Mandatory Motherhood: Short Stories

Egghead

It was past midnight and as usual, the nightmares had cut Chris’s sleep short. She chewed on a piece of toast while levitating several metal puzzles, a book on the unicorn language,
while conjuring an orb of light. Colgate had recently taught her this spell as the objects she levitated were no longer exploding.

It was a struggle not only to levitate multiple objects at the same time but to read and manipulate them as well. Every so often she would lose control and everything would fall to the floor, so she made sure she practiced in the living room over a plush rug to muffle the noise she would inevitably cause especially since Starla could be difficult to get back to sleep if something other than Starla herself woke her up.

After a while Chris found herself having difficulty with trying to pronounce weather in the unicorn language. It was irritating her to no end and her levitation began to falter. She was pushed over the proverbial cliff as the voice in her head decided to speak up. ”Hey Chris, I got to thinking…”

Everything fell to the floor with a plop and Chris growled. “What? You know how to pronounce the word correctly and you're going to rub it in my ears?” Chris’s ears wagged around angrily as she huffed in frustration.

There was a silence in Chris’s head for a moment before the sounds of something such as ‘tsk tsk’ came from the voice. “No, the dialect differs from what I know. I just had an idea about your ability to overcharge spells.”

Chris sighed and looked towards the blinking time displayed on the microwave. “I have gotten over that, could we please let it go?”

The voice chuckled and Chris felt as if it was trying to shake a non-existent head. “I understand that you silly child. What I mean is you could possibly use it to your advantage.”

Chris groaned and rolled her eyes. “I know two spells. Just two. Am I supposed to make flowers burst apart or something?”

She could tell the voice had burst out laughing and she had visions of flower fields just bursting apart sending pollen and petals all over the place. ”Oh goodness no! As entertaining as that would be you would just wreck the scenery and the source of food for bees. Go on create that light orb again.”

Chris grumbled and with a quick burst of magic from her horn the orb reappeared. “It’s light, you want me to make it brighter? It doesn’t put out any heat you know, it’s just light.”

The voice in Chris’s head sounded almost giddy now. “Oh it’s been far too long since I have taken part in experimentation! Or remember how long ago it was. Anyways, come on. You can think of what a bright light can do right?”

Chris rolled her eyes. “I guess other than blinding myself?” She thought for a moment then smirked. “Actually yeah. If this works I’ll have stolen a move from Krillan.” She began purposely pouring more magic into the light orb.

The voice sounded confused. “That Character from the foreign cartoon thing you like? What does that have to do with this?”

Chris simply smirked and pushed in more causing the light to brighten further becoming very intense now. “If you didn’t figure it out from spying on my memories then you will soon.”

As the light intensified to the point of blinding Chris spoke out the words “solar flare.”

Chris had spots in her eyes and was a little wobbly from the suddenly intense light, letting the orb fade back to its normal glow. The voice hummed as it tried to find what Chris was talking about then made a ‘hmmm’ sound. “I guess it’s the same in theory except the name doesn’t fit since a solar flare would incinerate everything it touched. The light you made still wasn’t as bright as what that character did.”

Chris smirked. “Fair enough on both points. Let's try it now.” Chris let the floodgates open and the orb’s light grew blinding within moments. Cracking sounds began to fill the fair as it reached cornea-burning levels.

The voice began to get worried. “Chris, maybe we should stop and do this outside. Preferably with the orb away from your-.”

There was a sudden loud bang and strobe of blinding light as the orb fractured and blew up.

Immediately Starla began to bawl from the bedroom and Amore started to howl. Colgate came out carrying Starla on her back as the baby foal cried in terror from the loud noise. “Chris, what happen… -ed?” She found Chris rolling around on the floor clutching her ears and eyes shut tight.

Chris just kept rolling on the floor for some time, she realized exactly what she had just turned the light orb spell into, and regretted doing this experiment.

Colgate managed to settle Starla down and return to bed before Chris recovered. Chris had managed to make out the blurry but angry face of Colgate before she left and she knew that She was going to get chewed out in the morning. But this might be worth it.