"One thing." Eager nods at you, tail still wagging eagerly behind him. "You said you like the sound of Prime, that's a nice one. In fact, one of the first tricks you'll learn is to make your clothes stop falling off you when you change."

Small blessings! "How?"

"Prime is about the, uh, energy of all things." He waves a hoof in the air, trailing invisible lines. "Your clothes have energy, and so do you. That's not even magic! Science can back that up. Now, take Prime, and learning how to reach out and poke that energy." He pokes the air with a hoof. "Make its energy and your energy a little snuggly, and when you change, so do the clothes. The specifics get not-scientific in a hurry. There aren't scientific words to describe what I'm going to teach you."

He has your attention, and learning happens. It's not fast, or easy, but you make progress, and poor Nick only looks half dead of boredom. Still, with a few basics down, you could see what could not be seen. With a glowing horn, you look around with sparkling eyes. "Wow." You can see those energies he was speaking of, and living threads too, very similar and yet vibrant and changing constantly. If the world was made of legos, living things were desperately scrambling hamsters on wheels, parked on those legos. The magnitude of complexity was hard to imagine until you see it.

But that isn't the only thing you see. Sure, waving your hoof in front of yourself's an amazing spectacle. Even that was full of moving parts, struggling to keep you alive and allow you to move. But why stop with a leg and hoof? You stand in front of a mirror for a better look at the rest of you, and there it is.

You're no doctor, or biologist. But that doesn't matter. You can see the intruder, inside you. A parasite still moving to get comfortable. Your future child, not even settled in yet. Their pattern was as bright as yours, brighter in some ways with the dizzying sparkle of possibility and growth. They had so much growing to do. Growing you could put a stop to. That cluster of cells wasn't even settled yet. Just one batch of pills, and it'd be done.

But you could see it in a way you don't have words for. It was alive, if not even sentient yet. You could end it before its first chapter. On some levels, maybe you should. You've read older women have a harder time with this kind of thing. Shoot! If you were a normal human female of your age, your pretty sure menopause would have already visited, but you're not, are you? You're a 30 something pony lady instead.

You can't blame a biological clock. It was entirely up to you. You and that cluster of cells you could forget--

Something's touching your face. Nick, er Steady Step, is brushing away tears with careful sweeps of his hoof. "You alright?"

Are you alright? "Ugh! One second." You will your phone over and do some quick Googling. "Did you know that... Hm." Of all the things you expected to learn, the side effects of the morning after pill wasn't high on that list. "Damn it."

Eager suddenly coughs. "Sorry, not trying to get in the middle of things. One perk of taking up living magic is you can handle this better than many."

That's a perk... "Is it actually safe to do... anything to yourself like that?" Images of doctors trying to work on themselves dance in your mind.

"Wow." Eager flashes the biggest grin. "Life magic on themselves is what people do with that, unicorn or not, half the time."

Unicorn or not? "How does anyone do this without... that?" You point at your new horn, the source of your magic... right?

"I should go over that..." His horn glows as he flicks on a projector, throwing up some funny symbols on the wall. "Besides us ponies, there are humans that can do magic, and, being humans, they are a super drag about it."

"You got one group." Eager Study pointed to the symbol on the left. "They're all 'we should free everyone's mind!', living like Matrix rebels." He sweeps his hoof to the symbol on the right. "And then there's team, 'Science is the best! What's magic?' over there. Don't get me wrong, love science. I like gizmos and if you stopped me from playing my MMO, I would have to kill someone."

The two symbols vanished, a third appearing in its place. "And last... You got these gents..." Eager waves at the image half-heartedly. "The world is burning and I'm the gasoline. They have no grand vision for the future. If it was up to them, there'd be no future. You might agree or disagree with the other two, but these? Stay away from these."

Nick huffs with all his equine might. "Any of them have a name, or are we looking for funny squiggles? Do they wear those like name tags?"

Eager laughs at the idea. "That'd be convenient... Most of them are hiding away. None of them want 'the masses' to know them or what they're up to. The first is called 'The Traditions', then 'The Technocracy' and lastly, 'Nephandi.'" He nods with each name given. "Side note: The Technocracy would love to meet you, and throw you in a cage, and study you forever, or maybe just get rid of you. We are living examples of their world not working. Most of them either want to break us down until they figure out how we fit into their rigid view, or get rid of the part that doesn't match. Neither is... probably good for you."

"Oh!" He perks with a big smile, remembering something from the look of it. "All of them." He waves wildly at the wall. "One thing they have in common, they do magic through staring the universe in the eyes and saying 'No, my way is the right way.' Takes balls! Give them that. Even works, scarily enough, but sometimes the universe pulls an Uno 'No U' and slaps them for being uppity. We don't do magic that way. Positive! The universe doesn't slap us down for existing."

Right, but... You wobble a hoof in the air. "And the downside? If there wasn't a downside, ponies would be in charge, right?"

"As if. We have limits. For one, there's only so many of us." Eager Study waved between himself and his guests. "And what you're doing won't even help. Your kid's likely to be a human brat, forever. On top of that, human mages can try to do anything, given time and will, which they burn through eagerly. We tend to learn a few big spells and that's it, we're done. We don't, and can't, do it all, um, usually. None of us here are one of those exceptions."

Wait. "Did what I already learned count against what I can learn then?" Nobody told you there were limits! Where is the user manual for being a magical horse?

"Yes and no... I've only taught you some basic spells, and they're basic. They don't count for much. It's the big ones you'll only get a few of, so don't worry about it." He waves the objection away. "By the way, you're kindness, right?"

Nick answers for you with a firm nod. "Yeah. Why?"

"Just making sure... Magic unicorns? Now that's when all the bets are off. They're just as scary as human mages, with all the baggage that comes with it. Some of them try to remake the world, but none have succeeded, so far. Good way to go young." He snorts, as if finding the whole thing funny. "Be glad you're not that."

You have limits, but that was, apparently, a good thing. "Alright... Who wrote those?" You direct a hoof at the books you've been studying from.

Nick/Steady Step peered at the scattered books. "Didn't you write them, Eager?"

"As if!" He gestures for the Forces book to rise up and float over to himself. "Humans wrote these, the mages I was talking about, actually."

You plunk a hoof against your head. "That hurts my head... We use the same spells, but it's not the same... how?!"

Eager embraces his book. "They have countless books like this, each a little different, and each certain that their book is the best one. Neither of us are making that call. The universe is what already exists. To them, the universe is what they make of it. Intent matters with magic, a lot."

Speaking of that... You put aside other thoughts and move to one other book that caught your eyes. "The universe is what already exists." You tap at the book. "This kinda implies there's a lot more to it than I would have thought."

Eager set the Forces book aside. "Spirit. A whole other world parallel to our solid material one, where ideas and notions are given form and function. They're probably watching us right now, curious about the new unicorn. Want to take a peek?"

Darn it all, you really kinda do! So you get back to studying, and getting hugged. Wait. Steady Step, bored with the whole thing, has casually decided you were a fine thing to hold while it was all going on. It helped that it didn't feel bad to have him there... Dang it, you're really becoming a lady horse, happily, what, mated? You weren't married, not in any legal way. And that's not even better! You're a lady horse with a loving partner, and the idea was laughable, but also kinda... great?

So about those spirits! They made more sense than the inside of your head. No wonder you skipped on mind. You can barely put together what you're doing up there, let alone even think about messing with anyone else's.

A new spell of seeing and feeling. "This is always the first," advises Eager. "If you're doing it right. Can you mess with things you never see? Sure! We do it all the time. Doesn't make it a great idea. Now, before you look that way, I should warn, spirits can be creepy looking. So don't freak out. They're over there. We're over here. The two aren't meeting unless you get way better at it."

Could it possibly match what you've already been through? You doubt it. With a glowing horn, you throw your perceptions in a new direction, penetrating the veil between worlds in a burst of static as you change the 'channel' from one reality to the next.

"Hello." A dragon sat there, small and bipedal and grinning at you. Eager's room was mostly unchanged, except for that dragon that was smiling at you. "I can hear you, if you want to talk back to me."

You're being talked to by a spirit dragon... They had bright blue-purple scales and brown eyes, slit with claws and teeth to match, but they weren't being very aggressive. They were almost cute... "Hi?"

"Hi!" They echo back with a bigger smile. "I was worried you wouldn't say anything. I'm Sundown." He hikes a thumb at himself. "And I've been waiting for you forever! Forever and ever. And ever... Finally, you're awake!" He hops to his feet, clapping his hands in a dance. "And now you get to learn something new."

"I'm already learning some new things," you note to the dragon. "And you're a dragon."

"Sure am." He leans in closer. "And you messed up that spell, but in just the right way."

Wait... "Huh?"

"Good response." He taps you on the nose, but you don't feel it. Can you feel when a spirit pokes you? "I'm not actually a spirit, and this isn't the spirit world. You messed up, rejoice!" They were swaying their hips and tail, looking quite elated. "Ask your friend what a chimera is, he'll know. Oops, you're waking up. Don't forget me!" He waves excitedly even as he fades from view, and your spell elapses.

Author's Note

Phew, so many competing desires on schools, but Prime? Not what I expected.

But new poll! https://forms.gle/QPKadvjFo3E8X7ZR8 A simple one this time. Only four choices? Who does that?

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