Punky Print's Log: Day 72
For a little longer than a week, I have been helping the mysterious stallion, whose name I now know to be Mystic. I would usually hide under the now dust-free wooden workbench when somepony came to buy or order something. Usually they order the sleeping tea I helped him make the first day, and by now I have the recipe and the bottles memorized. Today was the first day I didn't have to hide underneath the bench.
When Rainy entered the hollowed out house, Mystic and I had already seen her coming.
"Don't worry, she's my friend. She'll be happy to see me." Mystic smiled when I said this, maybe he thought I hadn't any friends at all. When she came in and saw me, Rainy flew over the orderly chaos of Mystic's home and workplace to tackle and hug me.
"Punky," she cried, "I'm so glad you've got a job!" She rose up off of me and held out her hoof. "I was starting to worry about you and your sister being able to eat." While I had been stealing both Inky and I lost weight, I only ever took the bare minimum amount of food we needed to survive.
"Thanks for your concern, Rainy, but we're okay." Over she shoulder, I could see my mentor watching us with amusement. "So anyway, what is it that you need Rainy?"
"Oh, right!" Rainy adjusted her blue headband, embarrassed by her digression. "I need an energy boost, do you make anything like that here?" I chuckled.
"Are you sure you need more energy?"
"Yeah," she said, suddenly serious. "The cloud cover seems to get harder to maintain every day. I get some outside help, but everypony has their own personal things to look out for as first priority." Her eyes lit up. "If you have the extra time - and you know a spell to do it - I'd happily have you help with your magic from the ground."
"I think there is a spell for that, in fact," my mentor said. "Weather control, it's somewhere in the books." With a tilt of his head he gestured to the shelves of books in the back of the open room. "If you promise to organize them afterward, I would gladly let you look through them."
"Okay then, I'll see what I can do with the clouds, Rainy. But you still need the energy boost, right?" She nodded. "Alright," I said as I grabbed the wooden bowl, "let's do this." As I guided the bowl about the room, Rainy stared with wide, wondering eyes. She laughed and turned her wondering gaze to me. I smiled, incredibly pleased to see somepony so amazed by something I could do.
"This is amazing!" She laughed again and followed a stream of ingredients as it swirled through the air, aided by Mystic's magic. He was smiling too, just as pleased as me that somepony thought so highly of our abilities. Once the ingredients were all in the bowl, my mentor began grinding them into a fine powder and I began searching through his books for weather spells. Rainy sat down with a dusty old book and joined me in searching for a spell.
"I'm glad you have a job," she said, repeating herself. I smiled.
"Me too."
"Punky?" I looked up from my book again.
"Yes?"
"It's not just other ponies' personal affairs that get in the way of them helping me."
"But, what else could it be?"
"None of the adults like us. They're angry because we were howling back at the wolves, but they're angry that we don't howl anymore, too." She stared frustratedly down at the musty book. "It doesn't make any sense."
"I think they're just afraid," I replied. "When ponies are afraid, they do things that don't always make sense because they don't want to be afraid anymore."
"Well, that's a stupid thing to do." I smiled ruefully.
"Yeah, it is pretty dumb."
"Punky?"
"Yeah, Rainy?"
"I can't find anything."
"Me neither, but these are just the first books we've checked." I glanced at Rainy, who was clearly bored. "You don't have to look through them if you don't want."
"Indeed," Mystic said, "I have finished your concoction, if you wish to leave you may."
"Are you sure you wouldn't mind, Punky?"
"I'm sure, it'll be no problem." Rainy smiled as she stood up.
"Thanks. Oh, and here's payment!" She pulled a bunch of carrots from her saddle bag and placed them on a table. She grabbed the bottle of the blue elixir and placed it in her bag before trotting out to attempt to thicken the cloud barrier. After looking through about twenty more books, I finally found a book with a chapter on weather spells. After carefully combing through each page, I found the spell I needed.
I quickly reorganized all the old books, save the one with the weather spells. The specific spell that I thought would work best was a cloud conjuring spell. With the book itself tucked safely underneath my cloak, I left when my workday was done and began practicing, drawing small clouds from thin air. Rainy had already gone home, so today was too late to test the spell. Instead, I stopped at the rainwater catcher outside of my house and conjured a cloud to hover above it and rain. As the water supply grew, so did my smile.
Nighttime is starting earlier and earlier, and by the time I had eaten and gotten into my bed, the wolves were already howling. It always surprises me, that they don't give it up. Every evening I half expect them to have given up on me, but they've yet to loose a single voice in the pack. There are nights when I want desperately to respond. I want to howl until my lungs hurt, I want to let them know that I'm here, I'm alive and I have not abandoned them.
Despite not being with them all for a very long time, the bone wolves are like family. I hate so much that I keep disappointing them. Someday, I hope that I will never have to again.
AN: Sorry I've taken so long to update! This was kind of a difficult chapter to type up for some reason, and school just recently restarted after a break for me. Regardless, I'm so sorry!