Twilight stood in front of a blackboard of rather intimidating size. Ingar hoped she wouldn’t cover the entire thing. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to learn that much.

“For a young foal,” Twilight began, “parents start with the practical aspects, and the theory comes later. We can try that, but I’m not sure you have the instincts required to learn to channel magic without understanding it first. And most of the exercises for foals involve focusing on the magical pathways in the horn, which, you know, you don’t really have. We can try to adapt them and see if they’re useful, but there’s no guarantee.”

“I thought you said you could teach me!” he burst out, unable to stop himself.

“We can,” Twilight said. “It just might take a while. If the basic exercises don’t get you anywhere, we’ll need to dive into the theory. You’ll cast magic better when you understand how it works.”

He looked back up at the massive blackboard and swallowed hard. “But we try the simple way first?”

“That’s right. Now, hold your hands out in front of you. Cup them—perfect. Close your eyes. Picture a ball of light between your hands. Focus on it. Will it into existence. Feel the magical center of your body…”

Pinkie Pie paced back and forth across the room like a drill sergeant. Silverstream tried to stand up as straight as she could.

“So,” her professor said. “You want to learn to fight.”

She’d seen General Seaspray do this a time or two, and she knew the right response. “MA’AM YES MA’AM!”

“You think you’re strong enough? You think you can handle it?”

“MA’AM YES MA’AM!”

“You think you’re ready to face what the world has to throw at you?”

“MA’AM YES MA’AM!”

Silverstream blinked, and Pinkie, who had been on the other side of the room, was suddenly right in her face. “WELL YOU’RE WRONG!” Silverstream felt her feathers ruffle in the wind from the shout. She blinked again, and Pinkie was still in front of her, but a reasonable distance away. “You’re not strong enough, and you’re not ready. But with my help… you will be.”

“Uh… yes ma’am?” Silverstream tried uncertainly.

For a moment, Pinkie smiled breezily, her tone light and cheerful. “Well, either that or you’ll descend into madness from seeing things beyond mortal sight.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “But hey, those are the risks you take, right?”

Silverstream blinked and said nothing. Really, what could she have said?

“Anywhoo.” Pinkie stretched out, then snapped back into that serious, military pace. “Some of what I teach you will be strange. You’ll think you don’t need to learn it. But know this…” Suddenly, she was far too close again. Silverstream hadn’t blinked. “I may act silly. I may make mistakes sometimes.” She leaned even closer, whispering now. A few of the lights in the classroom dimmed, creating a dramatic effect. Silverstream tried to stand straight and unmoving. “But I never do something without a reason. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Silverstream chirped, voice high with nerves.

Pinkie Pie pulled back, and the lights flickered back on. She smiled. Silverstream thought her mane might even have been curlier than before. “Great! Then let’s get started!”

Scootaloo buzzed up to Twilight’s castle to find Ocellus waiting for her. “I don’t have a suit for you yet,” she said apologetically, “but I wanted to teach you to swing around first. I know you can fly, but it’s a more unpredictable way to move, and in a fight that makes it safer.” She tossed a small tube like a long bracelet to Ocellus. “I’ll use one, and you can use one, until you have your own suit. Deal?”

“Actually…” Ocellus reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a book. “I decided to do some research before our first class, into exactly what real spider silk is made of. Changelings are used to making all kinds of different goops and slimes, so I knew I could make it internally if I just knew what to eat. Professor Pie helped me figure it out.”

“Pinkie Pie?” Scootaloo asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah! Chemistry is just fancy baking, that’s what she says!” Ocellus’s wings buzzed eagerly. “Anyway, it only took me a few hours of practice to learn to shoot them out of my hooves. Now I’m ready to go!”

Scootaloo rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. “Feels a little awkward when the student is more prepared than the teacher,” she mumbled.

Ocellus shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I have your expertise. I mean, you’ve been in actual battles!”

“Two. Two actual battles. Both of which I lost.”

“Yeah, but you fought! I didn’t do anything. I was barely a grub when the changelings started sharing love, I wasn’t even in the same room with Queen Chrysalis where all the transformations threw her back and destroyed the throne!” She drooped a little. “The most important thing I’ve ever done is coming to this school in the first place.”

“Hey.” Scootaloo put her hoof under Ocellus’s chin and lifted it up. “So neither of us are that experienced. I’m younger than my own student, and you haven’t done much of note yet. But isn’t that why we’re here in the first place?” When Ocellus tilted her head, Scootaloo clarified, “To learn! I’ve never taught anypony—or anycreature—before, and you haven’t had any experience in battle, so this will help both of us, right?”

Ocellus nodded, more determined. “Right. And I can’t wait to learn!”

“Me either!” Scootaloo agreed. “So let’s get started!”

Rarity bustled into the classroom, a large bag of fabric suspended by her side in her magical aura. “I hope you don’t mind, darling, but I only bought the most horrendous fabric I could find for you to practice with. Otherwise, I was afraid I’d get caught in a whirlwind of inspiration, and you might find yourself with nothing to practice your sewing on!” She set the bag down on the counter.

“Nah, that seems fine,” Sandbar said, poking his nose into the bag. Swirls of green and orange filled his vision, competing with each other for which could be the most blindingly bright color. “I mean, this stuff is hideous, but that just makes it easier to ruin, right?”

“Exactly so. And I’m afraid you’ll be doing a good deal of ruining at the start.” She pulled a short length of the fabric from the top of the pile. A spark of magic ran down it, shearing it off from the rest. “Hoof-stitching, or horn-stitching, is more elegant and shows more care in your work, but it’s also irregular for beginners, and—frankly—takes a great deal of time. Even I use a sewing machine for all but my most delicate work. You can see I’ve already set up two machines, one for me to demonstrate and one for you to follow along.”

Sandbar trotted over to the machines. Even his untrained eyes could tell this was a high-quality machine. Every inch of it was crafted with care, the casing a shiny red with swirling gold designs. It had clearly been used but taken care of lovingly, cleaned and polished regularly. “Woah,” he said.

“Indeed.” Rarity slid into one chair and gestured to the other, which he took readily. “Now, you feel that pedal on the floor beneath your hoof? That controls the machine. It takes a delicate touch, so I can’t expect you to pick it up immediately.” Her horn glowed, and a spool of thread unwound itself and wrapped intricately around different parts of the machine, neatly flowing through the eye of the needle and coming to rest. “The machine is complex to thread, so for your first lesson I’ll do it, but I’ll expect you to learn next time. Now, try to just make a very straight line. Set the knob to the lowest speed, and feed the fabric in from front to back.”

He followed all her instructions carefully, then with a wince tapped the pedal. The machine roared, pulling the fabric through his hooves in a rush. He jerked backwards. “It’s, uh, touchy.”

“Takes time to learn, darling,” Rarity said, pushing on the pedal in a steady, even motion. “Gentle touch, remember?”

“Gentle. Yeah.” He took a deep breath and gave it the gentlest possible tap, then immediately brought his hoof off of it. It took another short jump. Hesitantly, he repeated the action, making sure to keep the fabric straight. The machine progressed in tiny hops.

“Most beginners are uncomfortable with long distances at first,” Rarity encouraged. “You’re doing very well. You’ll grow faster and smoother much more quickly than you think.”

He looked down at the shaky line growing across the fabric. It looked awful, and it wasn’t even a seam. But she apparently thought he was pretty standard for a beginner, maybe even… good?

He would take it.

The bell over the door dinged merrily as Fluttershy and Gallus entered the shop. “I’m very sorry about this,” Fluttershy was saying. “I just didn’t have much time to prepare for having a student, and really you need to be sure it’s the right size anyway, and…”

“It’s okay, Professor.” Gallus waved his hand. “I’m interested to see what an archery store is like anyway.”

An old earth pony, with white hair and a mustache, trotted cheerfully out of the back and slid behind the counter. “Welcome, strangers! Well, a stranger and Fluttershy. What can I do for ya?”

Fluttershy puffed up with pride. “I’m teaching Gallus archery! He needs a bow, and some arrows that fit him.”

“That fit me?” Gallus repeated skeptically. “I’m not trying on clothing, here.”

“No, but they have to be the right length for your legs, y’see,” the stallion said amiably. “If they’re too short, they’ll fall right through the bow as soon as you draw it!”

Gallus shrugged, not really caring to contest the point with an expert. “So, what do I need?”

“Recurve is a good way to start,” the proprietor suggested. “Not so complicated as a compound bow, not as large and unwieldy as a longbow. Best way for a beginner.”

“I still use one anyway!” Fluttershy chimed in. “I just like it better!”

“Lots of ponies think it feels more ‘natural’ than a compound,” the stallion agreed. “I think either works fine.”

“Wow, I never knew this stuff was so complicated!” Gallus said. “I thought it was kinda just… point and shoot.” As soon as he said it, it sounded silly.

“Well, not if you want good results,” the stallion said, but not unkindly. Stretching, he walked out from behind the counter. Gallus noticed, with some confusion, that his cutie mark actually had nothing to do with archery—it was a pencil on what looked like a blank comic strip, with three empty squares in a line.

Before he could think too hard about that, the pony was trotting across the store to some racks of bows. To Gallus, they looked like the letter S with an extra curve, but the curve in the middle was longest. They were smooth and elegant, like something he might see on a sheet of music. “Let’s try a few of these on for size.” The shopkeeper looked Gallus up and down, then picked one from the middle and handed it to him.

Gallus reared up to use both his forefeet and pulled back on the string. It was harder than he expected, but he got it past his beak. The shopkeeper watched, then nodded. “It’s a good fit, but you’re going to have to work hard on his poise. Try… this arrow. Pull your arm back, put your other one forward, and hold it along the length of the second arm.”

Gallus did as instructed. The arrow barely reached past the tips of his claws. “Is that good?”

The stallion nodded. “That’s perfect. Fluttershy? How many arrows?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty?” He whistled. “What’s the kid doing, going into battle?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” He grabbed a mouthful of arrows from the rack and headed back to the counter. “What’s ‘maybe’ mean?”

“Uh… not for a long time, hopefully?”

“Hopefully. Well that’s great.” He rang up the total. “Twenty arrows and one recurve… that’ll be a hundred bits.”

“Twilight gave me an official grant for the purpose,” Fluttershy whispered to Gallus, reaching into her saddlebags to pull out a large bag of bits. The transaction was quick, and before Gallus knew it, they were leaving. “Thanks, Mister Lee!” Fluttershy called behind her.

“So, was that it?” Gallus asked hopefully.

“It?” Fluttershy pranced in place. “We’re just starting!”

Gallus groaned.

Yona’s brow furrowed in concentration. Her hoof kept shaking, but she forced it to steady. The small block of wood in front of her stared up into her face, challenging her. She glared right back down at it. Yona will show you, she thought. Yona will make smoothest line in history!

The knife in her hoof slid into the wood and made a long, thin cut. It wobbled and wavered. The wood mocked her. I defeated you, it said. You couldn’t make it straight.

Her eyebrows lowered in anger. “Not… perfect…” she growled under her breath.

“Now, Yona, you’re still a beginner,” Applejack began over her shoulder. “It’s not a bad cut if you’ve never carved bef-“

“YAK SMASH!” she shouted, rearing up and driving her hooves onto the block. It broke into shards. She leaped up and down, destroying the stupid mocking block and the stupid crooked line, until all that was left was splinters. Dust shaken from the hay on the barn floor glittered in sunbeams from the windows.

Applejack blinked slowly at all the destruction. “Um,” she said. “Why don’t we take a break?”

Yona gestured proudly to the pile of splinters and sawdust. “Is already broken!”

“No, Ah mean… maybe we should try somethin’ else. Oh, Ah’ve got an idea! Before you carve your own shield, you should understand how one handles, right? Maybe you should try mine out a little, and get a feel for it. Can’t expect you to learn everything about it only after you make the thing, right?”

Yona’s eyes gleamed. “Yona get to try shield?”

“Sure thing, sugarcube! Just aim and throw, like a frisbee!”

“What frisbee?”

“Well, uh… Ah guess that metaphor ain’t useful for you, huh?” She mimed the motions. “You move your front leg across your chest and curve the hoof in, and the hoof is holdin’ the frisbee, or the shield, in this case. And then you just snap that whole leg out forward-” She demonstrated, whipping her leg out and opening the wrist. “-and release!”

Yona mirrored her motions, readying the shot. Applejack’s eyes widened with sudden alarm.

“Uh, but maybe we shouldn’t do it-”

Yona threw. The shield flew into a support beam with a crack, bounced off of it to hit a wall, bounced off of that into another beam, and finally skidded across the ground at her feet.

“-inside.”

“Yona think that went well.”

There was a slow rumble, then the wall and both support beams cracked through. The barn shook around them, then, as if in slow motion, began to collapse. Applejack threw both hooves over her head, but Yona leapt into action, snatching up the shield and holding it over her own head and her teacher’s. When the pounding of falling wood against it subsided, she shook herself and looked around tentatively.

“…Maybe Yona speak too soon,” she concluded.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Rainbow Dash began, pacing at the front of the room. “‘Engineering’? What kind of lame, boring stuff is that?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t have phrased it like that…” Smolder hedged.

“Well,” Rainbow steamrolled, as if she hadn’t even heard her, “I’m here to tell you that engineering isn’t just boring nerd stuff! I mean, there is kind of a lot of that, not gonna lie. But at the end you get something super awesome and totally worth it!”

“Okay.”

“Can I give examples, you ask? Of course I can!”

“I didn’t, but-”

“Number one: I made this suit.” She gestured to the shiny armor of red and gold that covered most of her body, light enough to keep movement easy, lines smooth as running water. “Number two: I made this suit. And number three…” She paused dramatically.

“You made that suit?” Smolder guessed dryly.

Rainbow Dash reared up, pumping her hooves in the air like a symbol of victory. “I MADE THIS SUIT!”

“Right. So do I get one?”

“Uh.” Professor Dash’s hooves settled back on the ground again. “Well, no. These things take forever to make, and you need to be training to actually use your equipment sometime this century. Plus, isn’t it cooler if you get to decide what you want to make?”

Smolder shrugged. “I guess. As long as I get to shoot some kind of energy blast thing.”

“Tony calls them Repulsor Rays.”

“Whatever.”

“Right. Well.” Rainbow coughed. “Any ideas in particular?”

“Not right now.”

“Yeah, I thought that might be the case. So Twilight helped me put together a super general overview of some things you’ll need to know about for almost any project, and then she and I will help you learn whatever you need for the specific idea you want to make. So let’s start by talking about circuits, both magical and electrical…”

Smolder had been prepared for boring work, slowly putting together something from scratch. She hadn’t been prepared for something as boring as a lecture. How long, she wondered, could she stay asleep before Professor Dash noticed…?

Author's Note

Normally, my update schedule for these stories is supposed to be on Saturday (although I didn't expressly say so this time around). But Sunday is actually going to work better for me right now, so I'm officially moving it.