3rd Person POV

“Oh yeah right there….” Is sputtered out with a shaky voice. “You don’t have to be so gentle I’m not made of glass. There you go, just like that… mmf.”

“Luna I swear to god if anyone heard you right now they would not think this is a massage. Are you intentionally phrasing things like that?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. What else could they possibly confuse this for? I must say though, I didn’t think you’d pick up this art so quickly. All the stress on my fetlocks and the aches on my pastern joints are completely melting away.”

“I wouldn’t say I picked up on it fast, more like I just rolled high for the ability check.”

The alicorn pulls her foreleg away from the elf and just looks content with a soft smile. “As promised, I'll allow you to work on your spell scrolls now.”

“Perfect. While I’m doing this though, do you want a full run down on all my spells and their limitations? That whole situation where you lost invisibility was pretty brutal and I think we should avoid something like that in the future. Figured the easiest way would be to just cover everything, and who knows you might even have some creative uses for my spells that I haven’t thought of.”

“I doubt I’ll remember every intricacy but it’s a good idea. Will that not distract you from your scribe learning though?” Ignis can tell she’s truly relaxed because normally she raises her head when she speaks, but right now half of Luna’s face is squished against the bedroll and she’s just following him with her eyes. The image isn’t too dissimilar to someone just collapsed on a bed after a particularly long day. Completely limp.

“No, it should be fine. Besides, it won’t take that long to go over everything anyways. Just keep in mind that although some of these spells are in my spellbook I don’t actively have them prepared and memorized. This also doesn’t include spells that I can cast thanks to the Mizzium Apparatus, but if I listed all of those it’d take several hours.”

Luna activates her horn and conjures up a black book with a crescent moon on the center of the front outer cover and a quill. “Alright I’m ready.”

“So first off are the cantrips, you’ve heard me refer to spells by level numbers like a level 1 or level 5 spell, but cantrips aren’t considered leveled spells. This is great because it means they are an unlimited resource, I can cast them as many times as I want whenever I want. The two you’re probably most familiar with are Booming Blade and Fire Bolt.”

“Yes, booming blade I believe is when you imbue your sword with some type of lightning magic. If the target moves a few steps right after being struck they’re assaulted by the same magic for a second time. Fire Bolt is actually the same thing as our Fire Bolt, so that one is easy.”

“Yup you mostly got it, Booming Blade enhances the strike with Thunder damage and if they move 5ft within the same turn, which is usually 6 seconds by the way, they actually get hit with a slightly stronger dose of that Thunder magic.” Things continue like this as Ignis explains Mage Hand and Prestidigitation, but after hearing what the Guidance cantrip can do she interrupts the elf.

“What exactly are these skills and ability checks? I know your power involves a set of dice that only you can see and the outcome of certain events is determined based on the roll, but are these skills quantifiable?”

This ends up leading into a 30 minute detour where Ignis explains what all of the different skills are, what proficiency and expertise are, and how those things affect the ability check. Once she gets a firm grasp on what ability checks are she can’t help but be surprised. “Why do you not use Guidance more often? That sounds incredibly useful! You could use it when convincing my sister of something or when you’re trying to tell if someone is lying or…or even just looking around and scanning our environment!”

Ignis gets a bit of a sheepish look as he scratches his cheek in embarrassment. “You’re not entirely wrong, it's definitely something I should be using more often. However using it for dialogue or convincing is… problematic. It requires an incantation and a hand gesture, and it’s not exactly subtle. You’d have to pre-emptively cast the spell before meeting with the person. I mean if we were talking and I suddenly just cast a random spell that made my body glow slightly for a few seconds would you proceed with the conversation like nothing just happened?”

“Ah I see, you hadn’t even mentioned incantations and hand gestures yet, do all of your spells require that?”

“For the most part, yeah. There are a few that only require hand gestures or only require verbal incantations, but usually both are needed. Booming Blade is an example of a spell that doesn’t require an incantation, but I do have to wave my hand over the entire length of the blade for the magic to imbue.”

They continued on like that with Ignis explaining the intricacies and downfalls of his capabilities and Luna asking for clarification or suggesting a different usage. At some point the alicorn sat up properly while taking notes, and as the elf got further along into the explanations he started to pay attention to his spell scrolls less and less. Spending more time showing off examples of the different hand motions and telling stories about certain spells and how he used them in the different campaigns he played as a human. Without realizing it the two of them slowly moved closer and closer together between demonstrations and stories.

“Ah so Greater Invisibility allows you to attack and spellcast while retaining your invisibility but you’re unable to target multiple creatures with it even if you cast it at a higher level.” Luna adds to the increasingly long section of notes in her personal book.

“Yeah exactly, if 5th level Greater Invis allowed me to apply it to both of us I would’ve done that instead, but for some reason you gain no benefit from upcasting it.” Suddenly the elf notices something peculiar through the opening of the tent. “Wait…. when did the sun come up? I didn’t think this would take longer than an hour or two. Have we really been going over these all night?”

“It would appear so… you still have a few more to cover right?”

“Yeah, I’ve got 4 more. They’re all pretty simple though. Locate Creature lets me know the general direction of the target as long as they’re within 1000ft, but it requires me to have seen the target or type of creature within 30ft at least once.”

“What do you mean by “type of creature?”” Luna asks while scribbling into the book.

“Instead of specifying a specific target I can configure the spell to locate the nearest Alicorn or Dragon or Unicorn. As long as I’ve seen that type of creature up close at least once. This spell is actually how I got to you so fast in the changeling hive. The last 4th level spell is Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere. It’s a very niche spell, and if I had the Mizzium back then I wouldn’t have picked this spell. It’s a spell I wanted to always have in my back pocket, just in case.”

“How does it differ from your normal Shield spell?”

“It encloses the target completely in a shimmering sphere, and nothing can pass through the barrier. No objects, no energy, no spell effects, in or out. You won’t run out of air to breathe though. I wanted to always have it ready so in the worst case scenario I could put you in the sphere and launch you away. It only lasts for a minute, but it’s basically completely indestructible. It will be destroyed if it’s hit with a Disintegrate spell, though.”

“I’m not particularly fond of how many back up plans you have that involve sacrificing yourself to save me.” She mutters quietly while staring at the spellbook.

“Well nothing says I’d be sacrificing myself. I could cast invisibility after I launch you and make my own escape. Regardless I’d just rather have them and not need them, than need them and not have them. If it helps then don’t think of it as me sacrificing myself, rather we have exhausted every possible resource and plan that we could come up with and both of our deaths are imminent. That Ursa basically pushed us to that point, and if my Hold Monster spell didn’t stick there’s only one plan that would’ve worked. Which honestly terrifies me. First the colosseum and now last night… I’m too reliant on luck.”

“I can’t think of any spell or scenario you’ve described tonight that would’ve evacuated me from the situation. What was it?”

“I’d rather not say. I know you would resent me for it if I ever have to enact that plan.”

“I won’t command you, but it’d be more beneficial for you to share it. There’s a chance the plan is flawed or there’s a factor you hadn’t considered.”

“If the Hold Monster didn’t stick I was going to offer Nightmare whatever she wants to help us.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence for several seconds after the admission.

“Ignis. Before I give you my thoughts on that plan, I just have one question. Why would you be willing to go so far for me, yet you refuse to permanently stay in Equestria? Why would you condemn yourself to corruption and death, and refuse to stay and live with me in the same breath?”

The elf glances to his left and sees tears welling up in her eyes and realizes that at some point the two of them moved closer together. Reaching out he gently wipes the tears away with his thumb. “If someone told me the only way for me to go home would be for you to die, then I’d be just as happy to stay here. I don’t want you to die, that’s the difference. Do you want me to stay that badly? I didn’t think it’d make you this upset, in fact I don’t think I’ve seen you emotional like this since the night of your return.”

She leans into his palm. “It’d be a lie if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that wants you to stay. However, that’s not why I got emotional. I… never thought I’d have somepony besides Tia that would be willing to go so far just for me, and” With a pause she lets out a huge sigh, “I still don’t think I deserve it.”

“Good thing it’s not up to you. Can you grab us some of that palace food and after we eat I can cover these last two spells?”

Luna pulls away from the elf's hand and ignites her horn teleporting in their dinner. Once they finish eating Ignis starts to explain both of his level 5 spells, but halfway through the final spell he feels a sudden weight fall against him. Looking to his left he can’t help but softly smile at the sleeping princess leaning against him. “I guess her body is still physically exhausted. That’s why we didn’t continue marching today, after all. Now how do I move her without waking her up?” Ignis thinks to himself.

After a few minutes he comes up with a plan. Using his new telekinesis he holds her in place so he can lean away and wrap her left arm around her. Slowly leaning back and laying down until the elf is lying down on his back with his arm holding Luna as her head rests on his chest.

“24 hours from now we’ll be on a freezing cold mountain… hopefully it’s less eventful than this god forsaken forest.” Is the last thing that goes through the bladesingers head as his eyes shut and sleep takes him.

Author's Note

Warm fuzzies.

I know this is a short chapter considering it's been like 3 days since the last chapter, but incase it wasn't obvious chapters like this are not my forte so it takes me a lot longer for me to write stuff like this. Mostly due to rewrites, I basically end up re-reading all of the dialogue and try to break it down to look for any contradictions or illogical statements. I know I probably still missed a couple of things, but I'm trying to keep the characters values and flaws consistent. Anyways, enough excuses about why I'm dogshit at writing dialogue/character development chapters. I promise to make up for it with a longer-ish chapter tomorrow.

Thanks for reading <3