Author's Note

I'll be afk for the holidays... so here's a little extra update for this period!

Ch 5 - Smoke and light - or a birth of a bizarre idea

I remember the day that completely changed my life. Actually, nothing really special happened that day... As usual, my friends and I were overwhelmed with tasks, we made good progress according to our plans. Then suddenly that moment came. That fate-changing moment that... that I didn't attach too much importance to, when I found myself face to face with it...

There were still two years left until specialization, so we had plenty of time to choose from the subjects we liked. It's true, over time our timetable was also radically transformed and turned upside down. As Mr. Poltergeist predicted in our very first class, we were now expected to go to the various departments ourselves - at least in most cases - and listen to the lectures there. This also meant that, in order to reach the required number of students, several classes had to attend at the same time if the class was held by a professor, and of course the room made it possible. And although participation in such lectures was not mandatory, it wasn't a rare occurrence that more than a hundred of us gathered on these.

It was no different that day. Everypony was more excited than usual, as we had the honor of one of the Academy's emeritus professors, Vapor Yield, undertaking a lecture for all students. When I saw the announcement on the bulletin board, my eyes simply ran over it at first, as soon as I recognized the gray seal of the Department of Rune Magic on the paper. I thought, don't let them bother me again with their idiotic crisscrosses, to which I had about as much affinity as ninety-nine percent of my classmates: nothing. It was more than enough to suffer through the semester when the basics of rune magic had to be taken up as an introductory subject. I swear, I even wrote a petition to Mr. Poltergeist - in the spare time of a language lesson - to take it out of the compulsory classes. I must add though that I don't think he has even read it...

So, the point is, after I had successfully erased the existence of the announcement from the periphery of my consciousness, I ran into Jasper and Wish at the next turn of the stairs, who immediately set upon me to go together to the above-mentioned lecture. I didn't understand their enthusiasm, since as far as I knew they weren't particularly interested in non-traditional pony magic. The next moment, however, they pulled me back in front of the bulletin board so that I could see it with my own eyes and at least superficially read it. And the details really were important in this case, what's more, they decided everything. When I found the word "teleport" in the text stretching out like a thick wall in front of me, I had such an insidious grin spread across my face that I literally scared off a first grader who tried to slip between me and the wall.

From then on, there was no question whether we would go or not. The fact that we had previously promised Dulci that we would go to the performance of his favorite band on the scheduled day of the lecture could not hold us back either. At most, the two programs overlap a little, and we miss the beginning of the concert - heck, we won't hear the tuning - but we couldn't miss it! I've been waiting to learn about teleportation for as long as I can remember. And Professor Vapor was famous, almost infamous, for his experiments with magical relocation. He was considered the foremost authority on the subject throughout Equestria and beyond.

I happily announced the special lesson to our class, even though I guessed that not many ponies would share my interest. Dulci, Cavern and Lotus answered immediately that they certainly don't want to miss a single second of the concert for the sake of some gray maned magician, plus they made us promise that as soon as we finished, we would join them as well. Stella was a little reluctant, but then she too decided to go with the boys. Of course, I would have been surprised if she chose otherwise: my friend Lotus and she had been "officially" together for a year already, and even though they were an unusual couple at best, it was quite difficult to separate them from each other. Scorch was also very tempted by the concert, but regardless, he declared that he would definitely be sitting in the front row, alone. So, if we take it that way, I managed to "convince" only Ambrosia to the lecture, even though I targeted her the least.

We arrived in the conference room long before the start. It was also particularly gratifying that not the lecture hall of the department was chosen for the purpose, although they probably realized it themselves: it would be impossible to squeeze so many interested ponies into that small dusty hole. It wasn't the habit of mine, dressing up for lectures, but right then for some reason I thought up that I was going to sit in the class of the famous professor in a suit and tie. Let's give it a go this once - that's about all I had in mind, and afterwards I almost regretted my little idea. I didn't count on one thing, namely that somepony would actually notice my completely unusual outfit. Besides, for whom? Exactly those I'd rather avoid...

Jasper, showing exceptional self-control, did not make any remark regarding my appearance. I even got a few consolidated compliments from Wish and Ambrosia about how good I was looking, which felt really nice, but most of the attendants gave me strange, or downright hostile looks, while we moved between the rows of chairs looking for a suitable place.

"Would you look at that? Here comes the alpha-male!" a familiar voice of a mare rang from somewhere in the middle.

It didn't even occur to me that the sarcastic comment might apply to me, so I looked around unsuspectingly. Since I couldn't find a stallion that matched the label, I searched instead for the source of the sound. I soon discovered a small group of mares, all of whom I knew were of the same year as us. They were all looking at me, some were giggling, some gave me pitiful looks. I didn't really understand until I found the speaker among them.

The Violet-girl... I haven't seen her in a long time, but I wouldn't say I missed her. She was sitting there with such disgusting self-confidence, it would have felt so nice to just kick her in the face. I got in her way once, and only once, and it seems that she was holding a grudge ever since...

"Hi Thread!" she greeted me when she saw that I had noticed her. She stretched out a little and patted the back of the empty chair in front of her with a sweet smile. "Don't you feel like sitting here with your dear friends?"

Of course, this was exactly what I needed right now - to be laughed at the whole time... I tried to quickly come up with some not-so-spectacular excuse, even though I would have preferred to send her to Tartarus.

Jasper was faster, though. "Oh wow! How observant ya are!"

I was a bit worried that it was too harsh, so I tried to soften the blow. I even managed to put on a somewhat regretful expression. "Not right now, Sign, sorry. Maybe another time..."

I hugged Ambrosia's neck with one of my front legs and led my little team down. I didn't mind if we sat further anyway, at least we would hear better from there. When the lesson starts, I can just blend into the crowd and not attract more attention than I want. Hastily, but not scrambling, I herded the girls and Jasper in front of me, careful not to look like I was trying to escape. When we managed to sit down on the edge of one of the long benches, fortunately not surrounded by completely unknown ponies, I imperceptibly took a sigh.

"Hey Jasper!" one of them, who I knew sometimes used to talk with my friend, turned around. "Did you hear that Polter kicked out almost everypony at the entrance exam this year?"

I was also interested in this, so I pricked up my ears curiously.

"Yer just pullin' my tail!" Jasper waved the stallion off. "'Twas no biggie, ya won't convince me that the li'l ones were idiots."

"Yeah, it wasn't difficult for us, but the old nag played it hard now," said the guy, completely seriously. "They must have thought that they wouldn't have to prepare at all, then bam, the questionnaire came. It was so, they say, almost everypony bled out on it. Now he was testing some logical skills, and there was a trick question in it. Those who didn't know or didn't take it seriously were sent home without a second chance!"

"No kiddin'?" Jasper asked, unbelieving.

"Nope!" the stallion shook his head. "Would you guess how much passed? Twenty!"

"What was the question?" I piped in.

"Listen, I don't want to know..." he looked at me grimly. "I won't take chances that they would figure out that I shouldn't be here after all this!

"Aww, shucks!" I grimaced.

"Yeah. Did you make him mad or something?"

"Oh, I don't think so," Jasper shook his head. "He was completely usual in class."

The crowd around us grew noticeably quieter. The stallion in front of us turned back, and I also focused my attention on the chair, where a pony with a long, gray beard, but with a straight posture, had just stepped up. Although I haven't particularly dealt with this sort of thing so far, I would have been curious about him, how old he might be. From his appearance, I would have called him an old pony, but his movements were surprisingly youthful, of course only within rational limits.

The elderly stallion looked around at us, then conjured up a stick and tapped the edge of the board firmly, but not too loudly, until everypony went silent. A wide, friendly smile slowly spread across his face, and then he started.

"I haven't seen so many young ponies in one place since my grandson's wedding," he remarked cheerfully, in a fluid style matching his movements. "I never thought that so many of you would be interested in my field of expertise! You don't know how much this means to me! Thank you for coming!" He paused to "bow" to us, nodding his head forward, then continued in the same manner. "Just a quick question, if I may, before I start... How many of you can teleport? Oh, and I beg your pardon, dear colleagues, I have to speak in advance, I have a habit of asking questions during presentations."

I admittedly wasn't overjoyed about that. I never liked interactive classes, after all, preferring to remain a passive listener. Although it was somewhat reassuring that there were quite a few of us, so I probably won't have to deal with the whole thing, at most it will break the course of the presentation somewhat. Come to think of it, I should be grateful for the Violet-girl's attendance, after all, if nopony else, she will surely fall out of the bench to share her thoughts with the professor.

Wish raised her hoof meekly, and a few others did the same. Although their number was not large, theoretically our grade did not lag behind the average. This seemed to be supported by the fact that after the teacher counted the legs with a squint, he nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Very well!" he said. "Then you could already experience the... surface of traveling through the ethereal space. Why am I saying this? For those who have never tried it, all they see is that a pony disappears in one place and then appears in another. It seems simple. But anypony who knows its theory, even at a basic level, can see that there are not many more complicated magical activities than teleportation. What are the phases of teleportation, can somepony list them?"

It was primary school material, I was sure that any of us would have known it even if we woke up from our sleep. Despite this, the professor waited patiently, only conjuring a piece of chalk out of nowhere and waving it back and forth. I could hear Wish almost silently whispering the answer next to me, but it probably went unnoticed by anypony else.

"Well?" the gray-maned stallion broke the silence. "Nopony?"

"Dematerialization, translocation, rematerialization," said somepony reluctantly from the front rows.

"That's right!" Prof. Vapor nodded. He quickly scribbled the three words on the board, then turned back to us. "Which of the three is the most important?"

It was a pretty stupid question... How could it all work without any of the steps? The whole class probably had the same thought, as nopony spoke.

"Exactly!" agreed the prof. "All are equally important! However, before we go into the individual phases, could somepony summarize what factors determine whether a given teleport operation succeeds or not?"

This time, a mare took on the unpleasant task of answering, also from somewhere in the front. "The magical potential and practice of the person performing the spell, the distance, the relative magical field density and the subjective factor."

The old stallion wrote these down on the board, but then he remained with his rear facing us for a bit longer, and waved his chalk in the air thoughtfully. "What did you mean by distance, colleague?" he finally asked, still with his back to us.

"The dis... space between the point of departure and arrival," came the uncertain answer.

Prof Vapor looked back but didn't move from the board. He looked around at us with an expressionless face, then without looking back he put the word "distance" in quotation marks.

"We will return to this later." he added. "Let's take a look at what we know about the departure, then! What is necessary to be able to dematerialize? You don't have to answer, I'll tell you now. Two things are really important, apart from the obvious, namely magical power: willpower and the ability to observe. It is important to note that it is the subjective aspect of the willpower we're talking about! Why? Because it is not the magic itself that is difficult to perform, but rather we have to overcome our own fear! After all, if you think about it, in order to be able to teleport, one must first disappear, almost cease to exist! Of course, this is not a problem for the more experienced, but those who are just trying it for the first time, or have done it only a few times, can easily come up against their own survival instincts. In fact, in a couple of years you can get used to it at such a level that you don't have the slightest fear of dematerialization."

"Why do we need skills in observation? There are obviously subjective reasons for this as well, the simplest of which is also important in terms of overcoming fear. We need to know ourselves as much as possible so that we will be able to confidently rematerialize in the future. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this does not mean that we would not be able to do it otherwise! In this case, the laws of magic have nothing to do with our experiences of its manifestation. Not like the next phase. Who knows what our most important task is during our time in ethereal space?"

I admit, this was no longer a simple question. Maybe I had some vague idea, but I probably wouldn't have been able to say anything even if he had given me more time. I saw Wish's mouth move again next to me, silently forming the answer, but this time I couldn't hear it either.

"Keeping ourselves!" Violet Sign's voice came down to me from several rows behind.

I almost burst out laughing, and when our teacher shook his head, I did snort. Fortunately, only the few ponies sitting around me could hear it, although I still got a few reproachful looks. Wish also gently pinched me with her magic, so I tried to compose myself.

"You didn't say anything wrong, miss," said Prof. Vapor. "The preservation of integrity is indeed a top priority, but not the most important thing. Let me help you a little! What is the zeroth law of ether dynamics?"

"The magical space is always in motion" replied the Violet girl again.

Yeah, I knew that as well, although it was annoying that my first reaction could come out as if I was just a jerk. Maybe I could blame my giggling at her "unprofessional" wording...

"Exactly!" the prof poked at the audience with his pointer stick. "No matter how irrelevant it may seem to talk about this, you'll see it is the most important thing! But let's forget about that for a second! After all, if the starting point and the destination are fixed, and the necessary amount of energy is available, there can be no interruption, am I right? So, what do we need to know about the site of arrival?"

I have to admit, I couldn't keep up with our teacher. Why bring up something that has almost nothing to do with the topic and then why not explain it? What does he want to show us?

"As much as possible," came the answer again from somewhere in the front lines.

"I couldn't have put it more aptly myself!" chuckled the stallion. "As much as possible! The more the merrier, huh? What is the information without which it is impossible to start, then?

"The location we want to get to," said somepony from the other half of my line.

Prof Vapor just shook his head. For a while nopony tried, but he was noticeably enjoying the situation more and more.

"It's a very simple thing, dear colleagues!" he encouraged us. "We won't go any further until this is done! After all, we can't teleport without a destination, can we?"

He chuckled to himself again and rested his stick against his neck. This time, Wish didn't mutter anything under her breath either. It took a good half a minute before somepony spoke again in the front rows.

"Something..."

"That's right!" the grey stallion immediately pounced on him. "Very important, and note this, the minimum requirement for the rematerialization phase of teleportation: something! On a theoretical level, any scrap of information can be enough to find the destination. It can be an accurate imaginary picture of the site of arrival, it can be a certain person, it can be a few general parameters, or even just a name. Don't you look at me like that, it does work!"

Only now did I notice that my eyebrows shot up as well. I did find the statement rather odd, but I was like, well, that's his area of expertise, so I'm not going to question it.

"Of course, the importance of the subjective factor should not be neglected" Prof. Vapor meaningfully raised his hoof. "Most of us need to know exactly where we want to go. Many unicorns can only teleport within line of sight, or perhaps teleport home, and only from a relatively short distance. For those who already have more routine, this is no longer strenuous. However, this type of magic can also be used intuitively. I'm not saying it's easy, only that it's possible. Now, if one of you told me their mother's name, conceivably I would be able to teleport to her without knowing exactly where she is, or even having ever met her. Of course, if you tell me which city she lives in that will make my job a lot easier. The bottom line is, the more information you have, the easier it is to perform the spell, but don't forget that even a few clues are just an obstacle to overcome!"

"And now let's talk about that "distance"! The space between the point of departure and the place of arrival, as our colleague here described it to us. Can somepony tell me what the maximum distance that one can cover with teleportation is?"

"There is no absolute maximum," Wish whispered next to me.

"I know there are ponies who can even teleport across the sea, but you can surely go further than that," said somepony from the back rows.

"Then tell us please, is it possible to teleport to the Moon?" The prof squinted in the direction of the sound. "Let's look at the conditions! It's within sight. If we examine it with a telescope, we can get very precise information about the desired site of arrival. Let's assume that we start from a place that we know perfectly! The unicorn performing the spell is very powerful and has as much practice in this branch of magic as can be had. The subjective factor of the spacial knowledge parameter is approximately one. Well?"

"I think it's theoretically possible, but the pony would suffocate."

"You are right, colleague, that it is theoretically possible, but your statement is not logically correct," smiled the old stallion. "Because if it is theoretically possible, it is also achievable in practice, but it is not possible, because the subject would die. That's why they won't be able to even start. Their instincts will hold them back. It's like being submerged in a pool full of water and trying to breathe. Even if we assume that somepony wants to commit suicide, it would take an unnatural amount of willpower to overcome this. More specifically, it's disproportionately more than what is needed to cast the spell. But now let's look just at the distance! What is more difficult to bridge in absolute terms: the power needed to travel to the Moon or the power needed to reach another continent?"

"The former, obviously," answered the same stallion.

"The professor wouldn't bother to ask if that was the case," chimed in the Violet girl.

I hate to say this, but she was right. I haven't seen the logic behind it yet, but why else would he ask?

"I like your way of thinking, colleague," stated Prof. Vapor cheerfully. "The correct answer: it depends. I assume you are all aware of how different the construction and layout of magical space is compared to physical reality. What we perceive here as a faraway place, can be quite close on ethereal level, and vice versa. Why is this not apparent to us? Well, of course, because of the suppressing effect of the subjective factor. If I feel and think that Hoofington is far away from here, it will be far away. Once I realize how tiny the ethereal space is between it and my current location, my job will be much easier. However, from the magic's point of view, there are no great distances."

He turned around and put the word "distance" in brackets. After that, however, he stayed a bit like that again, swinging his chalk in the air, then circled the word "translocation".

"Tell me, dear colleagues, is it possible to teleport without a target?"

I didn't even have time to think about the question, a student who was better prepared than me had already answered it.

"Of course, since this is the professor's specialty!"

"Well said, colleague," approved Prof. Vapor. "So, the next thing we should talk about is the zero-point teleport, or null teleport. By definition, it is a magical operation in which the person performing the spell enters the ethereal space without leaving it for an indefinite period of time. What is special about this? Well, it seems to contradict the zeroth law of ether dynamics. If the wizard enters the magical space and does not move along with the vibrations of the ethereal waves, they form an immobile focus, which the magical space cannot tolerate, and either expels them from itself or consumes them. I think I don't need to tell you how dangerous it is to experiment with something like this..."

"How is it possible then? This is certainly the big question, but I can tell you that there are several methods, but none of them are one hundred percent effective. Take this to mean that no matter how strong the wizard is, zero-point teleportation is never easy to perform, it requires extreme discipline, and maintaining it requires exponentially more and more energy. But, of course, it also has benefits, otherwise it wouldn't be worth wasting our precious time on it. Can somepony list the advantages of null teleport?"

This presentation started to become more and more interesting, but this also meant that I would not have been able to comment by any chance. Wish didn't answer silently this time either, but to my greatest surprise, Ambrosia spoke up from the other side of me.

"That it is not possible to follow," she said in a confident, jingling voice.

I was completely shocked. So far, our foreign classmate has mostly only testified about how incompetent she was in professional matters, but the professor nodded enthusiastically and wrote the comment on the board.

"May I ask why you took this first, colleague?"

"In my home, is a head-hunter, he can do null teleport," she explained. "He strikes, then he vanishes and not even court mages can follow him."

"A very interesting aspect, indeed, but you are correct," Prof. Vapor agreed. "Anypony else?"

"I guess the caster doesn’t have to bother with figuring out the target," said the Violet girl from behind. "If you suddenly have to disappear from somewhere and there is no time to choose your place of arrival, it can be useful."

The old stallion nodded briskly again and wrote this down as well. After that, however, nopony said anything for a long time.

"Alright, then I'll tell you the third one," he turned back to the board. "In the case of a group teleport, it is possible to coordinate more precisely the location of arrival for each individual, if, I repeat, if it differs from each other. Attention! Not easier, but more accurate! It is significantly more complicated to execute, but if somepony can do it, they can perform the operation much more precisely than with a traditional teleport."

"Now let's talk about how we can achieve that the ethereal space does not tear us into small pieces during zero-point teleport! Of course, as was already discussed today, the magical space is in constant motion. Standing still, we must therefore be able to behave in such a way as to break the consistency of the ethereal waves as little as possible. The simplest, although least sustainable, technique is the flatter- or raft method. In this case, we try to move together with the ethereal waves, to float on their surface, just like a raft. You can get by with this for a short time, but due to wave congestion and resonance, you reach the critical point very quickly, and the ethereal space expels you. Note that this is the worst-case scenario that can happen using this method, but considering the consequences of an uncoordinated rematerialization, its application should be contemplated."

"For more experienced unicorns, I recommend the transparent- or sifter method. It consists of essentially making our own etheric body temporarily permeable and allowing the waves to flow through us. Congestion will not occur with this method, as the minimal blockade we create gives plenty of opportunity for collateral flow, but the wave resonance can cause complications in the medium term as well. If we want to avoid this at all costs, we should use the dissolution or fog method. In this case, we practically break up our entire etheric body, and the only link that holds our existence together is our own consciousness. I think it goes without saying that this variation is the riskiest and the most difficult, but as long as we are able to concentrate our attention, it basically does not require a lot of extra effort to maintain the spell. In the worst-case scenario micro-resonance can accumulate over a longer period of time. However, the other thing that must be considered with this method is that since we have broken down our own physical and etheric bodies, we need to use an integrity recreation spell afterwards. Do you know it? Have you learned about it yet?

I remembered it exactly, as it was recently in the curriculum. It was presented by Professor Tome from the Department of Complex Arcane Sciences. It was a very tricky and useful spell, so I felt a strong compulsion to learn it right away, and I was the best in the class with it. The masters of these forms of magic were capable of almost miracles, and although I was still far from it, I was already able to restore objects smaller than a pony to their original state if they were damaged by something simple. A broken wheel or a crumpled sheet of metal was no longer a challenge, and I could manage even glass shards quite well, even though only a few ponies were able to get this spell so far. But the essentials were really simple. Every living being or object leaves an imprint in the ether, which remains even after it suffers damage. In more mundane terms, a chopped-up table and a pile of firewood can be easily distinguished based on the memories they hold of themselves. The physical integrity of the table is damaged if it is broken into pieces, but it is enough to retrieve from the magical space only the information about it that pertains to the nature of the table, so that the magic can be performed and the object can be recreated with reasonable effort.

Of course, the logical conclusion would be - or could have been - that it is possible to recreate a real, living tree from firewood, if somepony is powerful, skilled and patient enough. However, this magic had quite specific limits - beyond the fact that it could be used for a lot of things. The complexity of the structure of the objects and the degree of deviation were very strict limiting factors, and although the best healers were able to perform this spell even on a living organism, a generation that possessed even one such excellent talent would be considered lucky. However, it was an intriguing question, how difficult can it be to recreate an ethereal and physical body that is not damaged, but deliberately and consciously "broken down into its elements"...

"I see, what I'm talking about is not completely unknown to you," Prof. Vapor looked around us. "I know, it doesn't seem simple at first, and believe me, it's not. However, allow me to ramble a bit, as rune magic is excellent for helping out or fixing more complicated spells! With careful planning, you can specify the destination of your journey, or you can achieve that you are fixed at an external point at a null teleport, thereby making the method safer. The teleport runes are mostly to be drawn gracefully, with light lines, and their central motifs are the low amplitude aspects of air, wind and the ether principle..."

From then on, the grey pony was so engrossed in his explanation, as if he had completely forgotten about us. He didn't ask any more questions, he was just talking and talking, filling the blackboard with more and more complicated pictures. The hope that I had until now, that a prof from the Department of Rune Magic might actually be able to hold an interesting class, was immediately dissipated. I didn't write a single letter on the paper I had prepared on my desk - even though there was so much to write down before - and I found myself nibbling on my ballpoint pen again and again.

When I finally gave up on trying to pay attention, I checked to see how well my friends were faring. Next to me, Ambrosia was busy polishing her hooves, and Jasper, on the other side of Wish, was leaning his head on the table and snoring softly. Only Wish was holding the line, but from her movements, as she poked more and more irritated at her half-page note with her quill, I concluded that she was also bored out of her mind. Not having a better idea, I drew a small circle on my paper and pushed it a little towards the girl, to see if she wanted to play gomoku with me. Wish just glanced at it, then subtly shook her head. I sighed softly, then pushed the paper towards Ambrosia. The pink mare turned to me with her ears perked up curiously, then she stopped polishing her hooves and with a broad smile she placed an X next to my circle.

I knew for a fact that she was nowhere near as tough an opponent as my two best friends, but for the moment I had to make do with her. During the long presentation, she even managed to beat me once because I was not paying attention, but otherwise she could be dragged into quite simple figures. Well, she wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but at least she didn't lose her interest in the game even after a series of defeats, in contrast with, for example, Scorch, who had a tendency to slam the door on the pony even after a single loss. And later I also noticed from the corner of my eye that Wish was also watching us instead of listening to the presentation, but since she originally refused the challenge and didn't even ask if she could join, I didn't offer it to her either. Maybe I was a bit mean, but she should have known that this would happen... I wasn't concerned for her, because after a few minutes - when she realized that there was no grass growing here for her - she was already reading some girly magazine under the cover of her bench.

* * *

All in all, I didn't regret missing the beginning of the concert because of the lecture, although I would have appreciated it if Prof. Vapor had cut it short at least a little. Especially the parts that - I guess - nopony was interested in. Then maybe we wouldn't have had to rush so much - especially since I even wanted to change - and Jasper wouldn't have spent the first quarter of an hour trying to wipe the boogers from his eyes. Besides, we wouldn't have gotten any of the rather gratuitous dressing-down that Cavern was kind enough to treat us to, although I assumed it was just the booze talking.

Yeah, I suspected so much that if Dulci isn't dragging us to a classical, orchestral symphonic concert, then the most important thing cannot be left out: the warm-up drinks. By the time we got to the scene, all of my classmates who had arrived earlier were already somewhat under the effects of alcohol, although this could also be said of everypony else who was there. This part of the matter didn't bother me so much, as - being an outdoor event - the smell was quite tolerable, but while we were looking for our companions in the growing crowd, those trying to dance stepped on my hooves three times in that short period. The music wasn't that great either, but it was echoing through the streets, taking advantage of the fact that we were far enough away from the highly populated areas of Canterlot. I realized pretty quickly that the only way I can have fun here is if I drink too... I must admit, it's become a habit for us to start the semesters right away with relaxation, and although I didn't have a busy summer, I believe my classmates did need it.

"So, how was it?" Cavern asked shouting during a break between two plays, which was still much too loud for me, because my ears had not yet had time to adapt to the decibels roaring from the speakers.

"It was fantastic" Jasper answered with the same volume.

"He slept through it," Wish added, although the way she spoke, it probably didn't reach the one asking.

"Oh, we found out that Ambrosia knows a couple of assassins, so just be careful who you're trying to feel up tonight, Cavern!" I piped up.

"Head-hunter, and one," she corrected, although it didn't have much of an effect. The green stallion was not impressed either way.

"Eh, I already have my target for tonight!" he waved with a somewhat clumsy gesture. "See that hot gray mare over there?"

He pointed towards the stage, to the edge of which a young unicorn girl in rather loose clothing was indeed clinging. I must say, she was indeed eye-catching. I examined her thoroughly, not the least bit bothered by the fact that Wish and Ambrosia were standing right next to me, moreover, Stella and Lotus appeared a few moments later as well.

"Okay, who is she?" I asked, not taking my eyes off of the mare.

He grabbed my shoulder for temporary support. "Dunno. I just want a piece of that sweet little flank of hers. I think Stella and Lotus know her or something."

"Quicksilver Catalyst from the Alchemy Department," Stella joined us in staring at the mare. "She has good grades and she likes to party. I think she's not here for the music."

"Yeah, and it's no coincidence that her nickname is "Quickie"..." Lotus added.

Cavern rubbed his hooves together. "That's right! Tonight, I'm gonna stuff her like a feather pillow!"

"What does it mean, "stuff"?" Ambrosia inquired from the sideline.

"You can guess..." answered Wish, and then she added somewhat disapprovingly: "And you can put your jaw back, Thread! Since when are you interested in such mares, huh?"

"My dearest Wish!" I turned to her with a sly smile and looked deep into her eyes. "Disappointing as it may be, even if I don't have and never had a fillyfriend, I am still a stallion to the core."

"Yeah, I noticed... alpha-male..." she teased me. "I think Sign likes you, so why don't you try asking her out? You see, even now she wanted to have you close to herself, and you had the heart to reject the poor girl!"

"Come on!" I waved dismissively. "I know that I am out of her league. I'm not even as lanky as that "every mare's dream" Nimbus Strike. At least the Violet girl doesn't have to bend down to bite him on the knee..."

Wish snickered merrily at my absurd exaggeration, but we didn't have the opportunity to talk any further, as the small technical break was over and the speakers boomed with renewed vigor, followed directly by the cheering of the ponies. The problem was probably the sound system, as I could tolerate the music better when we arrived, but now, thanks to the bass, I felt as if the ground was shaking beneath me. Somepony from the crowd shoved Ambrosia to me, and while I helped the mare back to her hooves - struggling with my own sense of balance - I vowed to myself that if Dulcimer dared to drag us to such a party one more time, I would skin him alive.

"Why don't we get a little further away?" I screamed so much that even my throat hurt.

Ambrosia nodded with her ears down, then as somepony bumped into her again, pushing her hard, she held onto my back instead for support. I tried to discreetly cut a path for us with my magic, but in the meantime, I turned around for a moment to look for my friends. At first, I only saw Jasper, who emerged from the crowd as he did huge four-legged jumps into the air to the beat of the music. He really didn't need anything extra to have a good time! I was concerned about Wish, though. If she's not careful, she'll end up getting trampled...

As if my friends had the same idea, just before I turned back, I caught Jasper out of the corner of my eye as he made his next jump with a green coated mare on his back. Wish looked more terrified of the unexpected maneuver, but I trusted Jasper's strength. Compared to an average unicorn, he was extremely fit anyway, he stood out by far among us, so holding the already thin mare couldn't have been too much of a challenge for him. And on his back, I know Wish was in safety, more than anywhere else right now.

It took us a while to "fight" our way through the crowd, although this time I acted more aggressively towards the dancers who were not paying attention to their peers, and pushed them aside without thinking if they came threateningly close. Just to settle my nerves completely, I looked back once more as the crowd around me thinned out. I smiled widely as I found the jumping pair again. Jasper won a little free space for themselves with his little stunt, and Wish had already visibly gotten over her initial fright and started to enjoy the situation. She clung to the stallion's mane with one of her hooves, and she was flailing up high with the other, trying to follow the movements of the bouncing pony below her, laughing freely.

"Thanks Thread!" sighed Ambrosia, when we were sufficiently far from the danger zone. She let go of my back but stayed close to me for safety. "I always forget, Equestrians can be so wild..."

"Think nothing of it!" I said as I continued walking. "I have to admit, I didn't expect anything like that either. We had a great time last time, and now..."

"It was not nice of Dulci to call us and he is not here."

I stopped. She was right. Damn it, I wasn't paying attention, but we really met everypony, except him! Damn everything; the next time we run into each other, I'll give him a piece of my mind!

Ambrosia also immediately stopped and looked at me questioningly. "Whatever, we'll settle accounts later," I shook my head and moved on so she wouldn't have to wait.

"Accounts?"

"It's just an expression of settling disagreements," I explained. I was reminded again how much I didn't like talking to Ambrosia, but I couldn't imagine leaving her alone.

"I understand, I think," she said without much conviction.

"Right... So, what should we do now?"

"I don't know, but it's early to go home," she answered. "And the music looks pretty good from here."

"We could sit down somewhere, then?" I offered.

"It would be nice," she smiled.

I slowed the pace of the walk a little and searched for benches with my eyes. There were a few here, outside the city walls, but unfortunately, they were all taken. And on the one on which there were no couples in love huddled, some unidentifiable pile of textiles laid together with a worn saddlebag, so I assumed it might have been the home of some beggar, so I avoided it even in my thoughts.

Finally, we found a place for ourselves just a little further away, among the trees. It is true that there were no seats there, but no ponies ventured up to that point, so we could settle down on the hillside in relative peace. With the help of my horn, I flattened and dried the grass under us a little, then lay down comfortably. Ambrosia also lay down next to me, I could feel her clothes touching me, and in the meantime, I realized that we had really managed to find a good position for ourselves. From here we could still see the stage, the colorfully swirling crowd, the lights, and of course our eardrums didn't want to burst either. In fact, we even heard some kind of melody in the middle of the rumbling bass.

I felt a very delicate touch by my rear. It surprised me so much that I flinched and immediately threw my head back, ready to gallop at a moment's notice. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary by which I could identify what that might have been, so I turned forward again, instinctively turning my ears back to listen for any movement behind me. Minutes passed before the strange sensation returned, but now it was no longer unexpected. This time it was even softer than the previous one, as if only the summer breeze ruffled the longer hairs coming from the base of my tail, yet it was easily distinguishable from it. Freezing motionless, I concentrated all my attention there and suppressed my reflexes, thanks to which I would otherwise have been constantly thrashing my tail.

I only understood what had happened when Ambrosia - trying to avoid being noticed - moved a little closer to me. So, she reached out to me, and on purpose... It was quite strange; I didn't really know what to think. Maybe she thought I brought her here to be alone with her? Was this balmy night under the open sky feeling too romantic with the "soft" background music and she wanted to snuggle up with somepony who just happened to be me? Or does she want...does she actually want something from me? Maybe I'm just overcomplicating things again? It could also be that she just felt cold from the breeze, or was just teasing me - although this was really not her habit - or she simply didn't notice that she was touching me... After all, she had a nice, luscious tail, so she didn't necessarily even feel anything of it, and it was just me being jumpy.

She was a lot more careful this time as if she was hoping I don't notice what she's doing. However, as she slowly covered my tail with hers, I had no doubt that she was doing it very much consciously, even if I didn't see her purpose. My heartbeat quickened, but I tried not to let anything show on my face. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or what she expected of me at all...

My thoughts remained clear, but this alone did not help to dispel my uncertainty. I tried to calmly weigh my options. Ambrosia was perhaps the most beautiful mare in the entire grade, yet she didn't have a coltfriend. Maybe it was just because she seemed so unapproachable; come to think of it, probably she herself wasn't so happy about her situation. Even though she had been living here with us for years, sometimes it was still difficult to understand her, and not only because there were some linguistic subtleties that she simply could not absorb. It's just... I know it's not nice to say this, but she was dumber than average. She wasn't outstanding in any kind of magic, maybe at best in make-up spells, but she couldn't get far among those who wanted a somewhat smart fillyfriend. In such a micro-society of intellectuals, we didn't ostracize her only because it wasn't allowed. We were told - like the other classes too - that if our guest student gets hurt in any sort of way, we will get on the receiving end of Mr. Poltergeist's ire.

We all kept a polite distance from her, so it's not surprising if she longed to be close to somepony. I couldn't decide whether she chose me because she sympathized with me anyway - I was the "lucky one" who stayed with her after classes most of the time, if she needed help in learning the course material - or if I was simply within hoof's reach, I couldn't decide. Although it's true, I still didn't know what she wanted of me... Something serious? A little adventure? After all, I didn't even know what I wanted! There was only one way to find out... I just didn't have the courage.

Maybe I could accept her as my fillyfriend - ran through my mind suddenly. What does it matter if she's not a genius? She was always nice to me, as she was to everypony else. We could count on her, she was game to almost anything fun. She was a nice person. And last but not least, she was the most beautiful mare I have ever met. Only time can decide whether we really fit together. We can get to know each other more thoroughly, what it's like to be together in a slightly different sense, and then we'll see...

I mustered all my willpower and reached out to hold her hoof, but she pulled back just as I lifted my leg. I froze suddenly, I think I forgot to even breathe, then I quickly corrected my misdirected movement and dug into my mane. It seemed that I had underestimated the task: I wouldn't be able to try this again... I hoped that the time slowly turning into night would hide my embarrassment, but I didn't dare to look at the mare for a while. I couldn't tell if she pulled her leg away on purpose, although it reassured me a bit that her tail was still resting on mine, gently covering it.

I decided not to think about it. It would be better to just enjoy the situation, the closeness of the mare, and not to think about the future. I heaved a big sigh of relief and turned my attention to the concert. The singer of the band must have felt in his element, because he was screaming into the microphone completely unintelligibly, ignoring melody and rhythm. The atmosphere must have reached its peak there anyway, because the audience was also screaming, and a thick cloud of smoke slowly billowed between them from the stage, breaking the colorful flickering of the lights.

I smiled as it reminded me of Prof. Vapor's lecture. It was a terribly inappropriate thought, come on, anypony can blame me for how much of a geek I am. However, for some reason I associated the scattering of light with null teleportation. "Fog" method, eh? I would have been curious as to what the prof was thinking, but I could imagine something like this. The light would be the ethereal space, and the wizard would be the smoke. And indeed, light can eventually pass through it without actually having to impede its movement. It's a shame that with my current attitude, I'll almost surely never learn to teleport... I wasn't even able to seriously think about what it would be like to immaterially exist, I was simply too down to earth for that. The professor would surely have put it more succinctly, that the "fear of death" part of the subjective factor gives me a near zero multiplier. Even if I loved the subject, there is a good chance that I will have to make do with a comprehensive knowledge of the theory of it for the rest of my life. Fortunately, the expectations at the Academy are quite flexible. If somepony was talented in only one thing - and of course there was a suitable major for it - nopony said anything. Well, it was evident in the received grades, but they didn't deprive anypony of the opportunity to develop. Our poor fellow musicians, like Dulcimer, would have had a hard time otherwise...

As I kept watching the smoke, something funny occurred to me. Can this mentioned dissolution technique also work on living matter? If I'm already so impossibly lame at immaterial spells, maybe I could give it a shot. The thought that I don't have to cease to exist for this was a little more reassuring, and I was pretty good at integrity recreation anyway. With careful planning and careful experimentation, I might be able to do it. Although it's a good question, what would be the use of it... Is there literature on this too?

"I'm a bucking genius," I muttered, though I immediately realized I hadn't actually meant to say it out loud.

"Why do you say nasty words?" Ambrosia asked reproachfully. "That's not allowed!"

"Sorry!" I flattened my ears repentantly. "Don't be mad at me, please! I just had a really weird idea..."

I told her what I had come up with. I could see that she didn't fully understand what I said, but at least she listened attentively. After that, however, it occurred to me that I should ask her a little about the zero-teleporting headhunter she mentioned during the presentation. At least now we had time to talk in a relatively tranquil environment, and I was very curious about how she came to know about such ponies. I was not just a little surprised when she told me that she actually knew the pony personally, since he worked for her father. What's more, he even took care of her when she was a little filly. As she said, the powers that be in her country must be very careful who they trust, because life there is much more dangerous than it is here.

While we were on the subject, I also made a few soft inquiries about what kind of spells that particular headhunter used, to see if that would give me some more ideas. Although Ambrosia wasn't very knowledgeable on the subject, she told me that there was a time when she was a filly when she only dared to travel on the back of a camel, because their headhunter had once shown her how he can get close to almost anypony without being noticed by skulking under the sand. The filly was only willing to set hoof in the desert again when her father managed to talk her into it with great difficulty and also bought her a pair of hoof protectors that would completely block out the sounds of her steps.

I have to admit, we had such a good talk like never before. Before that, it didn't occur to me to ask the girl about her home, even though she had very interesting stories indeed. I didn't think much about it, but Saddle-Arabia was pretty much a different world compared to Equestria. And the pink mare shared her memories with me with sparkling eyes, and I was so hooked, I didn't even notice when our tails got completely intertwined during the conversation...