Twilight Sparkle found herself being lead down a very familiar corridor. The corridors of the royal castle were among the most decorated hallways in Equestria, so any pony who had once wandered down one knew how they looked. She slowly passed white marble walls decorated by paintings, statues and in some places carvings of the princess and the emblem of Equestria, the two sisters bent around the sun and the moon.
The stoic guard leading her down the hallways allowed himself a tiny smile as she moved from side to side, trying to take in every detail with wide eyes. Futile of course, she would need more eyes or several more laps to take everything in. That did nothing to stop her trying. It was, after all, not every day that a filly as young as her was allowed to wander without guardians down the corridors towards the throne room with business for the princess.
The large smile on her frame falters for a moment as they reach the large doors dividing her and the throne room where her meeting with the princess will take place in just a little while. Loud and clear the guard purposefully knocks a hoof in the door several times to signal their arrival. Standing in one place for more than minutes is a tough task for an exited filly such as herself. Knowing she shouldn’t Twilight approach the door, stealing glances back towards the guard who made no apparent moves to catch her.
Placing an ear to one half of the large double doors she strained her hearing in an attempt to catch the reply to the knocking. Muffled and barely hearable through the thick door Twilight could make out at least two different voices speaking to one another.
“… filly found in a town to the south. She doesn’t show up in any record we could find.”
“I see. Send a unit to the orphanage to bring her in. I would like to ask her some questions.”
A loud noise interrupted further listening as the guard next to her cleared his throat. Twisting her head around to look at him, Twilight grinned sheepishly.
“I assume your parents have taught you the value of privacy, kid? You would make good to remember those lessons; a cute smile won’t always save you.” It was the only thing the guard said to her during the entire trip from the castle gates and up until this door. Everything else had been directed by directing and following. Slowly backing away from the door Twilight took up place next to the door and waited for the meeting to end.
She didn’t have to wait long, as just a few minutes later the door opened to reveal yet another guard exiting the room in his regular armour. With only a passing glance the guard moved past her and turned down a different corridor than the one she had taken here. All thoughts of the guard were lost a moment later when her new teacher for the first time spoke to her that day.
“Twilight Sparkle, it’s good to see you. If you would come this way we can begin.” And the filly filled with impossible amount of energy at the thought of learning magic with the princess happily bounced after her new mentor.
Trixie was greeted by the same roof as yesterday as she opened her eyes after the first good night’s sleep in a long while. The coverless bed under her bending around her body as she simply laid there and stared at the boring wooden roof. Thinking back and reflecting over the dream she experienced just the same night.
“I remember that day, it was my first lesson with the Princess and we went over the basic theory behind levitation if I remember correctly. I wonder why I suddenly remember that of all things. Do the things the guard said to the Princess while I was listening mean something?”
“I know it was around this time, and if I kept track correctly I’ve been in here for five or six days. If you take into account how far south I am, and the average traveling speed they could have made it here and back again if they set of the day after I came here at the latest. But that’s ridiculous, they wouldn’t be looking for me would they? But if they are I should expect them here in around two days at the most.
“Assuming the dream means something and this was just a dream and nothing more. Dreams aren’t really a reliable source of information and I cannot trust anything they say. But it is my memory too, right? It has to be, it just has to. Not much I can do but wait and see, but I should prepare just in case.”
Finishing that last train of thought Trixie finally took the effort to get out of bed. The wooden bed loudly protesting as she jumped off accompanied the sound of hooves meeting the floor. The nausea and lack of energy from the night before gone, and Trixie felt better than she had over the last few days.
Right next to her, sitting on the same table as before was another bowl. Just like the last one this was filled with the same unappetizing-looking stew of greens and bread. Steaming up from the bowl the stench reminded her just how that same stew had tasted yesterday. Taking a deep breath she picked up the bowl and gulped down all of the contents in one go. With the bowl firmly held in place she sat on the floor and forced herself not to throw any of it back up, after which she placed the bowl back down on the table.
Making her way over to the cracked window decorating the wall opposite to the door she took a moment to look out across the landscape. The road she got here on stretched out towards the city proper, a city that hid behind the hills around the house. The hills showing more and more signs of growth since she last saw them. Catching a glimpse of her own reflection and some of her good mood from the view left her.
Trixie was in no way a vain pony, but the state of her mane made even her uneasy and longing for a brush to get it straight again. Sadly for her there was no brush in sight so she did the second best thing. Reaching up with one hoof she gently straightened out her mane into a somewhat presentable manner, but still in dire need of a brushing.
Satisfied she had done what she could with her mane by what she saw from the reflection in the window she turned around towards the door and with no hesitation made her way towards it. Upon reaching the door and, following the trend that the last few days had shown her, finding it locked. Neither pushing nor pulling in the door seemed to make any difference and the door refused to budge even a little. Falling back down on her haunches she quietly contemplated her current situation.
“What do I do now? I should be grateful she leaves me alone, but I’m on the third floor and no way down. Escaping is impossible, especially without magic. …Magic! That’s it. I just have to relearn the basics and I can be out of here in no time. Opening the doors and sneaking out at night would be easy with just levitation.”
Moving away from the door and sitting down right next to the bed she tried to recall that same lesson she just had dreamt about with her mentor. Closing her eyes and focusing more and more details of that day came back to her, although none of them early enough to confirm the dream. Unconsciously she began to mumble parts of their lesson out loud, almost as if reciting a paragraph from a book.
“…all kinds of ponies have magic, but only unicorns have the ability to manipulate it at will. Using the horn as focus unicorns expel their magic to the surrounding through will or in some cases through habitual use. The magic is stored throughout the body as a container for the unicorn to release at will to manipulate his or her surroundings.”
“Often unicorns are more attuned to their surroundings and most unicorns can ‘feel’ the flow of magic around them in familiar places. Any disruptions to the regular field will stand out if a unicorn knows how the ambient magic around them feels like.”
With eyes still closed Trixie stopped mumbling completely, and sat in complete silence as she searched through her own body in search of that special point where the most energy was gathered. As Twilight Sparkle her own energy had been focused around her heart, but once she found it she noticed the focus was a fair bit lower down on her body near the liver.
Guiding the magic up through her body as her mentor once taught her, it slowly made its way past her heart, up her throat and finally reaching the base of her horn. With much more force of will she mentally pushed the magic out towards the tip of her horn, magic soaking up every pore of the horn as it travelled towards the tip. Reaching the tip of her horn after completely filling the horn to the brim with her new latent magic it simply rested there and awaited instructions.
A dim pink light spread across the room as the waiting magic made itself known as it surrounded her horn. In the morning light the pink light gave much less knowledge that anything was there than it should, but she knew anyway. The distinct feeling of magic she hadn’t felt in days finally passed through her once more.
Turning her head towards the table she locked her eyes in on the now empty bowl of breakfast. With a mere thought she gave the magic that final push and sent it across the room invisibly to engulf the bowl and gently push it up through the air. The effort required was minimal, even to her as she was now in the body of a child.
Experimenting a little with the bowl, she made it fly up, down, circle around her and even more intricate patterns she made up on the spot. All while a happy smile spread across her face.
Lost in concentration she didn’t hear as the lock on the door unlocked, but the door slamming open broke her focus and the magic surrounding the bowl lost its hold enough to drop it. Turning her head around Trixie came face to face with a less-than-happy Winter Heart. Winter quietly entered the room until she stood directly in front of the still sitting Trixie.
“Miss Lulamoon, I know you are new here and don’t know the rules around here. But if I catch you casting any magic at all there will be consequences. If you think you can sneak in any training like you did today, I will know of it.” The worst part about Winter at that point wasn’t her words, but the eerie calm she had as she spoke.
With a carefully measured nod Trixie replied with exactly what she wanted to hear, even if she had no real intention of following it. Seemingly satisfied with her reply Winter took a few steps next to her and picked up the forgotten bowl that she had dropped in surprise. With bowl in her mouth and one final glance back at Trixie she left the room and locked the door behind her again.
Left without an object to train her levitation on she was forced to let the magic training come to a halt until something movable had returned to her room. With nothing else to do she attempted to push the bed towards the window so she could sit in it while looking out. With moderate success she managed to move the bed a fair bit closer, but still not close enough to comfortably sit on the bed before she finally gave up.
Looking behind her she saw the marks in the floor that the bed had made. On closer inspection she saw that the floor was undamaged and that the bed had torn streaks in the dirt, uncovering the real floor underneath. Scraping a bit with her hooves yielded similar results but to a lesser extent.
Getting back up on the bed that now stood in more light than before she laid down and tucked her hooves underneath her and rested, fairly tried from pushing a full grown bed.
Much of the day passed in a similar manner. Trixie would every now and then get off the bed and get the bed ever closer to its target next to the window, before getting back up and rest on it from the effort. She only saw Winter two more times that day, once when she brought the lunch in another bowl and the second time when dinner was served. Both times the bowl greeted her with more of that same stew from before and both times she forced it down in one go.
Regardless of the taste she felt fairly full after eating dinner and returning the bowl to Winter. And as the sun slowly descended below the horizon she finally put the bed in its new proper spot just beside the window. Sitting in the bed she watched as the final beams of the sun slowly vanished below the earth and made way for the night.
And for the first time since that morning a whisper passes her lips as she slowly lay down on the bed to rest after the physical effort over the day.
“Good night Princess.”