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Lena followed Violet through the library, Webby bouncing along at her side. They passed by countless shelves filled with books and various tables filled with quietly-reading patrons, leaving them all behind as they descended deeper into the dark depths of the library.
“So what did you need our help with?” Webby asked.
“I require assistance with a science experiment I’m conducting for a research paper on friendship magic,” Violet said, leading them down a side hall. How big was this library?
“Oh, neat!” Webby said. “I’m glad that they’re considering magic as a proper scientific discipline now.”
“They aren’t,” Violet said. “That’s why I’m doing this. I’m going to compile a series of scientific papers on the mechanics of magic and get it published in order to dispel the nonsensical notion that magic cannot be researched scientifically. The purpose of science is to observe, catalog, and quantify the world around us, and as magic is a part of that world, that means it can be studied. I’m going to prove that.”
“Cool, cool,” Lena said as they approached a small room. Violet swiped her library card through a reader on the wall, and the door clicked open. “So, when you say you ‘require our assistance,’ you don’t mean that you’re going to experiment on us, do you?”
Violet paused halfway through the door frame. “Um. Technically, yes, but probably not in the way you’re thinking. I’m just going to ask you to do a few things while I watch and take notes.”
“We can stop if you ever get uncomfortable,” Webby said, grabbing Lena’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
“Thanks, Pink,” Lena said.
“Please don’t hold hands right now,” Violet said as she entered the room. “I need to do a control test first, and I can’t have you muddying the variables.”
“Us holding hands is a variable?” Webby asked, slipping her hand out of Lena’s. “Well—I guess that makes sense?”
“I appreciate your understanding,” Violet said.
Lena walked into the room. It had a desk covered in books and papers and pens against one wall, and a strange machine over by the other. Violet took her laptop out of her backpack and sat down in a chair next to the machine, plugging a few cords dangling off of it into her computer.
“Did the library just… give you this room?” Lena asked.
“Yes,” Violet said as she tapped away at the keys. “I’ve been going here for years. I know the head librarian quite well, and when she saw me working on this in the middle of the physics section, she offered me a study room. I suspect it was fifty percent appreciation for how often I correct people’s reshelving mistakes, and fifty percent not wanting to scare away the other people in the library.”
“What does this do?” Webby asked, running up to examine it. “Does it shoot lasers?”
Violet casually slapped her hand away as she moved to touch it. “It reads magic energy levels. Magic regularly emits energy waves, sort of like how an engine regularly emits sound waves. Different types of magic give off different frequency waves, and the amplitude corresponds to the strength of the magic.”
Webby and Lena blinked at her.
“…Maybe I should just show you,” Violet said, turning her computer screen around. It showed a graph with three lines: one was black, one was purple, and one was blue. They were jittering around slightly as the graph continued to write, but they seemed to all stay in relatively the same spot, close to the bottom of the screen. “These are the readings for the current magical energy in the room. The black line is graphing the shadow magic that Lena’s made of, the purple line is the sumerian magic from your amulet, and the blue line is the friendship magic from your bracelets.”
Lena flared her core like she did whenever she was about to cast a spell, and watched as the purple line jumped up on the graph. “Huh.”
“Wow, that’s amazing, Vi!” Webby chirped. “This paper is going to be killer!”
“Oh, I already wrote the paper on the wave emissions,” Violet said. “I borrowed a few magical artifacts from Scrooge to test on. But you two are the only source of friendship magic I’m aware of. It seems to be a very unique form of magic, so much so that it’s possible that you invented it altogether, Lena, due to your magical nature and the circumstances under which you formed an emotional bond with Webby.”
“I… guess that’s possible,” Lena said. “Magica always said friendship magic wasn’t real. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t until now. But I’ve never heard of someone creating a new domain of magic before.”
“It’s possible we won’t find anything of note,” Violet said. “The goal here is to deduce the nature of your magic, whether that ends up being bland or revolutionary. We can’t go in with biased assumptions; only the desire to learn.
“We should get started. You two just stand over there and don’t touch each other.”
Lena and Webby moved to where Violet had indicated, standing a few feet apart. Then, Violet produced a spoon and a red crystal from her bag and placed it on the ground in front of them.
“What’re those for?” Webby asked.
“I need you to try casting a spell to bend this spoon as hard as you can,” Violet said. “The crystal here will absorb the magic you put out, so the spoon won’t actually bend. So put as much magic into it as you can each time; I need to know what circumstances give you the most magical potential.”
“So just really blast it,” Webby said. “Got it.”
“This is so cliche,” Lena mumbled.
Violet handed them a slip of paper. “Here’s the incantation you can use. Each time we go, chant it three times, then cast the spell.”
Lena looked at the paper, Webby leaning over to catch a glimpse herself. “Violet, I love you, but this is the dumbest incantation I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, we can’t all be poets,” Violet said, rolling her eyes as she walked back to her chair behind the machine. “It doesn’t matter anyway, as long as it’s consistent.”
“Fine. Should we go now?”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Violet said.
Lena sighed. “Ready, Pink?”
Webby nodded. “Mmhmm!”
“Well, here goes,” Lena said.
She started speaking in sync with Webby, their eyes focused on the spoon. “With the love of my best friend, I will this metal spoon to bend. With the love of my best friend, I will this metal spoon to bend. With the love of my best friend, I will this metal spoon to bend!”
Blue magic swirled up around them as they chanted, reaching a crescendo at the end of the incantation. A bright beam of magic shot out towards the spoon, but was quickly and harmlessly sucked into the red gem.
“And that was as much magic as you could muster?” Violet asked.
Lena nodded. “Yeah.”
“Excellent.” Violet messed around on her computer for a bit before looking up. “Okay. Now, hold hands and do it again.”
“Okay!” Webby said, grabbing Lena’s hand before the word was even out of her mouth. Lena shot her a knowing smile, which caused Webby to go a bit red. “W-What? It’s for science, Lena.”
Lena’s smile curved into a smirk. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Violet piped up from across the room, too absorbed in her computer to pay any attention to their antics.
Webby and Lena repeated the process, saying the incantation and firing a beam of spoon-bending magic that got sucked into the crystal. Violet let out a satisfied hum, tapping away at her computer.
“Anything good?” Lena asked her.
“Um—I think so,” Violet said. “I’m definitely seeing the expected spike in amplitude, but I think there’s something else going on. It’s minute, though; if we could increase your output further, it might be easier to see what’s causing a few of these stranger readings.”
“Seriously? But that was more magic than I used to destroy the money shark,” Lena said. “I don’t want to push this to dangerous levels.”
“As long as you direct your spells in the right direction, the crystal should be able to absorb your magic,” Violet said. “It contains a strong mana void inside. It would take a monumental amount of energy to overload it.”
Lena swallowed. “Well… if you say so. But how are we even going to generate more magic?”
“We could try, like, hugging each other!” Webby suggested happily, before quickly going red. “O-o-or not, um, only if you’re comfy with it, I just, well, since holding hands amplifies it I thought—”
“That’s not a bad hypothesis, Webbigail,” Violet mused, looking up from her computer and tapping at her chin. “Do you know if it’s specifically the action of hand holding that makes the magic stronger, or is it physical intimacy in general?”
“I… don’t know?” Lena shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Of course,” Violet said. “I want to learn as much as I can about friendship magic, and this seems like a key part of it. Plus, if we can get the amplitude higher, that would help me isolate the anomaly I’m seeing in my data.”
“Um. Okay, then, sure. Let’s do it.”
“Yay!” Webby said, jumping in and wrapping her arms around Lena.
Lena returned the gesture, pulling Webby in close so her head was resting on Lena’s shoulder. “Ready, Vi?”
“Ready,” she affirmed.
“With the love of my best friend, I will this metal spoon to bend…”
The spellcasting was a bit more awkward this time, since they were facing in opposite directions, but Lena still managed to control it well enough that all the telekinetic energy was sent towards the spoon. A few seconds later, Violet gasped.
“…Did it work?” Webby asked, loosening her grip on Lena so she could turn her head towards Violet. She didn’t let go, though.
“Yes,” Violet said. “This is fascinating—the amplitude growth relative to your physical intimacy is exponential, and it—it looks like you’re sending out harmonic sub frequencies as well. That’s what those blips earlier must’ve been. I think you might be… using each other as magical foci.”
Lena’s eyes widened. “Excuse me? How is that possible?”
“Can’t say for sure,” Violet admitted, beginning to pace back and forth. “My theory is that you unknowingly created a sympathetic link with Webby, which localized in the friendship bracelets. So when you cast spells together, you channel your magic through Webby, which allows her to channel that magic back through you; normally that sort of thing would overwhelm a person, but you manage to match frequencies exactly, so the waves end up resonating and growing. And that’s what’s producing these harmonic echoes! It’s like a laser—you bounce the light back and forth, amplifying it each time, until it breaks free with a truckload of pent up energy. Oh, this is gonna be a good paper!” She paused and turned to them. “Do you think you could go bigger? I want as much data as possible. Maybe you should kiss?”
Webby turned bright red, jumping back from Lena and freezing. “K—k-ki—ki—ki— kiss?”
Lena felt some heat on her own cheeks. “U-um, I don’t know, Vi,” she mumbled. “We’ve never, uh—I mean, I don’t know if—er—it’s just—we’re not even really dating, and—”
“Yes, yes, I’m well aware of how much you two enjoy dancing around your feelings for one another, but this is important,” Violet insisted. She was back behind her computer again. “And don’t worry about the incantation; if my numbers are right, you’ll be generating enough energy that just thinking the lines should be plenty.”
“U-um.” Webby coughed. “W-well, if it’s in the name of magic science, then, um—”
“Yeah, and—and it’s for Vi, too,” Lena reasoned. “I don’t want to ruin her experiment or anything, so—”
“Yeah! Yeah,” Webby said. “Right. So, er—should we…?”
“R-right. Um…” Lena reached out and grabbed Webby by the shoulders, her eyes flicking down to her beak before she could stop them. She began leaning in, slowly; Webby pushed up onto the tips of her feet, and Lena could feel her breath on her chin.
“One second, please,” Violet called. The both of them froze, centimeters away from each other. “Just need to adjust a few things…”
“Oh my god,” Lena whispered, her voice barely even a whisper. “I’m going to kill her.”
Webby giggled. “It’s weird to see her so excited, huh?”
“She always gets going about nerd stuff. It’s cute,” Lena mumbled. “Not as cute as you, though.”
Webby giggled harder. “Lena, you’re not helping!”
“Okay, ready,” Violet said.
Lena didn’t waste any more time, and pressed her beak to Webby’s. She got so caught up in the tide of the kiss that she almost forgot to think about casting the spell, but she knew Vi would be pissed if this didn’t work, so she made sure that the remaining brain power she had left went towards mentally reciting the incantation. A powerful blue light built up around them, shining brilliantly against the plaster walls of the study room, and a beam the size of a tree trunk shot towards the spoon. It twisted towards the crystal on the floor as it drew near, but after a couple seconds, there was a huge shattering noise as the crystal exploded into a million tiny pieces.
“Shit!” Lena cried, but it came out garbled, considering her current circumstances. She stumbled backwards, hastily wiping her beak on her sleeve, and looked towards the center of the room—the floor was covered in tiny red slivers of gemstone, and the spoon had been twisted in a corkscrew and then folded in half what looked like a thousand times, until all that remained now was a tiny compressed ball of shining, warped metal.
“Wow,” Webby said.
Lena turned to her, and their eyes met, leaving them both breathless. “Yeah, that was, uh…”
Webby nodded. “That was…”
“Incredibly informative,” Violet interrupted, her fingers flying across the keyboard. “That far surpassed my expectations in terms of how much energy you would produce. This confirms my previous hypotheses—I need to start writing.”
“So…” Lena kicked at the ground, sending a few stray crystalline shards flying. “Can we go now?”
“Hm?” Violet looked up, as if she had forgotten they were even there. “Oh—yes. You can go. Thank you both so much for your help.”
“Of course. It was, um…”
“Our pleasure,” Webby finished.
“Yeah. That. Bye.”
Violet gave them an absent-minded wave as they left, making their way through the library.
“So, uh.” Lena clicked her tongue and admired the bookshelves. “Should we talk about that?”
“I’m still processing,” Webby said matter-of-factly. “But, uh, hey, I’ll give you a call tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” Lena said. “Yeah, that—that sounds good. See ya, Pink.”
Webby smiled at her. “See ya.”
The butterflies in Lena’s stomach were flapping at mach speed as she left the library and started down the street; and she had a feeling they weren’t going to go away for a good long while yet.