> Celestia takes a vacation
>  by Hydralisk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Where Celestia got lost
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was late in the evening at Canterlot castle and Celestia was on her way to her bedchambers after another long day of political jargon.

She was not alone. Twilight and Luna accompanied her as she walked.

"Come on sister." Luna said "Young Twilight and I can lead the kingdom on our own for a century or so, you can take your vacation."

"Thats right Celestia." Twilight herself was nearly a full grown alicorn at 316 years of age. "You should take a century off, you led the land of Equestria for over a millennium. You deserve a break. I mean you have a century of vacation stacked up! If somepony where to pay you that amount in bits Canterlot would be declared your private property."

"I don't know. Are you sure you two will be ok?" Celestia look worried at the duo.

"I think after 300 years of experience I can handle it by now." Twilight answerd

"Very well, tomorrow I will start with the paperwork."

"Way ahead of you." Twilight said as she pushed a bunch of paper into Celestia's face. She studied it carefully and indeed everything was in perfect order. Tomorrow started her 100 year vacation. If Celestia didn't know better, she would have thought they want to throw her out.

“Everything seems to be in order.”

"See, told you." Twilight's smile got even wider "You have nothing to worry about, just go enjoy your holidays. It will begin tomorrow! Good night." And with that they closed Celestia's bedroom door.

Initially, Celestia couldn't get the feeling of worry out of her. After a while she finally started to wander off into the land of dreams. She nearly forgot to take her regina off again. Maybe Twilight and Luna were right. Maybe she did need a vacation.

…

It was late in the night when a green portal made itself noticeable next to Celestia's bed and as destiny commanded it, at that exact moment Celestia rolled over and fell into it.





In a far away place across the multiverse a explosion was heard.

It was caused by none other than Louise Vallière, a noble girl who wanted nothing more to be acknowledged by her pers and family, only to fail miserably every time she tries to cast a spell.

Explosions. Every. Single. One.

It was expected that this one turned out the same but it still hurt Louise. Why couldn't it work for once?

"Damn it Zero! Are you trying to kill us?!"

"Told you the Zero would screw up."

"Montmorency, are you alright?"

This was her third try at summoning a familiar. Professor Colbert wouldn't let her try again. She would be expelled and her family would disown her. 

But right as she was about to sink into a black hole of self pity the smoke cleared and SHE was there.

Her coat was the most pristine white she has ever seen. Her mane was a radiant mixture of colors that flowed in the wind in a hypnotic way. A long white horn on her forehead. There was no doubt she had summoned a unicorn. The purest of all creatures only a pure woman was allowed to touch one and harming one would curse one for all eternity. 

And she was apparently asleep. 

Her familiar didn't answer the first two times because she was sleeping. 

Louise didn't know how to react to this.

There was whispering in the crowd around her but she couldn’t hear it. Louise was too busy looking over what was apparently her familiar as she stepped closer.

She was a bit smaller than the normal sized horse and some of her proportions were wrong now that she took a closer look at her and she had a sun marked on her flank. For a few seconds Louise panicked that she may have hurt the unicorn with the explosion but the slow rising and falling of its midsections indicated that she was just a very heavy sleeper.

Louise could barely hold back her enormous smile. "HA, I told you I would summon the most amazing familiar, Zerbst." Her rival Kirche von Zerbst only had a bitter face at that.

"Yes, yes. We are all very proud of you for only partly messing up one spell in your entire live." In truth Kirche was about to turn green from envy, she herself summoning a salamander was not nearly as impressive as a unicorn.

"Miss Vallière! Please finish binding your familiar!" Colbert decided to interrupt them before another argument broke out.

Louise quickly hurried to her knees spoke a binding spell and kissed her familiar on the side of the head that was facing up.

Now normally foreign magic invading your body would hurt like hell, especially if the target of said magic initial didn't have any but to an alicorn this was nothing. The magic entered and hit a wall so solid you would need the magic equivalent of a anti tank rocket to even make it noticeable to whatever was behind it. To break this mental barrier you would need nothing short of something eldrich.

The runes didn't like it but they were outclassed and had no way to make this creature loyal to the caster. So they did the only thing they could and engraved themselves on the barrier hoping to at least have some effect on the creature.

On the outside one could see sparks of energy which were flowing around the unicorn like fireworks. Many took cover, but Louise just stood in front of her, biting her nails and praying that everything would turn out alright. Right as the intensity of the magic reached its peak, it suddenly went out like a candle and a set of runes was visible on the unicorns right forehoof.

Louise was so overjoyed that she didn't see her familiar, who had risen at the noise.

And with that all the cheerfulness in the air was gone. The unicorn's eyes were concealed by her mane, her head vas lowered and her stance was threatening.

It was so frightening that Louise was about to collapse and if had taken a look behind her she would have seen that everyone had noticed. The Professor and a few students had their staffs ready to unleash hell or fle at the tiniest show of aggression.

Louise didn't expect her new familiar to suddenly leaped onto her and drag her to the ground, abusing her like a pillow. The tense aura was dispelled so fast no one really knew what was going on, until Kirche decided to cut in with a snicker. "Why Louise, you are bonding awfully fast with your familiar!"

Louise herself had no idea what was going on till Kirches remark. “Shut it Zerbst.”

"Well, that marks the end of today's class. I would suggest that all of you follow Miss Vallière example and use the rest of the day to bond with your familiars."

Louise was beet red but no matter the struggle she could not get out of the death grip that she was held in.

She was getting slightly desperate when she saw her classmates leave by floating away.

Only after she was completely alone and was completely sure that the unicorn would not let go of her. She let out a weak cry for help.






Celestia was used to many things and through her millennia of ruling, learned to value words of wisdom like 'Always expect the unexpected' or 'If something is impossible then you have simply not found a way to do it yet'.

Many don't know this, but Twilight got her checklist habit from Celestia and here was Celestia's checklist as of right now.

1. She was not in her bed.
2. She was snuggling a sleeping human.
3. She could not remember anything beyond going to sleep yesterday.
4. Her internal clock was messed up in a way that she couldn't even tell if it was time to raise the sun.

She recalled the discussion that she had with her sister and Twilight and tried to connect the dots.

After some thinking, she came to a conclusion that on her holiday, she started drinking, then lost control over her alcohol intake. She then found the magic mirror, used it, and broke it in the process. This explained why she was still a pony and next to her was a human. The party likely continued until they landed in what appears to be some castle’s backyard.

Well, no one could tell her she didn't know how to party if her assumptions were true.

Celestia started to shake her sleeping companion back into the land of the wake but only got murmurs back as a response. She started to shake harder to wake the pink-maned what she assumed was a girl.

"Huh…What?" Finally she got a answer out of her.

At first, Louise didn't really know what was going on. It was way too early to wake up and something had the gall to do so while she was snuggling onto the best pillow ever.

Only after her eyes adjusted did she realized that she was staring into the face of her new familiar. She took note of the large purple eyes and the worried look they had in them.

"Excuse me for waking you at this hour. But do you, by any chance, know where we are?"

…

After a few seconds of silence, Louise finally was awake enough to realize what had happened.

"You, you, you can TALK!?"

"Of course, I can. Now can you please answer the question. I don't really know where we are nor do I have memories of how I got here."

Louise cared for none of this. "My familiar can talk! Take that Kirche!"

Celestia was starting to get impatient with the girl. "I have no idea what you are talking about. Could you please answer my question?"

"You are my familiar. I summoned you as my companion and proof that I am a real mage," explained Louise with pride in her voice.

Celestia still had no idea what exactly was going on and so tried to ask a different question. "Can you please tell me where we are?" She stood up to get a better look.

"We are at the Tristram academy of magic."

"And where is Tristram in relation to Canterlot?" Celestia was hoping that the town that Twilight visited beyond the mirror was called Canterlot because of the name of the school.

"Canterlot? Never heard of it." That was not good.

"You said something about me being your 'familiar'. What does that mean exactly?"

"A familiar is the extension of a mage that aids them with tasks like protection, transport, and finding ingredients for magical potions," Louise dutifully recited the book that her sister had sent her.

Celestia got slightly irritated at that. Did this little girl summon a ruler of a nation to be her pet?.

"Why would you chose me for such mundane tasks?"

"I didn't. The ritual choses a familiar that fits the mage the best. Such as a wind mage getting something that is like a bird or an earth mage getting a mole," Louise explained.

Ok. So she was summoned by accident or fate, if this girl's words were to be believed, and apparently there was some unknown type of magic here that she didn't know of. Was earth magic somehow related to earth pony magic and wind magic to pegasi? Speaking of which, her magic felt strange somehow, as if it was trying to burst out of her. So many questions she needed answers to. For now, she should try to get on the good side of her summoner. A friend would always be helpful.

"Well, my name is Celestia. Nice to meet you."

"I am Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Your new master!" Celestia had a bad feeling about this familiar relationship. Hopefully Luna and Twilight were not worried about her absence. Even when she was supposed to be on a vacation right now, you could never know.





"Are you absolutely sure she is gone?" Luna asked.

"100%."

"She is not anywhere inside the castle?"

"She is no where close to Canterlot!"

"Have you checked the hidden rooms?"

"Untouched."

"Toilets?"

"No sun on any of them."

"So we are, without a shadow of doubt, completely alone" After Twilight affirmative nod. Luna couldn't hold herself back anymore and threw Twilight into her bedroom before sealing it.
> Where Celestia investigates
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Celestia and Louise made their way back to the tower where Louise’s bedroom was supposed to be.

“Shouldn’t you sleep in the stables?” Louise suddenly asked.

Celestia put on a stern look. “I could take that as an insult.”

“What do you mean? I say you’re a kind of horse, aren’t you?”

“Not a horse. A ‘Pony’ and I’m used to sleep in a comfortable bed most of the time.”

Louise gave her a questioning look. “What is a pony?”

“We’re generally smaller than horses and with different proportions.” Celestia calmly explained with a raised hoof. ”Also, we ponies have way more color variety.”

Louise hummed in understanding.

The two of them reached the tower, only for the door not to move at all when Louise tried to push it. “What the...?” Then she remembered an important detail that they had to incorporate after Kirche was caught sharing her bed one too many times.

“Whaaa, damn it!”Louise grabbed her head in panic. ”I forgot that they close the doors to the girl’s rooms in the evening.”

“Well, then let's get the keys.” Celestia simply said.

“I have no idea who has them.” Louise admitted in shame.

The pony raised an eyebrow at that. “But, you live here, shouldn’t there be a replacement key in case of something like this?”

“They decided against that so the boys couldn’t abuse it and visit the girls at night.” Louise got an annoyed look. ”Not that it helped, mind you.” A bitter thought about a germanian redhead crossed her mind.

“Can’t we ask someone to let us in?” Celestia took a look around and spotted someone next to the main tower. “Over there, that looks like a maid, she may know how we can get in.”

“Why would a maid know that?” Louise asked confused.

“She is a maid, she has to clean the rooms, and so she needs acces to do that.” Celestia said.

“Oh, right. I knew that!” Celestia had to resist the eye role as they made their way to the maid who was washing clothes. ‘Don’t they have washing machines here?’ she thought.

Louise stepped forward with some air of superiority around her. ”Hey, maid?”

The girl in question got startled by the sudden question but quickly caught herself. “Yes milady?”

“Do you have a key to the Void tower?” Louise asked with a stern voice.

The maid was clearly nervous and was fidgeting a bit.“No, my lady, but I could get it for you.”

“Than do so maid” Louise said without missing a beat. ”I shall wait here.”

“Yes milady.” To an outsider it may not have looked like much, but to Celestia this conversation was filled with information she soaked all up like a sponge. The way Louise spoke meant that she held herself above the maid, the maid was afraid of Louise to some extend, but she didn’t seem to be afraid of Louise herself but more of the power she held. The pony sadly didn’t have much information about human body language or she could have found out more.





After the maid opened the door for them, Celestia found herself entering Louise's room. It was very obvious that this place was behind ponykind in the technological aspect, the way this room was equipped also raised her suspicion about Louise being a somewhat bratty noble as this was not a room she expected in a school. The furniture had a shine to it that spoke of the quality used in every piece, she personally would have never even thought about using so much money on a student’s home. It would only spoil said child, quality had to be there but the bed alone looked like you could sell it for the value of one dorm room in her own school. Still she reserved her final judgment as she had no real knowledge about human values. For all she knew, this could be the standard.

Well, they had slept some time on the outside and as such none of them were really in any condition to sleep. For Celestia, that meant that it was time to learn more about Louise.

She sat on the ground after said girl finished changing into her night garb.

“So, Louise was it?” Celestia asked. “I doubt’ that any one of us will get much sleep after we spend so much time sleeping outside so why don't we get to know each other a bit better?”

“Ok?” Louise said with a questioning undertone.”What do you want to know?”

“Why don’t you start with your name?” Celestia said. “Why is it so long? Is that normal for humans?”

“It is normal for nobles, commoners normally only have one name.” Louise answered.

“Do you never have problems with such long names?” Celestia asked. “I mean, Louise Françoise le Blanc de La Vallière is such a mouth full.”

“Louise is fine.” She clarified. ”And if you don’t know someone personally or are respectful, then you call them for their last name. Like for me, it’s just Vallière.” Louise was in full lecture mode now. “Actually, there was a problem with the names of nobles about six hundred years ago because they kept getting longer and longer. Over time, the palace ran out of paper for the documents, that’s why it’s limited to five names only excluding the runic name.”

“Runic name? What is that?” Celestia continued to drill.

“The runic name of a mage is a title that describes something about the mage's magical ability” Louise explained. ”For example someone who is very good with fire would be called The Flame.”

“What’s yours?” Louise flinched slightly at the question. Celestia of course noticed that, she did have a long history with children and the more she talked with Louise the more similarities between the girl and some of her more prideful students seemed to come out.

“I…” Louise was struggling to find the words and was playing with her fingers. ”I don’t have one yet”

“No need to be ashamed.” Celestia said encouraging. “Some simply need longer to mature, and as the saying goes, the older the wine the better it is.” Louise did smile at that, after all she just summoned a familiar who was prove to the word that she was a mage. “How about your family, tell me something about them.”

“Well my mother was once head of the Manticore Knights and my father is Duke de La Vallière, brother to the King and a magic researcher.” Louise said counting on her fingers. “My biggest sister Eleanor has followed into my father's footsteps and is at the Oriz Magic Academy with him studying magic.” Louise tone grew sadder. “My other sister, Cattleya, is sadly bedridden because of a disease that refuses to let her live a normal life.”

“That is saddening and I wish for her swift recovery.” Celestia said with honesty but quickly changed the subject. ”This night we found each other in the garden, how did that happen?”

Louise got a bit of a sour expression at that. “You were asleep and when I got close to you you took me prisoner and I was forced to stay with you until you woke up.”

Celestia got a bit uncomfortable at that. “Well, heavy sleepers are something that is running in the family I guess.”

“How can something like that run in the family?” Louise asked confused.

“My sister once slept through a monster attack that lasted for many hours.” Celestia got a bit annoyed as she continued on, “Show woke up and the first thing she said while seeing half of the city under reconstruction was ‘Did I miss anything?’.”

Louise couldn’t do anything but break out laughing because to her that sounded hilarious.

“It wasn’t that funny.” Celestia said while watching the tiny mage trying to catch her breath.

“It sounded like it.” Louise said after finally being able to speak again.

“Well at least someone is having fun.” Celestia said as Louise started to yawn. “I think we should use the rest of the night for what it was originally intended.”

Louise took a look at her clock and was really happy that tomorrow they had no classes. She quickly tucked herself in and closed her eyes

Celestia spotted the bail of hay on the ground and remembered what her summoner said about the summoned creature. She must have prepared it for a dog or something like that. 

Well, there was only one bed so it would do for now, Celestia thought as she waited for her summoner do leave into the dreamworld.

After she was was certain that Louise was asleep, she stood back up and left the room as quietly as possible.

She made sure to make a mental note of all the hallways on her way. She nearly got caught by two flirting teens. 

After finally reaching her destination outside of the tower she went to the wall. The first thing Celestia tested was her wings and they seemed to work without any kind of complications, not only that but changing her speed and trajectory was way easier than she remembered it to be. As she flew over the forest she tested her connection to the earth and it seemed that her Earth Pony power also seemed to be fully functional, she could feel the life beneath her grew and changed with every single instance of existence. After she enjoyed her late night flight a bit longer she landed in a clearing to test the most complicated thing, her Unicorn magic. Now the question was how to go at this. Celestia could just randomly start casting and look at the effects, it would be crude but it would get the job done. She started with a simple levitation of a small rock.

It didn’t work out as planned. Instead of levitating the the small rock it violently blew up. Lucky Celestia was fast enough to anflug herself with a shield…   Wait, her shield was working but the levitation literally blew up in her face? This needed experimentation.

She casted her spell again, only this time going step by step.

First she fixated her mind on her core, then she cut of just the right amount that was necessary to levitate the rock and then she applied it to the piece of stone.

She was once again rewarded with explosive force. That was good, kind of, at least she now knew why her shield was working, after all it's didn't need her internal energy to leave her body for it to work, the forces would be changed into the field inside her body and then applied outside of it. But the levitation was something different, is applied magical force on an object and used this force to lift or move the given object in any possible direction.

Celestia currently had two leading theories, either something was wrong with her magical presence or somehow the environment was reacting very violently towards her.

She believed it to be the latter because the shield wasn’t giving her any trouble and wasn’t feeling very differently. Now how could she fix the problem with the levitation? 

Again she tried to use as little force as possible so that she could observe the effect more closely. It was a strange explosion, it wasn’t chemical nor was it destroying any matter, it was simply pushing it out of the way. But it was not really a physical force acting because the stone that she tried to lift didn’t suffer any ill effects.

A lightbulb appeared above Celestias head, It was a force push, the magic was not holding together when applied outside her body because it would disintegrate immediately and doing that disrupt the physical world around it.

She tried to cast her spell again, only this time she went the extra mile to hold her magic in place and prevent it from blowing up again, it cost a considerably greater amount of concentration and power but she pulled it of, the rock was floating in front of her.

Her work done she returned to the tower and her ‘Master's’ room who was still sleeping. She laid down on the bale of hay and followed into the land of dreams.





The next morning came and Celestia's sleeping habits came back when she rose to full height before the sun was even visible on the horizon.

She stretched every part of her body and for a moment questioned her whereabouts before remembering that she was now in a different world to enjoy her vacations. A nagging feeling at the back of Celestias head told her that this was somehow planned by Twilight. That mare did have the unhealthy tendency to plan ahead way too far.

Well, sleeping in was unhealthy as well, time to wake her summoner.

She used her forehooves and started shaking the sleeping girl. “Louise. Time to wake up, it's morning.”

“Munya Munya.” 

‘CUTE!’ was the only thought she could make at that but Celestia had experiance with cute children and so she could resist easily.

With firmer voice she tried again.“Louise. It’s morning!” again only weak groaning, “Very well. You asked for it.” and promptly Celestia stole Louise blanked away from her.

“Wha! C-cold, give it back.” Louise protested.

“Only after you are on your feet, young lady.” Celestia retorted with a sly smile.

“The sun is not even up yet!” 

“Now don’t you blame me for that.” Celestia threw back. ”I really don’t want to try.” After all there was no telling who moved the heavenly bodies in this realm and she’d rather not mess with said being.

“What is that supposed to mean?” A confused and grumpy Louise asked.

At this moment Celestia had a choice, reveal who and what she was or continue to play along and have fun. 

“Nevermind.” Her choice was obvious. “More important is why you are still in bed.” Celestia fluffed her wings and pulled the girl with one of them.

“Y-You have wings?!” well that was a good start for the day.

> Where Celestia has an eventful breakfast
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Louise was practically radiating, she had summoned an Alicorn who, if the words of her familiar could be trusted, was a rare variant of an, until now, unheard of species. Take that Kirche, who has the best familiar now?

Celestia, for her part, simply found it amusing how during her explanation the little girl had gotten a bigger and bigger smile. If she understood it correctly, then the familiar was not simply a helper but would also represent the mage, as such the girl must felt incredibly proud of her summoning, normally such an attitude would be unhealthy but Celestia chose to ignore it and let Louise have a bit more fun.

That and the big smile on her face was so cute to look at, it remind Celestia of how Twilight looked when she made her first successful teleportation.

They walked down the stairs of the tower and got intercepted by a girl with long red hair.”Good morning Zero, how are you on this fine morning, did you sleep well? Outside? In the cold?” She asked in a mocking voice.

Louise instantly lost her jolly attitude and had anger written all over her face “Shut up Zerbst.” 

“What’s wrong Zero?” Kirche leaned forward empathizing her Assets ”Did the cold froze you so stiff that you lost your sense of humor? Ah sorry, I forgot, you Tristan's are all like that.”

Celestia had to suppress a giggle, she simply always found the idea of teenagers competing in such a way, and annoying each other, just adorable. That, at the same time, got her the attention of the large redheaded, who promptly took a step backwards, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Louise who in turn got a sly smile on her face. “Now Kirche, why such a reaction? After all, if you followed all the rule of the school you should have nothing to worry about being close to a unicorn.”

Kirche only flinched away even more. ”I-It’s getting late, we should be getting some breakfast, Tabi, don't you think?” Kirche said to her companion who somehow managed to stay unseen until now, reading her book, and they made their way to the dining hall. That surprised Celestia considerably, her earth pony magic should have made her feel her presence.

“What was all that about?” Celestia asked.

“Well, Unicorns have a very different meaning for people in this country. Basically, here unicorns are aggressive towards everyone who is not pure.” 

Celestia let that run through her head for a moment. “Are we speaking about spiritual purity or purity of the body?” 

Louise was a bit confused by that. “Spiritual purity? What is that supposed to mean?”

“I once knew a mare who had the purest soul you could find, she could make a Saint look evil, that is how kind and gentle she was.” Celestia got a melancholic face remembering the past. “At the same time she has shared her bed with more males than the amount of feathers I currently have and she didn’t limit herself to ponies.” After some thinking she added: “Or males for the matter.”

Louise was blushing furiously at the very idea. “P-Purity of the body, d-definitely of the body.” She stuttered out while trying to cover her face with her hands. “Now let’s get to breakfast.”





As Louise went into the dining hall to get her breakfast, Celestia stayed outside as Familiars weren’t allowed inside.

Not that she minded, she preferred open spaces anyway and she also had company in the form of a blue young drakaina who was overjoyed that she had a friend who could speak draconic.

“... and then He pulled his tail out and a HUGE fish had bit onto it, he was running around screaming, and then, AND THEN my little cousin decided that the fish looked really yummy and bit my into my uncle’s tail and they ran around like that for half a day.”

Celestia had to laugh at Illococoo’s story, not being able to banish the mental image out of her head, but her stomach interrupted her.

Like on cue, four maids showed up with small carts bringing food which reminded Celestia of the fact that familiars were meant to be animals.

Well we can’t have that, can we? Celestia had standards.

She made her way to one of the maids that she recognized from the last day, her companion already rushing to the cart with the meat, and spoke up.”Excuse me?”

The poor maid, not expecting anyone to talk to her, nearly got a heart attack and as she turned to the Alicron she timidly spoke ”Yes?”

“Could you get me to a table and serve my food there?” Celestia asked politely.

“Of... course.” The maid, Siesta, said, and while she was a bit unsure if that had just really happened she just passed it off as mages and strange magic things.





Louise walked out of the dining hall, fully satiated and ready for the day, only to be greeted by the strangest sight that she had ever seen.

There, at one of the tables, sat her familiar accompanied by a blue wind dragon who was happily munching away a fish while making grunts and short screeches towards her familiar, who was eating with a gracefulness that nearly made her envious of her own familiar. She even had cutlery and everything else. Next to them was a maid who looked like she had no idea what to do, so she simply did as she knew best and refiled the alicorns glas whenever it got empty.

Also Celestia was answering the dragon with the same sounds that it was doing to her.

Well it was never too late, or too early considering it was morning, for some wine, so she seated next to her familiar on the chair that was provided by the maid.

“Ah Louise, how was your breakfast?” Celestia asked cheerfully.

“Very good, thank you.” Louise said. ”Now, could you explain how this happened?” She asked pointing at the table, the dragon and the maid in one go.

The Alicorn looked around uncertain what she meant. “I don’t think I understand your question.”

Louise’s eye twitched a bit at that. “You are currently sitting at a table with a wind dragon about three times your height and chatting with it.” The dragon in question gave an annoyed grunt at that.

“‘It’ wants you to know that she is a proud girl.” Celestia said in a disapproving tone. ”Also I learned draconic when I was visiting the 	dragon islands for a year.” Celestia said while taking a sip out of her tea cup without missing a beat.

“Wait, you can speak to animals?” Louise asked even more confused than before.

Celestia thought about that one for a moment “I speak many languages, so it depends on what you view as animal.”

Louise decided to not get herself involved into that. “Nevermind, sooooooo.” Louise, while perplexed, was more curious to find out more things about her familiar. “Yesterday you said all of your kind can do some form of magic?”

“That is correct, earth ponies can shape the world with their body, pegasy can shape the sky and fly, and unicorns can shape the world with the use of their mind.” She explained while taking another sip from her cup. “I, as an alicorn, am the exception that as I have the power of all three races.”

She thought about that for a moment. “But what can you do with that? Can you cast spells like human mages can?”

At that Celestia got thoughtful, what would be a good demonstration of pony magic? She had to take another sip from her cup until she got an idea and started to lazily float the cup in front of Louise who only now realized that Celestia was not holding it in any physical way.
“Levitation!” The surprised girl exclaimed as the cup was surrounded by a golden hue, the same shade of gold was also surrounding Celestia's horn now that she looked at her more carefully, so unicorn horns can be used as wands?

“Among other things.” Celestia added. “There isn’t really a limit of what a unicon can do provided the skill and patience are there.”

Louise’s mood suddenly dropped at that. There was no way that she could brag about her familiar now if word got out that Celestia was better with magic than her… she would never hear the end of that!

Celestia, for her part, was simply confused why the mood of her summoner had suddenly dropped so dramatically but chose not to bring that up for now so she avoided the subject for now. “How about you tell me a few things about human magic in return?”

At that Louise could barely stop herself as she went into her lecture mode, something that reminded Celestia so much about Twilight that she simply couldn’t think about anything but how adorable it was. She went on and on about Brimir, the church, the elves, how they were gifted the magic system and improved the spells and potions since then; about the lost element of the void and how her mother was one of the strongest wind mages to have ever lived; the elements and the royal family, her childhood friend who was the princess of Tristram. It was funny for Celestia: A pony, a Dragon and a human were sitting on a table and talking about magic, someone could make a great joke out of that. She talked so long that at a point the maid had to excuse herself to get more tea.

Louise was so enraptured by her own words that she didn't noticed the sudden commotion that was visible just a few tables away. It was what appeared to be one of the students being enraged and screaming down at one of the maids, specifically the maid that had made the table for her and her dragon companion.

“What is that all about?” Celestia interrupted Louise and pointed towards the maid and the blond student.

Louise got a distasteful look on her face “The maid probably managed to stain his shirt or something of similar caliber, and the blond fop is being over dramatic about it.” Now that she mentioned it Celestia noticed two faint, red, hand shaped marks on the boys face, and he was getting louder and more aggressive, Celestia's teacher instincts were kicking in and she barely prevented herself from walking right up to them and starting to lecture him.

But she couldn’t just leave it the way it was, It was doubtful that any student would do anything to intervene, additionally it didn’t seem like any teacher was close either, that got Celestia an idea.

“Louise, can you point at the headmaster's window or that of a teacher from here?” Celestia asked.

Louise got a questioning look on her face “Why would you need to know where the headmaster’s office is?” Louise asked back.

“Just trust me for a moment.” Louise decided to play along and pointed at the window at the top of the tower.

Celestia got a smile at that and started to concentrate, a feather fall charm if she missed her target and she was ready to go, and it was about time as the blond teen just started reeling back to strike the maid.

While normally a teleportation was nearly soundless, here in Halkeginia Celestia realized that was not the case because of the reaction of magic to the world. As such everyone in the area was immediately drawn to where Guiche was just a few seconds ago.

Suffice to say no one, except for Celestia, was expecting the sudden loud bang and the following disappearance. As such, the shocked expressions that everyone had on their faces were just too hilarious and a short laugh left her mouth.

Unfortunately that had the unexpected side effect of getting everyone's attention.

And sadly one of them had enough brain to make a connection “Z-Zeros familiar, the Unicon, just blew him up!”

“Oh dear.” Celestia said as she herself became aware of the implications, for Guiche had just attempted to strike a maid while in the presence of a winged unicorn.


> Where Celestia makes a decision
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Fear, that reaction was around every corner for Louise and Celestia. And both of them really didn’t know what to make of it.

Louise, on one hand, was happy that she didn’t have to deal with the constant ‘Zero’ remarks. On the other hand she now had to deal with hushed whispers behind her back about how no one should come too close to her because her familiar could potentially banish them directly to hell and how Guiche got lucky and ‘only’ ended with him slapping miss Longvilled on her behind.





“I didn’t allow you to stop, did I?” Longville said to a panting Guiche who was carrying all the academy paperwork that she had to do, which was also weighted down with a few stones that had some special enchantments, like extra weight and launching themselves at whoever dropped them.

“I can’t feel my arms anymore Miss Long… AH!” His whining got interrupted by the contact of a wip with his bare back.

The green haired devil got a smile on her face. “First of all, how are you supposed to call me?”

“M-Mistress!” He said with a pained expression and tears running down his eyes.

“Good boy. And secondly, that is a good thing, isn't it?” Her smile got even sweeter. “After all that means no pain, so I can let you carry even more.”

It is debatable if he got lucky by not being sent to hell.





It even go to the point where the students tried to run away whenever she got to close, and they made a circle so large around her that she practically had five seats for herself at dinner.

Celestia, on the other hand, was used to be feared to some degree, you did not declare yourself sovereign of a country and expect to be treated as an equal. At first she and Luna were feared because they could turn out to be worse than Discord, as improbable as that was, then after the Nightmare disaster they feared her for her power and now, to be honest, she wasn’t even sure why they were still afraid of her, ‘For the love of the sun, Twilight nearly completely ruined the town in a panic attack… am I a tyrant?’.

Celestia's internal debate went on for so long that she didn’t even noticed that she and Louise were already in class. Earth magic lessons if she wasn't mistaken.

“Did you really have to do that Celestia?” That brought her attention back to Louise who was looking relay uncomfortable. ”I’m talking about Guiche.” Louise clarified as the sun princess only gave her a questioning look.

“Well, I could hardly just let him hit the poor maid, could I?” Celestia said with a disapproving look towards Louise. “Although I can see why you ask.” Indeed she could, because looking around she could see that no one dared to come near them, many of the students chose to pile up at the edges of the shared desks then use the empty seats next to the duo.

The teacher chose that moment to enter the class and she didn’t like what she saw. “Now we all know of the incident that happened to the young sir Gramont but that is no reason to make a scene like this. It's not like anyone here is actively trying to hurt miss Vallière.” At that, the students only got more nervous and Celestia unmistakable observed guilt in their eyes. It was very clear that this bullying has gone on for long, and now that there was something that could punish them for that they were very wary around the little girl. Well they didn’t have to know that she was friendly just yet.

“TAKE YOUR SEATS OR I WILL FILL YOU MOUTHS WITH CLAY!” Came the surprising shout from the teacher and after a quick mental debate the students chose Celestia's potential danger to be the lesser evil.  

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” She said returning to her sweet-old-lady persona, ”Now, let me introduce myself, I am Professor Chevreuse. My runic name is the ‘Red Earth’ and I will be your teacher othen what about f earth magic for this year. Now, can someone review for me what are the basic elements and why is earth special among them?”

At first no one seemed in the mood to answer until Louise herself lifted her hand. “The five Elements are Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Void. Earth is special because it’s main use is to create and build in a way none of the other elements can.”

“That is correct miss Vallière.” Professor Chevreuse took out three pebbles and pointed her staff at them. “REM IN YON” The stones started to glow brightly and in the next instant the pebbles were gone and replaced with brass.

“Is that Gold?” Kirche said while jumping out of her seat and leaned forward.

“No miss Zerbst, that would make me a strong square class mage.” the Teacher looked a bit embarrassed. “Sadly I’m only a triangle class.”

To Celestia that statement didn’t really mean anything as she was too busy analysing the small brass pieces that were on the podium, the main thing that interested here was that, despite not sensing any more magic in them, they didn’t seem to be turning back into pebbles. Normally, when cut off from the magic of the caster, the transmutated object would immediately snap back into its initial state, this did not seem to be the case here. Already Celestia's mind was coming up with ideas on how to use that, setting up permanent portals and training mages to excel in transmutation and sending them over to created materials that were needed. ‘Look at me, I am supposed to be on vacations and here I am coming up with plans to make Equestria greater.’ Celestia thought as she chuckled to herself.

“What’s so funny?” Louise asked her.

“Nothing, just thinking about something.” She replied.

“Miss Vallière!” The stern voice of the Teacher came from the podium. ”Why don’t you give us a demonstration?”

Celestia felt a bit sorry that Louise got called out because of her, however what she didn’t understand was the sudden panic that spread around the class in a explosive manner.

“No don’t!”

“Please don’t let the Zero cast anything!”

“Louise you won’t cast anything, right?”

Left and right the Students were trying to stop Louise from casting.

“SILENCE!” Again the teacher brought back order to the class.

“Professor Chevreuse, do you know what happens when Louise cast spells?” Kirche asked the teacher who had readied another trio of stones.

“All I know is that she is a very hard worker and always gives her best, now take your seat and be silent.” defeated Kirche followed the instructions. “Now Miss Vallière please come forward.” The girl in question moved forward and readied her wand. “Now remember the words ‘Rem in yon’ and focus on your willpower.”

Louise took a deep breath, pointed her wand at the stones and chanted, ”R-REM IN YON.”

Again, bright light started to radiate from the stones but Celestia immediately noticed that something was going wrong, the magic was fluctuating wildly and was barely stable for a few seconds before the spell fell apart, and instead of the desired effect, there was now free magic charged into stones in a world that reacted completely hostile to it.

The resulting explosion shook the whole building, knocked the teacher out cold and laid waste to the rest of the classroom. Celestia herself barely managed to cover herself with her wings.

At the epicenter stood Louise, with her clothes and hair a mess, cleaning herself with a handkerchief and looking like that was a completely normal occurrence.

“Damn it Zero! I knew this would happen!” An angry and shaken Kirche screamed out after she got herself out from under the remains of her table.

“I made a slight mistake.” Louise answered while averting her eyes.

“A SLIGHT MISTAKE!?” Kirche screamed back. ”That’s why I didn’t want you to cast a spell, your success rate is still ZERO! Louise the ZERO! You should just...” Anything else she tried to say was interrupted by a loud stomp and a glare from Celestia. “Whatever, I’ll just go.” And so she and the other students made their way out of class leaving only an Alicorn, a student and a knocked out teacher inside.





The rest of the day was spent in silence, the school healer didn’t ask any questions when Celestia levitated an unconscious teacher into the infirmary, the fact that she was walking with Louise seemed to explain everything.

Louise herself simply looked depressed, she was trying not to show it but to Celestia, who literally spend more than a millennium reading her far better trained political opposition, it was like reading an open book.

It also explained a great deal, why Louise was so happy summoning her, how she avoided speaking about her own magical talent in the conversations, and the bullying. While bullies normally didn’t need a reason this time it was painfully obvious why Louise was the target. 

Celestia had to question the intelligence of attacking someone who one day could snapp and literally blow everything to tartarus.

It also fired up her interest in this world's magic, so she thoroughly started to analyze every mage she came across. 

What she found was fascinating. 

Apparently every human mage had a core similar to that of a pony, but there was one very big difference. Every pony core she had come across barely told her anything about what type of pony she was looking at. She could discriminate earth ponies, pegasus and unicorns, and could tell the amount of raw power at their disposal, but even that could be misleading as that would only tell her how much the pony has access at the moment, not the total amount they truly had. That, for example, was the reason why no one had any idea of Twilight raw power until she herself unleashed it by accident.

Humans where a whole different story. With just one look she could write whole books about the person the core belonged to. She looked at the core of the red haired girl by the name of Kirche, it was like a raging fire, consuming, destructive and aggressive. It felt like standing in an inferno. Her shorter, blue haired friend was like the polar opposite, it felt like standing of the top of a mountain made of ice, one wrong step and she would be falling into a never ending abyss. And it felt cold, Oh. So. Cold. Every falling piece of snow was pressing into her like the tip of a spear of ice. 

They were so numerous, and no one was comparable to another. Every time Celestia looked into a new one she felt dirty for she was looking into what was essentially the soul of said person.

But the most disturbing thing that she saw was the core or her little summoner, Louise. Every single core could to some degree tell her the elemental alignment of said person but Louise. 

She had none.





Louise felt horrible, she believed because her summoning spell had succeeded she would be able to successfully cast other spells to. 

But no, the universe had to give her false hope by sending her a familiar who was better at magic than her in an attempt to mock her.

The familiar in question had left her after leaving the teacher with the medic, saying that she had something to do. As if! Louise could only think about how Celestia probably didn’t want anything to do with her since she found out how hopeless she was, not that she could blame her, after all she was used to people giving up on her. Her parents did after it became apparent that she had not talent with magic, to her big sister she was only an annoyance, she had listened when people were mocking Eleanor because her relation with her, and even her teachers gave up after half a year. The only good thing was that some like professor Colbert at least tried. But all private lessons and encouragements were wasted. 

Louise the Zero, for zero success. The more she heard it the more she started to believe it herself. What was even the point of continuing with all of that?

She didn’t even realize where she was going while her mind was slowly descending into depression, and only after colliding with something soft she was brought back to her senses.

She looked up to see Celestia smiling down on her. “My, my, someone is deep in thought.” The alicon said jokingly. Louise didn’t feel like joking at all and just averted her gaze.

Celestia had to flinch a bit at that, Louise was really not feeling well.

“Louise, would you mind accompanying me for a while?” Celestia asked in the softest voice she could do.

“Not in the mood.” Louise said meekly but as she tried to walk past her she got blocked of by a white wing.

“Trust me, it's going to be worth you time.” Celestia pressed on.

Louise was a bit annoyed as she just wanted to go to her room but agreed and started to follow her familiar. After leaving the academy walls, and a bit of walking, Louise found herself in a clearing with a tree stump in the middle of it. On it laid three small stones that were about the same size of the ones she had blown up earlier the day. Immediately her mood darkened at that. She knew what Celestia was planning, she already tried training the spells countless of times and the results always where the same. Louise was not in the mood to do so again and tried to leave.

Again, Celestia stood in her way with a bright smile.”What is the point?” Louise asked with a downed expression. ”It will just blow up again.”

“Louise, I promise you it will not, please just have a bit of faith in me.” After a half-a-minute staring contest where she dared Celestia to just show one dishonest streak, Louise finally gave in and pulled out her wand.

She walked to the stones and started chanting halfheartedly, ”REM IN YON.” Again, for a few seconds, they started to glow and Louise closed her eyes waiting for the inevitable. She waited, and waited, for what seemed to be a eternity.

Finally she had enough and ripped her eyes open. There they lay the three small stones surrounded by a pinkish glow, mind you they were still stones, but there was no explosion, they just continued to glow in a pinkish hue and gave off a strange soft sound.

Of all things that could have happened that was not what the small girl was expecting. ”This confirms my theory.” Celestia said next to her. Louise only continued to stare questioningly.

Celestia continued to smile and a glow surrounded her horn, suddenly a strange golden light was visible all around them, ”This is a barrier that I created prior to our arrival, it has only one goal, to cage the ambient magic that I created and prevent it from reaching the outside.”

The alicorn lifted the pebbles in her own magic, “When I arrived here one of the things that really fascinated me was the way your magic works, because it was so different from my own. It intrigued me how all of your mages combine raw magic with their elements to create their spells, but there is something I found that was very strange to me.” Celestia explained as she walked to the edge of the barrier and pointed Louise to follow.

”It was how your world reacted to magic itself what didn’t stop bothering me. While the spells that your kind created are vast and numerous, all of them are linked to a element no matter if it is a healing spell, one for flight or one for transmutation. To me that was very strange because, you see, I don’t have an element at all. If I were to cast a fire spell I would have to start shaking the very atoms until there was fire.” Louise only looked more confused at that but Celestia continued before she could ask any question. ”You may not understand that, but let's just say that it is a lot more complicated than just waving my horn and imagining fire, that said, let me show you what happened when I attempted to cast a spell after I was brought here by your summoning.” At that Celestia took one of the stones and loaded it with magic until it was glowing in a golden hue, instead of a pink one, and launched it out of the barrier. With high speed it managed to fly for several meters before exploding so violently that Louise dropped on the ground from the impulse. “And now for comparison, your spells.” The alicorn said before throwing the pink glowing stones and again the explosion was massive.

“Another thing that really confused me was, why was I the one you summoned? You told me that the spell choses an ideal partner for the summoner, what kind of help could I, an alicorn, give a young human girl whose magic system is so fundamentally different from our own?” Celestia looked back at Louise, “Only now I understand, you Louise Vallière, like me and every other unicorn have no elemental affinity at all.” Celestia started to circle the still downed Louise who could only listen with her eyes glued to Celestia “I, my dear Louise, am a teacher. I have thought many, some of them were the most talented of their generation, some were called the most talentless of their generation but no matter who they were or where they came from at the end they left my care as some of the strongest mages ever seen.”

Celestia got on the ground to look Louise directly in the eyes. “Louise, would you like to be my student?”
> Where Celestia taught the first lesson
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	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!”

> Where Celestia comforts and students are stalked
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Old Osmond really didn’t know what to make of this situation.

While the young Vallière’s Familiar was hardly the strangest he had seen in his career, it certainly brought in some big surprises like the ability Teleport. Being sentient was only one of the growing pile of abnormalities that was ‘Celestia’ as Louise called her.

To make matters worse, he had no idea what the two of them were doing as somehow the mere presence of that four legged enigma broke most of his surveillance spells and, as such,  he had to rely on the old fashioned way to get information. Professor Colbert was not hard to convince if one was to say things like ‘for her own safety’ and, while it hurt the old man to use his colleague like that, he did indeed put Louise well-being in first place. He was waiting for the younger man’s report on this case when the door started to knock.

“Enter.” Old Osmond said and Professor Colbert came inside with a worried look. “Ah, Colbert, what can I do for you?”

“Headmaster, you wanted me to inform you about Miss Vallière’s and her familiar’s activities if I found something unusual.” Colbert started in a severe tone, “What happened today definitely qualifies. The familiar has started to teach Louise magic, as well as in various subject that I have no knowledge about.”

Considering that Professor Colbert was a very well read man, and could hold a conversation about nearly every subject that one could talk about, that was worrying.“Do you have any idea what she was teaching her?”

“From what I gathered, she taught her some sorts of concentration exercises that are supposed to help her. Not that I understand how sitting and talking can help her.” He said in a somewhat confused manner. ”Besides that, they later used a classroom to discuss something about a concept call ‘gravity’.” He scratched his head “It was very complicated, add to that that I barely was able to understand what they were saying much less understand the concept.”

“Interesting. We have to keep watching them, maybe the familiar is a blessing for the young Vallière.” Osmond said while stroking his beard.”Please continue to keep an eye on them.”

“Yes, headmaster.”





It took Celestia nearly a full hour to calm Louise down after her initial shock, then another one after she accidentally said that the threat was, most likely, not towards her but her parents, and a last one to just get her to sleep.

The next day came and, again, Celestia was up early. It still made her a bit uneasy that she didn’t have to rise the sun, not that she was complaining.

Now to waking up Louise, after all standing up late was not something Celestia would tolerate from her student. “Louies, it’s time to wake up, the morning will not wait for you.” Celestia said while pulling Louise’s blanket away.

The student in question raised her head with the most hateful expression she could muster with her adorable face. Something like a puppy of doom. “The sun isn’t even up yet.” She said slowly.

“Good, that means that you will be up to see the beautiful sunrise.” Celestia said with a smile on her face. “Now, come up, up, there is nothing like starting the morning with some revisions while getting ready for the day.” She proclaimed.

Louise didn’t really have time to complain when she was lifted out of her bed bathed in a golden aura. “Wah, let me down!”

“Nope.” Was all that Louise got before she was seated at her table with a bucket of fresh water and a wet towel planted on her face. After a few more complaints that were wholeheartedly ignored, a freshly dressed, clean and grumpy Louise was ready to tackle the day.

And the sun wasn’t even up yet.

“So, now that we have that ready, it is time to go through some exercises, after all no one became good at magic by just being lazy.” Celestia said.

Louise’s mood did a 180 at the prospect of training her magic.

“First, you can’t start a day without a few stretches.” Celestia said as she demonstrated by stretching, first like a cat, and then making this weird position where she stretched her hind legs and head backwards and formed a C with her whole body. She hold on the pose for a few seconds before standing back up and looking at louise expectedly.

“You don’t expect me to copy you, do you?” Louise asked somewhat worried. “Because I think that would break my spine.”

“Well, of course not, I expect you to do the human equivalent.” Celestia said with a smile.

Louise thought about it for a minute. “I don’t think there’s a human equivalent.” The closest thing Louise ever has seen too something like that was when her mother practiced with her sword.

“Then, we will invent it.” Celestia said full of enthusiasm. “Stretching is really not hard.” She said while closing in on Louise. “And morning stretches are mainly there to wake up your muscles after they relaxed the whole night.”

“In what way will this help my magic?” Louise asked skeptically.

‘It will not, I only want you to do it because it’s the first step to getting you into shape. No offence, but you look like you never had a good meal in your life compared to your classmates.’ Not that Celestia would tell her that. “Well, you can’t do magic when half of you body is asleep. Now raise your arms, we will figure this out together.”

And so they experimented with Louise body until it was nearly time to go to class.

“Do you have everything you need for today?” Celestia asked Louise, who was still looking through her pouch.

“Everything is ready. Not that I need it.” She quietly added.

Celestia gave a disapproving look at that. “Now Louise, just because you now study magic with me you can’t just forgo your other studies.”

Louise gave her a blank stare. “Because I always was so bad at the practical part of magic, the only way I could keep a positive grade was with always knowing everything theoretical and having a perfect score on every written test that we have. The only exam that could have kicked me out was the familiar summoning.” Louise gave Celestia a smug look. “You can ask me anything that we will learn this year and I guarantee you that I can answer it.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow at that. “That is either a lie or this school lacks material.”

“I’m not lying!” Louise said enraged. “Test me if you want.” she said while crossing her arm and puffing her chest with pride.

“Very well.” Celestia said levitating a random tome out of Louise pouch. The first problem made itself clear when Celestia tried to read the title because apparently they were using a different written Language. 

Well nothing a small language spell couldn’t solve.

After said spell was cast, Celesta looked at ‘Fire Magic and you Vol.3’. She opened a random page farther back and chose a question for Louise. “Describe the effects of the ‘Incarnation’ spell, how to form it in as much detail as you can.”

“The incineration spell is what is called a ‘wavering spell’ as you can cast it no matter what class of mage you are. It will heat up the object that you are pointing your wand at, raising it to a temperature high enough to set said object on fire, and melt it if the object is not flammable. As such, the power necessary to cast the spell depends on the target.” 

That was a word-for-word explanation of what was written in the book. “Well, at least that means I won't have to worry about your other studies.” Celestia said as she placed it back in Louise’s bag.

And so, the duo made their way to Louise’s class on fire magic.

The first thing they noticed when entering the class was the strange metal block that was on the teacher’s desk, with all sorts of doodads sticking out of it.

“Alright, please, all take you places and we will begin with the lesson.” Professor Colbert said as he entered the room. “Today I would like to show you one of my latest inventions.”

At his announcement, the class released a collective groan, and Celestia threw an inquiring look at Louise.

“Professor Colbert's lessons differ from the normal ones. He very often does things that you can’t reread at night before the tests and actually have to pay attention in class.” Louise explained. “Most of the things are boring stuff that we will never need, but sometimes he gives really good life lessons.”

Celestia chose to not comment on that, and simply watch the lesson herself.

“Now, many of you surely have noticed this machine that is next to me and may be asking yourselves why I brought it to the lesson.” He said while smiling to the calls. “It is for a demonstration in fire magic. Now, miss von Zerbst, you are a triangle fire mage, correct?”

“Yes, professor.” Kirche confirmed.

“Then, tell me about fire magic’s main uses.” The professor asked.

“Well, it’s used to burn things.” Kirche answered quickly.

“That would be correct, miss von Zerbst. To burn things, or destruction, if you want a more refined choice of words.” That got some laughter at Kirches dismay. “But, why should that be all that fire is capable of? In fact, why can’t fire be a creating force?” He walked to the machine. “In fact, let me demonstrate.” He said a short spell, and fire left his wand to enter the machine.

The whole class looked with expectations at the strange machine that the professor had built. Suddenly, without a warning, black smoke left the top of it and nearly every part of it started to move.

“As you can see, I’m using a flammable liquid to create gas, that creates a pressure that moves the gears.” Colbert proudly presented. 

The rest of the class didn’t seem to share that enthusiasm.

“That’s nice and all professor but, what does that do for us?” Kirche asked.

Colberts smile only seemed to widen at that question “I am glad you ask, miss von Zerbst, It can be applied to many things that only need a simple spinning to work. Imagine a mill where there is no wind or water close by, or a carriage that can drive without a horse.” He listed. “Of course it’s mainly theoretical but I have no doubt that with the right dedication one can create great things from seemingly nothing.” He clapped his hands together to get all the attention. “Now, as interesting as this was, I’m sure learning the incantations for the dot-clas fire spells was even more so, as such I will test you now on those.” A collective groan escaped the class.





The class ended and the students were left to their various activities. For Louise that meant more training in magic.

KABOOOOOOM!!!

Which was going surprisingly well.

No, really! She had only blown up three clearings last hour.

“Very good Louise, you are improving.” Celestia said approvingly.

“How am I improving? This time it blew up even faster than the last time!” Louise said as she sunk to her knees in disappointment. For about an hour Louise had been doing the strangest magical exercise she had ever seen. At first, she was supposed to ‘manifest’ her willpower outside of her body and somehow ‘hold’ it preventing it from, well, blowing up.

Seeing as Louise had absolutely no idea that ‘holding’ magic was even possible, it was back to the drawing board for Celestia. But she hadn’t taught all those many generations for nothing! After demonstrating her own levitation, she instructed Louise to do the same. While she was creating a field that would hold the magic stable, she would slowly be giving up more and more control back to Louise in the hope that she would, at the end, be able to hold it all by herself. 

Over the course of a few minutes, Louise would take more and more until it inevitably exploded.

She was at about sixty percent and was improving at a steady rate.

“That is because I was diminishing the field faster than the last time.” Celestia explained.

“Why would you do that?” Louise screamed at her with a betrayed glare.

“To make you improve, of course.” Celestia said taking a tone that one would use on an eight-year-old. ”How would you learn if you don’t try harder things, silly?”

“That… makes sense… sorry.” Louise said in a meekly way.

“Perhaps we should end here for today.” Celestia said as she looked at the sky.

Louise’s look got a bit horrified at that. “No! I’m sorry that I screamed at you, please don’t go!”

Celestia had to raise an eyebrow at that. “Easy there, I’m not mad at you Louise.” While Celestia knew that Louise wasn’t the most stable of students, she wasn’t expecting that strong reaction.

That situation required some digging.

“Louise, my dear, what's wrong?” She said while going down to be at the same eyeheight. “I can clearly see that something is hurting you. Let me help.”

“It’s nothing. I’m ok.” Louise said, stubbornly turning around to try and hid her face. “Let’s continue. I still have plenty Willpower left.”

Instead of saying something, Celestia walked closer to her and pulled her into a gentle wing hug. At first, Louise flinched at the touch but quickly submitted herself to the white fluffiness, not that anyone could resist it for long. “Louise it's ok, you can tell me what is hurting you.”

After a few seconds of silence Louise mumbled something too quiet for Celestia to hear. “You will have to speak up if you want me to help you.” Celestia said in the most motherly voice she could manage.”

“I… I don’t want you to a-abandon me to.” She finally admitted quietly.

“Why do you think I would abdone you Louise?” She asked carefully.

“Because every teacher I had abandoned me!” Louise snapped as she turned around and screamed out. “All of them! They always came to my home claiming they could teach me magic and telling that they would surely succeed. In the end, they all just left saying that I am impossible to teach and that teaching me is a lost cause!” By now Louise was openly crying and screaming into Celestia's face. She just kept looking at Louise as she shouted all sorts of insults towards her former and current teachers, and people who Celestia didn’t even know.

After she finally left out all her steam, her eyes were red and puffy and she looked at the ground full of shame.

“Louise, I will not pretend to know what it's like to be you, or that I know all those people All those people you so colorfully described. Nor do I want to know where you learned some of those words.” Now Louise was also full on blushing. “But allow me to show you something.” She said as she levitated a book out of Louise’s backpack in front of her face. ‘Now lets see if I still got it.’

“What is the number one applications for Aristolus Aralis!?” Celestia barked out with the voice of an old commander.

“H-Healing potions.” A startled Louise answered back but, before she could even form a question in her mind, Celesia continued.

“How do you harvest moon tears?!”

“Harvest them midday when the blossom is closed.” Louise shot back.

“Why?!”

“Because the pollen is poisonous.”

“How do you find Shark growth?!”

“Half a meter below the sands of a beach during low tide.” Louise finally gathered enough composure that she could muster some form of question herself but everything she was about to ask died in her throat when she saw the smile that Celestia whore.

“Now, tell me Louise, would a ‘lost cause’ really be able to answer all those questions that easily?” Louise smiled shily at that. “Now, come on, it's getting late and you will have to get used to waking up that early every day.” Louise had to take a double take at what she was hearing.

“What, Why?” She screamed out running after a laughing alicorn to plead for mercy over her morning routine.

Not that it worked, this is Celestia we are talking about after all.

> Where Celestia discovers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Louise really wanted to curse right now.

The fact that the only thing that was visible of the sun was a red tint in the sky, and that she was already fully awake and had finished all her morning rituals, really set her off.

The only thing that was stopping her, was the fact that enduring the pain meant magic lessons with her new Teacher.

And, while they where theoretical, it was still new things that she didn’t know before. So, for now, Louise decided that using words that would make her eldest sister come all the way to the academy just to punish her was out of the question.

“...and so, the problem with levitation is not the initially needed power, but the amount of power that is necessary to hold the object in the air and, depending on the weight of said object, the focus to direct the weight away from you. For example, most unicorns do it to the ground beneath them.” Celestia finished.

“So, when I am levitating something then the weight of the thing I am levitating is pressed onto me?” Louise asked.

“That is correct, but because you have been lifting such small objects until now, and using your whole arms, you haven't even realized it yet. Where you to lift something big, like a dragon, I’m sure that you would hurt yourself quite badly.” Celestia confirmed.

“How do I redirect the weight then?” Louise asked.

“That’s something we will focus on when you can levitate without my help.” And Louise spirit dropped again. “It’s getting time for your classes, so we should continue this later.”

Louise took her notes, placed them back on her nightstand, and picked her bag up. 

It has been nearly a week since she summoned Celestia and, in that week, she had learned more about practical magic or the arcane, as Celestia sometimes called it, then in all her life. Beyond that, Louise really doubted that she would be able to read what she had learned somewhere else. No, what she was currently learning was Unicorn magic, Celestia made that pretty clear.

To think, that she would be learning a kind of magic that probably had never been studied by humans before! For her to even be capable of learning it! 

It was so surreal, but at the same time it was happening. Louise was nearly able to ‘hold’ the magic on her own and that would mark her second ever successfully casted spell.

There was still that doubt in the back of her head, fearing that Celestia would leave here, but she silenced that under multiple metric tons of hope that was only been increasing since day one.

And so, she learned day in, day out, without rest. The normal classes where more of a break from her classes with her new teacher than actual learning.

Of course she didn’t tell Celestia that, she would probably get lectured about the importance of education.

It was strange to Louise. Celestia was the weirdest teacher she ever had, and she didn’t mean the fact that she was a giant pony with wings and a horn. No, it was her teaching methods and how she behaves. Normally teachers would just tell you what to do and then simply test if you can do it, or not, that was how it had been so far. With Celestia, there was no testing. So far she simply taught and it felt like she was holding her hand all the way.

It felt warm, in a way, to have someone care for you in that way.

It felt similar when she was with Princess Henrietta.
thought 
Louise could hardly wait to show Celestia to the prince...

…

“The familiar exhibition!” Louise screamed out on the way to morning class.

“Louise!” A startled Celestia cried out.”What is going on?”

Louise turned to her. “I completely forgot the familiar exhibition! It’s today!”

“Calm down Louise.” Celestia said to the now hyperventilating little girl. “Count to ten and then tell me exactly what’s going on.”

Louise did as instructed.”There’s this really important event where we show of the summoned familiars and it is really important because the princess will be there and we have to prepare something but I completely forgot that it is today, aaaaa what do I do, what do I do, what do I do!?” She said without taking a breath.

Celestia, after digesting the information, gave the most thought out and well formulated answers of all time.

“And?” Louise could only stare at her with an eye twitching.

She was about to start the rant of the century about prestige and the importance of standing but Celestia shushed her before she could start. “Think Louise, this contest is meant for animals and showing them off, am I right?” Louise nodded. “Then it’s no problem, I just do some flying and magic and everything will be fine.”

“You don’t understand Celestia, I HAVE to make a good impression on the princess, I haven’t seen her in such a long time.”Louise pleaded.

“Do you know her personally?” She asked back.

“Yes, I had the honor to be the royal playmate before a few years ago.” Louise said, making sure not to cross Celestia’s eyes.

“So, your childhood friend.” Celestia was not sure what to really think about that, after all, the memory of children like the young Blueblood was still in her mind, but the older version of him was also very... memorable. Well, if Louise wanted to impress her childhood friend, who was Celestia to not grant her that wish? “I will think of something, Louise, and make sure that it will be spectacular.” Louise felt relieved at that. “Anyways, let's go to class, you don’t want to be late, do you?” she said.

“Let’s go!” Louise was happy feeling as if nothing could go wrong.





Louise was so scared she had no idea why she was still present at the exhibition, heck she was wondering why she was still in Tristram and why she hadn’t already run away on shame into a far off country, changed her name and appearance, started a life as a farmer, got married to a good hearted husband, had many children and raised them with love. It would be a shameful life but she would still love them. Then a war would break out and claim her husband and children's lives, driving her to madness and forcing her to take vengeance upon the nobility, whereupon she would start a bloody revolution in revenge which would end in her facing Princess Henrietta on the battlefield in a fight for life and death to extract revenge on those who she thinks wronged her.

…

Scratch that, just failing the Exhibition was better, Louise thought while coming down from her overdrive mode.

Besides, maybe that day actually wouldn’t end int total tragedy. Yes she, should trust her teacher and familiar.

Then she witnesses Tabitha's spectacular show and starts hyperventilating again.
“What are you thinking about, Louise?” Came Celestia’s voice hoping to catch Louise off guard.

Louise, instead of being surprised, simply turned to Celestia and asked: “Do you think Romalia is nice this time of the year?”

“Why do you want to know that?” Celestia asked back.

“No reason at all.” Louise said while averting her eyes, something that, Celestia noticed, she had started to do more frequently since mentioning Henrietta that morning.

Celestia was confused for a second before realization dawned on her face. “Ok, first of all, panic doesn't suit you at all.” She explained, “And second, when you don’t want to be found, I suggest you go somewhere less obvious, preferably a place with no ties to Tristain.” Celestia explained with a smile.

Louise simply looked at her with one eye twitching and trying to comprehend what she had just said. “Since when are you able to read minds?!” She asked accusingly.

“I learned it about seven-hundred years ago, but I don’t like using it at all, it is such a gross invasion of privacy.” Celestia answered truthfully.

Now both of Louise eyes twitched in a dysfunctioning manner.

“O come on, what is the worst that could happen? Yea, She might banish you from Tristain. Or throw you into a dungeon. Or banish you and then throw you into a dungeon in the place that she banishes you to!” The Princess said humorously.

“Ehhhhhh…” Louise moaned like a dying puppy.

“Regardless, I hope I am not late, was I announced yet?”

“A spectacular performance from Tabitha and her familiar Sylphid.” The announcer said. “Next up is the familiar of Louise de La Vallière. The Alicorn Celestia!”

“Well that’s my mark.” Celestia said with a smile and teleported onto the stage.

It had been a while since she last participated in any activity like that. Mind you, not as ‘Celestia’, no, to put on a good show she had to be someone else. The last time she was a pegasus named Morning Sun and, if humans were anything like ponies, then a exclusive wonderbolt show would definitely be something impressive.

And with that, Celestia took to the air at a speed that made Sylphid jealous.

She did barrel rolls, aileron rolls, twists and sharp 90° turns at a speed that would break a human body in half. And she did it all while still looking graceful and elegant. She continued the show for a few minutes and then did a sharp upwards turn. Celestia continued to rise and, just when she reached the clouds, she stopped. For a short moment it looked like she was hovering in the sky like an angel, before she folded her wings and began to fall. The audience gasped sharply at that and got even more paiced when she opened her wings again and used all her might to increase her downwards speed.

Celestia was in a rush, going down at a speed that she hadn’t reached in more than millennia. The speed, the adrenalin, it was breathtaking and she loved it. White sparks slowly began to appear in front of her as the barrier appeared in front of her. She pushed and pushed with all her might against the forces that wished to bound her to the rules of the world. 

But she was Celestia, and let it be known that much greater forces have tried, and with that thought the world around her gave in and the barrier shattered.

To the audience, all what they heard and saw was a explosion and a light so bright that they had to avert their eyes.

But once they looked up again they were greeted by a exploding rainbow that passed over the sky in a way so spectacular that the heaven itself seemed to make way for its glory.

Celestia landed back on the stage and shook her head once. It was so silent that you could have dropped a pin and someone in the capital would be able to hear it.

Then the second explosion was heard, this time it was the roaring cheer from the crowd.

Celestia would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy it. She had always been one for theatrics and right now she was in her element. She would have to ask Louise if there were more contests like these. She would love to comped.

The rest of the competition wasn’t nearly as impressive as Celestia and the only contestants who had made an even slightly comparable impression were Tabitha and Sylphid.

But in the end, the result was clear and Louise with Celestia by her side accepted the praise and trophy from the princess. 

At that moment, she couldn’t have been more happy.





“That was great!” Louise screamed out when they reached the room in the eventing. “First you were like wush, and then, and then the whole sky blew up, and the colors were so pretty!”

“Calm down Louise, you might wake up the other students.” Celestia said after soaking up a bit of that praise, and Louise had the decency to blush a bit.

“How did you do all of that? You were faster than a wind dragon and-and so agile.” Louise still had stars in her eyes. 

“In my youth I was in a group of flyers. Most of the things I did come from there.” Celestia explained. “Anyway, it’s time for you to go to bed as it’s getting late.” Louise was still not over the fact that her new teacher was turning around her sleeping schedule like that, but, with one look at the new trophy that was standing on the table the grudge was forgotten.

Louise was already changed on her nightgown and only needed to lay down.

But that was not to be as a knocking interrupted them.

“Who could this be at this hour?” Louise asked as she walked to the door to opened it. Before she could even ask, a hooded form slipped in and closed the door quickly behind her. 

Celestia was instantly on the edge, but it proved to be unnecessary as the hood was pulled back revealing Princess Henrietta smiling fondly. “Louise, my dear, it has been so long.”

“Your highness!” Louise screamed out but instantly had her mouth covered by the princess’ hand.

“Shh, no one know I am here.” She said in partic. Louise could only nod numbly with her mouth still covered. “Oh Louise, it has been so long since I last see you! It has been awful not being able to even visit my best friend.”

“I haaa musss yoo too Pwinness.” Was all what Louise could say through her covered mouth. Henrietta's checks went beat red as she realized that she still had her hand there, and quickly moved it away. “I have missed you too, Princess. But why are you sneaking around like that?”

Henrietta sighted at that. “I love my guards, but they can get way too protective outside of the castle.” Celestia had to smirk at that. “And privacy is not something you can have with them around.” Henrietta got a smirk at that. “But now that we Do have our privacy, why don’t we use it?” 

And with that, she pushed herself against Louise, locking her lips with her own as she forced her tongue through Louise’s lips.

For Celestia, multiple things just clicked. The nervousness, the dodging the topic of the relationship, and how relieved she was at the childhood friend part.

And, while she had nothing against that kind of show, she really didn’t want to watch her student getting intimate. The only problem was that the lovebirds were blocking the door.

And so, Celestia pulled attention to herself in the most tactful manner. “While I am really happy for you Louise, can that wait until I left the room?”

Both girls froze, wide eyed, at that. Louise because she forgot Celestia was in the room and Henrietta because she had no idea Celestia could even talk. Louise was the first to break out of the shock and broke the kiss to the disappointment of Henrietta.

“You can never tell anyone of this, you hear me?” Louise said in panic.

“My lips are sealed.” She stated with a smirk. “Well, at least until I get a reason to blackmail the princess.” She added jokingly

“Celestia!” Louise screamed out accusingly, lucky for hear Celestia had already placed an anti sound charm as she realized where this was going.

Henrietta, meanwhile, had fallen into as state of soul crushing depression. ”...we will be burned, and my country is going to hate me for this, mother will banish me. Or throw me into a dungeon. Or banish me and then throw me into a dungeon in the place that she banishes me to!”

“Snap out of it Princess!” Louise said while shaking Henrietta violently.

After everything calmed down a bit, Louise explained. ”It all started when my mother had to visit the palace about a year ago. Normally, I wouldn’t dare to approach my mother, but I was getting so lonely that I just had to ask her to take me with her.”

From there Henrietta took over. “At the start, everything was calm and happy, we drank tea and talked a lot. I, for one, was overjoyed to meet with Louise again after such a long time.” Henrietta again got a red face after that. “Then we went to my room as our mothers started talking about some important things.” Henrietta averted her face. “I usually don’t drink much wine but, for a change, no one was watching us and we thought it would be fun.”

“The next morning we woke up in the same bed with all our memories intact.” Louise finished. “From that moment onwards we decided to meet as much as possible.” 

Celestia nodded at that. “Not the most interesting story, but I still wish you the best of luck and fun, however what I don’t understand is why you still call her ‘Princess’ or ‘Your Highness’.”

Louise flinched at that. “We-well, you see… it's because it’s the  proper thing to do! Tha-that’s how you refer to those above-I mean In charge! I mean! The authority! Yes, that.”

“And I am the authority, am I right, Louise?” Henrietta asked her playfully poking into her side.

“Yes -yes.” Her friend answer her with a light blush in her cheeks.

“So, Louise,” The princess started whispering into her friend’s ear. “Do you still have that riding crop?”

And with that, Celestia silently left the room leaving the two lovebirds alone.





Luna was snoring.

Snoring very, I repeat, Very loudly.

Infact, Twilight had no idea how the castle was still standing because that snoring was so loud that an ursa major would make sure to keep a huge distance between itself and Luna's snoring.

But alas, Twilight didn’t care.

After three nights of non-stop gaming fuelled with energy drinks, doritos and a few other things that she may declare illegal later on, she really couldn’t get herself to care at all.

Was she regretting throwing Celestia out so she had no fixed bedtimes and could pull multiple all nighters with Luna?

NOPE!

Still, it was strange to not be woken up to Celestia's happy-talking-them-out-of-bed thingy.

“YOUR HIGHNESSES!” Came an unexpected scream from outside. “IF YOU DON’T MOVE YOUR BUCKING FLANK TO THE DOOR RIGHT NOW, I WILL SHOVE YOUR SCEPTER WHERE CELESTIA'S EVERLOVING SUN WILL NEVER REACH AND MAKE LUNA WATCH WHILE WHISPERING INTO HER EAR AND TELL HER SHE IS NEXT.”

Crap. 

Stern Eye was there. When had she returned from her vacation? She should have been gone for at least two more days. The secretary-shaped spawned from tartarus was currently the most powerful pony in all of Equestria simply because she didn’t give a buck about who she was dealing with, she would just do things in her own way.

“We are bucked aren’t we?” Luna asked next to her, the mares having already developed a sixth sense for that fury that was knocking at the door.

“OPEN THE BUCK UP!!!”

“Eyup” Twilight replied.





Old Osmond realized one thing. He was too old to deal with this kind of situation.

The vault was empty. 

Completely cleaned of all and everything that was inside with only a note left that pinned the crime to no other then Fouquet of the Crumbling Earth.

Every protective spell that had been on the place was completely gone and no one had any idea how it happened or had any leads at all.

This was truly a troubling situation, but for now he decided to keep quiet and write to a few old friends who had connections to the black market. With luck he would be able to recover most of the things.

For now, it was time to wait.
> Where Celestia is silly
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The sun was shining, the birds were singing and everything was right with the world.

Actually, Celestia though, no. It was cold despite it nearly being midday, the sky was cloudy, the trees didn’t protect them from the wind at all, and, all in all, it was an awful day.

But to Louise, completely unreachable to Celestia, it was as if heaven itself had opened branch next to the academy.

The girl was currently on cloud nine with a dreamy look on her face. Mind you, she still was doing what one told her, but it seemed that spending the night with the princess of Tristain put her mind a mile deep into the gutter.

“Louise, are you listening to me at all?” Celestia asked bemused.

“Of course Celestia, some cake would be lovely.” She replied with glassy eyes, drool on her lips, and a sultry smile. What was impressive, was that she was still levitating the stone around without any influence from Celestia. The pony princess had switched the field the prevented Louise’s explosions off, fifteen minutes ago. Also, she could swear that the stone hadn’t been heart-shaped when the lesson started.

Celestia took a deep breath before turning to the heavens and shouting out. “Curse you Cadance! She was only so young!” Needless to say, she was feeling in a mood for theatrics.

“Excuse me?” A male voice sounded out behind Celestia. It was the teacher Colbert that was looking at them with a questioning expression.

“Dear Professor.” Celestia said overdramatically with a wing over her face. ”A horrible curse has befallen poor Louise here, and I fear there is no cure for it.” A fake tear running down her face.

Colbert, having misunderstood the situation, was alarmed. “What! What kind of curse? What nature of magic is it? Have you seen the culprit!?”

“Yes, dear professor! I have seen the caster of this most cruel of all spells!” Celestia continued. “And I have only a name to give it, as the rest of the incarnation is a mystery even to eldrich creatures.” Celestia was enjoying this way too much.

“What is it? Tell me! Maybe we can help!” Colbert nearly screamed.

“LOVE!”

…

…

…

“What.” Colbert, the poor man, already completely on the edge after dealing with the lost artifacts and fearing that one had been used on one of the students under his watch, had a twitching in his right eye.

“Yes, I know! It is horrible, isn't it?!” Celestia continued.

“The headmaster wants to see the two of you.” He deadpanned, deciding to not humor Celestia anymore.





A few minutes later, they reached the office. His secretary, Longville was there too.

“Thank you for arriving this quickly, now onto busi… Is everything alright miss Vallière?” Started the headmaster, interrupting himself after seeing that Celestia was carrying Louise in a levitating cloud, and still with a dreamy expression on her face.

Celestia took a deep breath, and was about to explain the terrible curse that had befallen Louise, but Colbert interrupted her. “Miss Vallière is just a bit love sick, headmaster.”

“A bit?” Longville asked. “That girl is completely catatonic.”

“That should be easy to fix.” The headmaster said with a smile. “Louise your mother is on the way, and she is very upset.” He said in a firm voice.

Louise, hearing that, instantly snapped out of her stupor. “What! When? Why? What happened?” She said in a state of near panic.

“I have to remember that one.” Celestia said to herself.

“Anyway, as I was saying, thank you for coming this quickly. I have a few questions for you and your familiar, miss Vallière.” The headmaster continued. “First of all, it has come to my realization that your familiar has been teaching you an unknown form of magic. At first, I chose to not say anything about it and just watch, but I’m now more interested and have a few questions regarding it. For example, what type of magic is it exactly?”

Louise was a bit nervous about this conversation, as she was technically practicing something that was outside the school of Brimir, but Celestia chose to answer for her before she could say something out of place.”It’s unicorn magic, headmaster. And I chose to teach it to Louise when I realized that she, compared to her classmates, had no elemental association at all.” She explained in an even tone.

“No element at all? That should be impossible.” Colbert said.

“And yet, here we are.” Celestia threw back before she could be interrupted any more. “My observation was only confirmed when Louise took to the lessons like a fish to water. She has only been studying a few days, and already was successful in levitating an object on her own! A feat that should be even harder for her, as she is no unicorn and, as such, has no horn to aid her.”

The headmaster looked at Louise and Celestia, deep in thought at the explanation, while absently stroking his beard. After a short while, he took a box out of his desk and placed it on it. “Please show me the fruits of your labor. Cast a spell on this box, any spell is fine.”

Louise was nervous, she had yet to consciously do magic on her own, and she had no doubt that Celestia intervening would be cheating. She looked over to Celestia, who gave her a reassuring nod. Her resolve rising, she lifted both of her hands and started to concentrate. Sure enough, a soft, pink aura encased both her arms as she felt the magic vibrating through her body. Now, for her hardest part, she had to manifest it outside of her body and surround the box.

Ever so slowly, the box started to glow with Louise visibly sweating from the nervousness, but her worries were calmed when the box started to float. It was a bit wobbly, but it held and, after about five seconds, Louise released her hold on the box that landed back on the desk with a thud.

Again the headmaster was lost in thought before he finally stood up and spoke. “Louise Vallière.” He said as a declaration. “From this day on, you are allowed to be absent from the practical lessons of this academy so that you may study the magic that your familiar is teaching you.”

Louise could hardly believe what she was hearing, learning magic all day for five days a week? It was a dream come true.

“Of course, you still have to be there for theoretical lessons and alchemy as those don’t need any elemental magics to function. I also want you to keep your grades in all the written tests.”

“Yes, headmaster.” She nearly yelled with a smile that nearly reached up her ears.

“That’s all for now. The two of you are dismissed.” The headmaster said with a smile.

Louise barely could contain herself from running out while dragging Celestia along.

Back in the room Osmond regarded the box with interest and attempted to open in with his hands.

As expected, it stayed shut.

“I still don’t know what you attempted to prove with that, headmaster.” Colbert said. “But at least, we now have answers regarding Louise’s familiar.”

“That we have Colbert.” Both of them were completely obvious at how badly Longville was laughing on the inside.





Louise was in the land of joy, eating from the trees of ecstasy in the fields of happiness. That was the best descriptions Celestia could come up with that was descriptive of Louise's current mood.


Not that Celestia was bothered by it, no. What was bothering her was the enchantment on the box that the headmaster had offered Louise.

Why was it there? What was the man trying to find out with it?

And why had he given up on Louise studying this world’s magic so easily?

As the phrase said, something was rotten in the state of Denmare.

“Now that we have extra time, we should focus on the finer points.” Celestia said to Louise as they started the next lesson. “One of the things that I observed during the headmaster’s little test was that you used much more magic than was needed, and that’s due to your lack of control.” She explained while levitating a stone. “To teach you how to minimize your consumption, we will practice by you pushing that stone against me. If you push too much, it will float towards me, if you don't, towards you.” she explained

“I will do my best!” Louise said full of confidence while going into her go-to-casting pose.

“Another thing, Louise.” Celestia intervened. “I suggest you stop doing that pose and try to focus the magic through smaller parts of your body. Like try, just one finger.” She explained. “Try to do it subconsciously, the same why I do it with my horn.”

Louise nodded and started concentrating on the rock while pointing a finger at it. Slowly, the glow surrounded the stone and, again, it started to wobble.

For the next few hours, Louise’s training consisted of pushing a rock back and forth, and always adding a bit too much or not enough force. It even blew up once.

At the end of the day, Louise was exhausted as if she had ran five times around the academy, and with her whole body feeling like past. 

Something they noticed was that Louise could use any part of her body as magical conductor, the bad news were that it seemed to put a severe strain on her body. Celesta theorized that the reason for that was that the human body was not optimized for doing magic the same way that horns were, but it also gave Celestia an idea. Maybe what Louise was doing was also possible for unicorns.

Well, for now, there was no time to do testing, she had a student to care about.

“Au, Au, Au.” Louise complained at every step, as this was the first time she used so much magic in such a short time. Celestia chose to have mercy, and placed the small girl on her back. “Wa? I can walk on my own!” She complained.

“Sure you can.” Celestia answered with a sugary voice without missing a beat.

“You are making fun of me! I can hear it in your voice” Tiny pink complained. ”I swear I can still go on.”

“Oh, I absolutely believe you, Louise.” Celestia said joyfully.

“I mean it!” Louise said in a disheartened tone.

“I know you do.” Again, without missing a beat.

Louise was about to lift herself but her body protested “But I will let you do me a kindness.” She said with a meek voice. “But don’t think I am tired or anything.” she said with the grace of a sack potatoes.

“Of course, my cute student...”





Louise was dropped onto the bed and, despite her everything hurting, she couldn't stop smiling. For the first time in nearly a full year she truly felt alive, her magic was progressing, the headmaster allowed her to study even more.

Everything was going perfectly.

Knock Knock

Suddenly there was a soft knock at the door.

“Yes?” Louise said without lifting from her back.

The door slowly opened, and the head of one of the maids peaked in. “H-Hello, miss Vallière. Ehm...”   The maid was clearly very shy and didn’t know what to say.

“Speak your mind, servant.”  Louise commanded.

The maid flinched at that. “I-I’m sorry, my lady. I just w-wanted to thank you.” She stuttered while her mind was repeating what a terrible idea that had been.

“Thank me? For what?” Louise wondered.

“If it weren't for your familiar, Lord Guiche would have surely ended me.” Then It clicked and Louise recognized the maid that was assaulted by the blond fop.

“Think nothing of it maid.” Louise said from her still unchanged position. “After all, it was my familiar who decided to help you, thank her if you must.”

The maid, for her part, didn’t know what to do at that, and simply looked back and forth between Celestia and Louise. “Ehm? thank you?”

“You are welcome.” Celestia said with a warm smile. “But I was only doing what was the right thing to do.”

Siesta looked sad at that. 

“What is the matter, dear?” Celestia asked. 

Louise chose to answer for her. “Because for many, it is not. Many nobles view commoners as lesser people.” Both Celestia and the maid looked at Louise still unmoved from their positions. ”It is one of the biggest problems the Princess is trying to solve, and we have talked about it a few times.” 

“That is a bit saddening.” Celestia said. “What is your name?” She asked the maid.

“Siesta, my lady.” The now named maid said with a bow.

“Ok, none of that lady stuff, just call me Celestia.” She said. “Now ,come over here and take a seat, I want to talk about your life story and opinions.”

Siesta, of course, was confused by this. “But it is improper to sit down in the presence of a noble.” 

Celestia answered by using a bit of telekinetic force on a Siesta that squealed in surprise while flying to the chair. “Louise is hardly in any position to complain.” She said looking at the pink haired girl while summoning two cups of tea on the table. From the bed, only muffled sounds were heard as Louise packed herself into the blankets, including clothes and everything.

“Now, why don’t you tell me about yourself, Siesta?” Celestia asked while taking a sip from her tea.

“Well.” The maid was clearly not comfortable like this but, since when was Celestia someone who cared about things like that? “I come from a small town called Trabes that is close to the border. I am the oldest of eight siblings, and my family has fields in our hometown.”

“Why do you work so far away from home, if you don’t mind me asking?” Celestia asked after taking a sip of her tea.

“Well, the main reason is that the academy pays very well. I can send the money that I earn back to my family. You see Tarbes is… not doing very well, economically, right now.” Unknown to her, Louise, who was still listening, snuggled herself more and more into her blanket to escape the beams of innocence and purity that were radiating off Siesta.

“Eh, am I intruding on something?” A surprised princess Henrietta asked from the door.

“P-P-Princess Henrietta!” Of course, Siesta was very surprised at the sudden arrival. That resulted in her trying to stand up to properly bow down, but the only resulted with her hitting her knee on the table and her pinky on the chair, only to then land on the ground.

Celestia, who was having way too much fun with this situation, put a wing around Siesta and proclaimed. “Our plans have been foiled, to the hideout!” Before teleporting away with a bang.

They left back a very confused princess that was currently questioning reality while staring at the spot that was previously occupied with a pony, a maid, and tea.

“What.” That was all she managed to say before she was walked to the bed occupied by a sad looking Louise. 

Instead of saying anything, the pinky one simply shoved her onto the bed laid down next to her, pulled the princess into a hug and said. “I have seen the face of purity and kindness itself!”

“What?” Henrietta asked again.

“We are demons compared to that! Do you hear me? Demons!” Louise said hugging Henrietta even more with tears forming in her eyes.

“What?”





“We could try to release Tirek, maybe that would slow her down.”

BANG!

“I mean, think about it, maybe we get lucky and they will destroy each other! We would get rid of two problems at once!” 

BANG!

“Luna, as much as I’d like that to happen, it is way more likely that she would chain him up and make him sit in a corner.” Twilight countered.

BANG!

“We could try to use Discord as a distraction.” Luna said with hope in her eyes.

BANG!

“Remember that one time that the dragon emperor was visiting and somehow managed to insult her hair?” Twilight asked back.

BANG!

“This is Discord we are talking about! He won’t be cowered that easily!” Luna screamed out in panic as she realized that the combined force of her body and magic were slowly losing the fight, even with Twilight at her side.

BANG!

“My point exactly, imagine if she got her hooves on him and did the same thing!” Twilight shouted back, with sweat running down her whole body.

BANG!

“I can hear you in there, stop resisting and come out!”

BANG!BANG!BANG!

Both Luna and Twilight fought with all their might, but it was a losing battle. All hope seemed lost and they where just about to give up and accept the end of all things, when the sound suddenly stopped.

“Did.” Luna dared to speak. “Did she give up?”

“You ARE the Princess of dreams.” Twilight replied.

“Har, har Twilight.” She replied sarcastically.

“Well, go look out if you’re so sure of yourself.” Twilight said back. “Come on, oh brave bester of nightmares! Show us your courage!”

“I’ll do that right now!” Luna said and with trembling legs she slowly opened the door and peeked out.

Twilight, who was expecting her to be devoured by evil in the process, lowered the barrier around herself and asked. “Is, she... not there?”

“Twilight.”

“Yes Luna?”

“I suggest a strategic retreat.”

“Why do you suggest that?”

“Because Stern Eye is coming back with multiple minotaurs and a battering-ram.”

Twilight, after analyzing the sentence from every possible direction, decided that it was no joke, and said the most political and scientifical response she could think of.

“Buck.”



> Where the situation escalates
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“It’s not fair Tabitha!” Kirche said while flailing around her arms.

Tabitha offered her a long and complex answer in the form of a “Hm.” Without interrupting her reading.

“I mean come on, she could get anything!” Kirche continued to complain. “ And she got one of the few things that actually prevents me from messing with her!

“Hm?” Tabitha added questioningly.

“Well, no, I haven’t tried that yet.”

“Hm!” Tabitha said accusingly.

“I could try that.” Kirche started thinking. “But look at what happened to Guiche!”

“Hm.” Her short friend pointed out.

“Well, yes, he did deserve that.” The redhead admitted. “You know what, you are right! I will try that today.” Kirche said full of determination. 

Or at least Kirche would have if Louise actually came to the wind magic lesson, Kirche tried to relieve her frustration on the challenge that the teacher gave them but that only blew up in her face.

“Where is the Zero!?” A frustrated Kirche screamed out to the heavens, after searching the whole academy grounds. “It is not like her to just skip lessons and the teacher didn’t really seem to care about her absence at all.”

“Hm.” Tabita said pointing to their left. And there was Tabitha's familiar sitting with Louise familiar drinking tea and ‘talking’ as far as one could tell with the noises they were making.

“Tabitha, what is your dragon doing with Louise winged unicorn thingy?” Kiche asked.

“...” this time Tabitha didn't even answer but this did explain where Sylphid spend the time where she couldn’t find her. Apparently because of tea partys with a pony was a valid explanation now.

Still this was interesting and as such Tabitha walked up to the duo, with both of them holding tea cups, how they were not breaking she had no idea as one had hoof and the other gigantic claws. Kirche walked behind her carefully, keeping her eyes on Celestia who pretended to not have noticed them approaching.

They found themselves in a similar situation like Louise when she walked onto this scene.

“Ah, you must be Tabitha, the big sister that Sylphid talked about so much.” Celestia said turning to them, and summoning two tea cups for them, Kirche nearly dropped it from surprise. “And excuse me but I don’t think we have been introduced yet miss?” She said to Kirche.

“Kirche.” the redhead answered. “You can call me Kirche.”

“Nice to meet you Kirche and Tabitha.”

“Eh, hi.” Kirche said lamely trying to hide behind Tabitha who just gave an unimpressed nod before pointing at Sylphid.

Celestia picked up on the question.”Oh you're familiar? We are having this lovely outing every day, she is so nice to talk to.”

Tabitha really didn’t know how Louise familiar got that impression because every time she tried to talk with Sylphid in her human form she would get a hyperactive child at best and a spoiled brat at worst.”Hmm...”

“So, how is Louise?” Kirche asked carefully. “We haven’t seen her in class today.”

“Oh it is nice to see that you are worried about your friend, but worry not she is in good hoofs.” Celestia explained. “I assume that you are aware with the problem she had with her magic?”

“Oh. Oh, yes the poor Z-Louise.” Kirche quickly caught herself.

“Well worry not.” Celestia said pretending to not notice the slip up. “We found the solution, she has a very unique kind of magic that I know how to train and the headmaster allowed us school time to do so and bring her up to standards.”

“Realy? That is wonderful.” Kirche actually was kinda happy for Louise, the poor girl never got even one spell right. Although she was a bit sad that she had to think up something new instead of going with Zero. Although Kirche had a more important question.“Say you are a winged unicorn, right?”

“The proper term is alicorn.” Celestia corrected.“But generally you are right.”

“So, the thing with impure people...” Ah, so that was what the nervousness was about.

“Kirche as long as you aren’t someone really evil I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about.” Celestia assured Kirche, who in return took a relieved breath. “I do have a good nose, though, so I suggest you maintain a good bathing schedule”

“Hehe…” Kirche laughed nervously, scratching her nape.

While Kirche and Celestia talked, Tabitha just stared at Sylphid with intensity. Sylphid not knowing what to do simply offered a cup of tea that Tabitha reluctantly accepted.





Kaboom!

The explosion that tore through the clearing was an especially vicious one. After Louise got the general grip on levitation Celestia started with the basics of something more advanced.

That being liquid levitation, a very useful training exercise that she has never even considered until Twilight explained it to her. Now it was practically basic training in her school.

The only flaw was that normally magic would just fizzle out and dispense into thin air.

Louise magic had nowhere to go and the typical beginner mistake of using more magic instead of spreading it more evenly. The result has, explosive proportion to say the least.

Celestia, now being somewhat used to magic blowing up, quickly produced a barrier between the explosion and Louise and and the observers, that being Henrietta, Agnes and another musketier named Beatrice.

Louise who was blushing somewhat admitted.”Ok, I am not ready for more advanced spells yet.” Celestia knew that Louise would have trouble to concentrate on focusing on both the coating of the water bubble and her magic in general took a bit of pity on the girl.

“Tell you what Louise, the day you can hold three of those water orbs for five minutes I start teaching you a new and exciting spell.” Louise immediately brightens up and started to levitate another water buble.

“You can do it Louise.” Henrietta cheered.

Kaboom!

Buuuuuut then she tried another one. Celestia exhaled a breath. Henrietta's presence was really distracting. “I suggest that we take a short break for now.” she said.

“Princess, while I don’t mind the company but can you really afford to stay away from the castle for so long? I mean you just came back from the diplomatic meeting with Germania.”

“I am currently surveying the academy and inspecting its condition.” Henrietta answered briefly.

“Speaking of witch, Louise do you know someone named Kirche?” The reaction was not something Celestia was expecting. 

Louise face became a mix of sauer and angry. “What of the Zerbst.” She practically spat out.

“She is not a friend then I assume.” Celestia said.

Now Louise just looked plain angry. “What did she do?”

“She just wanted to know where you where during the lessons.”Celestia explained.”She also was scared of me because of the purity thing you humans have thought up.”

Now Louise was smiling again. “Ha, yes that harlot has plenty to worry about if one considers the purity of unicorns myth. I mean I at this point honestly doubt that there are any second or third year male students, she hasn’t had in her room yet.”

“Now Louise, that is no way to talk about your classmates.” Surprisingly that came from Henrietta.“After all in the future you can just insult people like that, it could cause political problems.”

“Oh excuse me your highness, let me correct my mistake right away.” Louise said with the most fake smile Celestia has ever seen. “The von Zerbst is very outgoing and enjoy manyer company, especially her nightly activities pull a large audience of the male student body.” Louise said with as much grace as she could muster.

“Good girl.” Henrietta said while patting Louise on the head.”I see the lessons are paying of.”

“Do I want to know what kind of lessons you mean?” Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, you see little Louise here.” Henrietta said poking Louise in the cheek that she puffed out. “Has the temper of a harpy a we just can’t have that in political surroundings, as such I have made it my personal quest to tame her and make her ready for the big life ahead of her and preventing her from creating a national disaster.”

Henrietta who didn’t stop petting Louise asked.”Do you dislike her because of her habits or something else to?”

“She is a bragging bi...” Henrietta pinched Louise check. “A woman who makes fun of others and has no honor or reservations about who she beds.”

“Ah, so a high school bully.” Celestia said finally understanding. So that was the main reason for the nervousness. Also for some reason she could not explains there was a sudden cold sensation in the air.

Anyway, Celestia was a teacher, and a bullying will not be tolerated!

Now how to go about this? Normally it was easy as she had very many tools to deal with bullies at her school. If she found them that is, bully where so hard to find for the personal of the school that it was rather depressing.

But now she was in a completely different dimension, with no real power over the student body at all. 

That put Celestia in a difficult position, still the most effective way to turn around bully is to turn them into friends.

She was not dealing with ponies so had to be smart about this, despite how close the two seemed psychologically they aren't the same.

Having them talk about their feeling may not even be an option here, a horrid thought for Celestia.

She needed to approach this delicately, but first she was going to meet the bully. Despite her trusting Louise, she couldn’t just base the assumption on her words alone.

So for now it was waiting and watching.

Kaboom!

And teaching. Lots of teaching.

The time passed with uneventfully and before they know it the day was ending.

“I miss you already!” Henrietta cried out as the two of them had their quiet goodby.

“It’s ok, you are a big princess and we will see eachother again.” Louise said patting her back while the Princess was clinging onto her. “Besides you have a kingdom to lead.”

“I don’t wana! Ruling sucks.” Celestia nodded in agreement in the background.

“Now that is not how a proper princess behaves.” Agnes said as she walked up to the princess.

“I don’t wanna be a pwincess.” Henrietta whines grabbing onto Louise for dear life. “Your familiar is smart, she can rule.”

“Never in a thousand year, i’d rather date Tirek!“ Celestia screeched out, the ruling of one kingdom was bad enough as it is.

“That was, a very... specific answer.” Henrietta said, as everyone looked at Celestia in surprise.

Celestia was starting to sweat a bit before coming up with a answer.“I have thought children my whole life, I don’t need children that have actual political power and can destroy the whole country.”

Henrietta broke out into laughing at that. 

“It’s ironic.” Louise said. “I have been listening a bit to the things the commoners talk about, wanting to be royalty is a common theme, meanwhile here you are throwing your crown at my familiar.” 

After all good bys were done and everyone returned to their rooms and the next day in the morning the princess officially left the academy, of course the whole school was there and all that.

After that the daily routine continued, with her skipping most practical classes and instead learning with Celestia.

Sadly that also meant the return of one particular habit that she never liked.

“Good morning Zero!” 

And that was Kirche being annoying before breakfast even started.

“I was just enjoying  not having to deal with you, in fact I enjoyed it so much why don't you buzz of forever.” Louise snapped back.

“Now aren’t you stingy today. Oh wait I nearly forgot you are no longer Louise the Zero.” Kirche said what surprised Louise immensely and completely knocked her steam away. “After the familiar summoning you are now Louise the one that managed ONE spell successfully!” 

And she was back to full rage. But she got a idea and with a smirk she ignited her magic hiding her hands behind herself. 

Celestia wouldn’t mind a little prank for sure. With that thought she focused on the cake that was a few seats away and slamming it into the back of Kirches head.

The Germanian not expecting the impact lost her footing and fell forward with Louise calmly dodging the falling girl.

“Who dares.” Kirche screamed out slowly standing up with fire burning in her eyes ready to burn the fool that dared.

Louise simply couldn’t hold it back any long and broke out into laughter.

“Zero!” Kirche screeched ready to vaporize Louise with just a look.

“Why Zerbst, how would I ever have done something like that without a wand.” Louise said with her face read from laughing. “And even if as you just said I only ever cast one spell, didn’t I?” that was all she managed before nearly falling on the ground herself from laughter.

Kirche had a twitch in her eyes fighting with what to say. When she realized that she had nothing. She simply screamed out in frustration and stomped out of the hall.

Louise watched her for a while with a sense of victory that she haven’t felt in a while.

Only as she decided to finally sit down and eat she noticed Tabitha who was staring at here with narrowed and calculating eyes. 

“What?” Louise asked her narrowing her eyes in the same manner.

Tabitha said nothing but simply went after Kirche.





After breakfast was done the first lesson of the day started, and because the subject was alchemy Louise wasn’t allowed to sit it out despite how much she wanted to.

But one of the perks was that all familiars that could enter the class were encouraged to attend.

So Celestia was next to Louise feeling like a foal attending class with Louise next to her.

She was happy that she could see some of this world nativ magic, she wasn’t entirely happy that the headmaster allowed her to drop practical classes completely like that but she had to trust in her fellow teacher to do the right thing.

That said alchemy class has begun and the work for this class was to create a headache cure.

There were three different recipes to chose from and and each student had to present at least one of them at the end of the class.

Louise had no problem with any of them, it was after all a simple step by step procedure.

Problems started to occur when Kirche started looking for ways the get revenge for the morning.

It started innocently with Kiche bumping into Louise making her drop a plant she was walking with.

“What was that for Zerbst!” Louise shouted out in anger.

“Oh I am terribly sorry Zero,” She said with a hand before her mouth and in a mocking voice. ”But you are so insignificant I just didn’t see you.”

A vein popped on Louise forehead. ”More like your brain finally completely dissolving into your udders, Zerbst.”

Now a vein popped on Kirches head.

“Silence, or is there something you have to tell the class, miss Vallière and miss Zerbst?” The teacher interrupted them and both of them continued their work.

Besides this little incident nothing happened, and as such Celestia's research was fruitless.

The first break came and she excused herself explaining to Louise that she had to prepare for their later magic lesson.

After a short walk she reached Professor Colberts room and knocked. “Yes?”

“It’s Celestia, may I enter?” She asked.

“Celestia? Of course, come in.” Came the replay and Celestia let herself in. The inside of the room reminded her of a laboratory with many gadgets and tools being spread across the room like the engine from the fire magic lesson. The man himself was hidden behind a mountain of papers and tools spread over his desk. ”What brings you to me? Is it something concerning Louise?” He asked.

“Yes, it is.” Celestia affirmed.”To be exact it is concerning Louise and this other Girl named Kirche.”

A tired sigh escaped the professor.“What is it this time?”

Celestia raised a eyebrow at that. ”I assume then that you are aware of the conflict between the two of them?”

“Aware? Celestia, these two are at each other's throats since they came to the academy. The feud between the Zerbst and Vallière is bad enough as it is, but the two of them just keep throwing fuel to the fire.”

“How about you explain it fromt the beginning?” Celestia offered and seated herself in front of the professor.

“Well, no one really knows who is at fault for it, or how it started, but the two families had been at odds for a very long time. You see, they both share a border and in past wars they were always the first to meet and fight. This already put them at very bad terms, but then this fiasko with a Vallière’s fiance running away with a Zerbst man happened. Since then, it is just cold and utter hatred, additionally with the situation in Albion developing the princess is probably negotiations for an alliance with the Germania which would basically force them to suddenly be friends.” Another sigh escaped the professor.

“I think I get the gist of it now.” Celestia said. “Basicly a very old inherited family feud.”

“Yes, but this goes a bit deeper than just that. You see, Kirche is very cross with her family. I think they tried to marry her off and she refused burning a few people in the process.” Colbert explained. 

“Don’t you mean bridges?” Celestia asked raising an eyebrow.

“No.”

“How unfortunate.”

Colbert caught in his fist. ”In any case, as I was saying, this made her very angry at the nobility in general, and she made it a life goal to undermine every standard that exists about it. To be honest, I’m not sure if she realizes that herself. Louise, on the other hand, holds nobility and all its standards in very high regards witch, knowing her mother, is no surprise. This puts an additional conflict between the two of them.”

“Oh dear.” Celestia said with a sour face. “I expected the conflict to be bad, but this sounds very serious.”

“It is, the only thing that is holding it back is that Kirche would never go too far, and Louise is too prideful to lash back at her. Well, that and the fact that if she did, the whole school would instantly know considering her usual blast radius.”

“How have you tried fixing it?” Celestia asked curiously.

“Keeping them apart, forcing them together, talking to both of them, talking to them individually...” Colbert counted. “Honestly at this point, I’m simply happy that they are not actively trying to harm each other.”

“Well, this can’t just go on like that.” Celestia's eyes widened a bit as something came to her mind. ”Professor, do you think that, if Louise had a way to lash out, she would?”

“The chance would be very high.” He said without hesitation. ”This is nearly a year of tension we are speaking about, after all.”

Celestia needed to get back to class immediately.

There was a knocking heard on the door. “Yes?” The door was opened to reveal the alchemy teacher.

“Excuse me for the intrusion on your free day, Professor Colbert, but you are an expert when dealing with the Zerbst and Vallière conflict. The two of them have been at echothers throats way more than usual.”

Again, Colbert sighed before standing up.”I will take care of it.”

The trio started to walk to the classroom. Just before reaching it, the door was blown off its hinges.

They quickly rushed into the classroom to see both of the girls pointing their wands at each other and ready to fire.

“Enough!” One shout came from Clobert, who was holding Kirche’s wand in levitation, and the other from Celestia, who was doing the same to Louise’s arms and had a barrier created between the two of them.

That was the moment that both girls realized what they had almost done.





“I am very disappointed at both of you!” Colbert said with a raised voice. Both Kirche and Louise were standing in front of his desk and with their eyes lowered. ”As punishment, the two of you will help the maids of this school for the next 2 weeks!”

Both of them lifted their heads attempting to protest but were promptly cut off. ”This is not up for debate, and I will check both of your works! If I hear that you are not doing it properly, or show any unjust behaviour towards the castle staff, the punishment will be extended!” Their heads were lowered again.

“Now, go down to the kitchen, I want the two of you to explain to Marteau why you’re been sent to him, and and if I find out that you gave him false information then you two will find yourself as maids for the rest of the year!” Harsh but reasonable. Celestia would have to ask Colbert if he had any military background. His tone and choice of punishment indicated something like that.

It reminded her of Shining Armor. The military stallion had a strict way of raising his children, but the results couldn’t be argued with.

Speaking of which, Celestia wondered how Equestria had been doing in her absence so far.

Well, thinking about it would do her no good right now, maybe some fun with Illococoo would clear her mind a bit. Then she would start thinking about how to deal with the two student.





“Spears, remind me, how are those two mares our rulers?” A guard asked his companion as they were watching the scene in the throne room.

“My grandpa told me that they are actually quiet competent when fighting ancient evils and monsters of eldritch origins.” His companion answered.

“Hey, doesn't your grandpa celebrate his 250 birthday soon?”

“Yes he dose, I was thinking about...” while the guards were talking about birthday plans the scene with two tied-up princesses in the middle of the room continued unfolding. The scene being of a moon princess chained to a pillar, and a friendship princess to a chair

“Release us this instant, you fiend!” the moon princess screamed out in royal canterlot voice.

Her answer came with a pillow to the face.

“Why are thou bombarding us with pillows?!” Luna complained.

As answer, she got another one before Stern Eye started explaining. “Sadly, this is one of the only three objects that I am legally allowed to throw at you.”

“And why are we tied to the building with magic-chains while Twilight is tied to a chair with a simple rope?!” Luna complained.

“Because she won't try to escape, now be a good princess and hang tight while I explain what you did wrong over the last few days.”

“But we didn’t do anything.” Now it was Twilight’s turn to complain.

“And that is exactly the point!” Stern Eye screamed out. “Since Celestia started her vacation you two didn’t even lift a hoof towards the general direction of paperwork!”

“But I did all of my work for the next week in advance.” Twilight said desperately. “And how do you know about Celestia's vacation?”

“Every document you sign goes through me.” She reminded Twilight. “And yes your work is done, but tell me Twilight did you consider Luna's and Celestia's work?”

Twilight’s eyes widened and wandered over to Luna who was starting to sweat and look around nervously.

“Luna? What have we talked about a week before Celestia's vacations started?” Twilight asked sweetly.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Twilight.” Luna lied through her teeth.

“Then let me help your old mind a bit.” Twilight said sweetly.

Five minutes later, and with a lot of cursing, Luna was tied to the exact same spot as before with the only difference being that she was upside down this time.

“You can’t do this to me!” Luna screamed out desperately.

“But we just did.” A now rebellious Twilight said standing next to Stern Eye, who looked at Twilight’s work approvingly.

“Traitor!” 

“You betrayed yourself.” Twilight said ominously.

“Bwhahahahahaha, bravo bravo, better than any show I could ever watch.” Everyone turned their heads to a chair that was floating in mid-air, upside down, with Discord seated at bottom of it with his paw dug into some popcorn.

“Discord, we offer you a trade, you are allowed chocolate rain for a week if you free us!” Luna said desperately.

“A tempting offer but I have to pass.” He said stuffing his mouth with popcorn. ”Watching your sister being chased by an angry dragon is way more fun right now.” He said as a mirror appeared in front of him that absorbed all his attention.

“Curse you Discord, you were our last ho… Wait, what was that?” Now Discord Really had all the attention in the room, not that he had a problem with that.

“Oh yes Celestia, seems to really have fun with that dragon, you would assume that being ponynapt by a void summoner would be exciting enough for that mare.”

There was a sound stones breaking and metal chain snapping and in a instant Luna and Twilight both right next to the chaos spirit and staring at the mirror that depicted Celestia flying at high speed while a blue dragon was chasing after her.

Despite being a sunny and beautiful day outside, for a brief moment, every citizen of Canterlot only felt cold and darkness.



> Where Celestia mends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It was quiet, way too quiet. 

Normally by now Louise would have said something, minor complaints or questions about the lesson, but right now she simply sat there and fulfilled every order like a machine.

Celestia, of course, knew that the girl was feeling incredibly guilty and was tiptoeing around her in order to not upset her, thinking that any tiny mistake could lead to her being abandoned.

She sighed and immediately regrets it as Louise tenses up. ”Louise, stop for now.” With that, the rock she was levitating dropped soundlessly. The girl still wasn’t meeting her eye. “Louise, look at me.”

She looked up shakily and her eyes nearly broke Celestia's heart right then and there. ”I am indeed disappointed that you tried to use your magic to harm someone else, but that doesn't mean I will just throw you aside. You made a mistake, and the fact that you are feeling so guilty shows me that you will do your best to amend for it.” Fresh tears were now streaming down her face and she had to sniff. “Now stop being silly, I liked that loud Louise more.”

Instead of a coherent answer, all she got was a nod with something of a yes in it.

The lessons continued but Celestia still wasn’t quite happy with it. Louise would hopefully stop tiptoeing around her, and the punishments from the professor would distract Louise and Kirche enough so they were not at each other's throats.

But as soon as those were over she was nearly certain that confrontations would happen again, right now there was a case fire so to say and Celestia had to act on that if she wanted to end the conflict completely, but for that she needed more information.

So, when Louise started her honorary maid duties Kircher's shift ended.

“What do You want?” Kirche asked her accusingly, somehow blaming the pony princess in a childish way.

“To ask you some questions, or are you preoccupied?” Celestia tried with diplomacy.

Kirche made a face but said, “Fine just make it quick.”

“Do you hate Louise?” She did say she wanted it blunt.

“I, what, I…” Celestia admitted that Kirche stammering was funny to look at but the redhead caught herself quickly. ”I… don’t hate her, I just really don’t like her.”

“Why?” Celestia asked.

“Why do you care?” Kirche accused.

“Because, as a teacher, that is my job, so please answer the question.” Celestia insisted

“Why should I?!” Kirche was now close to shouting.

“Because the sooner you do that, the sooner I will be out of your hair.” Celestia countered back.

Kirche just looked at her with a judging look, thinking about what to do, before answering. ”I just don’t. She's a spoiled, bratty, egotistical stick-up-her-butt-that-reaches-all-the-way-to-her-head pain to anyone who even remotely tries to approach her.” Interesting, it wasn't directly about her family but how she behaved. Louise self-centered but unapproachable? She would have to test that.

Still, this was already very helpful, because Kirche didn’t even mention her or Louise families with a word. That meant that she wasn’t bothered by the rivalry but by something else.

“Thank you for the explanation.” Celestia said and took off into the sky leaving a dumbfounded Kirche behind.

Now that she had the base of information she needed to dig deeper. She knew how Louise was behaving around her but she didn’t know how she behaved around others. It was time to find out, but first she needed to see Louise in a maid dress, the idea was just too cute to pass up.





In hindsight, it could have been way worse, Louise realized. The maid that she got assigned to was Siesta, who was pleasant company and tried to teach her to the best of her ability despite being a nervous wreck about the idea of ordering a noble around.

Not so pleasant was Celestia, who sitting in the kitchen and using the opportunity to the fullest to get serviced in any way possible and chit chat with Siesta about commoner life in Tristram.

If Louise was honest, it wasn’t that bad. The plates and glasses were still a bit shaky in her hands but the conversation was pleasant to listen to and sometimes she threw in a few words.

What would happened if the headmaster informed her parents? Would she be sent back as a result? She didn't mind them knowing about her magic brawl, she could talk her way out of it pointing out that Kirche was a Zerbst, but it would lead to questions about her familiar and the magic lessons. Louise didn’t know if her mother would consider this heretical or if the rule of steel would forbid it.

A cold shudder went down her spine at the implications. She needed to talk with Celestia about this, but what to tell her family in the inevitable confrontation that will surely happen in the future?

Still, Louise had enough to worry as it was and she really couldn’t complain because all of it felt miniscule compared to her finally getting good at magic. The disappointed look Celestia had for her ripped something in her, yet she was not sure what.

Her punishment session passed and it was evening, she finished her dinner and ate her dessert outside enjoying the setting sun.

“Ehm, excuse me?” Until it was interrupted, that was. 

Louise faced the interruption and found it to be a female second year student that she didn’t recognize, she had long blond hair, fairly decent build, and reminded her a bit of Montmorency.

Louise was wary, she was not used to being approached casually. ”What do you want?”

“The other tables are all occupied, so I thought…” The girl said drifting off, and as Louise looked around she found that indeed all the other tables were seated with at least two people. 

Strange she never saw the courtyard so full until today.

Throwing a last judging look and finding no hidden intentions, she nodded in confirmation.

With a few words of thanks she sat down and ordered her food from the maid.

They spent the time in uncomfortable silence until the girl spoke up again. ”Uhm, you are Louise Vallière, right?”

“Yes, that is right, however I still don’t know your name.”

“Ah, sorry, my mistake, you can just call me Katie.” The girl said shyly

“Katie? From what house?” Louise asked questioningly.

“A smaller house,close to the Borders. Maybe you heard of the Solaris?”

Louise had not, but she tried to not be impolite.”It rings some bells.” With that the silence continued.

“Ehm...,” by now it was clear that the girl was desperately trying to find a conversation. ”How is your school work going?” Louise gave her an annoyed look and it took the girl a few long seconds to catch up. ”Ah, I am sorry I didn’t mean it like that, I just...”

Louise sighed, ”It's ok… and most of it is going very well despite the obvious.”

“That’s… nice.” The girl was back to being silent. By now Louise was pretty sure that she had figured it out, she was from a relatively unknown and unimportant family, had not many others to talk to and kept to herself, that could be the reason why Louise hadn’t noticed her until then. But now she talked, and more importantly talked to Louise about school work, school work that Louise had some of the best theoretical grades of every students.

Wordlessly she reached towards Katie waiting for the girl to catch on.

Sadly she didn’t do so and simply looked at her with question marks in her eyes.

“Come on now, no need to hide it, I will help you.” Louise said tiredly not lowering her hand.

“Ah, no, you misunderstand...” 

Louise didn’t let her finish. ”Spare me, no one approached me unless they want something.”

“B-but I really don’t, I just wanted a space to sit.” Now Louise stared with narrowed eyes, but Katie countered her look with as much strength as she could muster.

“Fine by me then.” Louise was confident that Katie would falter so she sipped her tea waiting for the rustling of paper. She was starting to get annoyed when she heard nothing, and when she then looked back at her after a few minutes she found that Katie was simply enjoying the setting sun in silence.

Half an hour later she stood up and started to leave.

She made a face and only as Katie was a few steps away Louise spoke up. ”Sorry...”

“Huh?” Katie turned around questioningly.

“Sorry for instantly accusing you like that.” Louise admitted.

“It’s ok.” the girl said and walked away, leaving Louise feeling very guilty.

Katie rounded a corner and was surrounded by light as her image distorted before leaving Celestia to stand where she once was.

She was very happy with that little experiment despite the results making things a bit more complicated. From what she found, Louise was probably not directly to blame for the hostilities, the girl was distrustful, but not hostile.

It presented a problem because Celestia was running out of things to investigate.

Right now she had not many options left. She could do a insanely complicated series of spells to invade many privacy's, destabilize the universe and no doubt gaining Discord’s approval in the process, but she decided against it.

This required drastic measures. She would make sure these two would get over their differences or her name wouldn’t be Celesita! It was not the first time she brought the children of rivaling families together, she had ended many political disasters that way, and this time it wouldn’t be different.

Now how to go about this…she had to be subtly and tread very carefully.





“Where are you taking me?” Kirche complained.

“You will see.” Celestia simply answered, she knew that Kirche would never come with her if she knew she was dragging her to Louise. 

Luckily, Kirche wasn’t that angry at Celestia anymore.

They reached the clearing and Celestia dropped the perception spell that hid Louise from view, who also didn’t know about Celestia's plan.

Instantly both of their looks turned sour and sharp remarks began to fly.

Before things could escalate any further Celestia spoke up.”I am sure both of you want to know why I brought you here.”

“If you think I will apologize you can go forget that.” Kirche remarked and started to walk away.

“I have not brought the two of you here to apologize, but you will listen to what I have to say. You can afterwards decide on how you will react to it.” Celestia said as she stopped Kirche with a soft Golden glow. ”And don’t forget that for as long as I am here that I am a teacher of this academy, even if I only teach Louise.” She added to drown out any comments Kirche might have.

Louise stayed mostly quiet but was glaring in hopes of her eyes blowing the redhead up.

“It has come to my attention that this is beyond a simple school rivalry, and that if this conflict doesn't get resolved then I fear for the safety of both of you.”

“There is no problem to resolve, it’s Kirche who is the one that has done nothing but insulted and mocked me.” Louise retorted.

“Insulting? Oh, get off your high horse Vallière, you are the one who outright showed me away after I offered you friendship and then insulted me about everything I did!” Kirche retorted.

“Friendship? Ha! Literally the first thing you did when we met was insulting my family!” Now Louise was shouting and had both her hands rolled up into fists.

“Enough!” Celestia interrupted the bickering.

Louise backed down but continued to talk. “It’s only natural, Vallière and Zerbst always fight.”

“Then why do neither of you care about the family feud?” Celestia retorted.

At that remark both could only stare at Celestia. “Kirche couldn’t care less about her family and you would need to be blind to not see how uncaring you are about something that happened so long ago.”

The two of them could only stare for a moment until Kirche spoke up. ”Then why would she always go on and on about noble honor this, and how as a Vallière she is above me?”

“Because it’s the only thing she had left after you mocked her for everything else.” Celestia remarked sharply.

Both Louise and Kirche flinched at that for their perspective reasons.

“Kirche, you more than anyone have no reason at all to hate Louise from your familie side.” She continued. ”How did this even start?”

“What do you even know about my family?“ Kirche shot back bitterly

“Enough to understand that the last thing you would care about is some old thing that involved some of your uncles before you were even born.” Celestia knew that she was walking thin ice, one wrong word and it would be ruined. But no risk no gain as they say. “So, here is the question I find the most interesting. If both of you have no particular problem with each others’ families, then why did the two nearly seriously hurt each other?”

At first the only thing that greeted Celestia was silence as Kirche was struggling for words.

Louise on the other hand decided to speak up. ”Because it felt good.” her eyes were hidden as she whispered this sentence. “For once I could do something, it was always Zero that Zero this, always just the useless Vallière girl and nothing I could do about it. For once I could show you exactly what I thought about you and your loud and insulting mouth! Every day, day in day out you kept remind me Zero, Zero, Zero, ZERO!” By now she was shouting into Kirches face with unrestrained anger. “But do you want to know what I hate the absolute most about you? How you got spoonfed everything you have, you are a triangle class mage, every boy flocks you like moths to fire and you probably barely lifted a finger for any of it.”

Louise was breathing heavily at the end but Kirche was silent until. ”Not lift a finger you say? Well then how about I tell you the story of the Zerbst that never lifted a finger.”





22 Years ago the Zerbst familie wasn’t doing very well financially, the steel and iron trades were always their domain but out of nowhere a commoner familie started to take over large portions of the market leaving literal shipments unsold and useless.

A tired looking man was looking over letters, reading them multiple times.

After he was certain that he didn’t misread he let out a tired sigh.

The door to his office opened and his wife stepped in.” What is wrong dear? Why are you still in your office this late?”

“It’s the Waffenmacher familie dear, they just canceled the last shipment.” The man said tiredly.

“The Waffenmacher?” The woman asked in disbelieve. ”But they need all the materials they can get their hands on, especially after the last few years.”

“It’s the Istmach, somehow they arranged a better deal with them.” Another tired sigh followed. “I swear, loyalty is just another overused words these days, no honor in anything.”

“We can’t just let this continue dear, if we need to get rid of them then we need to do it before it is too late.”

“It already is too late, their position is cemented in, we lost our chance.” another pause. “I need to meet them in person.”

A few weeks later the meeting happened, the Istmach and the Zerbst discussed business as intended and while their discussion didn’t go anywhere, something else of far greater importance happened that evening.

A young lady with fiery red hair and a glass of wine stepped out of the main lobby, tired of the constant back and forth that lead to nowhere.

“What a lovely night this is to bring me such a beautiful sight.” She heard from the side and a dark skinned man, obviously a Zerbst, approached her.

“Did your father order you to get some information out of this pretty girl?” The woman said pointing a finger accusingly.” Because if yes, then you will get disapointed, I am just here to look pretty.”

“Well, I would say that you succeeded in your goal, and as for what my father want’s… let's just say that those things got swept away by a glas of wine.” And with a snip a filled glass got placed in his waiting hand.

The young lady gave him a judging look before the night truly began for them.

And a few months later the young lady had a round belly and another meeting was called. You would imagine that this was a disaster but the two greedy familie leaders smelled the opportunity.

“And with the blessing given to me by his holiness I hereby announce you husband and wife.”

With a thunderous applause, a kiss was shared between the newly wed husband and wife. It cemented the unification of the Istmach and the Zerbst familie. 

They would continue with the name of Zerbst and the two business where merged creating one the strongest power blocks the Germanian market had ever seen. However there was just one major problem.

The husband and wife hated each other, there was never any love between the two as what they had shared that beautiful evening was nothing more than pure, senseless lust. A short while later, I was born. The perfect blend between the two with the hair of my mother and the skin of my father.

They hated me even more then they hated each other.

“Mommy it hurts!” A small 5 year old child said holding its hand towards her mother.

“Go complain to someone who cares, brat.” And the door was slammed in her face.

This was just one of the tamest examples.

“Daddy please someone is hurting mommy.” The now a bit older girl said shaking her fatter awak in his bedroom.

“What do you want?” came the muffled voice from under the sheets.

“Daddy please someone is hurting mommy!” the child insisted.

Grumpy the man stood up and walked towards the bedroom of his wife. He held his ear against the door and listened in hearing the same loud noises that the child heard. ”Phu, so this bitch can moan when she want’s to.” He commented.”Go back to bed.” he said turning to Kirche. ”Your mother is fine, and if I were you I would stop bothering her.”

The time passed and I grew into the tenager that you now have before you.

“You will marry him, and that is my last word young lady!”

“Well that is good, I have heard enough of both of your mouths already!” Kirche screamed back.

“How dare you to speak to you mother like that!” The woman shouted back.

“You never where my mother, you were to busy trying to make more of me, you filthy wretch!” And with that, spells started to fly. Kirche was way more advanced than both of her parents as she honed her magic skills and learned while her parents haven’t even touched their wands in many years.

After a short fight both her parents were on the ground wandless and with minor wounds.

Kirche without even waiting for a word left, ignoring the curses that followed her.





“After that I arrived at the academy, the headmaster was easy to convince and I have never heard from my family, they probably didn’t bother to go looking for me as I didn’t even bother to properly hide.” Kirche finished, “Now tell me Louise, was all that I have worth what I never had to begin with?”

For a solid minute Louise could only stare at her.

Suddenly tears started to swell up in her eyes and she asked. “Why, if you know how it feels to get hurt, why do you still hurt me then?”

This lone little question shattered Kirches heart into pieces.

”I...” she struggled to find the proper response.

“It’s envy.” Celestia who has been forgotten by the two girl broke into the conversation.“Both of you have something that the other deeply wants and simply couldn’t accept not having it.”

“What ever could I want that Louise has?” Kirche asked in disbelief.

“A family.” Celestia answered simply.

“A family!” Kirche shouted.”I don’t need a ‘family’!” she spat the word.”The only thing that those are good for is using you and throwing you away when you are no longer useful! I don’t need that I am perfectly fine on my own!” She screamed into Celestia's face.

Celestia in return simply stared back into her eyes with pattice before asking a simple question.”Then why do I see so much loneliness in your eyes?”

“Lonely I, I am not, I, Ah, I will not listen to this nonsense.” And with that she stormed of.

No one dared to ask her what happened as she walked back to her room and some would swear that a trail of fire was drawn behind her. 

During all of that her mind was a storm of memories, all of them from her family and flashes of the conversation raging around acting as fuel. With an enraged scream she slammed the door of her room shut and started tearing at her hair in frustration. Celestia's words ripping through her mind louder and louder every time.

Why was this hitting her so hard? She had buried her family so deep into her mind but every time Celestia's words rang in her head more and more memories resurfaced.

It didn’t make sense to Kirche but among all of those memories one was the most persistent and it didn’t even belong there.

It was a memory of Louise, at the end of the first year many families came to visit the academy to celebrate the finished year and Louise whole family was there. She recognized her sisters and parents from portraits she had seen a while ago. They talked to her, her younger sister hugged her and congratulated her on her scores, some scalding for the damages she caused with the explosions from her mother and a pinched cheek from her eldest sister.

Kirche didn’t understand why this one memory keep repeating in her head and she screame in frustration.

But then it happened, for a moment, just a single tiny instant Kirche imagined herself in Louise place.

Celestia was right.





The next morning both Louise and Kirche were a mess.

Kirche walked down the hallways and Tabitha greeted her, this time, instead of just reading her book, she looked at her and asked.”Are you ok? You were crying for a while.”

Kirche just looked at her and smirked.”The whole school must have heard me. Well not like they are not used to my outcries at night.” she added with a wink.

“Silencing spell.” Tabitha simply explained.

“I… thank you Tabi, you are a real friend.” Kirche said putting Tabitha's blue hair who simply gave a short thumbs up before starting to read again.

Louise was unsure what to make of what happened yesterday but she got even less sleep than Kirche. It was clear what Celestia had wanted to achieve with that, but it was unclear if it had helped. 

Now she didn’t know what to think of Kirche at all and she was so deep in thought that she nearly walked into someone.

This someone, as fate willed it, was Kirche, the girl in question.

At first the just stared at each other unsure what to do but then Kirche spoke up.”Good morning Louise.” she said in a even tone.

“Good morning Kirche.” Louise said back and they parted ways again.

At the teacher's desk Colbert couldn’t believe his eyes, those two having a civil conversation?

”No, your eyes are not deceiving you, that indeed happened.” Celestia said slurping tea next to him.

“But, but,... How?” Colbert turned to her.”Also how did you get here?” He asked as his disbelief doubled.

Celestia in return simply winked at him before disappearing in thin air leaving Colbert to question reality for the whole breakfast.


> Where Celestia meets the family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many days passed and Louise only improved with her magic, by now she could levitate the three orbs. It was still with a lot of effort but she managed to get one lucky try where she held out for seven minutes.

And Celestia held what she promised.

“Today, Louise, we will start with the basics of enchantments.” Celestia announced.

“What kind of enchantment?” Louise asked with stars in her eyes.

“As I said, the basics for now, placing enchantments, removing them safely and recognizing enchanted objects.” she explained as she hovered some paper over to Louise.”To do that I need you to learn a few runes.”

“They look easy enough to memorize, what do they do?” Louise asked inspecting each one of them.

“The first one is a magic storage. As the name suggest you store some of you magic inside of it and then use it to fuel the enchantments you are trying to create.” Celestia started to explain.”The second one is a direction giver, it forces the magic to go a certain way. The third one is a pressure rune. It takes the magic and turns it into pressure. The finished rune that I will teach you today will create a breeze in the direction you are aiming at.”

Louise looked at the runes in order before saying that.”That sounds kinda...”

“Boring, I know.” The Alicorn said knowingly.”However it serves as a basis.”I want you to perfectly memorize the runes so that you can picture them in your mind without flaw, as soon as you can do that you won’t need to draw them anymore. Admitelly that sounds very boring however it is the base of all kinds of wonderful spells, as soon as you know said basics you can start working on creating your own spells.” she finished her explanation.

Louise was nearly drooling at the prospect of creating magic spells on her own, she pictured herself mass transmuting earth to gold, or creating spells that could heal all sickness.

She shock her head to get most of those ideas out and listened carefully as the princess started her explanation.

At the end Louise was very excited, apparently there where 158 base runes she had to learn and all of them had completely unique meanings that she could combine and arrange to her liking, Celestia compared it to gears that would form clockwork, only that she could choose what the results would be.

She sat at her desk memorizing the runes by drawing them as often as she could.

She worked well into the night as Celestia left to do who knows what.

A decision she would regret tomorrow.





With a long yawn she woke up the next day, her hair a mess and her limbs feel heavy.

Despite all her protests Celestia still got her on her legs and did her morning routine in which Louise would land on her face regularly.

After Celestia drilled her as to why Louise was so tired. She commended Louise enthusiasm after the explanation, but that would not stop her from being punished for staying up so late. The punishment was a cruel one as she would be tickled by one of Celestias feathers each time she closed her eyes for more than what was required to blink.

They were sitting in a alchemy lesson, Louise was still a bit grumpy she had to attend those but Celestia had fun learning things as well, and she sometimes managed to sneak in a few minutes of shut eye as she was distracted.

The lesson was interrupted as Colbert entered the room.”Miss Vallière and Celesita, if you would please come with me. The headmaster would like to see you two.”

Celestia and Louise looked at each other with Celestia silently asking what Louise did, she just shrugged her shoulders in response.

The walk to the office was very strange for Celestia, who had never experienced the so called ‘Walk of shame’ that most students in her school dreaded so much.

She felt a bit dirty to be honest, as if she did something wrong and tried to self reflect and whatever she supposedly did wrong.

Maybe she could use that. A idea formed with a spell that would stretch the corridor to her office that she could turn on or of at will, making naughty students self reflect sounds like a good punishment.

They reached the office and Colbert stopped them before they entered with a expression that told them that he questions if he should let them in. ”Miss Vallière...” he said reluctantly. “Just be careful please.” and with those ominous words he opened the door for them.

“Tiny Louise!!!” the moment it was opened Louise was pulled inside by the ear and then had her cheeks stretched.

“Ah! Sister Eleanor!” she tried to say but only muffled complaints came out.

“What did you do this time!” the blond woman, that looked very similar to Louise when she was angry, shouted. ”I was sent here by mother because of something that you summoned, the Headmaster only sent vague letters, also what was that with you serving as a maid! How much damage have you done this time you little trouble magnet!”

The assault was relentless and by the end Celestia was sure that Louise checks red and swollen, the princess looked at the girl with pity.

“So you are this oh so troubling familiar, you don’t look so impressive to me.” Eleanor said with a dismissive look a Celestia.

“Looks can be deceiving, something I expect a magic researcher to know.” Celestia shot back. A verbal sparring contest was just what she needed right now.

“Oh, look. It can talk, can you maybe tell jokes as well?” Eleanor didn’t even bother to stay noble and aimed low from the start. ”Maybe then you actually have some use.”

Well if she wanted to play like that Celestia was just fine with it, right now she was no princess might as well behave like a not-princess. ”If I wanted to tell a joke I would just need to point at your mane.”

Eleanor's face twisted in Anger. ”Now look who's talking with that colorful mess on her head. What happened, wasn’t a bird able to decide what color the nest should be?”

“Considering a bird would fly away if they saw the monstrosity that you have on your head that hardly qualifies as a proper insult, are you even trying or did the brain under that hair stop functioning?” The other occupants of the room where eather running away or hiding by now as sparks of pure hatred were already radiating of both of them.

“Know your place. A horse should have a saddle and be in a stable right now.” Eleanor remarked with venom in her voice.

“Considering that a saddle is fetish gear I now have to consider you hitting on me...” Celestia said while while the whole room turned pale. ”Which is disgusting. Please try to woo someone from your own species first, don’t try with me after being such a failure.”

That crossed a line that Eleanor didn’t know existed. She was angry.

“That's it, I will put you in your place.” she said pulling out her wand. ”Outside, now.”

“Wha, sister Eleanor plea...” Louise tried to say.

“Shut up!” She desperately tried to stop them but Eleanor's harsh words snared her to her place.

There were no more words as both Eleanor and Celestia walked outside.

They reached the bottom and faced each other on the courtyard both ready to unleash hell.

Or at least one of them was…

There was no sound and for a moment the world seemed to stand still. Then, like on a unhearable command, Eleanor fired.

A Wall of earth moved towards Celestia and breakneck speed.

Celestia without a second thought flew up into the air to dodge.

The assault didn’t stop there as many sharp spikes flew towards her from the ground.

Some of them got dangerously close to her and then she decided to do something about that.

Celestia had no intentions of going small right now, as such she focused a colossal amount of magic and fired at the ground.

In a blinding flash Eleanor was robbed of her ammunition. As the ground in the whole courtyard was turned into pink fluffy pillows.

“I do prefer pillow fights over such uncluttered brutishness.” Celestia said starting to cuddle the Once-was-earth.

Eleanor would have admired the transfusion genius that Celestia just made happen but she was too busy trying to not lose her footing and raging around.

“I will make myself a leather coat out of you!” she shouted and then the fired the next spell.

Celestia was lucky in hindsight, if she didn’t have such a amazing fire resistance she would probably be roasted as Eleanor set the gigantic pillow fort on fire below them.

As Celestia flew upwards to escape the flame she looked down to where Eleanor stood in the fire looking perfectly fine beside the angry face.

“Well can’t let a pyromaniac just do her thing...” Celestia said to herself and she started looking around.

With a smile she spotted what she was looking for.

“Come back here you coward!” Eleanor shouted upwards, her spells not quite reaching Celestia before fizzling out. She watched as Celestia started to fly around in circles spinning and twisting through clouds that she passed.

Her eyes narrowed unsure of what she was doing as she saw the clouds starting to follow her and come together in a massive cloud that became darker and darker, unnaturally so.

Celestia finally happy with the amount she collected looked at it approvingly before again collecting a massive amount of magic, this time in one of her hooves and gave the cloud one solid buck.

As one all the water stored in the cloud was released onto the ground.

As one all the flames were put out and Eleanor was forced to the ground and drenched in water.

As she rose back up, her whole body drenched, she already started to chant again. This time she was preparing something big as Celestia braced herself.

Earth rose up from the ground, from the deep where Celestia’s spell didn’t reach and formed into rocks the size of heads.

Then the rocks melted to lava and where hurled towards Celestia while who didn’t expect that at all and started to dodge frantically, she had many of her feathers signed at a few close calls but the stream of small meteorites was not letting up, and by now much of the area was completely unrecognizable, with sizable holes around a crate of ashes, the leftovers from the pillows.

As another meteorite singed her fur she got a idea.

She went into a full dive and started to charge, this type of magic needed precision, she set up the spell and kept it charged in her horn while flying towards Eleanor at high speeds.

Finally she set up the magic field and shot it outwards surrounding Eleanor and then shot the charged spell out.

The beam of magic was fast and powerful, the hasty created shield of earth did nothing to stop the beam and stuck treu creating a explosion of magnificent proportions tha tenfluged the whole school.

“Sister!” Louise shouted out in panic, surly her sister and Celestia both were alright, she saw how the situation escalated but Celestia was such a soft creature, she couldn’t imagine her trying to harm anyone.

The smoke slowly lifted and Celestia stood where her sister was just moments ago. She looked horrible, with patches of fur and feather burned off. However the smile on her face was unmistakable.

“C-Celestia?” Louise said carefully approaching them, not caring that she sank into the ashes with every step. ”Where is my sister?”

“Why don’t you come and see for yourself?” Celestia said her smile widening.

Carefully Louise approached as she closed in she started to hear something, it sounded strangely like her raging sister, however it sounded strange, very high pitched.

Only as she was at Celestia's side she finally saw.

Right in front of her something black was jumping up and down, something black and angry.

“...will have your hide as a new pair of shoes and make sure that I only use you as the bottom of it so that you can eat dirt until your body rots…” the bunny raged.

“I think that is enough of you for now.” Celestia said as the mouth of the rabbit was shut by a golden aura and the bunny was no longer able to speak.

“Is that…?” Louise carefully asked.

“Louise, say hello to your new improved sister!” the bunny was levitated up and rubbed against Celestia's cheeks. ”Isn’t she fluffy?”

That was about as much as Louise could take as she fainted.
> Where Celestia pushes the first domino stone.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Slowly Louise returned to consciousness; she looked around and noticed that she was in the headmaster’s office. On the desk she saw a rabbit jumping up and down with rage, threatening Celestia will all sorts of things.

Ah yes, Celestia somehow turned her big sister Eleanor into a rabbit.

Welp, time to go back to unconsciousness!

“Oh no you don’t!” Celestia was by her side and lifted her up into a sitting position. “There, now don’t faint on us again.”

Louise remembered her temper and decided to use it. “You turned my sister into a rabbit! Until that is banished from my mind I refuse to acknowledge reality!” 

“In hindsight that might have been a bit excessive.” Celestia admitted. 

“A bit!?”

“The issue is judging a situation correctly, you never know if you judge a person correctly.” Celestia explained. “I judged that your sister wouldn’t back down until I have proven myself to her and with how confrontational she was I expected a clear cut magic duel to be the best way to do that.” She finished. “Remember Louise always use the appropriate amount of force, and more importantly think of how to use it.”

Louise was silent for a moment. “Did you just turn your reasoning for turning my sister into a rabbit into a lesson?” She questioned.

“Everything can be turned into lesson Louise, or more importantly you can learn from everything. The difficulty is often finding the lesson.” Louise eye began to twitch as she started regretting not fainting again.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” From the headmaster's desk an angry rabbit looked at Celestia with murder in her eyes. Sadly the rest of her body was fluffiness so it didn’t have the same effect Louise was used to.

“Don’t worry, as I said the effect will wear off.” Celestia explained with a voice that suggested that she had to say the sentence way to often by now. She then got a thoughtful expression on her face. ”I could use this to start a lesson for dispelling enchantments for Louise...” She said to herself.

“NO!” the whole room minus Louise shouted at her.

“Well then you will just have to endure for a bit.” Celestia explained. “And let this be a lesson for yourself as well Eleanor. Never underestimate anything. It can and will spell your demise many times over.”

“Who are you to lecture me?!” Eleanor shouted back.

“I am Celestia, raughly 1400 years old, have taught more students than you are years old, led a team of elite flyers, defended my country from five different monsters and taught the next leaders of my country,” Celestia said with a bored voice. “Pleased to meet you.”

“As if you could prove any of that!” The rabbit shouted back at her. Celestia only sighed as response.

“So, what now?” Louise asked carefully.

“It’s still rather early, so how about we train more with your magic?” Celestia suggested. “The reason for your visit was the concern about Louise’s studies, wasn’t it?” She turned to Eleanor.

She continued to glare as she answered. “Very well, I will watch the ‘lessons’ you have made my sister do and judge the results.”

“Perfect! Let’s go!” As they left the office Eleanor started to curse again as she was levitated off the desk and placed into Louise’s hands.

Carrying the rabbit was more uncomfortable for Louise than anything in her ENTIRE life.





They arrived at their usual clearing close to the water so that Louise could train her control more.

Eleanor observed patiently as Louise’s arms started to glow and the water began circle her.

“If you have some questions, you may ask, Eleanor,” Celestia commented.

“It’s Lady Vallière to you, horse!” It seemed that she was still angry. But after a few moments she did decide to ask something. “This is supposed to be a control exercises, correct?”

“Yes, that is the case,” Celestia answered carefully.

“What kind of control?”

“With only one sphere, it is focused on the amount of magic used on an object. The purpose is to make sure that there is an equal amount pressing onto it from all sides.”

“Why would that be necessary? She is performing a water spell, isn’t she?”

“She isn’t performing any elemental magic at all.” Celestia explained as Louise grabbed another sphere of water.

At the raised eyebrow Celestia explained further. “Louise doesn't have a elemental affinity. From my observations you human mages seem to brute force most of you magic by forcing it into whatever shape you want it to be which is helped by your elemental affinity. Louise can’t do that, as such I am teaching her the raw basics of how to apply her magic to the outside world.”

“Applications of raw magic without a conduit or molding shouldn’t work like that. Raw magic is way too volatile for that.” Eleanor countered.

“That is true, why do you think Louise spells keep exploding until now?” Celestia explained.

Eleanor got a thoughtful expression on her face before answering. “That’s impossible, we tried forcing her magic through a elemental conduit, the conduit failed the moment Louise’s magic touched it.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes. “A raw conduit should have worked actually.” She then proceeded to look around with narrowed eyes, as soon as she was sure that they were unobserved she cast a silencing spell around them as well as an illusory wall. “Louise, stop for a moment and come to us, please.” Carefully her student placed the water back into the lake.

“What are you doing?” Eleanor asked warily not trusting the Alicorn one bit.

“I think this is the perfect time we explain that one little detail that I found in you magic Louise.” Celestia said to Louise, the girl still worrying about it started chewing her lips. “That you came to visit so unannounced is perfect actually.”

Eleanor’s eyes wandered warily between the two.

“Big sister, my magic wasn’t just a problem of my affinity. I had a Geass placed on me, one that actively blocked my magic.”

There was dead silence for a few moments as Eleanor recollected her thoughts at the information she just received.

“How? When? By whom?” She asked with a edge in her voice that made Louise shiver.

“We discovered it by accident during our first lessons. It was preventing Louise from coherently channeling her willpower.” Celestia got a thoughtful look on her face. “She might actually be able to perform some of your kind’s spells now that it is lifted but we haven’t tried. I wasn’t able to determine anything about its origins, it was decent in strength so the caster had experience in mind magic by pony standards, that is all I can say to their identity sadly.”

“Who knows of this?”

“Only the three of us for now.” Louise answered that one. “We decided to keep quiet as we have no clue who did this, depending on what exactly it was doing it could have been applied as early as when I tried to cast my first spells.”

“That is… very worrying Louise. I am proud that you managed to keep calm in this situation.”

“I honestly didn’t, Celestia was the one who managed to calm me down long enough,” She admitted.

“Understandable.” She only answered back. “If this is true that I am thankful to you Celestia.”

“It was no issue, I treat any attack on my studentls as a personal offense that will be punished harshly.” Celestia promised. “It is slightly infuriating, normally I would have much more resources to call upon to deal with this problem. For now I can only place my trust in you Eleanor.”

“If someone in the school is responsible then whoever it is already knows. I need to inform mother immediately.” Eleanor thought a bit more. “Maybe it would be smart to get Louise home, the school is unlikely to guarantee her safety right now.”

“I must disagree, the school is probably the safest place for her at the moment.” Celestia protested.

“Explain.”

“Whoever it was probably wasn’t targeting Louise directly as it would make no sense to place mind magic on a child. More than likely this was an attack at the Vallière family as a whole. The culprid already infiltrated you once so there isn’t much stopping them from doing it again.” Celestia clarified. “An attack on the school would trigger a nationwide response considering how many nobles are here. That coupled with Louise probably not being the primary target gives her a screen of security.“

“I don’t like the ‘probably’ in there.” Eleanor commented.

“What is there to gain from Louise suffering such massive failures in magic over and over?” Celestia countered.

After some thinking Eleanor answered. “The only thing I can immediately think of is prestige, however it would be a minor loss at best. Currently the house Vallière is held stable by its relationship to the crown and by the titles of our mother.” A laugh escaped her. “And it would take far more than a child being incapable of magic to undermine That.”

Minutes passed as Eleanor was thinking over the issue. She stole a few glances at Celestia's hoof where the familiar runes were inscribed. “Continue to keep quiet and train Louise in defensive magic as soon as possible, I will go back to the mansion post haste. Don’t try anything with normal magic yet. On the off chance that the culprid still doesn't know we need to keep it that way as long as possible.”

“Agreed.”

Louise was watching the exchange tensely; never before had she seen her mentor or her sister with such attitudes, it scared her a bit how quickly they could adjust and analyse matters. It intimidated her somewhat but she promised that one day she would gain the same competence, for Henrietta she could be nothing less.

“Let’s continue where we left off, and don’t forget to pretend being angry at me.” Celestia told the still rabbit with a wink.

“Oh don’t worry, I have enough insults left for you, you bleach furred hellspawn.” Eleanor shouted. Celestia lifted the spells and Louise went back to practicing.

She nearly managed 5 minutes with 3 orbs even.

Later in the evening the spell wore off and Eleanor was about to enter the chariot back home.

“Behave tiny Louise.” She said giving her a little squeeze on the cheek. “And you!” She turned to Celestia. “You better take good care of her.”

“You have my word as teacher.” Celestia said with a mock salute, the hidden meaning was delivered.

With that Eleanor left the academy.

“Well, that was a eventful day.”

“Agreed,” Louise said exhaustedly.

“We need to remember to add one day to your duties as maid, after all you skipped those today.”

“What?!” Louise shouted in protest. “But we did different more important things!”

“We could always ask your sister on her opinion. That reminds me we haven’t told her about that fiasco a few days ago, have we?”

Louise mumbled about hellish teachers all the way back to her room.