//------------------------------// // Where Celestia taught the first lesson // Story: Celestia takes a vacation // by Hydralisk //------------------------------// Celestia was expecting many reactions and, while getting rushed and taken into a bone crushing hug was one of them, it still came surprising. “Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes,...” Louise didn’t care that she was crying, if this was a dream then she wishes to never wake up. For the first time in nearly two years someone had given her hope. They stayed like that for what feeled like an eternity, but sadly they had to go back to school. “Now, I enjoy a hug as much as the next pony but we should make our way back before someone asks questions.” Louise detached herself slowly and nodded while cleaning her eyes and the duo made their way back as it was getting late. The next day, classes were spent quietly and without anything worth mentioning except that Miss Longueville decided to give Guiche some mercy and allowed him to go to class. Although for some reason he held a really huge distance from anything that was female. After the lessons ended the duo went back to the clearing to start the first lesson. Celestia already laid down a basic plan on how to teach Louise, the girl had been for a very long time deprived of any form of accomplishment, so she needed a way that would give her results faster than a long drawn out two years of pre-studies until she could cast the spells. No, for this student Celestia would need a more direct approach, the theory could alway be relearned later, now what Louise needed was motivation. “So, let's start our first lesson, shall we?” Celestia said, Louise as response readied her wand. “You won't be needing that.” Louise got confused at that. “Before we can start with any form of casting we need to establish a few things, for example our lessons should not hinder you on your normal studies. So first I am going to need your weekly timetable.” Louise nodded in understanding, her mother would personally smite her with the wrath of the heavens if she started to neglect the academy. ”We have five hours a day, with one subject per day, the subject depending on the day. The first four days we have Water, Wind, Earth and Fire in that order. After that we have alchemy, then a day for history and the last one for nobility and behaviour. The last day is the day of the void and there are no classes on that day.” Celestia only stared at Louise expecting there to be more.”That’s it?” she asked in disbelief. “Yes...?” Louise answered in a slightly questioning tone. “Ponies your age normally have six to eight hours per day....” Louise had to take a moment to digest that. “What are all the students doing with all that free time? Is that really everything you learn?” “Well, normally they just do whatever they like.” Louise got a questioning look at that. ”What would you even learn in so many lessons?” “Math, Language, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Economy,...” Celestia really could go on for long but decided that she should use the rest of the day in better ways. “What about ‘Commoners’?” Celestia really didn’t like that term. ”What do they learn in school?” “Why would commoners go to school?” Now Celestia was the one who had to do a double take on that, as she was not expecting this country to be that far behind. “Well let’s just continue. Also we will have to implement a few more things in you lesson plan.” Celestia said while walking to the tree stump from yesterday. “Please take a seat.” Louise did as instructed. “The first thing we have to do before we can start using any form of magic is teach you the very key fragment of unicorn magic, control.” “Control?” Louise asked. “I already know how to call upon my willpower.” “You can draw it out, yes, but the second it leaves your body you lose that control which results in a, rather violent, reaction.” Celestia explained. “But how am I supposed to control it when it already left my body?” Louise asked perplexed. Rather than answering directly, Celestia started to levitated a stone from the ground and lazily floated it around Louise who could only watch in fascination.”Magic is way more than just a form of energy that you can command, it is in every living thing and will always be a part of you, yes it leaves you body but it still is yours, you have to feel it and be one with it before you can command it.” Celestia said in a calming tone. “And that is what we will focus on first.” As Celestia said that, her horn started to glow and a small bubble surrounded them. “Do you know what meditation is?” Louise shook her head. “Good, that will make it easier, what I want you to do is make yourself as comfortable as you can and close you eyes.” Easier said than done, as Louise immediately was in her default upright sitting position. Celestia corrected that by poking her in the side. “KYA!!!” And apparently Louise was very ticklish. “What was that for!?” She asked annoyed. ”You are stiffer than my horn, you have to be comfortable, not pretend you’re sitting with the queen.” Louise puffed her cheeks up in annoyance but quickly calmed down and took a deep breath. While it was visible that she was really trying, relaxation was not a state that she was not a state that she was familiar with. Celesti had to think for a second to come up with an alternative way to make her meditate. “Now Louise, I want you to focus on my voice.” The alicorn said as she started to walk around Louise making her voice sound as harmonic as possible.”I want you to hear only my voice, repeat after me, I hear only your voice.” “I hear only your voice.” Louise repeated. “Listen and let yourself be guided by it.” Celestia continued. At the same time she silently added another effect to the barrier, so that it only allowed the sounds in that Celestia wanted. Hypnosis was a delicate thing after all. Slowly she started to lower the volume in the bubble and simultaneously wispert to Louise until there was only her soft voice guiding her through the plains of her mind. “Louise, what I want you to do now is imagine a door, the door is big and made out of polished wood, the hinges and the doorway made of gold. Imagine this door being an entry to the room you treasure the most.” Now came the part where she had to be very careful as she actively made the girl enter her own subconsciousness. “I want you to open this door and walk inside.” Louise reached out with her hand to the doorknob which was made out of gold and had a keyhole, her fingers embraced it and she twisted, only to find a resistance. “I can’t, it's closed.” That made Celestia pause. A closed door was not something that should be there and set off several alarms in her head. It could mean one of two things: either she lived through some bad trauma and her own subconsciousness was protecting her from it, or some outside force influenced her and was actively trying to prevent her from entering that door. Both cases where very bad and had a high probability. She could have killed or severely harmed someone with a spell in the past, a very real possibility considering the explosive nature of Louise’s magic, and now that Celestia thought about it she mentioned her sister who was very sick, could there be a connection? The second could potentially be even worse because it would mean that someone or something wanted to harm Louise, as that type of blockade could turn very lethal very quickly, considering that her parents were Dukes there was no doubt that she had a target painted on her back. Celestia would NOT tolerate any attempt to harm her new student. First she needed to determine which of the two it was. Lucky there was a very foolproof way of doing it. “Louise, please, step away from that door but keep it in your mind, we will need it later.” She continued to guide Louise. “I want you to Imagine a hill, on that hill is a tree and, under it, is a blanket. I want you to walk to that blanket and sit down under the tree.” Louise did again as instructed and placed herself on that blanked. “Now I want you to look around and imagine all your family and friends sitting under the tree next to you. I want you to tell me who is with you and what they are doing.” Louise looked around and in front of her was her sister Cattleya who was drinking tea and smiling at Louise, she was pale and looked weak but she was happy, that was all that mattered. Eleanor was next to her, also drinking tea, but looking into the sunset with a stoic expression, Louise envied her ability to be like iron, she took to it like a fish to water and rarely showed any emotions. Her father was sitting at a table not so far away working on some kind of rune, he was often working, always preferring scientific endeavors over tea parties and other such things, saying that he didn’t have time for such stupid things and that the nobility should be working on the future and not on filling their bellies. Some distance away from them stood Louise’s mother, she was standing proudly in her armor with her sword in hand. But that wasn't all, because just a short distance away she saw two children playing, she recognized them, it was Henrietta and herself when they were younger. They were playing and getting the pretty dresses all dirty, their mothers would get angry at them again. All of that, Louise told Celestia while she was asking seemingly random questions about her family, about the tree they were sitting under and many more. Celestia for her part was relieved, if Louise was traumatized then her mindscape would show it to some extend as it would be under strain, but there was no red sky, no unclear faces no part were reality seemed to be non-existent, everything in Louise’s mind seemed in order. As such, that only left one option, something was actively blocking that door. Well, lukly she had some experience from her relatively ‘short’ life. Carefully Celestia guided Louise back to the door. “Louise, I would like to help you open this door, would you allow me to help you?” Telling something like ‘Allow me into your mind’ always led to complications. “Ok?” Louise agreed but didn’t really understand what was going on. That confusion only increased when she suddenly saw Celestia appear next to her, who immediately started to inspect the door. “Interesting. The lock is very well made.” That got a smile on Celestia. “Louise! How about we make our first lesson about mind spells?” Louise could only blink. “Our what a what now?” Celestia giggled a bit to herself. “Let me explain. What I am currently trying to do is speed up your education a little but this door is blocking our way, normally you should be able to open it easily as it leads into the depths of your mind.” Louise could not believe what she was hearing. “Are you trying to tell me that someone has been messing with my mind and that is why I fail at every attempt at magic!?” Celestia thought about that for a second. “Well not really, somepony definitely tried to mess with you in some way but, in theory, that should not mess with your magic to get it where it is now. No, I assume this was an attempt to sabotage your magic reserves but the culprit did not know that there was something fundamentally different about you.” Celestia thought about a good comparison. “Imagine trying to salt a supp that is already completely over salted.” Louise got a grim look at that. “Apparently I am over salted soup now.” The Princess had to giggle at that. ”Hush, my dear Louise, I will make a delicacy out of you.” She said while wrapping Louise in a wing. “Now, let's start.” Celestia said as she switched into lecture mode. “Mind magic always was a taboo for many societies, the concept that one could simply plant ideas and images into your mind, even control your very actions. Is something many are very afraid of. BUT what many don’t know is that mind magic is a very delicate thing that can be broken easily by something nearly every creature has from birth.” Celestia made a pregnant pause. ”Logic.” Louise was a bit confused by that. ”How could something as simple as that break advanced spells?” “Very simple my dear student. Mind magic is based on confusing and misleading your very thoughts, to give you an example, an evil king once tried to control the whole country with his fear magic that presented you with the worst thing you could imagine. To break the spell you could do two things: one was to realize one very important thing, and that was the fact that it was only a spell, as soon as you have that fixed on you mind the spell will not be able to affect you anymore, of course that is easier said than done if you are facing the thing that you truly fear the most.” Celestia said as a particularly unpleasant memory send a shiver up her spine. “The second method, and what we will be using, is to break the mind spell by confronting it, one of the problems with mind spells is that the more detail you add the more magic you have to use as such actually working mind magic cost very much power because if the victim realizes that it is under mind magic, then it falls apart like a house of cards.” Celestia pointed at the door. ”Right now I can tell you that this door should not be closed but something is preventing you from entering.” Celestia got a smirk on her face. ”Consider it your first test, how do you get past this door, and remember to break it apart with logic.” Louise was a bit startled that she was going to be tested so soon but was determined to do her best. She thoroughly started to inspect the door, looking for any kind of weakness, places where the wood was old or damaged, if a hinge was loose or any other oddity that could make her entrance easier. After some searching and kicking, Louise’s search proved itself to be fruitless. Maybe she could blow it up? If her magic was good at anything then it was at that. She pulled out her wand, but hesitated for a bit. She looked back at Celestia for any clues if her thoughts were right, normally she was pretty good when it came to reading teachers but this time she got nothing but the same smile Celestia had when she started the lesson. Louise considered the words she spoke carefully, she had to break the spell with logic, but would blasting it open really be in that order? After some thought she decided that she would try a different approach, Celestia said that there was a logical thing that she had to discover that would allow her to enter, so what was wrong with that door? It was still with the golden door handle and lock, made out of wood with the hinges connecting to the doorway and than to… wait, could it really be that easy? Louise approached the door with determination and purpose, and walked past it, because why plague yourself with a door when there was no wall? The moment Louise walked past it everything around her shatter. Celestia was proud of Louise, at the start she was a bit worried that she may have judged Louise’s current knowledge and maturity wrong, that could very well have happen as she had never had a human student, and while blowing the door up would indeed be a valid way to enter she was proud that Louise chose a non violent option. And the results were showing as her magic was circulating freely in her body, currently Celestia would estimate her raw power to be somewhere around the average teenager. Quite an achievement considering that she was using it actively for the first time. Celestia didn’t count the wands as they quite literally forced the magic out of the caster, a dangerous little thing that could even harm the caster if they used too many spells, the wand would try to pull magic until there was nothing left. She hoped she could avoid them altogether. The princess left Louise in the meditative state for a few more minutes before pulling her back out. Louise, after the experience, was at loss for words. It felt so… alive after she broke the lock, everything around her was so full, she lacked words to properly describe it, it was so powerful so strong, but somehow it also felt oh so fragile. “That was... intense.” She finally said while her mind was still swimming in the memory. Celestia chuckled at that. “Your kind uses magic exclusively through their wands, as such you never really get a feeling for your own magic except the effects, but for now I would say that we had enough practical training for a day.” Celestia said as she started walking out of the clearing. ”From tomorrow on we will focus on making you draw out your magic without my help, now come, the day is still young and we have so much to do.” Celestia didn’t want to push the girl but she was far older than the age group that Celestia was used to, so there was catching up to do. And so the duo made their way to an empty classroom. “So now we will start learning about three of the most fundamental subject that you will need to master unicorn magic.” Louise was full of confidence to impress her teacher with her theoretical knowledge. “Physics, Chemistry and Biology!” Celestia said full of enthusiasm and somehow, despite not knowing these subjects, that made Louise confidence melt. “You are a devil in white.” Louise grunted out as she was laying on her bed in fetal position and having a headache that could be the mother of all headaches from today's five hour science crashcourse. “I admit, learning the fine points of gravity in one go can be a bit hard, but have patience Louise, hard work will always pay of and there is always more to learn about science.” Celestia replied in the same enthusiastic voice she started the day. Science, she already hated that word with all her might and she was supposed to learn at least 4 hours a day. “It fits, you are horned, have wings that could represent a fallen Angel and your teachings are absolutely evil.” “Don’t worry, we will only do revisions tomorrow.” Celestia said as she put a blanket over Louise whimpering body. ”Also the dark side has cake, so you should consider joining.” Louise let lose a snicker at that. “Now goodnight and sweet dreams.” Louise closed her eyes and let her mind wander, she tried to stay away from the theoretical stuff but the practical lesson was absolutely fascinating. Louise could barely contain herself as she imagined using her magic on her own. The only thing that was bugging her was, why would someone try to seal her magic away? … … ... “SOMEONE TRIED TO SEAL AWAY MY MAGIC!”