Each of the flower girls had a ball of flames. Rose held her between her fore hooves, inclining her head left and right as if to view it from every angle. Daisy was tossing it up, giggling with each throw. Lily was watching hers at the end of a hoof, which was itself held away from her as far as her arm allowed. "Purple?"
"Hm?" His attention fixed on Lily. "You've all done a great job." He clapped his hooves together with a bright smile. "A week to learn your first spell? I am certain that is a record. Little druid larvae usually take years to get to that part."
Lily nodded. "Alright, that's nice, really, but... What do I do with this?" She gestured her head in a toss at the flame attached to her. "I don't want to burn down this pleasant little house we have here."
"Ah, yes, right right. It's time to learn how to end a spell, very important!" He performed the song, words and dance to create a ball of flames of his own. "Close your eyes and just feel a moment. Go on." He waited until all three of them had their eyes closed. "Primal energy ties you to that fire. It pulls from you just a little tiny bit. Can you feel it?"
Rose shook her head. Daisy had her tongue out a little. Lily gave a little hum. "I think so?"
"If you can feel it, you can break it. It's yours. You don't have to feed the fire, so don't. A fire without fuel isn't long for the world." He waggled his hoof, the flame falling free and fizzling long before it hit anything. "That is how you can end any spell. At least, any spell you cast. You can't stop me from feeding my fire that way."
Lily was quick to snuff out her flames with a relieved expression as she went back to all fours instead of sitting. "Finally."
Rose seemed to pick it up by what Lily did. "Kapow!" She brought her hooves together and the fire was gone.
"Sis?" Lily reached out and patted down a speck of flame that had begun merrily burning on Rose's fur at the bottom of her leg. "Be careful."
"Eee!" Rose waved her hoof wildly a moment. "Thanks."
Purple was watching Daisy. But she was bouncing the ball back and forth between her fore hooves. "Are you not going to try it?"
"But I like mine. His name is Bright Spark. When he grows up." She lobbed Bright into the air. "He wants to be a star in the sky!"
Bright tapped the ceiling, which was too much contact. The fire exploded in a brief puff of energy, leaving a scorch mark but doing little else. Purple shook his head slowly. "As you just learned, contact with anything means it's time to go for our little friend."
Daisy's eyes were watering as she sniffled. "Bright... Your dreams..." Rose patted her on the back gently to console her grief-stricken friend.
Purple began for the door, wings buzzing. "Now that you've learned your first spell, it's time to go back to some of the less 'fun' parts we skipped over." He led the less enthusiastic mares out into the city. "You'll get to make new friends."
Rose accelerated at that to Purple's side. "New friends?"
"Oh, yes, for sure." He nodded firmly, hovering just a little over the ground as he went. "Other new druids learning their place. You may even be stars of the class. Most of them haven't learned their first spell." He suddenly turned to face the three of them, forward momentum slowing dramatically. "But they know more about how things work. You may be ahead of them in one way, but they're ahead in another. Don't think they're beneath you."
Rose inclined her head faintly. "That wouldn't be very neighborly."
Daisy burst into giggles. "I'll show them Bright Junior."
Lily ran her tongue over her lips. "Bright... Junior? You're going to do that magic again?"
"Of course!" Daisy jumped into the air, hooves wriggling before she came back down. "Bright didn't reach the stars, but Bright Junior still has a chance!"
Rose swatted Daisy's back end. "More walking, less making up narratives for your magic. It sounds like we're back in school, girls."
Lily chuckled softly. "If this is like the first school, you'll be copying my notes."
Rose colored swiftly at that. "I'm no good at dates! Are there going to be dates on these tests?"
"Actually, no." Purple touched the ground and began trotting instead at a light jog. "I told you, nature mostly cares about the here and now, not what happened before or what will happen later. That doesn't mean we don't care about those things, but nature itself? Nah. Just right now."
They were led to a mossy nook in another tree, where many others sat in a circle. Most of them were flutters, but not all of them. Some of them were even ponies, but all eyes turned to the trio following Purple. Purple instead nodded to the teacher in the center of the circle. "They did it."
The teacher's eyes widened as she stood up, her bright butterfly wings fluttering. "How exciting! Class." She gestured in a broad sweep at the three mares coming closer. "These are the three I was talking about. From another plane entirely, their kind learn things differently. Marked by their own keen desires, they chase after their destinies that would rival even the most devout Everglow pony."
The crowd began to applaud with hooves against hooves and against the roof they were atop, muffled faintly by the cushioning moss.
A unicorn mare sat up, horn high, and slightly curved. "What is gained easily can be lost just the same."
That got her shoved by the student next over, another butterfly, male. "You don't sound like any unicorn!"
She frowned at that. "Us unicorns are not all the exact same thing. That's worryingly limited in your thoughts."
"It is," echoed the teacher. "Calm down. It's Tree Wind's thoughtful introspection that brought her to us, is it not? It's not very nice to then pick fun at it." The teacher waved the three new students closer. "Please, take a seat. Now, I'm told you learned your first spell." That got a new round of exclamations from the other students.
Tree Wind glared at the three. "We were informed that we have to understand the workings of nature before we set a hoof in the rivers of its power. This smells of the hubris others throw at my tribe."
Rose sank to her haunches. "Sorry, we're not trying to mess with anycreature, promise. They're the ones deciding what we learn, not us."
"We haven't gotten to pick anything," agreed Lily.
Daisy was bouncing a new ball of fire from hoof to hoof. "I'm not complaining. Say hello to Bright Junior!"
"Put that way this instant," commanded the teacher with no room for argument in her voice. "Purple, I have them now. Thank you."
Purple dipped his head. "Keep us informed." He said something else, but it was a language the mares did not know.
"That's Druidic," came a whisper from Rose's other side. "Most of us are still learning that."
Tree stomped impotently on the moss. "They learned to tap nature's power, and they don't even speak Druidic?!" She marched towards them, not directly, but around the circle. "This is unacceptable. This is disrespectful. Nature may not care much for our small worries, but this? This nature may make an exception for." She put a hoof on her chest. "At the least, I take exception to this."
The other students murmured, some agreeing with the oddness of the situation.
"Students," came the teacher's firm voice. "Thank you." The ball of fire had been snuffed, ending Bright Jr.'s bold attempt at the stars. "When the head druid speaks, we listen. When the tree bends, the grass does not have a say. Now, new students." She turned in place. "I am Dazzlebug." She burst into a little giggle. "And it's nice to meet you all. If you pay attention and learn, I don't care if you did learn magic or not. Nature cares only for results, in the end. The most grand of species that fails to be will not be missed."
Tree sank down, but was then far closer to the three. She kept glancing at them, but no further heated words escaped her, at least for that moment.
Dazzlebug resumed her lesson, teaching about populations. "Now, it's easy to think that so long as there are any two--" She raised two hooves and moved them together with little bobs as if hopping towards one another. "breeding members of a given race, that race still had a chance, but that is not correct. Can anyone tell me why?" She looked around and started at Daisy's raised hoof. "One of our new students. Please, what do you think?"
Daisy lowered her hoof. "Even with plants that isn't always true." She nodded firmly. "Oh, um, that's our specialty, by the way." She waved at her fellow flower mares. "We're florists."
"That's nice to know." Dazzle rolled a hoof. "Please finish your answer."
"Oh! Right. If a family, plant or animal, gets too small, it can get really weak really fast." Daisy mashed her hooves together. "And that's bad. Even if you find the perfect flower, you can't keep a hold too tight, or you'll hurt what you found."
"Excellently said." Dazzle nodded slowly. "Though spoken by someone used to controlling nature, instead of shepherding it." Soft laughter rippled. Taunting? It was hard to tell. "As druids, we want to encourage better traits, but it is up to each species to be the best of what it cares to be. We remove barriers, but we do not decide what is 'perfect'. Nature cares what works, not what is 'perfect', a word nature has no concept of."
Tree raised a hoof. "Teacher, the dangers of inbreeding are present to all species that have a family to consider that with. This is why most immediately find the idea, even instinctually, repugnant. Like throwing oneself into a fire, it's a danger most know without ever being told of it."
Dazzle made a soft noise of agreement. "Exactly. It varies from species to species, but the smaller the population--" She brought her hooves closer together. "The more difficult it can be to rebound. That is why we must move to act. Nature only cares about now, but we are not nature, hm? We are its tenders, and we must watch the patterns. If pressures are crushing towards danger, we must act before they reach that critical point, or our actions may come to nothing."
The teacher walked casually through the circle of students to point down at the temperate rainforest below. "But before we can do that, we need to know what's there. So, for your next assignment, you must look and see." Her smile was bright. "Open your eyes and behold what it is we are devoting ourselves to. Take a pad, if you like, and count as many creatures as you can find. Animal, plant, fungus, or even different mosses. Find them all. The more of them, the better, both in variety and number of each." She curled a hoof under an eye. "And that's the trick. How many 'mosses' are in a clump? How many trees are in a grove? Is that the same rabbit you saw a minute ago? Do your best, and return here tomorrow with your discoveries." She clapped smartly. "You are all dismissed."
"You aren't even allowed down there." Tree was looking at the flower mares as they stood up. "We all heard the head druid's command."
"Good of you to volunteer!" Dazzlebug was approaching at a light trot. "Go with them, make sure they stay safe, and close to the city."