Life Finds a Way

Tuesday, September 2nd, 908 AB

Cure woke up as gently as the sun rose over the east. He found himself still wrapped in his dam’s legs, held gently against her chest and warm belly. It occurred to him that he had probably never slept so well in either lifetime, and added a data point to the “ponies aren’t meant to sleep alone” thought rattling around in his head. It was either the slightly movement or the change in his breathing, but either way Vines magically came-to just a few minutes later. She gently reached down and gave him another quick kiss between his ears, then nuzzled the side of her face half way down his mane. A moment later she finally let him go and stretched out on his bed like a cat just waking up from a nap.

Huh… ponies are way shorter than people but I’ll be damned if she isn’t probably almost six feet from snout to rear. My sire is about a hoof taller than my dam… are ponies actually larger than humans? Wait... they have to be. Ponies on Earth were a lot heavier than people and they weren't muscular like my parents are. I wonder how much she weighs. I think I'll hold off on asking... probably not a good way to start the day. I wonder if I’ll end up being taller if I learn to use magic right. I liked being tall before. Dunno why, but the thought of being under 6 foot again really bothers me.

Edward wasn’t a huge guy, but at 6’2” and pushing 220, he sure as hell wasn’t worried about a strong breeze taking him away. He wasn’t overly wide, either. He’d go to the gym once or twice a week to maintain, but never really saw any benefit once he started benching in the mid-200s, so he kept up a mostly-cardio routine in the hopes that he wouldn’t go through all the heart trouble that plagued his mom’s side of the family. Fucking Italian genes. Her family didn't help themselves with their propensity to load everything in cheese either. Technically, he DID avoid heart trouble… just not exactly the way he intended to.

Clearly fat people were on to something. All that working out and I could have just been pounding cheeseburgers my whole life and came out even. Meh, Cyndi appreciated the effort. A lot. Well at least it won’t be hard for me to maintain those habits now. I’m really dying to see how much stronger magic can make me, though… shame it’ll be five or six years before I can start doing the real heavy stuff.

Rolling onto his back, Cure does his best to match his dam’s stretch and lets out a yawn big enough to make the curtains sway. “Oh wow. That was the best sleep I’ve ever had. Like… ever. Thanks for staying with me, dam. Love you.” He climbs onto his hooves, and basically flops on his dam, wrapping his legs around her neck, then gives her a quick peck on the cheek before jumping off the bed and heading to the potty.

Vines can’t stop the smile splitting her face. She gets up and checks on the property duo and finds them getting breakfast ready downstairs. A quick pit stop in the bathroom by the master bedroom and she’s ready to go. Normally she would shower for the day, but since the plan is to work in the garden she figures she might as well wait until afterwards to clean up.

Breakfast is served and, even though everyone is awake and ready to go, conversation is minimal. Finally it’s time to get started on the day. Vines and Cure head to the living room to discuss their plans.

“So before we get started I think it’s a good idea to figure out what we know for sure. I know I’m kind of at the age where a colt would start learning some basic stuff. What do they typically teach in school?”

“Oh, honey. They don’t teach magic in school at all other than giving the absolute basics. Pegasus use it to walk on clouds, control the weather, and fly. Unicorns use it for basically everything. The only thing they taught us in school was that earth ponies are stronger and can grow plants better. If a pony wanted to learn more about it I’d assume there’s schools dedicated to teaching farming practices, but everything I learned was from working with my dam and mothers growing up.”

“Okay. Wow. That’s… almost criminally ridiculous. I’m still not sure if this is some kind of intentional cover-up, the knowledge was lost over time, or if somehow nobody has ever bothered actually documenting this. Let me go get my notebook and a pencil first. Should have really brought those down with me.” Cure scampers up the steps, gets his stuff, and heads back down. Sitting against his dam’s front legs he opens the notebook up to the page he started the day before.

“Okay, so when you go through the science classes Title was talking about, what do they teach you about biology and chemistry, exactly? Is it just an overview or do you get down into the chemical makeup of sugars, chlorophyll, and other biochemicals like that?”

Vines reads through her son’s notes while paying enough attention to muddle through her response. “Uhh… they gave us seeds and showed us some basics about where to plant them, how to tend to the soil, what animals need to be healthy. What’s this you have written about pushing magic into stuff? I thought only unicorns could do that.”

“I… wait… what? Why wouldn’t earth ponies and pegasus be able to … well, extrude, I guess, magic? I assume pegasus have some control over wind by pushing their magic out into the air through their wings. We can do that with our hooves. Haven’t you ever seen the magic flowing out of your hooves into the ground?”

Vines looks down at her thoroughly baffled son. “No. I have not.” She says with certainty while shaking her head. “And I literally have never heard of an earth pony doing that ever, at all. Is this something you can do?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Umm… yeah. Here, watch.” He moves a few steps away, turns around, and sits on his haunches. “I’m going to just cycle my magic through my forelegs. I think it will give off a glow, but give me a second to visualize this. I didn’t try it yesterday, not this way at least.”

Placing his hooves together, he imagines his magic flowing again. This time, instead of flowing out of his right hoof and into the ground or in the air it’s flowing back up his left leg and rejoining the rest in the endless current flowing through his body. He expected to feel something from it, but nothing really changes. As he slowly increases the speed of the current he can feel a tingly warmth building in his legs. Slowly, his legs and hooves are gaining an ethereal, chocolatey glow like yesterday. It makes him think of a chocolate fountain at a buffet or something. Moving his hooves apart a few inches, he looks up at his dam who is just kind of sitting there watching him. “Well? Can you see that?” At her confused look he starts doubting she can, “You can't, can you?"

“Sweetie, other than you sitting there I don’t see anything. Should I?”

“Umm… yes. I can see something. I see basically like a glowing aura around my legs… and a stream between my forehooves. It’s the same color as my eyes. From what I understand, that's normal. The color of a pony’s aura usually matches their eye color. Something about eyes being the window to your soul, I think. Anyhow, I’ve kind of half-expected this. I read at least one or two Equestria stories with my granddaughter where only some ponies could actually see magic like this,” he says, motioning to his eyes. Thinking for a moment, he continues, “Well let’s go outside then and, even if you can’t see the actual manifestation of the magic directly you will be able to see the results of it. Then maybe we can work on how you visualize magic and get you to the point where you can intentionally kind of push it out. Plus, daylight’s burning.”

Leading the way out to his experiment corner of the garden, Cure sets down his notebook and moves to the side to show his dam what he’d done yesterday.

“I know you kind of glanced over my notes. Well, you can see these few little sprouts over here. Those are the ones I was testing with first.” Next, he motions to the two more developed plants. The darker one is noticeably larger already; nearly a third again the size of the last one.

“The smaller of the two is actually my control plant. I didn’t think to do it first… was kind of excited, really, to be playing with magic. That’s something I ever thought I’d be able to do, before.” He looks up at Vines. She’s clearly puzzled looking at the darker plant. Gently, she reaches down and gives it a little sniff and looks over the leaves.

“Your notes said you were trying to make this one… well, better for lack of a better term, right?”

“Yep.” With a proud smile, Cure explains, “Basically my theory is that, at least to some degree, magic is kind of an automatic thing. We don’t really have to understand every tiny detail when we’re using it. Unicorns might when they’re casting a spell, and that’s probably why most of them don’t learn to do anything but telekinesis and maybe one or two other spells. For earth ponies it’s more like a pegasus and their wings. They don’t necessarily have to think about how the magic is making them lighter or moving the air, or doing whatever it actually does that makes them able to fly. I’ve seen their wings move. It’s nowhere fast enough to generate enough lift to get a pony off the ground, so I don’t really know the exact mechanic there.”

Vines watches bemused as Cure scrawls “Pegasus flying - How???” on another page and looks up at her. “Still, you know what I mean, right? If you focus on what you’re trying to achieve and kind of direct your magic towards that goal then it should work. Now one thing I think makes a difference is if you have the underlying knowledge that you can use to map out exactly how it should work without magic. Does that make sense?”

At Vines’ hesitant nod Cure continues, “Just as an example, I want to use magic to be stronger. I focus on my magic, picture it flowing through my muscles with the intent to make them better. I might be a little stronger now, but what if I take that visualization to the next level? Instead of just thinking,” he switches to his caveman voice, “me pump in magic, me super stronk, lift big rock, get all da mares!” he grunts while flexing his forelegs. Vines is cracking up watching his act. “Instead, I think it would work better if I actually pictured the muscle fibers in my legs tightening up. I picture my lungs absorbing more oxygen. The blood, full of it now, channels through my arteries into the muscles. They absorb that air and tap into my fat stores for energy. Full of energy, bursting with all the fuel they need to explode, my muscles are pumped with magic now, mitochondria surging ready to get to work. If I visualize all that I’m betting I can get a lot more out of it, or use less magic doing so. I’ve filled in the gaps, told my magic more details about what I want to happen, so less is being used than if I just kind of flooded the whole area and said “do this”. Right?”

“Uhh… yeah. That makes sense honey. I think maybe your visualizations are a bit more detailed than I can usually do, though. I don’t even know what a micro tondia is, sweetie.”

“It’s part of your cells. It’s what powers them.”

“Cells?”

“Oh. Uhh… yeah. Let’s shelve that for now. Just really quickly, cells are what makes up a living organism. Walls are made of smaller stones; plants, animals, anything living are made up of trillions of tiny things called cells. Anyhow, let’s move on before we get too thick into it.”

“Cure I know you’re not meaning too, sweetie, but you got your dam feeling a little dumb over here,” Vines puts on a big pout and looks at her son.

“Oh stop that. I know a fake pout when I see one. You’re talking to someone that raised two kids and a granddaughter. It doesn’t work nearly as well when I have to look up at you, ya know? Besides, we all know you’re not dumb. I spent almost twenty years of my life in four different schools for my education. How many years of schooling did they put you through?”

“Twenty years? Oh… wow. That makes me feel better, at least. Normally ponies only go to school until they’re about fourteen or fifteen at the latest. Once a pony gets their cutie mark they normally go find a job or maybe go to school for something specific to it. Why in the world do they keep humans in school for two decades?”

“Age of Information, remember? Knowledge is power, dam. Sometimes very literally, like with magic, but on Earth if you want to be successful you normally have to progress your education to the point where you stand at the edge of understanding in your subject. That’s how a society progresses. Each generation takes everything the previous one does, starts there, and goes as far as they can beyond it. We start at age five or six. Kids that stop their schooling at eighteen are going to really struggle to make a living, but they should get by. Most go to 22 or 23, some beyond that. I had what’s called a bachelor’s degree at 23 and my master’s just a bit before I turned 25.”

Looking back down at his notes, Cure waves at the plants. “We got way off topic… again. I think I’m at fault on that one. So first I’ll show you what I did to get these first few plants germinating, then I’ll talk you through my later two experiments. That will probably make me a little tired, so I’ll kind of rest while I talk you through doing the same thing. Then how about we just do some regular work, get cleaned up for lunch, and then wrap up with a few more magic experiments before we call and get cleaned up for the day. Maybe we’ll have time for a nap before dinner. I suspect we’ll both be pretty tired by this afternoon.”

“That sounds really fun, honey. I’m super excited to learn how you did this.” She said as she motioned towards the darker plant. “If you’re right about this thing alone I could probably go to the market more often. I wonder if you can make melons juicier or sweeter too!”

“Good questions. Shame we can’t test them right away, but we should probably map out the garden and keep track of what we do where so we know what ends up being successful and what we can’t really pull off right now.”

Working together, Vines and Cure reproduce the layout of the garden in his notebook. The vast majority of it will remain normal plants, but with some stakes and twine Vines had in her shed they mark off areas where they can do some experiments.

It takes a little time and some meditative exercises, but within an hour of starting Vines is able to visualize her magic and get it flowing in the same way Cure was able to. He had to explain the cardiovascular system to her a few times, which was a bit more difficult without being able to see the blue veins running under his skin for examples, but using some ideas he ripped off of stupid, shitty xianxia stories about getting qi flowing he successfully got magic flowing to Vines’ hooves, back into her body, through her lungs, into her muscles, and just all over the place.

“Cure, baby… I want you to know right now, no matter what happens or what anyone tells you… I have never felt better in my entire life than I do right now. You have to be on to something. I feel like I could run up a mountain and back without breaking a sweat. I doubt I actually could, but I sure feel like it. This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced!” Vines exclaimed while looking her body all over.

Cure couldn’t actually see anything different about her, but he assumed she was feeling something like a runner’s high. He only experienced that once before, right around the two mile mark of a five K run. He was about twenty minutes in and, all the sudden it was like someone flipped his nitrous on. He didn’t take off by any means, but that incessant pounding of feet, the dull aching in his legs, the snot clogging his runny nose… it all just kind of vanished and, out of nowhere, he was gliding across the path instead of stomping its face in. He remembered that feeling the rest of his life, and from the look on his dam’s face she was getting that same endorphine kick.

“Dam? You’re still here with me, right? We didn’t fry your brain, did we?”

“HAH! No, baby, I just feel absolutely wonderful. Show me what’s next! This is so amazing!”

“It really is, isn’t it? This is what I meant when I said “we’re doing it wrong” last night. This right here is how you should always feel. Next we channel some of that energy flowing through your blood and we see if you can share it with some of your plants. Now, the cliché thing to do here is to overdo it and pass out, but we’re not some stupid scrubs, are we dam?”

“No we are not. We are champions, son!”

“You bet we are! Lets… grow stuff! Yeah!”

“Woo!”

“Okay, so the way I do it is I picture that flow going through me and I hold my hoof over the seeds or plant I’m wanting to work with. Your specialty is vining plants, so go real easy and just imagine you’re turning on the faucet a tiny, tiny bit to let some of that power flow out of you. Go ahead and show that plant whose boss, dam!”

Cure watched as Vines moved over to a section of melons they’d harvested the other day. They’d already put down some basic fertilizer and watered the area a bit. Ponies didn’t dump thousands of chemicals into their soil; just a bit to replace what was taken out by the last harvest. Eager to see what happens next, Cure moved off to the side. He had to hold back a laugh at the idea that the vines would all the sudden shoot at him and wrap him up like some bad hentai, but he kept a safe distance just in case. No way would he get in some fucked up magic accident like that. Still, unless his dam had some bizarre visuals going through her head he felt he was pretty safe.

Sure enough, his dam’s brilliant blue aura leaked slowly out of her left forehoof. It seeped into the ground, suffusing a large portion of the vines. An area about four meters on a side glowed with a beautiful aura a shade darker than his own coat. The change in the plants was slow and subtle, but he could see the vines extending and flowers budding all over. The aura slowly withdrew back into his dam and, with a pleased sigh it drew fully back into her. She turned and faced Cure with the biggest beaming smile he’d ever seen on her.

“Oh, honey. That was the most amazing feeling.” Vines unraveled her hooves from the now-covered ground. As she slowly made her way to her son, she said, “I haven’t felt like that since… well, honestly I’ve not felt like that since the first time they let me hold you after you were born.” Pausing to give him a thorough nuzzle, she continued, “It just felt… right. Like everything was right in the world. I just can’t believe it.” Laying in the dirt on her belly, she brings herself face-to-face with Cure. “I don’t know if we can keep this from everypony, baby. This should be shared with the world. For now we need to explore this, but promise me you won’t make me keep this to myself. Ponies need to know, Cure. They have to.”

“I know dam. We’ll get there eventually. How are you feeling? Tired?”

“A little. Not really. I could probably do that a few more times before I would need a break,” she says as she looks at the patch over her withers. “I can see why you said we’d need a nap later.”

Awkwardly, Cure looked his dam over. He wasn't completely sure she didn't get a little more pleasure from the experience than she was letting on, but he was more than happy to move on without asking his mom if she just came. "Not accusing here, or anything, but… uhh… you seem like you're maybe a little drunk. I think it's like a hormone release… kinda… thing. I don't think you'll get that same feeling every time though. That's probably a good thing."

Fucking fantastic. Now I'm picturing Celestia creaming her balcony every morning when she raises the sun. Paints the cheering crowd in a different light at her summer celebration though. Bet that would get the crowd in a party kinda mood. Thank you, God, for this prepubescent body not reacting at all.

"So I'm really proud of you, dam. I mean, these are all basically the first steps of a long journey, but I don't think most adults would just be okay with listening to the insane ramblings of a child, even their own. What you did out there today… that was amazing. I can't wait to show the others. Were you able to actually see your aura flowing in the vines? The area lit up like some kind of azure sunrise to me. It was beautiful. Magnificent, really."

Giggling, Vines wraps Cure up in a tight embrace. "I wish I could, sweetie, but no. I couldn't visually see it. I sure could feel it surrounding me, though. Thank you, my sweet magic colt."

As she sits up on her haunches she gently sets him down. "So we still have a lot of work to do. How about you take care of the plants you want to experiment on. I'll work on my namesake; cucumbers, melons, tomatoes and such. Then we can reseed the root plants like carrots and onions. I traded for some seeds yesterday and I know Title would be thrilled to have some fresh daffodils or daisies for her salads and sandwiches."

"Sounds good, dam. Love you."

"I love you too, sweetie," she said with a quick nuzzle, "let's get to work!"

And work they did. Cure repeated what he dubbed his "super plant" process with a variety of seeds. Spreading Vines did indeed live up to her namesake and easily got a week's work done throughout the day.

They broke for a quick scrub and lunch break around noon but we're back at it within a half hour.

By about three in the afternoon Vines declared their work done for the day. They put the few tools they needed away, stowed the supplies and leftover seeds in storage in the shed, and made their way into the house to get cleaned up.

Cure swore to himself that no matter what he is still going to be their little colt, with everything that comes with it. He knows the feeling of seeing a child grow up and no longer needing their parents. The last thing he would do is take that away from his family so early on. He's also aware enough to realize that he needs the love and support as much as anypony.

With all of that in mind he voices not one single objection to Vines babying and doting all over him, something she's absolutely thrilled to take advantage of. She carries him on her back like a proud momma, gets him in the tub, and proceeds to scrub them both from snout to tail, eartips to the bottom of their hooves.

It's quite possibly the happiest he's seen her… and, frankly, from the primate part of his brain, it was absolutely fucking adorable seeing a cute fuzzy pony in full-on momma mode.

If I could just record this shit and put it on Facebook or YouTube the whole internet would implode. Servers across the planet would literally melt from the entire collective of humanity slam clicking the replay button. Hell I'd even watch that shit. Those big, lovey eyes, the fuzzy wiggles, the cute squeaky noises. I'm going to die of severe hyperglycemia over here and, for all intents and purposes, I'm the victim in all this. God, no wonder every girl ever wanted a pony for Christmas. Hasbro has no idea what they unleashed.

Once they were cleaned, dried, and thoroughly groomed Vines carried Cure to bed and wrapped around him. They have both exhausted themselves, more magically than physically, so within minutes there are two snoring ponies cuddling in his room.