This Art Has Been In My Family For Generations

by AppleTank

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 4586

Twilight learns some things about her friend's family traditions

After an offhand comment, Twilight realizes that her friends each practice little known, ancient traditions, and goes to learn about them.

Several thousand words of me rambling about worldbuilding ideas that I'm mad isn't more common, or something I thought would be funny.

Published 2024-10-03 05:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-11-30 05:49:24 UTC

1) Rarity: Dance of the Blade

"Oh Rarity, look at this!"

Twilight pulled her head out of the shipping box with a book floating in her magic. Shining Armor had sent her a stipment of books the Canterlot Library was replacing with new editions, of which Twilight had asked if she could take them in for Golden Oak's shelves.

"This one says, 'Treatises of Unicornian Martial Arts, 450'," Twilight said. She flipped to the foreword. "Huh, there's a second version for bombardment spells, this one's for personal defense? To be honest I've focused more on transfiguration and conjuration during my studies, so I'm not as well versed in evocation as much as I like."

Rarity raised an eyebrow from her seat at the table. "You seemed to pick up my gem finding spell quickly enough."

"I mean, my speciality is Magic," Twilight said with a grin, flipping her mane. "I can pick up just about any spell if I put my mind to it. Artificing is my actual weakness." She flipped to the table of contents. "Wards, traps, reinforcement, oh! Bladecasting! I've heard about this before, but finding historical documents on sword forms is difficult, and blade construction is downright impossible."

Rarihy hummed as she lifted her sketch to the sky light. It depicted Twilight decked out in armor, the beginnings of a sword floating over head. She took a sip of tea. "It's been a while since I've heard of bladecasting too — ack."

Squee, boop, flutter

"You have!?" Twilight exclaimed, wings buzzing and her face taking up Rarity's entire field of view.

Rarity carefully pushed her marefriend's nose away from her face. "Is it too late to pretend you never heard that?" she asked.

Twilight nodded, eyes still glittering.

Rarity sighed. "Well I was initially going to keep this a surprise, but might as well do this now," she said eventually. She drained the rest of her tea. "Come on then, darling, we might as well take this back to my Boutique."

"I'm not sure how many families still keep up this practice," Rarity explained, "but many generations back on my father's side, we used to be Knights of a sort. I'll have to look into some family history for the exact name, but that isn't relevant for now. Eventually the knights were disbanded, our services no longer required, but we weren't restricted from keeping up our art.

"The casting of the Blade is a rather personal process, and so each former knight kept that knowledge with them as they went back to civilian life. I doubt they have all kept up the practice, but they may have kept diaries or journals at least. My family has continued to teach at least one of each generation to learn how to cast and fight with our Blades."

They were entering Carousel Boutique now, quiet with Sweetie Belle out with the Crusaders.

"Does your sister know too?" Twilight asked.

"When the dear gets more stable with her multiple element control," Rarity said. "It's partly how I got so precise with my sewing—"

"Sweetie Belle practices with needles?"

"Heavens, no," Rarity replied, grimacing. "What I meant is that the skill is transferable, I have her practice with the low grade gemstones from my digs. When I was younger i juggled my pencils. Keeping myself from constantly breaking the tips was enough of a motivation for me to keep away from practicing nor anything I didn't want poked, including myself."

The pair worked up the stairs into Rarity's bedroom. Rarity's horn glowed, pulling a long wooden case out. The latches flipped up, and the lid opened. “May I introduce you ... to Elusive.”

Twilight gasped in delight as Rarity floated the nearly translucent blade out. “Here, take it,” she said. Twilight’s fascination missed the slight quirk to Rarity’s lips.

Twilight’s horn flashed, then she wheezed in shock at the sudden resistance, nearly falling over. Her horn blazed, gaining a second layer as she barely managed to stop the pointed end from stabbing Rarity’s bed. She quickly sat down to cradle it with her forehooves instead. “What ... what was that?”

“It’s part of the process that attunes a Blade to its wielder,” Rarity explained. Her magic danced over Elusive and lifted it off Twilight’s hooves with barely an effort, orbiting above her head. “It makes the Blade react as if it’s a part of yourself, and makes it much harder for an opposing Bladecaster to disrupt your control. For most ponies, they wouldn’t be able to do more than wiggle it a little.”

With Rarity now controlling the blade, Twilight stood back up to peer at Elusive with a closer eye. “Say, isn’t there supposed to be more blade parts?” She glanced down to check the sword case, but there was nothing there.”

“They’re all here: watch this.” To Twilight’s delight, seams appeared out of nowhere along the blade, and broke apart into ten pieces, dancing over her back without a twitch from Rarity. “As you might assume, the more segments, the more difficult it is to control them without losing your ability to focus on the world around you. My limit is about fourteen, but I basically lose my ability to walk.” The blade reconstituted itself and hovered back to Rarity’s side. She plucked it out of the air with her hoof and peered through it to wink at Twilight. “I dropped down to ten for practicality reasons, I didn’t really have much reason to push to my limits. If I was, Celestia forbid, a bodyguard, I might try to get twelve at least.”

Twilight smiled and clapped her hooves. “That’s extremely impressive, Rarity. Thanks for showing this to me. Though, that reminds me, what were you going to surprise me with?”

Rarity blushed. “Ah, well. I was going to ask if you wanted to cast a Blade of your own?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that for me,” Twilight said, cheeks pinking too as she looked away and rubbed her neck.

“But darling,” Rarity said, smiling, Elusive floating underneath Twilight’s chin and gently lifting her face up to look into her eyes, “for my sweetheart, anything.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, Twilight’s eyes glittering. Rarity’s face lit aflame, she dropped her blade and put her face inbetween her hooves. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Twilight blinked, snorted, then started to shake with laughter. She stepped over to her marefriend’s side and pulled her close, patting her back, giggling all the while.

Rarity blindly tossed Elusive back into its case, standing up and refusing to look in Twilight’s direction. “Oh my, look at the time! I hear Applejack has a very interesting family history to learn about!”

“Sure, Rarity.”

2) Applejack: Land Shark

“Morning, Applejack!”

“Mornin’ Rares, Twi.” Applejack caught a falling apple on her back and slipped it into a basket. “What brings you around?”

Twilight coughed, but Rarity held her mouth shut. “Twilight here wanted to know about the Apple family’s relation with Ponyville’s plumbing system.”

Applejack squinted. Rarity’s grin became slightly strained, a bead of sweat going down her brow. “Hmm,” Applejack said. Then, she brightened up, flicking her hat back. “Why, this is a skill us Apples have practiced for generations!”

Twilight rolled her eyes at Rarity’s antics, and pushed her marefriend’s hoof down. “That sounds amazing, Applejack. What is it?”

“Instead of explaining, how about I just show you?” With a smirk, Applejack bowed, holding her hat to her chest. When she straightened back up, however, her hat stayed in the same spot while the rest of the mare disappeared below the hat.

Twilight starred with incomprehension at the hat sitting on the ground without its mare anywhere nearby. The hat started sliding towards her. “Eep!”

“Hup.”

“Gah!” Twilight jumped into the air. Rarity snorted as she stepped to the side.

Applejack climbed out of the ground behind the unicorns, flipping her hat back onto her head. “So, what do you think?”

Twilight stared at the tiny hole Applejack brushed over. “...How? What?”

“Its a technique us Apples have used to set up and maintain our farms,” Applejack explains proudly. “Y’know how sand kinda, floats, if you blow air through it? We’ve taught each generation to cover ourselves in this flowin’ air pocket. We push the air through the soil until they start bouncing around enough to fall through like quicksand.”

“Wow, that’s amazing!” Twilight said.

“Yup. Many generations back, we learned this in order to manage irrigation when access to pegasus rain was scarce. Softening up the soil made it easy to divert waters from the nearby rivers, open or close the path as needed.

“When Granny first got here to set up Ponyville, she brought her knowledge of manipulating irrigation canals with her when the first ponies were planning Ponyville’s plumbing system. She offered her skills in order to loosen a path for the pipes to be laid.

“The hard part is bringing something along with you. Loosening the soil around yourself is easy, but anything longer than your own body length gets you stuck tighter than a pig in a barrel. She had needed help digging up more of the dirt than she expected to, but still heck of a lot faster than shovels alone.”

Twilight smiled and stamped her hooves. “That’s extremely inciteful, Applejack. Thanks for telling us.”

“Aw, shucks, that ain’t nothing,” Applejack said, rubbing her neck, blushing slightly. “If you want to see something wild, you should go visit Rainbow.”

3) RD: The Equine Weapon

Rainbow Dash slammed the door to her room, breathing heavily.

Twilight pulled her face out of the cloud floor. “Bwuh?” she asked.

“Where did you hear that?” Rainbow demanded.

“Rainbow, darling, we don’t know what you’re asking about?” Rarity asked. “Applejack just told us that you had ‘a cool family heirloom’?”

“Well I guess it’s pretty cool — no wait.” Rainbow rubbed her forehead. “I, uh, don’t know what this cool thing is, but it’s very awesome of you to think it was me.”

Her strained grin wasn’t very convincing.

“Ah yes, I clearly got the wrong pony,” Rarity said. “But as long as you’re here, we’re interested in learning about this cool skill this hypothetical friend of ours has. Twilight here –“

“Hi.”

“– has been eager to learn about each of our friends’, hypothetical or otherwise, family traditions to get to know each other better.”

Rainbow felt her head get magnetically drawn to Twilight’s face. Twilight obligingly returned her best puppy dog eyes.

Rainbow Dash winced. “Fine! Fine. As long as we all understand that this supposed very cool friend isn’t here, so we never have to bring it up again.”

“I shan’t dream of it, darling,” Rarity said.

“My lips are sealed.” Twilight added, nodding very eagerly.

“Right. Ok. So.” Rainbow sat down and raised an arm. “I’m an Equine Weapon.” Her foreleg lit up in a riotous lightshow of electricity.

“Way, way back then, the pegasi of fortress city Derecho wanted to create an equal to the Warrior Knights of the Unicorns.”

Gasp. “Like Rarity’s family?”

“What?”

Rarity waved a hoof. “Later.”

“… Sure. So, unicorns mostly shoot their magic outside their horns, yeah?”

“Does self-levitation count?”

A glare.

“Sorry, please continue.”

“Where was I? Right, so the pegasi decided that trying to compete in their specialty was a losing prospect, so they decided to focus on maximizing a pegasus’s natural strength in speed and body magic. The idea they came up with was to turn the pony herself into a weapon. I don’t really understand what they did, but they were able to fuse a weapon into the pony, and let them swap whenever they wanted. Wasn’t intentional, but they found out that the Weapons’ kids were Weapons too.

“Anyways, the Weapon ponies quickly figured out that turning yourself into a weapon made it kinda hard to move around, so they were paired with a wielder. Being able to vibe with the pony waving you around was pretty important, so they usually had to be close friends, yadda yadda, combat pair. Long story short, my dad passed this down to me.”

“That’s very cool, Rainbow!” Twilight said. “Can you show us?”

“Say, I do know how to use a blade,” Rarity added, raising a hoof. “I admit some interest in what a living sword is like.”

Rainbow Dash rolled the idea in her head for a bit. “Sure, why not. Think fast.” She dive rolled at Rarity.

The unicorn yelped as Rainbow exploded in light. She stuck her hooves out, and was surprised as a colorful ribbon twirled onto her foreleg. The hilt settled comfortably, and Rarity marveled and the buzzing thunderstorm held in the frog of her hoof. Stripes of the rainbow danced up the blade, sending glittering lights throughout the room.

As Rarity experimented with a few sword forms, Twilight asked, “Hey, is the Wielder Weapon pairing still being practiced?”

The lighting blade abruptly transformed back into a pony, flopping onto the ground. Rarity yelped as she realized she still had Rainbow’s tail tied onto her foreleg. Rainbow groaned face first into the floor. “It’s ... Fluttershy.”

4) Fluttershy: Thunderstruck

“Her rump!” Rarity wailed. “I was holding her by her tail!”

“We’ll get that off your mind soon enough,” Twilight said, trying to hold back laughter. “That’s why we’re bringing that along with us to Fluttershy’s.”

The unicorns were going down the path to Fluttershy’s out of the way cottage. Rarity had a long, wrapped training sword strapped onto her back. “If all goes well, you might get a little HEMA* club going in Ponyville!

*(Historical Equine Martial Arts)

Rarity grumbled, but stood by as Twilight went to knock on the cottage door. “Hello? Fluttershy, it’s me, Twilight.”

It was only a moment before Twilight could hear hooves moving up to the door. The top half of the door inched open. “Oh hi, Twilight. Is something the matter?”

“No monsters, evil overlords, we just heard something about your family from Rainbow Dash and we wanted to learn a little more about it!”

“Uhh.” Flutteshy’s eyes darted over to Rarity’s grumpy face.

“Don’t mind her, she’s had a bit of a rough morning.”

“...Okay. I’ll, um, start the tea.”

Fluttershy placed the teapot down with her wings. Rarity and Twilight sat opposite of her, Rarity’s wrapped packaged set leaning against the couch. “So, um, what did you two want to ask about?”

“We heard from Rainbow that you had some natural skill that paired well with her?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy stared. Twilight smiled back, waiting patiently. Fluttershy glanced around, a bead of sweat dripping down her face. Rarity was still glaring at her tea.

“Um. I can sew very well.”

“...What?” Twilight said.

Rarity snorted tea out of her nose. “Bwah?”

Rarity and Twilight watched as Fluttershy put an old quilt onto a table, a small tear along the bottom corner. Her sewing kit was then brought out, well worn with regular use. Curiously she also had a large foam block with a bunch of small holes in the middle.

Once her tools were set, Fluttershy picked up the threaded needle. The unicorn mares leaned in closely. Fluttershy spread the cloth out on top of the foam block. She glanced awkwardly at the pair one more time, then ...

“Oooh,” Twilight said.

Between Fluttershy’s hooves, the needle levitated back and forth, almost like the mechanical sewing machine Rarity had at her Boutique.

Rarity’s eyebrows raised. “Your control is amazing, dear. You’ve done this often?”

“I’ve had lots of practice,” Fluttershy said. “At first it was to mend Rainbow’s bags, she got them torn so often during flight school. When I ended up in Ponyville, I ended up using my talent for stitches.” To demonstrate, she lifted a hoof and had the needle orbit her foreleg. “Electrokinesis. My dad had the ability too, but he never had much skill in it outside pushing around storm clouds from a distance.”

“Can I try?” Twilight asked, making a grabbing gesture at the needle with her horn glowing.

“Um, sure?”

Twilight’s magic wrapped around the needle and tried pulling it. To her surprise, it barely moved, it was like trying to lift a steel brick stuck to a neodymium magnet. Fluttershy started sliding across the carpet before even moving the needle. “What’s with ponies being able to completely negate my magic these days?” she muttered.

“What?”

“Oh nothing.” She stood up. “Well, thanks for sharing Fluttershy. Rarity, off to the next pony.”

“Sounds great.”

Fluttershy led the mares to the door. After giving them each a hug and a promise to see each other soon, the unicorns left the cottage. The pegasus remained standing at the doorway, staring blankly. After a minute of silence, she slowly backed away.

She wiped her forehead. “Phew, that was close.”

Rarity’s hoof kicked the door open. “Hold on, that wasn’t what we came for!”

Fluttershy groaned, slouching. “Oh, no.”

The three mares were in the field behind the cottage. Surprisingly Fluttershy still kept her practice swords buried in a closet. The pegasus sighed underneath the face mask as she wrapped the hilt’s ribbon around her foreleg.

“Are you ready?” Twilight asked, levitating a small flag.

“Yes,” Rarity said, flourishing her weapon.

“If I have to,” Fluttershy responded.

“Then ...” The flag snapped down. “Go!”

Rarity levitated her sword in a low guard, squinting over the hilt at the pegasus. Fluttershy seemed mostly resigned, her own sword held vaguely forwards position. Quickly determining that Fluttershy had zero interest in making the first move, or any move really, she shuffled around in a circle. Fluttershy simply responded by turning with her.

Rarity frowned at Fluttershy’s complete lack of aggression. Then again, this wasn’t all that surprising. She lunged, then feinted to her other side. Her blade darted in an arc around Fluttershy’s guard.

“Eep!” the pegasus meeped, a hoof rising to protect her face. To Rarity’s surprise, despite the pegasus’s self imposed blindness, she still caught her strike. Another flurry of strikes were equally parried. Frustrated, she put all her weight into a heavy overhead swing.

Fluttershy skipped backwards, wings spread. A crackling energy filled the air, making Rarity’s every hair stand on end. Fluttershy blurred. A massive impact jolted through her magical grip, making her stumble onto her face.

As she pulled herself out of the dirt trench, she found her sword buried halfway up the blade.

“Oh dear, I didn’t expect to hit you that hard,” Fluttershy said, floating down to her side. “Are you alright?”

Rarity spat dirt out of mouth. “Again.”

The second time around, Rarity advanced much more cautiously. All of Fluttershy’s moves were mostly defensive in nature. Instead of quick, darting blows, Rarity just thrusted and prodded around Fluttershy’s guard. Despite sometimes not even keeping her eyes open, every swing was parried perfectly, though every step Fluttershy took was backwards. Rarity hummed in thought. What if she ...

Rarity ducked low and swept for the legs. Fluttershy eeped and hopped up. Her wings flared, and that buzzing static surged once more. Since Rarity wasn’t as close this time, she only felt a heavy pressure against her magical grip. Instead, Fluttershy seemed to defy gravity slowly arcing backwards. Then she tripped over a small mound and tumbled head over heels.

“You’re not ... terrible,” Rarity concluded, raising her face mask. “Awfully defensive, but I can see what you can do with it, even with my inexperience with a single blade. Was that Rainbow’s only issue?”

Fluttershy sighed as she picked herself up. “I think you misunderstood, I’m not just defensive. I, um, don’t attack. Like. At all. Every pony at the youth camps quickly figured out they could just prod me out of bounds. Like what you just did. I’m hopeless.”

Twilight scratched her chin. “I can see why Rainbow Dash finds that frustrating.”

“I refuse to accept your mediocrity.” Rarity narrowed her eyes. “We’ll make you a swordsmare yet.”

“Eep!”

5) Pinkie Pie: Gummy Gummy no Pony

The unicorn pair were invited up into Pinkie’s room, the pink mare herself vibrating to a concerning hum and grinning brightly. “Rarity, I know you hoped for something a little more normal, but I don’t think we really should’ve expected this from Pinkie.”

“Hope dies last, dearest,” Rarity sighed. “Well? What is it, Pinkie? What’s your family tradition?”

“I’m a Gummy pony!”

She was greeted with two blank stares. “Like, bubblegum?” Twilight ventured.

“No, silly.” Pinkie reached ... somewhere, and pulled out her pet alligator. “Gummy!”

Rarity’s eye twitched slightly.

Twilight leaned forwards and tried squinting at her hooves. “Are you ... hiding some sort of reptile ancestry?”

Pinkie scratched her chin. “Hmm. Maybe! If you go back far enough we all have a common ancestor, y’know.”

The mares stared at each other, two in somewhat confused silence.

“So ... is that it?” Rarity asked.

Pinkie squeezed Gummy slightly, and to the two unicorns’ surprised, fangs popped out of the alligator’s mouth. “Gummy is the Pie family’s totem animal!”

“Sweet Celestia, what—?”

“And after he bit me, it let me do this,” Pinkie said cheerfully, reaching a hoof into the side of her mouth. Then, she pulled. To Twilight’s horrified fascination, and Rarity’s mild nausea, Pinkie’s cheek stretched several hoof-widths wide.

“Waaay back when Pinkie was a little filly, my Granny Pie showed up at the farm after I got my cutie mark to show Gummy to me. Granny Pie was a party pony herself, the art skipped my Mom, you see. Gummy is only passed from Party Pie to Party Pie, and when I learned about that, I exploded, twice!

“Turns out, I needed Gummy to bite me to pass on the boon, now I keep him around to keep him safe, and he’s a great listener! He also taught me what new fun things I can do. Mainly, it lets me become stretchy! I can stretch my leg like thisssss. I can stretch my head like thisssss. I can inflate myself like a balloon if I do this. inhale, blows into hoof “Woowee, that always makes me a bit dizzy.

“The most important advice Gummy told me was to think creatively! ‘There are no bad Gummy ponies, just uncreative ones,’ he said. So I’m going to be the most creative pony there is! I just have to think about balloons. I can stretch, inflate, twist, bounce, float, fly, twirl, explode, spin, shrink....”

Pinkie smiled as she finished her explanation. Rarity was a bit green around her cheeks. “Here, try it out!” the pink mare offered. Twilight took Pinkie’s offered hoof, and pulled. And pulled. And pulled until she stretched across the entire room. “How … I mean, does this feel strange?”

“I dunno! I’ve been like this for over a decade, so it’s kinda hard to tell what’s normal. This probably isn’t though.” Pinkie proceeded to tie her forearm into a balloon dog. Rarity started to look a little faint.

“I guess that’s how you made yourself so buoyant?” Twilight ventured.

“Yeah!” Pinkie agreed. “I could just breathe in helium, but that makes my voice all funny! Great for party tricks, not that great for long conversations without passing out. Nah, for that I blow it straight into my bones.”

Now Twilight had to blink a few times. “...Bones?”

“You gotta express confidence, y’know?” Pinkie waved her balloon dog arm. “I think of myself as a balloon, and so can treat myself like a balloon. It doesn’t work if you think too hard about it.”

Twilight gulped. She looked somewhat pained, but forced herself to ask, “... Is Pinkie sense related?”

Pinkie blew into her hoof, somehow producing a downwards pointing nub on the end. “Nope!”

Twilight stuck her face into her hooves and groaned.

6) Twilight: Twilit Hunter

Rarity closed the door to the library behind her. “That was an interesting few days,” she commented.

“I know!” Twilight said. “I have so many new things about my friends to learn.”

As the purple unicorn went to set some tea, Rarity asked. “Actually, there is one pony we’ve never talked to.”

“Hm?”

“You, of course.”

The stove flame lit. “Huh, you’re right.”

Rarity shimmied over to the reading table and put her head on her hooves. “Well then? What’s your story?”

“I’m not sure how much mine count,” Twilight laughs awkwardly. “I had to steal Mom’s diary to get her to tell her what she was about.”

“Twilight!”

“She shouldn’t have tried to hide it in a bookshelf! Anyways. I don’t even really practice anyways.”

“You know you’re only making me curious.”

“Fine! Fine.” Twilight levitates the teapot over to the table. She wiggles her hoof. “How to explain. It’s a ... technique? That lets me affect a certain type of monster. It’s kinda useless for anything else.”

Rarity raises an eyebrow as she sips from her teacup. “So, it’s some sort of internal thing, dear?”

“I’m ... not sure you’ll see anything, if I can even do it right. It’s been years.” Twilight closes her eyes and focuses on her breathing.

After a few minutes, Rarity asks, “Is it—”

A subtle glow emanates around her, bathing the library floor in sourceless light. After a few seconds, the glow fades.

“... That’s it?”

Twilight opened her eyes. “Well it literally doesn’t do anything if there’s no vampires to use it on, so—” Twilight noticed Rarity’s eyes bulging out of her face. “Ah. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

“Vampires!?” Rarity exclaimed, flailing her hooves in Twilight’s general direction.

“I didn’t want to bring it up because it’s not something to worry about,” Twilight protested. “The source was contained, and my mom retired not long after that. It’s fine!”

Rarity walked over to put her hooves over Twilight’s shoulders in order to look into her eyes. “I don’t want to deal with the possibility of having to encounter a vampire, dear!”

“And you won’t! It will never come up again,” Twilight reassured, holding her close.

A drawer yanked open, binders spilling all over the floor. Cheerilee held the scroll like a holy charm. “I have a pardon,” she called out. “And a doctor’s note.”

A purple vine slithered across the floorboards and delicately plunked the scroll out of Cheerilee’s hooves. The vine held it up to Twilight’s face. “So it is. How’d you manage that?”

“I found a doctor willing to get me an implant,” Cheeriliee said, panting slightly.

“... I see,” Twilight said. The scroll was levitated back into Cheerilee’s hooves, who sighed with relief. “I apologize for the intrusion. I hope you understand my concern?”

“Yeah...” Cheerilee said, clutching her neck. “I know.”

“You promise?” Rarity asked, eyes glistening.

“I promise.”

“Hey Spike!”

The dragon, lounging in his basket, looked up from his comic book. “Huh?”

“Rarity wanted to know your unique skill.”

“Uh.” Spike looked around. He dropped his comic book onto the floor. Carefully, deliberately, he pinched the pages with his finger and thumb, and picked it up. “Ooooo.”

Hours later, as the sun started going down, Spike squinted at the lengthening shadows. He spat an orb of green fire, which bounced once, twice, then leapt into the air, unfurling its wings. The green phoenix flapped over to Spike’s shoulder, casting his room in a soft light. Spike settled back into his basket, patting the bird on its foot. “Thanks, Magician Green, needed that.”