"You know," Spike said casually, "you have nopony to blame but yourself for this."

Thud.

Anon was many things. Resourceful, always. Clever when she tried. Patient when she could afford it. Vicious when she couldn't.

Thud.

Good at dealing with Twilight Sparkle? That she was not.

Thud.

"You should probably stop doing that," Spike commented without even turning to face Anon. The drake sounded thoroughly bored with the situation. "You're ruining the wall."

Anon ceased banging her head against the wall, bits of wood and bark falling off her forehead. She glanced at Twilight, who was still writing on the blackboard.

"-Merry Web defines these changes to Equish spelling in her dictionary. By 864, she-

Thud.

Spike sighed.

"I'm going to go get a broom."

Anon didn't pay attention to him. She was too busy trying to turn her higher brain functions permanently off.

"-the standard now established by Oxbridge University-" Thud. "-has made sure to correct for the usual drift languages undergo. -" Thud. "-Their faculty has-"

"I JUST ASKED WHY!!!"

Twilight jumped at the outburst, causing her chalk to break in half.

Anon blanched. For a split second, she expected Twilight to start shouting back. She had just screamed at an adult, and technically, a teacher. If she only got yelled at, she would count herself lucky.

Instead, something much, much worse happened.

Twilight lowered her ears and shrunk away.

It wasn't exactly the same shrinking away that Anon sometimes did - hers was a more violent reaction. It sometimes took Anon a second or two to remind herself that there was nothing to dodge or jump away from, that was all.

Twilight looked more… guilty in the moment. She was exactly the sort of pony to go on long tirades about niche topics. And she was probably all too used to ponies rudely dismissing or making fun of her for it.

And now Anon felt like a jerk.

"Sorry," Anon muttered. "I get that you want me to learn, but I just want the basics. Not the whole history of Equestrian language developments. Can't you, I dunno, dumb it down a little?"

Anon felt bad as she said it. So far, Twilight had been a surprisingly good teacher - leading her to figure out the answers herself and helping her only when she struggled. At least, that was until Anon asked that stupid question and sent Twilight into a full on lecture mode.

"Dumb it down?" Twilight gasped, clearly offended by the notion. "B-but how will you understand if you don't know the history behind it!"

"I understand plenty!" Anon said urgently. "Gods, I can never not understand again. I can read Equestrian fine now."

And Anon really could. Well, except for the strange pictographs, but Twilight didn't need to know that.

It was hard to describe Twilight Sparkle in a full on lecture mode, but it was like the polar opposite of a lobotomy. However Twilight did it, Anon remembered. The knowledge simply got stuck in her head and refused to leave.

Anon blamed her partial amnesia. With so much spare room, it just got filled easily. Like pouring water into an empty bucket. (Though in this metaphor, the bucket was also rusty and full of bullet holes)

After surviving Twilight's exercises, Anon found she could now understand the strange combination of blocky symbols - each a different syllable - that made up most of the printed language she saw.

Then came the curved, flowy lines which made her eyes water. They reminded her of cursive, if only more complicated and elaborate. Those, Anon realized, she mainly saw in school whenever somepony scribbled something down fast.

And after completing Twilight's quiz on the matter, she even recognized some of the vaguely Egyptian looking symbols, each one a different word, if only the more obvious ones.

But none of it answered the one main question Anon had.

WHY?!

Anon gave a frustrated sigh. It could be worse, she told herself. It could be mangled horse latin.

"I don't need to know the whole history of Equish," Anon said. "Just… a part of it. I wanted to know why one language simultaneously uses three wildly different writing systems, that's all."

Twilight gave a deep sigh, looking pensive for a moment.

"That has a relatively simple answer," Twilight said looking conflicted. "The three tribes all used basically the same language, but had access to different resources, so their writing systems evolved differently."

Twilight's horn lit up and the board cleared. Levitating a new piece of chalk, she wrote the words 'Earth Pony - Merchant Republic'.

Nice. I can actually read that now.

"The earth ponies formed merchant republics and free cities," Twilight began. "They needed an easy and accessible way to record taxes and trade deals, and to spread political propaganda."

Anon was nodding along, until Twilight got to the last point and then her brow shot up so high it almost left her face.

Nevertheless, Twilight continued on.

"Because citizens had voting rights, and a high literacy rate - highest of the three tribes before unification and for a long time after - politically charged literature became a staple in the wealthier cities. It's actually the most common primary source we have for the pre-unification era."

Anon blinked at the chalkboard. The concept of colorful ponies having political debates and propaganda was jarring enough. But, if she understood correctly…

"Ponies had democracy?" Anon exclaimed.

Twilight shot Anon a curious look - a mix of apprehension and interest.

"Republicanism," she corrected. "And it's… complicated?"

Then her shoulders sagged.

"So, on paper, any land-owning patriarch or matriarch of an earth pony family could vote and hold positions of office." Heroically, Twilight managed not to sigh at the futile effort of making sense of pony nature. "In reality, only the wealthiest and most well-connected families kept themselves in power, forming alliances between themselves and the lesser families whenever one family gained too much influence."

Then Twilight perked up. "You should ask Diamond Tiara about it," she said. "She's a descendant of the Dairies on her mother's side. They used to be a very influential family back then."

"I guess that makes sense," Anon said, then paused for a moment. "Wait, how do you know I'm friends with Diamond? How-"

"So! Back to your question," Twilight said quickly. "This writing system had to be simple enough for use in trade, and accessible to a large chunk of the population. Today, Bark is still the most widely used writing system, though mostly because bark is easiest to print-"

"Bark," Anon said flatly. "The writing system is called bark."

Twilight gave her a sheepish shrug.

"Well, paper wasn't invented yet, and chiseling tax revenue reports into stone is just not very practical," she explained. "But some earth pony found that birch bark could be used as a sort of primitive scroll. With some earth pony magic, they managed to create the Bark-Scroll tree."

Twilight levitated a scroll from her desk. With a raised brow, Anon noticed she had a small pile of different things ready.

Did… did she prepare props? For this?

To Anon's middling interest, the scroll Twilight gave her did appear to be made from bark. Though the more interesting thing for Anon was the writing.

It didn't really sink in before, probably because she was watching it being written by Twilight using magic. But now that she had it in her own hooves, it was really easy to see why Bark looked the way it did:

Hooves.

If Anon decided to hold a pen and bracing it against her fetlock like the earth ponies in school, this was the natural shape the letters would take. Blocky and sharp lines of a reed or charcoal pen on bark.

"Now, the origins of the name are really not known for sure," Twilight said. "but it's speculated it came from the pegasi asking what the earth ponies used for writing and, they answered 'bark'. The name then stuck."

Twilight paused, possibly for dramatic effect. Possibly because she forgot where she'd put down her chalk.

"Speaking of pegasi, we have Cloud Writ."

With a flourish, Twilight added 'Pegasi - Military Dictatorship' to the board with the now found chalk.

"The pegasi built their civilization on martial might. Military service was mandatory. Foals were commonly taken from families as young as seven and then trained together. It's actually the precursor of the flight school system they use now, though it was far harsher."

Anon opened her mouth to reply with something, but found herself speechless. Imagining ponies having political debates was one thing. But a pony version of… Sparta? That was just ridiculous. Not to mention it didn't seem very sustainable.

Aside from the obvious problems a nation of soldiers might run into, there was the question of why even form a society this way. Was Equestria in the past really so dangerous that a warrior culture emerged?

"Cloudsdale itself was ruled by the Lord Commander," Twilight said, then grimaced. "A position most commonly gained by a… duel against the previous Lord Commander."

Anon nodded, though she suspected Twilight used the word 'duel' here as a euphemism for murder.

She didn't appreciate being babied as if she couldn't handle some violence in her history books, but it was hard to hold it against Twilight. Equestria's past seemed far darker than the almost utopic present would suggest. Explaining these things to a child wouldn't be very high on Anon's to-do list.

Enough ponies had stared at her for her to know that ponies were… weird about stuff like that. Fighting and the like. Anon was pretty sure that if monster attacks weren't such a problem, they wouldn't even bother with a standing army. War and violence wasn't something ponies found palatable - at least not anymore. It simply wasn't something they had to worry about.

I blame Celestia.

"All of that to say, the pegasi had a bit of an ego," Twilight interrupted Anon musings, continuing with her lecture. "They lived for glory. And they wanted this glory to last. Potentially forever. Much of what we have of their literature are epic poems and hymns singing praise of the Lord Commander."

Lifting something from her pile of props, Twilight presented her with another book.

Except it wasn't a book.

"Though they ran into a small issue after Cloudsdale was founded. A tiny one, really," Twilight said. "They had nothing to write on. Or with."

What Anon somehow held in her hooves was a piece of solid cloud. Which, amazingly, was only the second strangest thing about it.

Because this solid piece of cloud was covered in shimmering, rainbow-colored writing.

"Stone and clay are hard to transport into the sky," Twilight explained to the bewildered Anon, who was still marveling at the colorful arrangement in her hooves. "And everything else required the pegasi to work with plants - something they saw as, quite literally, beneath them."

Twilight levitated the cloud back to her.

"So, the pegasi used what they had," Twilight explained. "Which are condensed clouds for paper, pegasi feathers for quills, and liquid rainbow for ink."

Liquid… rainbow? How?

Anon shook her head. Magic. Better not to ask.

They probably manufacture rainbows in a factory or something equally ridiculous.

"Their writing method is why the Cloud Writ looks so elaborate," Twilight said, pointing at the many loops and elaborate twirls. "It not only serves as decoration, but also minimizes quill lifting, which means less risk of splashing too much rainbow and ruining the whole cloud."

She gently put the cloud next to her pile of props, picking up another one.

"Lastly, we have Equish Glyphs."

Anon tilted her head.

"Wait, not unicorn glyphs?" Anon asked.

Twilight shook her head.

"No," Twilight said. "We don't actually know who invented them, but we do know all tribes used them before they came to Equestria," she sighed wistfully. "Truth be told, we are not even really sure when they were invented. But the oldest stela we have with carved glyphs definitely wasn't made by unicorns - the chiseling was made by hooves and claws. I actually have a transcript of it here"

Twilight let Anon see the paper.

"What do you think it says?" she asked.

The glyphs were somewhat nonsensical still, at least to Anon. But there seemed a method to the madness.

She studied the glyphs. Most of them looked far too abstract for her, like what appeared to be a pony stick figure with butterfly wings glued to its back. But a simply-drawn sun with a circle next to it looked a bit more like her speed. And was that seriously a goblin with a sword?

Anon pondered these drawings for a few more minutes, seriously considering the meaning of what appeared at a first glance to be hieroglyphics, as imagined by kindergarteners.

Finally, she gave up.

"Butterfly ponies rescue the sun?" Anon guessed, without a hint of exasperated desperation.

"Close!" Twilight said. "Flutter ponies rescue the sun stone!"

Anon looked at the paper again, simply not seeing it.

"You see the issue with glyphs now," Twilight commented. "And the main reason they aren't used outside of scholarly circles, with a few exceptions. To put it simply, they are not an efficient carrier of information."

Anon let out a relieved breath. She sort of assumed Twilight would be angry at her for not getting the glyphs, but she wasn't. It would be kinda ridiculous to expect her to understand all of it immediately, of course, but the assumption remained.

"What exceptions?" Anon asked, mostly as a means of distracting herself from a sudden avalanche of heavy thoughts she didn't want to deal with.

"Names," Twilight answered immediately. "Lots of ponies use their cutie marks instead of their full name. With glyphs carrying their magic in them, signatures like those are almost impossible to fake.

Twilight drew her own star-shaped mark on the board.

"Although," she added, "some ponies still like to use glyphs in their writing. Like Rarity, for example." As Twilight spoke, she pulled a folded bill of sale out from the pile of props, showing it to Anon. "She adds them mostly as decoration."

And just as Twilight said, the horn writing on the bill was graceful looking Cloud Writ, decorated with a few pretty looking, gem-shaped glyphs in the corners and around the name of her boutique.

"Most ponies have some quirk in their writing," Twilight explained, pulling out another few pieces of papers and presenting them. "You know my friends? Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie?"

"A little," Anon allowed.

"Try to guess whose is whose."

Anon raised a brow and started the task.

The first one wasn't exactly hard. Only one of them would be writing weather reports.

"Dash," Anon said, pointing at the report.

Twilight nodded.

"Rainbow writes exclusively in Cloud Writ, with the exception of punctuation - she borrows that from Bark, which I suspect is purely to annoy me," Twilight remarked, putting the report aside. "What about Applejack?"

Anon looked over the pile, then pulled another bill of sale, this one for a bushel of apples. The writing on it was a bit crude, but practical. It was also written using only Bark.

"Applejack's hoof-writing could use some work," Twilight commented. "She tends to connect the Bark signs as if she was using Writ."

The last two became very easy, if only because Fluttershy's note about the behavior of mice - which was written in a nice mix of elegant Cloud, clever glyphs and… Bark - was the only of the two remaining papers that was legible.

But the old party invitation Pinkie supplied was certainly… interesting, in the same way that eldritch horrors were kinda scary. Even Twilight did not know there were forty-two different glyphs for 'birthday party'. And Anon suspected that the only reason there were not more was because Pinkie Pie ran out of space.

"Why use glyphs at all, though?" Anon asked suddenly. "They just seem… inefficient and hard to learn."

Twilight smiled.

"Glyphs may be terrible carriers of information, but they are perfect for magic."

Picking the chalk up again, Twilight wrote the words 'Unicorns - Monarchy' on the board

"The study of magic is now mostly considered a unicorn thing. There is a reason for that," she said, adding 'Sun Raising' next. "Unicorns built their whole society around powerful magicians - particularly those few who could survive the ritual to raise the sun. They and their families are the root of modern unicorn nobility."

Twilight gave a little snort.

"Ironically, despite being a monarchy, it was actually one of the more egalitarian societies of early Equestria. Magical power meant everything in old Unicornia. And while titles were passed to family members, the rules for who was considered family differed greatly from the nobles of today. In those days, the whole household was considered part of the line, from sponsored clients down to the servants. They simply could not afford to waste talent, no matter where it came from."

Anon hummed to herself. It made a certain amount of sense - if the unicorns had the duty of raising the sun, they had to get the magic for it somewhere and they could not afford to be picky. But it was also weird hearing that a monarchy, out of all things, was egalitarian.

Though, it also made sense why Celestia's staunchest supporters were the unicorns. If their society was all about sun raising and magic, they would either love her for embodying both, or hate her for making them redundant.

I wonder how Luna fits into all of that.

"For unicorns," Twilight continued, "their noble house was more about sharing duties and traditions than sharing blood. It was extremely common to adopt heirs. Most commonly the ruling head of a noble house would take a promising young apprentice from inside their household - blood related or not - and basically raise them to be their replacement."

Twilight paused.

"Which is also why there are unicorn families claiming relationships with Princess Celestia even today. Princess Platinum formally adopted Celestia as her heir to help secure Celestia's rule and unify early Equestria."

Again. Mostly made some sort of sense, and made her even more curious how Luna fit into the equation.

From the brief impression Anon had of Luna, she seemed the more martial of the two, so maybe she helped get the pegasi on their side? Twilight did mention duels as being a legitimate way to gain high standing in pegasi culture, so maybe she just stabbed the first pegasus to ask any questions about the unification?

And yet, while it was fascinating to learn how each pony tribe developed, Anon still didn't see how this explained the third script.

"What does any of this have to do with unicorns using glyphs?" Anon asked. "I mean, you said that glyphs can carry magic... How? It's just some… squiggly lines on paper. How can they be any more magical than a story written in rainbow or drawn onto the bark of a… magically grown tree?"

Twilight smiled again.

"Let's try something."

And with that, Twilight started drawing glyphs on the board.

Few of them Anon even recognized. 'Light', Anon remembered from before. 'Power' was easy enough, the glyph being lightning shaped was enough of a clue. The last one in the sequence was tricky. A sort of triangle with a spiral on it.

'Horn'.

And then it finally clicked.

That's a spell diagram.

"Try it," Twilight encouraged. "Pour magic magic into the glyph, then-"

Anon did.

The room got a little brighter as Anon's horn lit up.

Horn light spell.

Twilight smiled again.

"The characters in Bark and Writ are used to illustrate sound. Glyph, meanwhile, illustrates meanings and concepts. And those have power where magic is concerned."

"Would any written glyphs work?" Anon asked. “Could I just…make a shopping list, pour some magic into it, and watch magic happen?”

"No.” Twilight said, shaking her head. “For a spell, it has to have a very specific form and meaning. This particular spell is just neutral magic. Intent, will, and visualization of the written concept. Others also have esoteric components. Using those is a lot more involved."

"What components?" Anon asked.

"Oh! Spell categorization. I will explain later when the magic lesson starts in about-"

"Ehm, hello? Is anypony home?" The voice of Sweetie Belle came from the front entrance of the library, followed by the sound of a small gaggle of foals. "We're here for the magic lessons."

Twilight sighed.

"About now, apparently."

It took a surprising amount of time for everypony to get seated.

It should not take any amount of time, really. There were only six of them, Anon included. And yes, while that was more than usual for Ponyville's own magic kindergarten - a few parents that normally taught their foals at home decided to send them this time, no doubt because of Twilight's reputation as Princess Celestia's student. (Or they wanted a free babysitter. That was also an option.) It was still just six foals.

Getting six foals to sit down should not take that long.

But there was a reason for it.

That reason's name was Dinky Hooves, the adorable creator of the Dodgeball of Doom™ in the flesh. The other foals sat in a semicircle around Dinky, obviously trying to avoid her without making it obvious that they were doing it.

They were scared.

Anon gave a long-suffering sigh while she got up from where she was sitting during Twilight’s first lesson.

Damn me and my bleeding heart.

"Hey," Anon said towards Dinky, "This seat free?"

Dinky winced, clearly startled. For a few moments, she watched Anon as if she was some strange, alien lifeform. (Which was, in fact, true, so Anon tried not to take it personally.)

"Y-yeah," Dinky stammered out. "Wait, the lesson is free, right?" she asked in a sudden panic.

"I think so," Anon said, plumping herself down next to Dinky, fully aware of the apprehensive stares from the rest of the foals in the room. "As far as I know, anyway. "

Dinky turned away from Anon and looked at the floor, rubbing her hooves nervously.

"I'm sorry."

Anon gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Don't be," Anon said. "It's not like the surge was your fault."

"B-but I hurt you," Dinky managed to say. "I put you in the hospital."

"Eh," Anon said with a shrug, gesturing at her scars, her torn ear, and her scruffy appearance in general. "I get hurt all the time. It doesn't matter."

"But-"

"Okay," Anon interrupted her. "I accept your apology. I don't think it was necessary in the first place, but I accept it."

"Oh," Dinky replied with an astonishing level of verbosity. "You're strange."

Anon snorted. "True."

"Ahem."

The low murmur in the library died out as Twilight cleared her throat.

"Hello class! My name is Twilight Sparkle and I'm your teacher for today."

Then she giggled, and added, "I always wanted to say that."

Five foals simply stared at the mare, waiting.

The sixth promptly punched herself in the face in an attempt to face-palm with a hoof, momentarily forgetting that she, in fact, had hooves.

"In today's lesson, we'll go over the basic principles, and practice controlling your magic," Twilight said in a more serious tone. "If anypony has any questions, feel free to ask them- yes?"

"What's that smell?" Snips asked, putting his hoof down.

"Spike is making nachos," Twilight answered. "Anything else? No? Then let's begin!"

Twilight's horn lit up, picking up a box of chalk and flying it around the library.

"Can anypony describe what I'm doing?" Twilight called to the class, continuing to levitate the box of chalk.

"Using magic?" Snails suggested weakly.

"Yes!" Twilight exclaimed happily. "Anypony know what this magic is called?"

"Telekinesis?" Sweetie Belle ventured in that awkward moment where everypony in the room knows the answer, but nopony wants to take the risk of answering wrong exactly because everypony should know...

"Correct!" Twilight said. "Telekinesis, or TK, is the most common unicorn spell and is usually the first one any unicorn learns."

Without missing a beat, the box of chalk exploded open, and six more pieces of chalk found their way to the floor in front of each student.

Next to Anon, Dinky gulped, staring at her chalk.

"Telekinesis is an example of something known as neutral magic," Twilight explained as she walked through the class. "That means it only requires intent. You simply visualize the movement of an object and coax your magic into action."

Nopony moved. The chalk, understandably, did the same.

"C'mon," Twilight, attempted to encourage them. "Give it a try."

Sweetie Belle made a strangled noise. Dinky was sweating bullets. Snips and Snails exchanged a loaded glance, while Azure shrugged.

Horns spluttered, sparks were shot. Some struggled to no effect, like Sweetie Belle, whose chalk resolutely refused to move no matter what faces she made at it. Others, like Snail and Snips, only managed to change their chalk from white to a shade of pinkish red with blue polka dots.

And then there was Dinky, whose chalk erupted in a burst of smoke and brimstone. Her face now approximated the pale horse of death, and she blinked away the dust of pulverized chalk.

Anon was unimpressed.

Twilight even more so.

"Of course, simple doesn't mean easy," Twilight said, watching the pandemonium unfold. "It takes a great deal of practice before one gets enough control for any precise task. You will mess up, you will fail, and you will turn your parents into potted plants. Accidents happen. That's why we're here, to learn and to fail safely."

"I think the plant thing was just your magic being ridiculous, Twi," Spike piped out from the kitchen. "Like that one time you accidentally spelled Smarty Pants to-"

Twilight flushed an impressive shade of red, and with a flash of her horn she vanished in a shower of purple sparks.

She, of course, reappeared in the kitchen, sticking her hoof straight into the dragon's mouth, silencing him with ruthless, if messy, efficiency.

"Was that teleportation?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Is that also neutral magic?"

Anon raised her head, her interest piqued. Teleportation was almost like her own powers, at least in appearance. Though her ability was quicker and wasn't so flashy. It seemed Twilight had to convince reality she was actually somewhere else. Anon just… went around it. (And occasionally clocked it in the back of the head with a blunt object.)

"Eh? Oh! Yes!" Twilight said, trying to shake her hoof free of dragon-spit while Spike pulled pony-fur off his tongue. "Teleportation is another spell only requiring intent. To make it work, you need to visualize the location and imagine appearing there."

Sweetie Belle's face lit in excitement while Twilight quickly turned horrified.

"Of course, that's an oversimplification. Teleportation is a veryadvanced and tricky piece of magic," Twilight amended quickly, a strained smile on her face. "So we will not be learning it today."

Sweetie Belle sighed in disappointment, Twilight sighed in relief.

"I have a question." Azure said, raising her hoof. "If magic you only need intent for is called neutral magic, what's it called if you need more than intent?"

"That's called esoteric magic." Twilight explained, adding it to the board. "Esoteric magic uses emotions to guide and strengthen the spell. Do any examples come to mind?"

"Gem searching!" Sweetie Belle said excitedly, her previous disappointment already forgotten. "Rarity goes gem hunting sometimes and she uses this spell, she says she has to imagine all the dresses she'll make with the gems and how happy the dresses will make the ponies wearing them. That has to be esoteric."

"Right," Twilight nodded, though her voice sounded uncertain. "if she needs to be in a certain state of mind, that technically counts as esoteric magic."

"Wait," said Snips. "So is dark magic, like, magic powered by hate?"

Twilight grimaced, shooting a brief glance at Anon.

Anon raised a brow at this, and then it clicked.

She must think I was hurt by dark magic, somehow. But-

Anon remembered. The blade slicing through her soul, carving her to pieces, leaving tattered remains where she was supposed to be.

But that's ridiculous, right?

"Not necessarily," Twilight finally said. "Lots of spells require certain emotions, or a state of mind, that could be considered negative. Elemental magic is notorious for it. Fire especially. Dark magic is… more of an arbitrary label for certain kinds of harmful magic, rather than a category of its own."

Anon raised a brow. This puzzle was fairly easy to solve. It had only two parts, after all. If the emotions alone did not make a spell evil, there was only one other thing that could.

"It's in the intent, right?" Anon asked. "Dark magic is what it's called when you use magic with the intent to hurt somepony."

Twilight gulped.

"Correct."

Anon blinked. Once, twice.

She had to be wrong but…no. There was it again. That shudder.
Twilight was afraid. Now Anon just had to figure out of why.

Snips hoof shot up again

"So if neutral magic is only intent, and esoteric is intent and emotions, is there, like, an only emotions kind of magic?"

Twilight nodded, thankful for the segue.

"Good question. And there is one magical phenomenon that only has an esoteric component with no actual intent."

Grabbing a piece of chalk, she wrote on the board.

Magical Surges.

"Magical surges happen when a unicorn's magic becomes heavily emotionally charged, but has no real intent. The magic might try to 'guess' what the intent of the caster was, but if it reaches up to that point, it is now fully out of the caster's control - and we call that a surge"

"Congratulations on the cutie mark, Dinky," Twilight said towards the gray filly. "Another common side effect of surges are cutie marks. We're not sure how they're connected, but it's thought that-

"But I already had my cutie mark," Dinky interrupted.

"Really?" Twilight asked, getting a nod from the foals. "Huh."

"What?" Dinky jumped in place, her face gone pale. Well, paler. "Is that bad?"

"No!" Twilight exclaimed, trying to sound reassuring. "Goodness no. It's just that usually, after your cutie mark appears, a pony's magic settles down and surges become far less common. For a surge to occur after you gained your cutie mark... That means your magic may be exceptionally powerful."

"B-but I can't even use it properly!" Dinky argued, pointing at the pile of chalk dust. "Everything just crumbles!"

Twilight laughed. Dinky frowned, her ears lying flat against her skull.

"Sorry," Twilight apologized quickly. "It's just that the same exact thing happened to me. You're putting far too much magic into it." She smiled, seemingly reminiscing about something. "I can't even count how many things I've broken trying to lift them. Once, I tried to move a chair and it catapulted through the ceiling."

"Oh," Dinky whispered.

"Have you ever thought about Celestia's school for gifted unicorns?" Twilight asked.

"No?" she said, sounding profoundly confused.

"I can ask your mom - the mailmare right? - about it for you, if you want?" Twilight offered. Dinky simply nodded, still mildly dizzy from the sheer weight of her realization.

"Is getting a cutie mark after a surge normal for unicorns?" Anon asked, turning the attention back to her.

"Yes." Twilight replied. "Surges aren't too common overall, but when they do happen, the amount of emotionally charged magic is often enough for a cutie mark to appear."

Anon raised a brow.

"So, can any esoteric spell do that, like the fire I conjured?"

"Fire?" Twilight asked. "What fire?"

"The fireball!" Snail said.

"Yeah!" Snips jumped in. "Spring used one to melt the Dodgeball of Doom™."

"I wouldn't call it a fireball," Anon argued. "It's more like a... flamethrower?" she shrugged. "There were no balls of fire. And no explosions. It's just heat."

"Interesting," Twilight said slowly. "Want to demonstrate?"

"Ehm, do you have anything you don't mind me… melting a little?" Anon asked.

Twilight seemed to think about it for a moment, before she ran off briefly and returned with a giant ice cube, which she placed on the floor in front of her.

Huh, well, if there is a thing I probably won't set on fire, it's water.

Anon took a deep breath, reaching deep into the same place she stored all the things she never wanted to think about again.

She imagined them wriggling like worms in the palm of her hand.

And then she imagined them on fire.

"Brisingr," she whispered.

Her horn lit, and the ice cube melted into a puddle on the floor. Spike sighed at the sight - he threw a mop at Twilight, muttering something.

"Esoteric," Twilight commented. "Anger, right?"

"Some of it," Anon allowed after a few beats.

"The incantation," Twilight said. "I don't recognize it."

"It's… not really magical?" Anon said with a shrug. "It's just something I associated with fire. Helps me picture it in my head."

"You learned it by yourself?" Twilight asked. There was some other, unrelated question hidden in Twilight's voice, Anon was almost sure of it. "Practicing magic like that can be very dangerous."

"Nope." Anon answered casually. "I learned it from a friend of mine."

"Really?" Twilight said - now Anon was sure of it. There was definitely something in her voice. "I would have a few words with your friend, then."

"Why?"

"It's not really safe - the way you cast it," Twilight explained. "You charge the spell with emotions and point it at something. That's a good way to get a surge on your hooves."

Anon blinked.

Daybreaker taught her that spell, made her practice it over and over. Until she couldn't get it wrong. That spell saved her life.

So why did she teach me incorrectly?

With a small smirk on her face, Twilight asked, "Want to learn how to do it without the risk of self-explosion?"

"You would just… teach me how to light things on fire with my mind properly?" Anon asked, because that definitely had to be against some rule.

"Well, yes," Twilight said flatly. "I'm not naive. Any unicorn foal will try to learn magic on their own. If I refuse to help you, you're just going to do it incorrectly and without supervision. That's how wildfires start. At best."

She paused.

"And I would like to reiterate that I live in a tree."

Anon snorted.

But even then, the small, nagging question remained.

Why did Daybreaker want me to have a surge?

She glanced down at her flank - the place where she felt searing, burning pain before she passed out. At the patch of fur she swore was a smidge different shade of green than before, though it was such a slight difference that it could have just been a trick of light.

And why do I have a feeling it has something to do with that?

In an ancient manor house, Spoiled Rich stared at a dented coffee table.

With a scream of frustrated rage, she kicked the table into a wall. The piece of antique furniture shattered on impact, throwing splinters of aged ebony all over the room and onto the nice Saddle Arabian rugs.

Spoiled Rich wasn't angry.

Spoiled Rich was furious.

"Hello mother."

The mare scowled and turned to Diamond Tiara, the filly standing in the hallway to the rather opulent drawing room - or what remained of it after her mother's rage session.

"Diamond, I want you to stop associating with that… that urchin," Spoiled Rich spat. "The plan has changed."

"But mother-"

"Diamond Tiara," Spoiled Rich walked towards her daughter, eyes cold and muzzle in an ugly grimace. "You know I just want what is best for you., right?"

"Yes mother, I-"

"You will stop talking with her," Spoiled Rich commanded, in a voice that sent chills down Diamond's spine. "You will stop interacting with her in any way except to remind her of her place. She is not worth your time. Is that clear?"

"No, mother, I just-"

Spoiled Rich saw red.

The mare blinked, confused, her hoof suddenly aching.

Diamond backed away, whimpering and rubbing her bruised cheek.

"You. Do not. Get. To tell me no," Spoiled Rich hissed.

Diamond straightened herself, blinking away tears. Something in her broke. And something else got a chance to be set right. The look in her eyes changed.

There was no more fear in them.

"I came here to tell you we have a guest, mother," Diamond Tiara said, watching with grim satisfaction as the expression on Spoiled Rich's face morphed from rage to confusion and then, finally, to horror.

"Good evening," said a cheery looking white pegasus with a pink mane in a bun and a clipboard. "My name is Sunny Skies. I'm with Foal Protective Services."

Spoiled Rich gulped, lost for words. The pegasus spoke in a pleasant voice, watching her with an innocent, guileless expression despite watching what had just happened. And yet…

For a moment - just a moment - Spoiled would swear she saw the pegasus eyes burn with inner fire.

And then Sunny Skies smiled.

Spoiled Rich screamed.

Celestia did always love this part of her other job.

Author's Note

Ah, turns out the name of this chapter has been quite prophetic. English is a ridiculous language that makes zero sense and I blame the French.

This had been mostly world-building chapter. I like world-building. World-building is my friend.

And Spoiled Milk (Yes, that is Spoiled Rich’s maiden name and yes, it is hilarious) got what she got. Poor Diamond though.

Many, many thanks to PseudoBob Delightus for editing and Discombobulated Soul for proofreading. It would not be possible without them.