Morning in East Glade did not glisten, glimmer, or shine. Even in summer. Fog often stayed around for hours even after the sun rose and the weather was never better than “fine”. So when she could, Trixie liked to sleep in her wagon for a little while until things had cleared up. And if that took until noon some days then so what? A magician as great as her, who works so hard, who’s the hero of the village, is entitled to a few extra hours of rest isn’t she?
However being the hero everyone looked up to meant she now had to hide her annoyance at being woken up right at the crack of dawn by her students.
With a yawn, Trixie leaned out of her wagon’s window wearing her nightcap. “This couldn’t wait until later?” She asked the four—no—five that had gathered in front of her wagon, Daylight was there too for some reason.
“We’ve been wanting to have another lesson with you for a long time now,” Speckle Wood said. He stared up imploringly at her, hoping she would finally not have any sort of excuse to dish out.
“Yes, sorry to come by first thing in the morning but we were really excited. My kids kept asking when you could teach us all again,” Gold Embrace smiled apologetically at her, her twin colts standing right alongside her and nodding their heads at Trixie with big happy smiles on their faces.
I wish someone would put a mark on one of them so I could tell them apart… Trixie thought.
Trixie sighed, not getting mad at her students since she couldn’t really blame them for wanting to spend as much time as possible with someone as amazing as herself. So instead she turned her gaze to Daylight. “So why are you here?”
The white unicorn smirked at her. “I just thought it would be a great idea if I could join in on these fabulous lessons too. After all you’re such an amazing hero you can probably teach me a thing or two too. And I figured I should at least come along with everyone since I was the one who ended up convincing them that you wouldn’t be bothered at all by us coming by in the morning.”
You win this round. Trixie glared at her friend.
“Of course! I’m not bothered at all, merely allow me to change my clothes and we shall begin the new lesson,” As she ducked into her wagon she quietly added- “Now if only someone could tell me what that lesson was...”
“You know, do you really need this in the first place? I mean with Goliath gone what do you even want me to teach you for, anyways?” Trixie asked them as they stood out in the dirt covered valley outside East Glade.
“It’s not just about that,” Speckle Wood shook his head. “I want to become stronger with my magic to be able to protect East Glade from anything.”
“And I kind of have just enjoyed seeing what I can do. I never thought I could do these kinds of things with my magic, I really want to know how far I can go,” Gold Embrace smiled at her teacher.
“Well under my tutelage I’m sure you’ll be able to do amazing things sooner or later...” Trixie coughed, her eyes drifting to the side after the empty praise and speculation.
“I also want to make sure my kids get the best education in magic possible too,” Gold Embrace leaned down and swept up her kids in her hooves, pressing their faces against her cheeks.
“Mooom!” Both whined in embarrassment.
She put Gold Box and Gold Fortune back down where the two quickly scampered away from her to avoid any future hugs.
“Yeah we’re all just really excited to learn magic from you, Trixie. So what do you have in store for us today?” Daylight grinned at her.
Jerk…
“Glad you asked,” Trixie paced in front of them, acting like she was pausing for dramatic effect when really she was just trying to pull literally anything out of her hat. What did she know that she could also teach? Not much. Not anymore after the things she had already gone over with them. And it probably shouldn’t be anything dangerous either. She might have been able to foist things off on Daylight and try to get her to teach the others her camouflage spell since that was certainly something useful to the East Glade defenders, but Daylight would never let her hear the end of it if Trixie just passed the buck on to her. It would be like admitting she couldn’t teach these lessons anymore and needed someone else’s help. And The Great and Powerful Trixie could not allow that! Even with Daylight knowing the truth about her she certainly wouldn’t let that smug unicorn have any more ammunition to use against her.
But that still left the question of what was there for her to teach? Was there something Starlight had taught her that she could teach others?
Oh yes, there certainly was.
Trixie stopped her pacing and flicked her mane back, giving her million bit showpony grin to her students. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is going to teach you how to teleport.”
Four of the other unicorn’s faces lit up in excitement and surprise. Now that was something they definitely didn’t expect to hear. Teleportation seemed so… difficult, if not impossible, to them. However their admiration, respect, and estimation of the miraculous hero that was teaching them drowned out any dissenting voice in their heads. If Trixie was teaching them they were sure they could learn to teleport too.
Daylight Gleam was a bit less optimistic.
“Teleport? That’s an insanely difficult magical spell. Neither Coil nor I have been able to figure it out for ourselves.”
“Well neither you nor Coil are epic heroes like I am. It’s only natural that I would be able to accomplish a feat you were unable to,” Trixie unfairly bragged, intentionally annoying Daylight. The fact that she had to get Starlight to teach her how to teleport was not going to be brought up.
Daylight rolled her eyes. “Okay, well then how about demonstrating a perfect teleport for us to start things off. I think that would be really helpful.”
“You’re right, it would be,” Trixie replied with no small amount of venom in her voice as she stealthily glared at the white unicorn, trying to make sure her students didn’t catch on.
The four students were more than eager to see her teleport up close though and were completely oblivious to the barbs being traded back and forth between the two others. So Trixie looked around the area for something that would make a good spot to teleport to.
She found her destination in a large boulder sticking halfway out of the ground a good thirty feet away.
“Alright!” Trixie grinned as she faced the boulder and lit up her horn. “Prepare to be amazed! Teleport spell, go!”
Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was a lack of discipline. Or just plain bad luck. But for whatever reason The Lying and Boastful Trixie was unable to make a perfect teleport. She had never really mastered teleportation in the first place, it was something she herself was still working on whenever she had the chance before she got thrown to East Glade. Perhaps she was blessed in her teleportation that saved her from falling to her doom with Goliath.
Regardless, instead of teleporting on top of the boulder like she wanted, she somehow went from standing still to smacking face-first into the hard rock.
“Haguh!” Trixie yelped in pain as she stumbled backwards, holding her bruised muzzle in her hooves as stars swam in her vision.
“Are you alright?!” Gold Embrace yelled.
Trixie looked back to see all of them looking at her in worry, even Daylight was grimacing in sympathy at Trixie’s misfortune. The magician couldn’t let them think she was actually hurt though, she had to play it off as coolly as possible.
“Yes, your great and powerful teacher meant to do that,” She smiled as best she could even though it really hurt to do so. Was she bleeding? Hopefully not. “That was an example of how dangerous teleporting can be if you don’t do it perfectly. So keep that in mind. Don’t uh… don’t try to do anything fancy. Now Trixie will watch your attempts,” She swayed a bit and blinked away the last of the stars. “Just um, try only slightly moving.”
Those weren’t exactly good instructions for something as delicate and difficult as teleporting, but Trixie needed another second to get her head back on straight, so she sat down and watched as her students tried their best to follow along.
“Should I keep my eyes open and look where I want to go or is it better to close them and visualize?” Speckle Wood asked.
“Whatever feels most natural to you,” More helpful advice from Trixie.
She watched as both Gold Box and Gold Fortune tried their hardest to emulate her but the twins’ magic was still undeveloped. They had trouble even drawing up enough energy for the spell. Well there wasn’t much Trixie could do about that, not every foal was like Twilight or Starlight and could just draw up a massive amount of magic. And their eventual Cutie Marks might not have anything to do with magic at all or leave them only good at using it for some sort of special application.
“That’s good you two, keep it up,” She told them anyways. Encouragement never hurt. She’d been laughed at and struggled enough when she first tried to become a great magician. Not that she’d admit that if asked, especially to this crowd.
“Do you perhaps have any more advice that’s specific to teleporting? What does it feel like to teleport?” Daylight asked her with a raised eyebrow as she walked up to the sitting Trixie. She then glanced around for a second before leaning down and whispering. “Are you sure you don’t need to get yourself checked out for hitting that rock?”
“Trixie is fine,” She grumbled to the white unicorn. “And teleporting is just… magical feeling.”
“Oh, helpful,” Daylight shook her head and rolled her eyes.
Trixie scowled at her, and then winced when that sent a fresh jolt of pain through her face. “It’s difficult to describe if you haven’t done it okay? Teleporting isn’t like other spells. All I can say is try and focus all your magic together and then just imagine yourself where you want to go,” The blue unicorn shrugged. “I also like calling out my spell, it’s my process.”
“My process is, you know, doing something logical,” Daylight flatly said to her great source of annoyance.
“What I said is logical, it’s just not overly detailed,” Trixie stood up and rubbed her muzzle, watching the others still trying to teleport. “Sometimes simple is good you know? Overthinking things can lead to just as big of problems.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear something like that from someone who routinely under thinks everything.”
“Yeah, well… yes,” Trixie unfortunately didn’t have a real response to that. Especially when she under thought all of the lessons she had taught. Like the one she was currently “teaching”.
Frowning, she walked over to the four other unicorns who were doing their hardest to work things out on their own but still struggled to make any notable progress. Her eyes drifted to the two young trainees that looked like they were still having trouble with her very first lesson of learning how to draw out your magic to its fullest extent. “Box? Fortune? Have the two of you been practicing on how to use your magic?”
The twins stopped what they were doing and began to shuffle around awkwardly, doing their best not to meet her gaze.
“Uhh...” Gold (Box, Trixie was just going to assume) pawed at the ground. “It’s hard, and mom is too busy to help most of the time and there isn’t anyone else in town who knows about this stuff besides Speckle Wood and he’s always with Sheriff Gizzard now too.”
Trixie sighed. There was just no helping it was there? “I’m sure if you ask permission from your mother first she’d let you come and ask either me or Daylight to help you with your magic. I… promise, that as long as I’m not busy doing something else that I’ll help you. Okay?” She looked between the two of them to see how they’d react.
As expected, the offer to be taught by their hero whenever possible made them quite happy.
“You really mean it?” Gold Fortune(?) asked her, his eyes lighting up brighter than his horn.
“Yes, Trixie means it,” She tried to keep any vexation out of her voice.
“Hooray!” Both twins cheered at once and went running to their mom, who was lost in concentration as she tried figuring out the secret behind teleportation. “Mom! Mom!”
The Great and Powerful Trixie had to do her best not to groan at how troublesome that would become in the future.
“Wow! Did the Selfish and Egotistical Trixie just do something nice purely out of the goodness of her own heart?” Daylight came up and asked with the smuggest of all possible grins on her face.
“Trixie has always done good by her fans,” She grumbled. “When she remembers to.”
Before Daylight could respond to that the two were interrupted by Speckle Wood. The only adult stallion of the group looked a bit embarrassed and reticent to come talk to them but he swallowed his pride and did it anyways.
“Miss Trixie?” The green unicorn asked. “I’m sorry but I’m still having trouble getting anywhere. Could you show us a successful teleport?”
“Er, but of course!” She almost sweated, wincing as she forced a confident smile onto her face. “Yes, I can understand how you might want to see that… getting to witness a perfect teleport would certainly be helpful for your lessons.”
Daylight gave her a worried look. “Are you sure-”
“Can it!” Trixie shut her mouth with a hoof and pushed her aside, walking to the middle of where everyone was practicing. “Everyone? Gather round and watch your hero as she performs an immaculate teleportation!”
Okay, whatever went wrong before was just a fluke. Trixie is perfect and doesn’t make any mistakes. Just remember that. Trixie is perfect. She repeated in her head like a mantra.
With a deep breath she renewed her focus on the top of that boulder, drawing up the necessary amount of magic into her horn to make it glow brightly for the difficult spell. This was nothing. She had done way more impressive things in her amazing life. It was a stupid short range teleportation and she was far too wonderful of a teacher and magician to fail it in front of her students and jerk friend. She blinked once and smirked.
“Teleport spell, go!”
With an electric burst of magic Trixie instantly transported herself onto the top of the boulder. Catching herself before she could act surprised that she succeeded, the traveling magician turned around and held a proud hoof in the air.
“Huzzah! A perfect teleport!”
At the clapping of hooves (even Daylight gave a slow grudging clap) she pranced off the boulder and walked back to the other unicorns. “I hope you were all paying attention. Now try and replicate!” She said before any of them could cut in or ask for other instructions.
Naturally Daylight caught onto her but Trixie did her best to ignore the white unicorn and simply watched the others try and perform a teleportation. They all seemed a bit more into it than before, probably seeing Trixie not smash face first into the boulder reassured them and they didn’t want to let her down. When it came to their other lessons, while they still weren’t on her level they at least did a passable job and they wanted this to be no different.
Neither Trixie nor Daylight really expected any of them to be able to pull it off though, and Daylight herself was just trying to figure out the spell on her own.
So it ended up being deeply surprising when Speckle Wood disappeared in a puff and reappeared two feet away.
His jaw hung open in shock and his eyes widened to the size of saucers at the realization of what he had just done. Slowly the corners of his mouth turned upwards and he looked at his teacher with enough excitement on his face to make Pinkie Pie look like Maud. “I-I did it! I really did it!”
Trixie and Daylight Gleam also had their jaws hanging open in surprise. Slowly their heads turned on a creaky hinge to stare at each other. Shutting her agape mouth and swallowing, The Great and Powerful Trixie managed to regain her wits and shrugged at her friend.
“Hey, go figure.”