"Thank you." Luna took the mug of water that a much cleaner Rockhoof was bringing to her. "Just when I wanted it most. Now, Garou."

"Yeah? Oh, did they have sand brushes?" He was distracted by Rockhoof much the same, tail wagging with thoughts of goodies.

"The others got those. They'll share when yer done here. What's the point if yer still practicin'?" He shrugged softly and looked to Luna. "What's next?"

She sipped softly from the mug, letting it hover beside her. "I think I have an idea what may be holding you back. I think this may be a case of vision."

"Vision?" Garou lifted a shaggy brow. "I can see just fine." His nightvision was even better as a wolf than a human. Not that it was night yet.

Luna extended a hoof towards him. "Not that manner of vision, but how you imagine your power. How a creature imagines they are performing an action has an effect on how it will come to be. This is true of magic and physical actions. Athletes can perform better, or worse, depending on what they think they are doing. Your vision is flawed."

Garou put a paw on the ground, a semi-transparent pane of glass springing up from the point. "What's wrong with it? It's fast and strong."

"And limited," completed Luna, tapping at the glass. "You imagine panes of glass, and that's what you get. Perfectly suitable in some situations, but I imagine you could be doing better. To test this theory, and dissuade that habit, I want to see some shields that are not rectangular, curved or not. She made a round gesture with her hooves. "Make a circle, not around you, but the shield itself."

A circle? He huffed softly, imagining that. He would be creating a shield, like Captain America's shield, but a force shield version thereof. Could he do that? He'd try... He sat on his haunches and frowned at the thought. "Round, round, sure..." He put down a paw. "Round." Up sprang a new sheet of power. It was not round, instead triangular, though not a rectangle either. "Hm."

"I thought so." Luna sipped from her water. "Perfect. Keep practicing until you can do properly round. You are creating force from nothing. What stops you from making any shape you want? I think nothing does but your own preconceptions. Fortunately you have us to not have those for you."

Rockhoof suddenly laughed at that. "Hard to think we know how yer powers work, Lad. I don't have the foggiest, so if you make one that's shaped like a house, I wouldn't think it much odder than what you already do."

Luna nodded in agreement. "Precisely so, though let's save the house for now. That would be a bit advanced. Once you can make it round in front of you, making it round around you won't seem so strange. Then maybe we can be... trickier. But one step at a time."

Garou got to practicing, trying to rid himself of the idea that his force had to be rectangles.

A merchant barked loudly, one of the locals was having an animated argument with one of the caravan members, the two exchanging barbs and scowling. Others were watching, attention growing with time as their noise drew a crowd.

Celestia stepped in, casually moving through the crowd of smaller creatures. "What seems to be the problem?"

"None of your business," grunted the local. "Who in the hades is that?" He hiked a thumb at the approaching former princess.

The caravan member nodded towards her. "One of our guards, quite talented. She dispatched countless attackers all at once. That was a sight to behold." He sighed softly and reached his hooves towards a box. "Are you certain you don't want it?"

"Of course I want it!" screamed the local. "But not at that price!" He had half an eye on Celestia, glancing towards her nervously. "You're overcharging by at least double."

"You need it, I have it. I would say I am charging exactly the right amount," countered the caravan merchant with a confident smile on his snout. "Let us do business as merchants, not make appeals to the hearts neither of us have."

The local drove a hoof into the sand with a muted thump. "This is not a luxury. You speak of needs, but this need is true. Creatures will die without it. I will pay the standard rate."

The caravan merchant stood up, leaning on the box of goods, eyes on the local. "You will pay what I am charging or not get it at all. This is the way of merchantry."

"I don't have it," he screamed, throwing his hands up. "What part of that are you missing?"

Celestia raised a hoof. "If I may ask, how many bits short are you?" She quirked an ear towards both of the merchants involved.

"No!" Trixie was suddenly there, emerging from the crowd. "You will not do that. Stop right there!" She charged right in front of Celestia. "You earned those bits."

"Which means they are mine to do with as I wish." Celestia set a hoof on Trixie's shoulder. "And I would rather be a little poorer than see creatures die to line my pocket."

"Finally, a pony of mercy," sighed out the local. "This wretch is demanding so much!" He gave a number and both Celestia and Trixie went wide eyed.

Even half of it was more than Celestia had made guarding them to that point. She put a hoof to her cheek. "Oh dear, that is quite the sum. Pray tell, what is this that demands such a price?"

The caravan merchant tapped at the box. "What makes it more expensive is that it needs to be kept cold. The medicine becomes bad quickly at anything above near freezing, and the enchantments to make that happen are not cheap to create or keep working, and when I sell the medicine, I have to sell the crate, unless he has his own chill box?"

"I do not," confessed the local with a weary sigh.

"So I have to sell the box too, which is part of that price." He tapped at the top of the box. "The price is perfectly reasonable."

Trixie pointed away. "This is far too rich for my blood."

The local grunted softly. "Look, we've had a bad outbreak. Over a dozen are in dire--"

"I am not interested," cut in the caravan merchant. "I am here to trade. Perhaps you have something else you could trade besides money?"

Celestia scowled. These were not the ponies she had thought she had raised to be kind and gentle. Still, she was not that merchant's princess... "If I cede my share of payment for the rest of the journey, that should be enough. You can get those funds from the caravan master."

The caravan merchant clopped his hooves. "Very good. I will accept that, assuming this one has the other half?"

The local let out a weary sigh as he dug out his coin pouch and set it down right on the crate. "Here. Choke on it."

"I will be unlikely to oblige." He nudged the crate forward over the sand and grabbed the bag in his teeth. "This is yours. Do with it as you wish."

The local looped around to start pushing the crate towards the oasis town. "Thank you." That was directed at Celestia. "A kindness as large as, well, you." He smirked good naturedly. "It is good to see there are caring souls in this world."

Trixie watched him go, the crowd dispersing as the shouting was complete. "I'm not stupid."

"Hm?"

"You didn't just give away your bits. If you run out of coins, you will turn to us and expect help." She put a hoof on her chest. "And you will get it. You gave away all of our coins, not just yours."

Celestia extended a wing, wrapping it around Trixie. "I will tell the others what I have done, and they may censure me if they think I acted poorly. I would rather face their indignation than the sad pony in the mirror had I not acted in that situation."

"I'm doing that right now." She poked Celestia with the flat of a hoof. "You big softie. We'll run into many more people that need a hoof, and we can't help them all."

"No, but I could help that one, so I did," argued Celestia. "I understand your concern, but--"

"--no buts. We're a team." She puffed out her chest. "We're as strong as the weakest link, and you just made yourself weaker."

Celestia smirked faintly at that, her estimation of Trixie's combat ability placing her closer to the weakest link. "We can always make more bits. Besides, a kindness given can turn around in the least expected places, or perhaps it will not. It was still the right thing to do, and I do not feel remorse for it."

"Figures," she sighed out, a hoof thrown up. "Twilight learned from you, didn't she? It shows! Ugh..." She stormed off in a little huff.

Luna tilted her head faintly. "Why is there a star in the center?"

He had created Captain America's shield, hovering in the air, not rooted from the ground. It had bands etched into its surface to imitate the stripes it normally would have, with an etching of the star right in the middle. He was also giggling with triumph, tongue lolling from his snout with the simple joy of success. It had no color, being essentially glass-like force.

"Don't like it?"

Rockhoof reached out, feeling along the curved shield's surface. It was round in more ways than one, concave as a shield should be. "If ye can make this, I 'magine ya could make whatever you had in mind to make."

Luna waved a hoof beneath the shield where it didn't touch the ground. "Notice too that it is not rooted. Is it just as powerful?" Rather than wait for a reply, she lowered her horn at it and gave it a little blast, and it didn't immediately fall. She ramped up the power, magic dancing and sparking where the shield refused to let it pass. She gave up fairly quickly, nodding. "A serviceable defense. See what a change of vision can achieve?"

Garou reared up onto two legs and thrust forward a paw. Though there was no band on the shield, it stuck to his foreleg easily enough, causing him to be wielding the shield. "Alright, this is actually pretty cool." He waved the shield around, taking on fighting poses with it clinging to him easily. "Not having to keep making it is a plus."

Rockhoof tilted his head. "But that won't stop you from being blasted in more than one way like she was doin' before."

"This is true," agreed Luna. "But, it is still a vital and great step forward. Let us be pleased with it. It is just as important to realize our triumphs, even as we see there is more yet to go. I declare our practice complete for today." She clopped her metal-clad hooves with finality.

"Finally." He let the shield fade away and fell back to all fours. "Hey, can I have some of that water?"

"Certainly." Luna floated her half-drained mug towards Garou.

He sank his snout into it and with loud lapping noises, made short work of the rest, quenching the powerful thirst he had worked up practicing in the heat of the desert. "Mmm, yeah, perfect... Oh, thanks Rockhoof, for getting it."

"Not a problem at all." He turned to Luna. "We're stayin' with the caravan tonight, yeah?"

"We can hardly guard them if we stayed at an inn here while the caravan remained outside the town," agreed Luna, moving back towards the caravan. "Let us return to our duties. Tomorrow perhaps we can practice more. Testing you is practice for my own magic. We both stand to win."

Author's Note

Two chapters with practice in it? It's more likely than you think. Still, he's broken his self-limitation of erecting perfectly flat planes of glass. That's a step, I think!

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