It was time. The Student Six stood before Headmare Twilight Sparkle. "Students. Today is an important day. It is your graduation. I have watched you all grow from scared young creatures into mature adults." She clapped her hooves. "Not from the school, but today is your chance to prove not just to me, but to the wider community that you are as I saw you, wizards."

She turned with a wave at a few severe looking unicorns seated at the back of the class. "I invited them here today to observe, document, and recognize your progress. This will be the first time in generations that any non-unicorn creature has been publicly acknowledged as a wizard." She took a calming breath. "Are you all ready?"

The students looked among themselves. Smolder grinned and stepped ahead. "Yeah, we're all set for this." She snapped her fingers, turning into two finger guns at Twilight. "Hit us with your worst."

Twilight laughed at that. "Fortunately for you, that will not be required." He horn glowed as she pulled a book over and opened it on a small desk. "The first challenge, each of you must read the spell written here, explain what it does, then cast it. This is a process any wizard must be capable of."

The students nodded to one another. Gallus bowed low. "I'll go first, if that's alright, Headmare."

Twilight backed away. "Please, go ahead, Gallus." She looked on with a hopeful smile, but kept herself otherwise quiet.

Gallus trotted up to the book, reading the page presented. "This spell is for summoning air, a gust of wind to do the caster's bidding, or to create a distraction." He twirled a claw along with the runes he saw. "It, uh, looks restrained? Not sure how, but it is." He tapped at the book with a sharp pivot of his head. "I'll cast it now, if that's cool?"

Twilight nodded to that. "Go ahead."

Gallus took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused. Fortunately, he figured, air was his element. He let the wind pick up around him as he spread his wings. Working through the runes presented, he gave his command to those eddies that swirled around him. Turning unicorn glyphs into a shout at the air itself, he began to glow with power.

The unicorns in the back leaned forwards as one. They were watching history.

Gallus spread his wings and gave an order to the swirling winds. With a forward flap of those wings, the magic gathered in the wind, creating a short buffet of air that washed over the witnesses as they took busy notes. Gallus settled his wings and grinned to Twilight.

Smolder smacked him on the shoulder with an open claw. "I get next. Wind gust? I can do that."

Twilight's horn glowed as she flipped to the next page. "You have a different spell. It'd be a poor test if you all used the same spell after seeing another perform it."

Smolder laughed. "Got me there." She trotted up to the book. "This is a little heat spell." She rubbed her hands together. "Not that I mind heat, teach, but it'd be really easy to confuse that with the flames I already make. Give that one to somecreature else. They'll need the help more than me."

Twilight waved her horn in a circle. The pages turned of their own accord. "This one then." She leveled a hoof at it. "Identify it, then cast it."

Smolder chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, yeah. Alright, this one is a little odd." She leaned in over the book, eyes darting from rune to rune as she silently mouthed out the names of them. "This should, um, whisper? A whispering spell? Neat!" She took a deep breath, fixed eyes with one of the witnesses, and blew her flames up into the air.

The three unicorns at the back blinked in unison as her voice echoed near them despite her flames being across the room. "Do I pass?" asked the whisper, entirely detached from those gushing dragon flames.

Twilight grinned at that. "Excellent work, Smolder." She gave a thumbs-up. "I'd say you passed with flying colors." She looked to the other nervous students. "Ariel, you're the one that started this. Why don't you go next?" She turned to a new page and a new spell.

Ariel gulped, but stepped up to the plate. She could feel the eyes of her fellow students on her as much as that of the witnesses. Looking over the spells as her hands shook, she studied the runes a quiet moment. "This looks like a transformation spell, to take something and make a glass out of it." She scratched her cheek. "Even if it wasn't made of glass or sand before?"

The witnesses muttered between themselves. One gave a sharp nod. The middle spoke up. "If you could cast this spell on that rock over there." All eyes turned to the normal rock, brought in for the purposes of the examination. "Take care that it does not break."

Twilight gave Ariel an encouraging smile. "Good luck."

Ariel nodded absently at that, focused. She spoke the runes out loud as she felt over her crystal. She went over the spell twice, a mantra of sorts. Just like a unicorn, just saying the runes did nothing, but helped solidify the flow of the spell in her mind. Confident enough, she pushed her will into her crystal.

Her body became coated in a thin sheet of frost as the spell's price was taken. A beam shot out from her crystal, engulfing the stone on its little pedestal nearby. It vibrated and shook as power seeped into it. With a loud pop like a cork escaping a tight bottle, the rock ceased to be. A cup landed in the same space, a bright blue with purple streaks.

The unicorns took note, scribbled furiously, then gestured for the test to continue. Twilight gently pushed Ariel with a wing. "Very well done. You pass. Yona, I think they would like to see your unique take on magic."

Ariel trotted over to Gallus and the others, happily accepting her hug friends' congratulations. Yona stepped up, looked the spell over, then stomped once firmly. "Pony spell for fireworks. Good. Yaks like make loud. Like make bright. Show world we here." She closed her eyes, only to flare them open with a glare. "Help make show!" She spoke words in the tongue of yaks, but it may well have been a magical incantation. Perhaps it was, given her style of magic.

The witnesses watched with awe as the power of her ancestors, the great and mighty yak spirits, was called down to do her bidding. They threw up their hooves and came down in harmony, fireworks exploding up from the great impact on the earth. The room quaked, but not enough to shake anything over.

Twilight stood firm on her hooves, only giving a short bob from the impact of power on the ground. Her eyes were more focused on those many streaks that exploded over their heads in explosions of red, gold, purple, green. The fireworks fell slowly like the last remnants of a storm as Yona let her mighty shout die down.

One of the witnesses clapped their hooves. "Very good." The others murmured agreement, quills busily noting things down. The speaker turned to the remaining three. "Silverstream. You can go next."

The hyperactive hippogriff shot her arms up into the air and gave a loud cheer before hurrying up to the book and frowning. "This, uh." She sat, examining it, but her eyes slipped off the book to take in details around her. "Oh, is that a new book on your desk, headmare?"

Twilight chuckled and nudged the side of Silverstream's head with a wing. "Eyes on this book, kindly."

But her eyes kept wandering, as did her attention.

Ariel hurried up, blocking the view of Silverstream. "Don't get mad at her, please. She can read magic, but she does it at her own pace. I, um, don't think she'll be ready quick enough to do it today. Silver? How are you doing?"

Silver gave Ariel a smile that fell. "I just need some time. Hey, Headmare?" Twilight gave her a curious blink. "Can I take this spell to the dorm and show you later?"

Twilight tapped a hoof at her chin. She glanced back at the unicorns, who shrugged in response. "You may, but they do have to go home." She rubbed her cheek softly. "We'll work something out. Thank you, Silverstream. Ocellus, while I do prize the effort you've put in, changeling spellcasters don't require special witnesses."

Those unicorns nodded as one. "They don't. She is good." They went back to their notes.

Twilight inclined her head to that. "Then we're do—"

"Wait!" Sandbar trotted up quickly. "I want a chance."

One of the unicorns let out an offended huff. "Earth ponies cannot cast spells. Even by the most liberal definitions of the word, they have no magic of any sort."

Twilight flipped an ear back. "I have nothing against you learning magic, Sandbar, but you weren't part of the class learning how to perform magic in non-unicorn ways."

"But I lived with them." He gave a hoof pump towards his friends. "I had to listen to them practice, and saw what they were reading. I was picking up! I want to try!"

Twilight gave a long sigh. "I understand, Sandbar, but it's not going to happen this year." She saw his crestfallen face and huffed. "You are free to attempt it." She willed a new page upright. "Please identify this spell."

Sandbar studied it, then nodded. "It's for creating ice." The unicorns snickered at that line, but he remained focused. He clapped his hooves together, rubbing them energetically. A dim green glow formed between them.

The unicorns watched with a critical eye. Ocellus, in the back, smiled softly. "You can do it," she barely whispered.

Sandbar's cheeks puffed out, his eyes growing hard. He strained with all his might. The green glow spread from his hooves to up his forearms. With a sudden yelp and a plunging of his hooves to the ground, a distorted ice chunk appeared in the air and clattered to the ground.

Twilight inclined her head. "That is not the shape the spell should have created, but you did create ice from a spell you properly identified."

The witnesses were silent. One looked to another, who looked to the third. They turned their eyes back to Sandbar as one. "You didn't cast it correctly." One thrust a hoof at Sandbar. "A wizard should be able to cast it properly."

The second nodded. "That wasn't a complicated spell."

The third curled their hooves back on themselves, then towards Sandbar. "But it was a spell, cast by an earth pony." They clapped once. "A historic event, even if the spell was imprecise."

Sandbar limply dropped his head to Twilight's desk and sighed with relief. The others cheered for him.

Twilight nodded towards the witnesses. "Thank you all for coming. Please bring word of our new wizards back with you."

One pointed at Silverstream. "We can't say she's a wizard. She didn't finish identifying, nor casting."

Silver pouted, but nodded in acceptance. "I will get it done."

Twilight beamed. "She's not the first wizard to go at her own pace. Let's not forget Sally the Slovenly, who cast no spell in a time less than an entire day, but whose talents can hardly be denied."

One witness nodded firmly at that. "Sally is a good example. She shall be judged on her merits. But we can't judge her today at the very least. The others pass. We have seen that they are wizards, and will spread the word."

Ariel gave a sigh as the witnesses departed. "That could have gone worse." She smiled up to her friends.

Author's Note

Sandbar comes in from the back. What's this? They have a metal chair!

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