Chapters Twilight was running through the library, getting everything on her checklist looked over for the third time. She had the list with her as she examined the bookshelf, making sure that everything had been cleaned and that she’d also taken out the books she thought she’d need for today. She then went over to make sure she had the appropriate amount of supplies.
“Five hundred pieces of parchment? Check. Three different quills? Check. Ten bottles of ink? Check. Practice items? Check. Alright then. I think we’re set,” she said, putting the list down. Filled with nervousness and excitement, Twilight was ready for her first ever Magic Tutoring. “Now I just need to make sure that we have our peace and quiet. Spike, you still here?”
“Yeah. Just let me get washed up before I head out,” he replied, going into the bathroom and cleaning himself off. “Me and Pinkie Pie are gonna have a cake eating contest at Sugar Cube Corner. You sure you know what you’re doing?” Spike asked, thinking back to the events that led to Twilight deciding to tutor in magic.
It was right after the case of the destroyed dioramas at the school. Thanks to the investigative efforts of the CMC, they found that the culprit was not only Diamond Tiara, but that she was also a unicorn. She’d kept it a secret because of her embarrassment of being unable to control it and an accident that caused the loss of someone close to her. It was revealed that she had incredibly powerful magic and not even potions meant to permanently get rid of magic could be effective against her. When Spike messaged her about helping her control her magic, she couldn’t be any more enthusiastic.
“I’m positive that anything that comes this way I can handle. After all, I have years studying magic on my side. My experience with the topic would be enough for even experienced magic casters. She hasn’t been taught anything so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Alright. I won’t say ‘I told you so’ when you complain about your day. You’re on your own now.” Spike opened the door to leave, only to be met with Diamond Tiara, hoof raised up as if about to knock on the door. She wasn’t wearing her trademark tiara at the moment, her horn visible without the masking effects of its enchantment.
“Oh. Hey Spike,” she said casually, the two staring at each other, trying to figure out what next.
“Hey, Diamond Tiara. You feel ready for your first lesson?” he asked, trying to bring something up before things got awkward.
“I guess. Still feels odd having ponies refer to me as a unicorn. Just feels so…weird.”
“Yeah, well, I’m off to leave you and Twi alone for your tutoring. Take care!” he said, heading off.
“Okay.” Diamond Tiara walked in just in time to observe her tutor carefully adjusting the quills so they’d be in order.
“Oh! Hello Diamond Tiara!” Twilight said, enthusiastic about this opportunity. “Please, have a seat.” The pink unicorn sat down at the desk while Twilight took out her pair of reading glasses and placed it on her face. “While I am tutoring you, you shall refer to me as Miss Sparkle. Understood?”
“Sure,” she replied unenthusiastically.
“Good. Now, I’m going to go over exactly what we’ll be doing today. Since this is your first lesson, I thought I’d give you the introductory content first. Here,” Twilight said, levitating a sheet of paper over to her. “This practice test will let me see how much you already know. That way I can move onto the material that I know we need to cover. Take your time and don’t worry about grades; this is all about learning.”
Diamond Tiara picked up her quill and started jotting down answers. While she was doing that, Twilight went over the concepts she’d most likely have to teach her.
“Now let’s see. First we deal with the basic concept of what magic is. Then, we go over several examples of its use. I then introduce several topics that will come up later on that we can build up to and how it all relates. That should be easy enough.” Twilight decided to look over her lesson plan and pick out what order to teach the material in. She was enthusiastic with her choices of books and wanted to figure out what she’d teach first.
“Done,” Diamond Tiara said.
“Alright,” Twilight said, taking the piece of paper away and examining it. She took out her red quill and was about to mark the things that would need improvement before she got a good look at it. “Huh. This is…interesting. I don’t actually see any wrong answers.”
“Yeah. I actually studied a lot of this stuff before when I was trying to find out how to control it. Didn’t help.” Twilight was surprised at how well Diamond Tiara answered the questions. She’d made certain to include a wide range of content that went from beginner content to expert knowledge. She even answered the question that Twilight got wrong her first time as well.
“Oh. My. Um…maybe we should go over the basics, just to be certain. Now, the basic understanding magic is-“
“Magic is the ethereal connection we have to the world based on our personal power and connection with living organisms that can manifest in many ways, from the obvious unicorn magic that utilizes the horn as a central locus to the magic of an earth pony which can manifest in abilities, such as extreme strength in certain situations or different kinds of intuition.” Twilight’s jaw hung open after hearing Diamond Tiara’s answer. She’d never heard a more perfect answer before.
“That’s correct. Wow. You really do know this stuff. However, I can’t just skip a large chunk of material because you know a lot about some things,” Twilight explained. “We still have the concepts of magic resonance, interference, and I think I’d like to go over transfiguration just a little bit. That’s always a fun one.”
“Do you mind if I try to explain some of the stuff I know about those topics?” Diamond Tiara asked, becoming more active than she was before.
“Sure! I’d love to hear what you have to say.” Twilight sat herself down, taking a notepad to analyze and review what Diamond Tiara would explain.
“Magic resonance is the term used to describe the magic wavelengths that any pony can generate merely with their presence. With unicorns it’s much more obvious and can actually have altering effects if multiple unicorns are within the same proximity. One way is that the resonance can actually cause two ponies to link with each other, sometimes sharing emotions and, in some extreme cases, thoughts. Now, interference is an example where some outside force interrupts spell casting. This can actually be caused by resonance and results in spells losing focus. Something that can cause it as well would be magic absorbing materials such as certain kinds of crystals. Interference can be stopped however if the pony has enough power or focus to overcome such interferences. Focus doesn’t work too well when it’s being absorbed though. Lastly, transfiguration-“
“Alright. I think I get the point,” Twilight said, impressed and slightly put off by how smart her pupil was. “I think you’ve got an understanding of the basics. I know I’m skipping ahead just a little, but how about we do a little practice?”
“Sure. What’d you have in mind?” Diamond asked.
“I actually want to see about a simple levitation spell. I remember that being the first spell I ever performed,” Twilight said, thinking back to those days. “Try to levitate this page of the book.” Diamond Tiara closed her eyes and focused. A red glow enveloped the page and turned it over smoothly. “Great! Now, try to do some more levitating, but don’t just do the page over again.”
“Okay.” Diamond Tiara’s horn glowed again and Twilight expected her to levitate several pages or the entire book. What ended up happening was that the words on the page were actually levitated from the book and started swirling around in the air.
“Wow. You actually levitated the ink off the page and kept it intact,” Twilight said, impressed.
“Thanks,” Diamond Tiara said, sounding a bit more enthusiastic. She placed the words back in order onto the page. “Is that good?”
“Good? I don’t think even I could have done that when I was your age,” Twilight said, surprised at how good Diamond Tiara was. She smiled upon being complimented. “So, it looks like you can be precise with your magic as well. That’s good.”
“Thanks!” Without what appeared to be trying, Diamond Tiara’s horn started to glow again, pulling out all the books on the shelves and moving them around.
“Um, Diamond? You mind putting those back?”
“Oh. Sorry.” With a somber face, the books were placed back in order. “Sometimes my magic will act up like that. I don’t know why, but it’s really annoying.” Twilight remembered the case that Spike had worked on and already knew about Diamond’s trouble with controlling her magic.
“Don’t worry. My job as tutor will be to help you control your magic. Besides, that was pretty good, even if you didn’t mean to do that.” Twilight smiled at her pupil, who in return smiled back. “Now, I think we’ve actually covered everything that I’d planned to teach today. I think we made some real progress though. Class is dismissed then.” Twilight found that saying that line was oddly satisfying.
“Okay. See you tomorrow then?” Diamond Tiara asked.
“Eeyup! Don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll make sure that I have more for us to do tomorrow. Now I know how much you know, so it’ll be easier to plan out. Good night!” Twilight saw her pupil out the door and closed it. Immediately she started worrying about what she was going to do.
“Oh horseapples! I hadn’t planned on her being so...so...skilled. I thought she just had lots of energy. This is going to throw off the entire schedule. I’ll need to figure out what to do next.” Twilight grabbed as many books as she could and started flipping through the pages. She felt clueless as how to instruct somepony who could learn so quickly. “I guess what I could do is just use these books as a guideline and teach in the order of the lessons. After all, that’s what most teachers do anyway. I’ll look through the lessons and make an activity to accompany when finished. That way we’ll spend our time wisely.”
“Hey, Twi, I forgot my cake eating bib. Did you see it?” Spike asked as he came through the door. “Oh. Sorry. I’m interrupting, aren’t I?”
“No, Spike. You aren’t. We finished the lesson already.”
“Wow. That was pretty fast. Thought you had a ton of stuff to teach.”
“Yeah, well, my pupil was smarter than I thought and knew the stuff already,” she said, both impressed and annoyed. “Trust me though when I say that tomorrow will be different. Much different.”
“Uh, Twi? You sound a bit evil when you say things like that,” Spike pointed out.
“Oh. Heh, sorry. I’m just saying that tomorrow will be a lesson that actually gives Diamond Tiara a challenge. She was pretty skilled with her magic and even knew a good amount as well. Guess she’s been trying to find a way to deal with her magic for a while then.” Twilight floated several other books toward her, trying to figure out what else she could incorporate into her lesson tomorrow. “Hopefully I can catch up with her.”
“Yeah. I mean, how embarrassing would it be if some random filly from an Earth Pony village managed to upstage Princess Celestia’s personal student? That’d be insane.” Spike didn’t realize what he’d said until the words exited his mouth. “Oh. Um, what I meant was-”
“It’s alright, Spike. I’m not offended. It’s a real experience for the both of us, so I’ll be happy to do whatever I can to teach proper magic use. Anyway, I better get back to planning. I think your bib was put next to the cutlery.”
“Thanks,” Spike said, leaving Twilight in peace. She spent the rest of the night looking over her magic texts, absorbing their knowledge and seeing what she could teach.
“Hurray! Hurray!” the crowds yelled out, cheering on the pink unicorn as she was paraded down the street. The streets of Canterlot were filled with confetti and celebration as the pony was carried by her chariot to the castle. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna awaited her there at the end of the street.
“Citizens of Equestria! I present to you the new Element of Magic!” Celestia declared, placing the crown on top of Diamond Tiara. Everypony cheered, including Twilight’s friends. “I declare that this unicorn here is, without a doubt, the most skilled magic user in the entire land. Three cheers for her!”
“GAH!” Twilight yelled, jumping out of her bed. She’d just woken up from what she felt was a nightmare. She could hardly remember the facts, but remembered that it dealt with Diamond Tiara.
“Ugh, Twi, was that you?” Spike asked.
“Don’t worry Spike. I just, um, remembered that I needed to write some more for the lesson tomorrow.”
“You sure that it won’t be too much? After all, you spent the entire evening planning for it already.”
“No. I’m sure it’ll be good for her. After all, once we find what she needs help with, we can work on that. After all, we just went over the basics today. I doubt that she’s skilled in every other field of magic.”
“If you say so.” Spike went back to sleep as Twilight took out the books and started looking over them again. For some reason, she felt a twinge of fear and anxiety as she went over what she’d be teaching her pupil. She didn’t know how that could possibly be and decided to forget about it.
Lesson Two: Magic Boogaloo
"Hello? Miss Sparkle?" Diamond Tiara asked as she entered the library. "You in here?"
"Oh, hey Diamond Tiara. Twilight's not here right now. She said that she was going to get some supplies for today's lesson," Spike explained. "So how did your lesson go last night? Twilight says you really knew your stuff."
"Yeah. It was pretty easy stuff for me. I've looked over this stuff so many times trying to figure out how to control my magic. Nothing ever seemed to work though."
"You won't have to worry anymore. Twilight's a natural with magic. She's been studying this stuff her entire life! If anypony can help you it's her."
"Thanks Spike. I have to admit that it helps just being able to ask for help. Silver Spoon was the only pony that had known all of this before, but now it actually feels like I've got something off my back. You know?"
"Not really. Guess I haven't had anything like a deep dark secret. Well, except for who I have a crush on." Spike sighed, but then returned to the conversation. "It's not anything like yours though."
"Definitely. I admit that last night really felt...good. Like I had actually managed to do something right. For once I used my magic and something horrible didn't happen. That, or I wasn't scared."
"GOOD EVENING!" Twilight yelled as she burst into her library. "Hello, Diamond Tiara! Glad you're here. We can start right away!" She carried behind her a large wagon filled with what appeared to be random junk. Twilight moved the wagon to the center of the room and then tipped it over, dumping the contents onto the floor.
"NO!" Spike exclaimed. "I just cleaned that floor!"
"No worries, Spike. If today's lesson goes as planned, we'll be able to clean everything up in no time! Now," Twilight levitated a nearby piece of chalk and began writing on a board, "Today we learn about magic and regular objects. Since magic gives off a resonance, it can be attached to nearby objects. One of these items in this pile is enchanted. Your goal at the end of today's lesson will be able to identify which item it is and what kind of enchantment I've placed on it, alright?"
"Can I search now?" Diamond Tiara asked.
"Sure, but I really don't think that you'll be able to find it without the proper knowledge of enchantment," Twilight said, hoping that she'd be able to deliver her lesson in full today. "Now, let's begin with the basics. What is enchantment?"
"Enchantment is the infusing of an object with magical properties based on a specific spell or set of spells. The effects can range from trigger to continuous," Diamond Tiara said, moving around in the pile.
"Exactly. However, There are certain properties to making an enchantment work, such as-"
"Knowledge of the object you're enchanting, the spell you wish to cast, the effects of the spell and when it's active, and the power you wish to infuse it with," Diamond Tiara interrupted. "Also, this tea cup is the enchanted item. It's enchantment is to automatically refill whatever liquid was specifically drunk from it. Becomes null if liquid is not drunk. Low level enchantment."
"What?" Twilight asked, shocked at how fast her pupil had found the item. "But, what about-"
"The other items that had magical residue on them? I could tell that you simply waved your magic over them since their wasn't any organization to the magical patterns that surrounded the objects. This cup however had a specific magical pattern and a practical use for an enchantment." Diamond Tiara then went to the kitchen and then filled the cup with water, taking a sip. The amount she drank was instantly filled up again. "Anything else?"
"Uh, just a second," Twilight said, scrambling to find out what level of skill she would have to be to figure out what items were enchanted without even using magic. Diamond Tiara even went so far as to describe the patterns of the spells themselves. Not even Twilight could master that. "Let's see here. Hmmm. Apparently that level of skill is located in the 'Expert Mastery' section," Twilight said, shutting the book hard. "So, it looks like we don't need to even talk about that topic at all then."
"Alright," Diamond Tiara said, taking another sip. "So, what's next?"
"I was thinking that we might try out some... huh. I just noticed something. You had to go to the kitchen to fill that cup, didn't you?"
"Yeah. So?"
"You do know that you can actually make water fairly easy, right?" Twilight felt like she was getting onto something.
"Really?" Diamond Tiara asked, her interest being revitalized.
"Yes! All that it requires is for somepony to understand the basic structure of water and the concept of it. You create a mental image of it based on what you can attribute to it and then activate your spell," explained Twilight. "Go ahead."
Diamond Tiara took a deep breath and started to focus. Her horn started to glow softly at first, but soon became intense. To everypony's surprise (including Spike, who was watching from the upper level), nothing seemed to happen.
"But, I thought...oh," Diamond Tiara said, feeling like a failure.
"Don't worry. It's your first time trying out a new spell. It's not like I was able to instantly learn spells either. Even now it takes time for me to learn new skills." Twilight walked over to the basement door and said, "You wanna a picture of me when I failed a levitation spell and dropped a cake on my brother?"
"Hah! Sure," she replied, cheering up.
"Okay. Let me check the basement and WHAT IS GOING ON?!" Twilight yelled out as soon as she opened the door. She saw that her basement, the place where she stored all her sensitive materials, whether it be books too rare to simply be put on shelves or personal items, was now flooded. The water reached right up to the top of the stairway. "Oh no. You actually did cast the spell, but just not into the cup."
"Nononono," Diamond Tiara said, worried and turning around in circles. "I-I can fix it! I know how!"
"How?" Twilight said, a scowl starting to form on her face.
"Here. I've been practicing my Undo Spell," Diamond Tiara explained. She went over to the basement door and looked at the small pool that she had accidentally formed. Her horn glowed gently and seemed to radiate a gentle light, causing the water level to lower. After a minute, the water had been removed from the basement, almost as if it had never happened at all.
"Well, that was a good Undo Spell. Let me check out what needs to be repaired though," Twilight said, anger in her tone. She never expected this kind of stuff to happen when she agreed to tutor. Apparently that was something she just had to learn. "Now, let's take a look at you," she said, pulling a random book off of the floor. She expected the book to be soaked and nearly falling apart from water damage, but found it to be in a perfectly suitable condition. In fact, it appeared to be the same condition as it was this morning.
"Did it work?" Diamond Tiara asked meekly. "I tried to undo the spell and its effects. Hope it worked."
"Wait, you're telling me that you not only undid the spell, but all the damage it caused?" Twilight asked. diamond Tiara shook her head. "I don't think that was just an undo spell. I think that was a concentrated Reverse Time spell!" she said, surprised at seeing such a powerful spell be cast by somepony so young.
"Is that good?"
"Obviously. You managed to clean things up, so that's good," Twilight told her. She noticed that her pupil was still trying to avoid eye contact, her head facing down. "Listen, I'm sorry for acting like that earlier. I shouldn't have gotten angry at you for that. I was the one who asked you to perform the spell in the first place."
"It's not just that," she replied. "It's that this usually happens whenever I do magic. Things just get out of control."
"Well, at least you can clean up your messes. That's one thing Celestia told me to make sure of whenever I messed up. She said that sometimes cleaning up what you did is more important than doing the job perfectly. After all, now I know that you're also pretty handy when it comes to time magic, and that's something."
"Thanks, Miss Sparkle," Diamond Tiara said, sounding a bit more cheerful.
"Now, I think we're done our lesson for tonight. Honestly, I think that planning these things ahead of schedule might actually be futile with the way we're plowing through. How about we look at some embarrassing pictures, okay?"
"Okay!" she yelled, the two heading down into the basement.
Twilight Goes with the Flow
"Hey Miss Sparkle!" Diamond Tiara said as she entered the library. Twilight had gathered up her books into a pile and was sitting next to them with a smile on her face.
"Good evening, Diamond Tiara," Twilight replied. "You seem to be in a good mood today."
"I am! I was about to have a magic attack and I managed to control it!" Diamond Tiara pranced around with joy.
"That's wonderful! Sounds like we may be making some progress," Twilight said as she levitated the books in the pile into a line. "Now, today I think I've come up with a new method that could help us really get to learning some stuff."
"What's that?"
"Today, YOU pick what we'll learn," Twilight told her. "Here are the books that I have. You can look through them and then we'll work on it together. After all, most of the stuff I've tried to teach you've already known. This way I don't have to worry about organizing lessons that just get thrown out."
"Wow. There's a lot of books here. How can I figure out what I don't know?" Diamond Tiara glanced over all of the covers and tried to figure out what was in each of them simply based on that.
"Well, how about I list off some magical categories and you tell me if there's anything you'd like to know in that field? We can then go through several other topics in that category until we get to something new. Sound good?" Twilight asked.
"Sure," Tiara replied.
"Alright. Astronomy," Twilight started.
"Don't you mean Astrology?"
"No, Astronomy. Astrology is just a bunch of nonsense. Astronomy however helps with ponies knowing the position of planets and magnetic positioning." Twilight thought over what she said before saying, "Well, yeah, it's actually not magical whatsoever. It's just something to put on the backburner. Okay; Dowsing."
"Yeah. That's using magic to locate objects. I did the exact thing yesterday with the enchanted item," Tiara reminded.
"Oh. Then how about Elemental?"
"I'm decent with that. What about you?" Tiara noticed Twilight shift a little when she asked that.
"Well, to be honest, I've never been too good at that. Zecora would be one to know more of that. Actually, she knows a lot more archaic stuff I've never heard about before her."
"What kind of magic knowledge do I need to know in order to control my magic?" Diamond Tiara asked, trying to get to the point.
"That would be more arcane than anything. Honestly, if you can control that then you might be able to reign in control of yourself."
"Okay. What is important to know is that this kind of magic depends almost purely on your own magical energy. You already know this, but I'll go through the basics to clarify. It's pretty much pure energy put into form. You've seen this happen with your Destruction Magic, so I think that you know how strong it can be. This energy can also be converted for Conjuring Magic. That's what we were doing with the water yesterday. One other thing that you can do with all this energy is that you can manipulate objects and move them, just like I did with these books. Pretty much, the biggest thing you have too do when you have all this energy is develop focus." Twilight took a deep breath after saying all of that at once.
"What about reflecting?" Tiara asked.
"Reflecting? Huh. I've never really done something like that. I mean, you can interrupt a spell sometimes, but I've never actively redirected a spell." Twilight thought over her adventures and realized that was one spell she'd never done.
"I think that's one I'd like to try. I've heard of it before but never had somepony to practice with. You wanna try it out?" Tiara asked, flashing her eyelashes.
"Well, alright. I'll try out something simple though. A small Magic Missile will be fine. First, let's read it over, alright?"
"Alright," Tiara agreed. The two looked over the section in one of the books Twilight had and studied the lesson. It took them two hours to fully study the lesson and the other materials that were associated with the spell. After that, they began their practice.
"I think I can do this," Tiara said nervously.
"Don't worry about it. Just focus on the spell and the materials and you'll do fine. I'll be easy with it so you won't have to worry about what happens if you fail. I promise," Twilight told her, trying to reassure her pupil.
"Right," she said, assuming the stance. "Do your best...or whatever you're trying."
"Here we go." Twilight's horn sparked and let out a small shot of magic at Tiara. Tiara closed her eyes and her horn glowed brightly. Twilight's magic bolt was held in place for a moment, but soon started to grow as Tiara's own magic began to fuse with it.
"Tiara? I think that-" Twilight was cut off as her spell finally reflected. The wall behind her was disintegrated behind her, along with scorching the other wall on the other side. "Woah."
"I'm sorry! I'm really, really sorry." Tiara said, pleading. "I just used my energy to reflect yours and I guess it was just a whole lot."
"Well," Twilight thought for a second about how to turn this around. "I guess we can try out Reconstruction Magic now."
"I can do that!" Tiara said excitedly. She got in her position and cast a bolt that hit where the wall was. The wall suddenly came back into place as if nothing had ever happened. "Oh, the scorched wall."
"Don't worry. I can handle that. You've done well tonight. I'm proud of you, Diamond Tiara," Twilight told her. Tiara looked happy to get such a compliment. She felt like she really learned something new and actually did it correctly.
"Oh wow! I need to head home," Tiara said, looking at the clock. "Thanks for the lesson once again, Miss Sparkle!" She ran off, leaving Twilight at the door waving her goodbye.
"Ah. That was a really good lesson," Twilight said, realizing that today she actually managed to teach something new and have her pupil learn it correctly. "Well, I guess I should clean up that scorch mark in the other room." Twilight went into the other room and noticed to her surprise that the scorch mark had disappeared. "Wow. Her spell also fixed this wall as well, even though it didn't hit. I guess that time spell actually reverses all effects of the spell."
"Hello?" Spike yelled out as he came through the door.
"Hey Spike. I'm in here," Twilight yelled back. Spike entered the room to see Twilight looking intently at the wall.
"Uh, Twi? What are you doing?"
"Diamond Tiara cast a Reflection Spell to my Magic Missile and blew up the wall and then scorched this wall," she explained. "She used a Reverse Time spell and fixed not only the wall she hit, but the scorch mark as well."
"Wait a second! How powerful was the spell you cast at her?" Spike said, worried about what was going on.
"It was almost nothing! The extra power came from the magic she infused with it. That was how the Reflection Spell works. Her basic magic level is just really high."
"Oh man! That sounds intense! I can't believe I was out for this lesson. I'll need to stay and watch next time."
"Hey, Spike. If you're interested in magic like that, you can watch me practicing," Twilight told him.
"Nah. The way she does it is way cooler," Spike told her. "I actually think I should invite some other ponies to see her do something awesome."
"Oh. Alright," she replied. Spike walked out of the room, leaving Twilight alone. Her happy expression became sour right as he left. She thought about how good at magic she was at Tiara's age and began to shudder at how inexperienced she was then. She could never have done that well. "Well, at least she's doing better," Twilight told herself as she left the room.
Time is Relative(ly Boring)
Diamond Tiara had come early for today's lesson. Twilight hadn't set up yet, so she decided to hand around before Twilight was fully ready to teach.
"So what're you planning on teaching today?" Tiara asked.
"I was thinking something in the realm of Time Magic. You seem to be able to cast it easily, but don't really know anything about what you're doing. I'm going to at least educate you on what you're doing," Twilight explained.
"That actually sounds pretty interesting," her student replied. Twilight was happy to hear something that resembled interest in studies. "So what'll we be doing with it?"
"Since you seem to be able to cast without much trouble, I think we'll be reading from the book today." A large textbook was levitated in front of Tiara and placed gently down, the book opening to the introduction. "Let's start from the beginning. After all, this stuff can get pretty com-"
"Right this way! Please wait on the ground floor before being seated," Spike interrupted with several ponies entering the room.
"Spike! What's going on here?" Twilight asked, seeing her teaching area become filled with other ponies.
"These guys wanted to see a real magic lesson in action and I told them exactly where to come," he explained. "After all, what's better than spreading the knowledge of magic?"
"Normally I'd be excited to spread the knowledge of my craft, but seeing as most of these ponies aren't even unicorns, I doubt that they came here out of a thirst for knowledge." The ponies looked around the room and tried not to look directly in her direction to avoid the accusative gaze.
"C'mon Twi. Don't be like that. I'm sure that most of these ponies here came to-"
"How many of you wanted to see magical explosions today?" Twilight saw everypony Spike had brought in slowly raise their hooves in the air. Eventually Spike did the same thing. "Really? I mean, I expected most of you, but all of you?" Twilight felt that these foals didn't respect magic like her. These wipper-snappers not caring about stuff that really mattered.
"Maybe we'll gain a respect for it while waiting for explosions," one of the foals told her in an attempt to not get kicked out.
"Well, maybe." She thought this through before deciding, "Alright. You can stay as long as you don't interrupt the lesson or talk we'll be okay with it."
"But Miss Twilight-" Tiara interrupted, concerned about her lesson.
"Don't worry, Tiara. Everything will be alright," she explained with a face that said 'Trust Me'. "Now, I think it's time we begin."
"Alright! Everypony follow me to our seats. We'll be staying on the upper level so we can be safe and still get a view." Spike led the group of foals up and they took position to see the chaos that would hopefully unfold.
"So, what do you think we'll see with this lesson?" one of the foals Spike didn't know asked.
"It's something with time, so I guess we'll see things get fast and slow," Snips explained.
"Remember when Trixie did that time spell on us?" Snails reminded him.
"I thought we agreed never to talk about that."
"Shh! Quiet! The lesson's about to start." Spike took the highest seat he could find and brought out some popcorn to pass around. The ponies watched the two curiously as they started reading silently from the book.
"So when does the cool stuff happen?" Pip asked.
"Usually it starts right after Twilight tries to teach something and Diamond Tiara lets her know that she already knew about all
"I really hope it's soon. I have homework to do," Featherweight explained. Several other ponies in the group heard this and nodded in agreement.
"Did any of you understand how we're supposed to do the math homework? I really don't seem to get multiplication."
"I do!" Snails yelled out, surprising everypony. "I'm really good at math."
"Really?" the classmate asked incredulously. "I never expected you to, well, know that sort of stuff."
"Sure! You want me to show you how it's done?"
"Alright." While Snails helped out his classmate with math problems, the rest of the group watched patiently to see any signs of magic being cast. All they saw were the two of them reading out of their book, pages turning after several minutes of reading. At first it seemed like they could wait it out, but as they looked at the clock and noticed that half an hour had passed they began to have their doubts.
"Ugh. This is taking forever," Truffle Shuffle said, plopping head on the floor. "I might as well spend my time doing homework."
"Same," Spike said half-asleep, not realizing that he didn't even go to school.
"Well, why don't we?" Featherweight asked. "It's not like we're doing anything else while watching these two. After all, I don't want this to be the day where I learned that Snails is better at doing homework than I am."
"Same here," Twist said as she took out her books. "I'm gonna do some work while waiting. I'll need this extra time for spelling."
"If you're having issues with that I might be able to help," Featherweight told her.
"Thanks." Seeing that others had decided to do homework, the rest of the students decided to join in as well. What was originally supposed to be an exciting show of magical prowess had somehow become a study group. Two hours passed with the group doing nothing but studying and completing homework. When they'd finished they saw that Twilight and Diamond Tiara were still reading the book in silence.
"Well, it really looks like tonight wasn't anything special. Sorry guys. Guess I was wrong," Spike apologized.
"At least we got our homework done. I actually think I get this math now. Thanks Snails!" the foal told him.
"No problem. This was a pretty good study group. Maybe we should come back tomorrow." The rest of the group mumbled in
"You guys were pretty quiet," Spike told the two, noticing the both of them shrugging off his comment. "You guys want some tea? I can make some since you've been pretty busy." Again, no answer. He assumed that the two were so engrossed in their book that they couldn't hear any of what he was saying. Thinking that he should give the two a nudge to get their attention. When he got close, a bright light suddenly shone and then dissipated, Twilight and Diamond Tiara finally moving.
"What was that?" Twilight asked, looking at Spike as he rubbed his eyes. She turned her attention to the clock on the wall and saw that they'd been studying for two-and-a-half hours. "What?! How can that be? We've only read ten pages?"
"Uh oh," Diamond Tiara said nervously. "I think that might be my fault. When I saw that one practice spell at the beginning of the book, I tried casting it and noticed nothing happen, so I thought it didn't work." Twilight checked the book and saw what kind of spell Tiara had cast. She recognized it as a "Slow Spell".
"No. You did cast it after all. The problem is that when you cast it, the spell actually enveloped the surrounding area and slowed down time for us. What for us was several minutes was actually several hours," Twilight explained.
"I'm sorry," Tiara apologized. "I'll do the rest of the reading at home after my homework. I promise."
"Thanks. At least I got to experience first hand a time spell like that. Can't believe how long it lasted. Most spells like that are really quick and fade away in about a minute. You really show potential." Giving the book to her student, Twilight sent Tiara off home to study. In the meantime, Spike had prepared tea for the two of them.
"So, it looks like it's getting better for her then," he said, taking a sip.
"Yeah. I remember my time spells. They usually lasted about a minute at most. She can keep it up for hours." She took a sip and then said, "I guess your little business venture to make my lessons into a show failed then. You just saw two ponies reading a book for several hours."
"I guess so. Apparently I started a study group though, so...a thing happened," he said, realizing that it was neither a win nor loss. "Wish I went to school so I could've done some work with them."
"Oh Spike. We both know what would happen if you did that," Twilight reminded him.
"True. So, I'll find something else to do while you plan for tomorrow. Hopefully she won't suddenly become a master of time and space after just reading that book."
"Hopefully not," she replied, looking at her reflection in the tea. "Though, knowing her she'll probably be better than me at least." She finished up her tea and decided to plan for tomorrow, hoping that there'd still be something to teach.
