, it was impossible to drag your nose out of a bestiary or a 'Hunter's Tales' book because of how interested you were in them," she began. "But when it comes down to you learning advanced mathematics to do things like balance your finances, like a king should know how to do, you acted like a Vampire that'd been presented with a clove of garlic."

"That's actually a myth. The Vampires we have in this world have no inherent weakness to garlic. Nor do they to running water, forbidding them entry, crosses, sunlight, or stakes through the heart" I said, counting off each one on a finger as I spoke. "The only major weakness a Vampire has is cutting off the head, as it removes the brain. Which works, for some reason, despite none of their other organs doing anything."

"Gods Above, is that what I sound like when I correct people?" Twilight asked in a horrified tone.

"I have a deeper voice than you, so mine's inherently less annoying and ear-grating," I nodded. "But basically, yes. You sound like a cunt."

"Ugh. I think I might need to go back and slap my younger self for sounding like that," she said with a sickened shiver.

"Yes. Younger self," I said in a monotone voice.

"Right, one more quip like that out of you and I'm never training you again," she growled. "Now... what were we talking about again?"

"Me being fundamentally an absolute waste of potential, time, and effort by allowing my own inherent laziness to squander my potential despite I, myself, being aware of the aforementioned squandering yet only caring enough to be motivated to change it when faced with a failure or defeat in some manner only to realise that it's far too late to change who I am and have become so set in my ways that I shall never be able to escape this cycle of a lack of motivation leading to failure that I can only blame myself for, resulting in an eternal sense of self-loathing that is as destructive and as painful as it is well-deserved due to my own shortcomings as a person?"

Twilight blinked quietly, staring at me in a horrified manner as her mouth hung open, eyes darting between different parts of my face to pick up on any kind of crack in the expression to see if I was joking, but only finding herself even more terrified due to the fact I was one hundred percent serious.

"I... that's... you..." she stammered, mind whirling with the depth and depressiveness of such a self-deprecating statement. "Fuck, man, lighten up, will you?"

"I don't wanna study," I said, rolling my shoulders and inhaling briefly, shaking away the acidic taste left in my mouth the energy restorative. "I know it's stupid and I know I have no real reason to not want to, especially seeing as how I've proven I can before, but I'm sticking with being a lazy prick and that's that."

"Alright, shit, fine," she shrugged. "Fire, lightning, and failure it is for you then."

"Perfect," I grinned.

"Right, so, if that's all we're going to be nattering about so far, then I feel it's best to end your final magical potential review and return home with the results," Twilight said, eyes and hand lighting up as she conjured a purple portal in the air in front of us, a mighty crackle of magical energy drowning out the sounds of the forest around us. "After you?"

"Hang on," I said, kicking dirt onto the fire behind me to make sure it didn't spread out and set the whole damn forest alight. "Right, time to go home."

I stepped through the portal, Twilight following behind me, and got that skin-crawling feeling of my body being deprived of all of its senses for a brief moment before reemerging in a much cooler area. I shivered involuntarily, looking back at the portal with disgust as Twilight stepped through it, killing it off with a wave of her hand before looking around the room and spotting a familiar face.

"Philomena?" Twilight asked, spotting the red and yellow phoenix perched atop a large bookshelf in the library we'd stepped into.

"Ah, just the folk I was about to start looking for," the phoenix responded, gliding down from the top of the shelf and transforming into the human form she often took. "I'd popped down here to see if you and Twilight were studying. Low and behold, you appear just as I feared I'd have to gather a search party."

As a bit of context, Philomena is Celestia's Familiar. She's an animal that was presented to an Alicorn at birth that it then bonded to the child, mind and soul, to assist in the animal's guard duties. The process bonds the two together, granting the animal the gift of sapience, speech, and eternal life to forever watch over their ward, as well as creating a connection between the two of them that allows them to sense the other's emotions and communicate telepathically, so that they can speak when far apart from one another.

It was a long running tradition for the Alicorn, and everyone except Twilight had one. Besides Philomena, there was Imani, a black panther that was Luna's protector, Emiko, a golden kitsune that had been given as a gift to Cadance at her birth, and my own Familiar; Grael, a grey and black Direwolf. There were a few differences between the Familiar of our family, and it mostly came into play with both Philomena and Emiko.

See, phoenixes and kitsune are magical creatures by nature, and thus can use magic all they wish. Direwolves and panthers, however, are not. So while Philomena and Emiko were capable to teleporting, transforming, and using all other kinds of magical abilities, Imani and Grael couldn't. They had to rely on their natural abilities to doe their jobs effectively, and as such, trained twice as hard.

If it came down to all of them in a physical fight, I think Grael would win, mostly because he was a member of a race of apex predators that were faster, stronger, and much bigger than regular wolves. He'd win on physicality, speed, stamina, bite strength, and durability. Sure, Imani was much more agile, but I'm pretty sure Grael could take her head off with a swipe of his claws if he wanted to.

"What d'you need?" I asked the woman as she walked over to us.

In her human form, Philomena stood the same height as Celestia; seven feet barefoot, but was nowhere near as... buxom as my grandmother. Her most common appearance was having her red and yellow hair tied in a crowned plait around long, curled locks of hair flowing down her back. She found herself most comfortable in a yellow-trimmed red chiton and a pair of leather sandals, her clothing and hairstyle being that of the land she hailed from so many millennia ago.

"You've been summoned by dear old Grandma for a nice royal quest," she said, coming to a stop as she leaned against one of the desks in the library. "Didn't mention much, only that it was of 'extreme importance'. You know how she gets."

"Am I gonna need to pack?" I asked.

"I'd imagine so. The messenger that arrived requesting help was wearing garb of a land that was not very close to here," Philomena explained.

"Is it somewhere warm?" I asked, quite liking the summer temperature we were at.

"Judging from the packed fur coats in their bags, northern rune tattoos covering their bodies, and the armour... I'd say they're from rather far north," Philomena explained. "From the land of ice and snow."

"Fucking wonderful," I sighed in an annoyed manner. "Best go break out the snow shoes, then."