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// Chapter 8- Aftermath of PonM 
// Story: Trade Wind: Royal Tutor 
// by BlackBonitaCherry 
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Over the years their group had come up with different codewords for meetings without others finding out. Trade Wind ended up using an alternate at this at WEU, which is how Rarity ended up realizing what she was talking about and asked for an invite to this meeting as well.
Trade Wind still wasn’t looking forward to the coming conversation. 
At least Lyra’s Radio Studio was sound proof.
“Alright Trade Wind, time to come clean, talk,” glancing at her sworn sister’s faces, Trade Wind shot a beseeching look at Rarity and Zephyr who turned away from her.
Traitors.
“Clean about what exactly?” her attempt to deflect failed as Fluttershy frowned at her.
“You’ve been in Ponyville for a month now, working on a project that none of us knew about apart from what Zephyr and Limestone leaked to us. Plus, Rarity said you are not wearing a necklace that Garble gave you,” Trade Wind shot the unicorn an evil eye who blinked innocently, sipping her tea with grace and purposeful ignorance.
“Look, I told you before that I did-” “You did not want to run into Twilight or Rainbow Dash,” Lyra interrupted, frowning, “And I get Rainbow Dash, but why Twilight?” Pinkie nodded, pointing at her.
“Yeah, why did she ignore Princess Celestia’s letter to take you with her to deal with the dragon? And why did you attack her like that? Wasn’t pinning her against the ground a bit excessive?” Trade Wind knew this would be asked.
She just wasn’t sure if she wanted to explain it.
But after another look at their eyes, she sighed,
“It’s our teachers’ fault,” she stated, waving her hoof at their unimpressed looks, “It’s true! Okay, you know how Princess Celestia and Master Po act when they are in the same room together? Shooting insults or breaking into fights?” her teacher knew exactly what buttons to push that would end up with Princess Celestia putting whatever meetings she had to a halt to ‘deal’ with him.
Ironically whatever nobles that were supposed to meet with her ended up dropping their agendas or giving in to a bill that they wanted to change.
This is probably why Princess Celestia kept doing it. No one wanted to see her anger directed toward them.
No one.
“You mean their flirting?” Lyra deadpanned, Trade Wind cleared her throat, not denying it but not wanting to confirm it either.
“Well, it’s like this,” this was going to be very awkward to explain.
If only the Princess was here to do it, but no, she was having a ‘talk’ with Twilight Sparkle.
She did not envy the unicorn.
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Princess Celestia stared at her student who was doing her best to blend in with the floor, tears in her eyes.
“Do you want to tell me what you were thinking when you decided to ignore my letter and risk breaking the treaty we signed with the dragons?” Twilight flinched, withdrawing even further, and Celestia sighed, “Do you hate Trade Wind that much?” and there was that glare, the anger the mare held towards the pegasus that Celestia wished was not there. She blamed herself for Twilight’s animosity towards Trade Wind, but she honestly thought the unicorn would be beyond this, that saving Equestria would bolster her student’s confidence.
Turns out she was wrong.

Twilight saw her expression and the glare disappeared, turning into a sulk, “Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn swallowed.
“I could have dealt with the dragon myself, I’m your student-” “And that gives you authority?” she interrupted, frowning, “Twilight, if you had taken the diplomatic classes and gone to the assemblies I arranged with dragon representatives, I would have appointed you as an ambassador. But you wanted to focus your studies on magic and refused any social interaction. You displayed no interest on the subject,” purple cheeks turning red, Twilight still evaded her gaze, “Or is the sole reason you did such a thing was that I asked you to bring Trade Wind?” a mutter came from her student and she sighed, “Twilight,” the unicorn looked up at her.
“Why did you give her the task of restoring the castle?” she blurted out, taking Celestia aback.
 “I’m sorry?” she blinked, but it seems whatever was holding Twilight back burst open,

“I was already in Ponyville, I’m your personal student, and I’ve been to the Castle, why did you choose Trade Wind to restore it instead of me? Why is it when you have private meetings you always ask Trade Wind to attend but tell me to study? Why do you trust her more than me? She humiliated me in front of my friends, friends that listen to her and apparently knew her longer. Everyone trusts Trade Wind more than they trust me-” Celestia raised a hoof,
“Humiliated you? What do you mean?” Twilight grimaced.
“She used her pegasus magic to pin me to the mountain and made it difficult for me to use my magic,” Celestia frowned, realizing the unicorn did not say Blessing.
Was she still refusing to acknowledge their existence? If it wasn’t for that stupid book Starswirl wrote.
Realizing her thoughts were drifting, Celestia looked at her student again,
“Was this before you entered the cave?” 
“Yes,”
“And the first time you two saw one another in a while?” Twilight hesitated.
“....Yes,” the alicorn frowned.
“Twilight,” the unicorn looked at her, “From what I understand, Trade Wind acted in a fast and swift manner,” she opened her mouth, no doubt to protest but Celestia did not let her, “Did you think I would forget the arrangement?” Twilight flinched.
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“Arrangement?” Fluttershy asked, worried, “What arrangement?” Trade Wind grimaced, downing her tea and trying to think about how she should word it.
“Someone a few years ago expressed their concern to Princess Celestia about Twilight Sparkle’s focus on theory rather than practical and her lack of offense and defense,” “Was that someone you?” Lyra’s dry tone made her twitch but she went on, “And considering our teacher’s competitive natures with one another, they decided to make an arrangement. Every time Twilight and I run into each other we have to duel. Of course, this can only be done when we are a distance from civilization, but the first one pinned for more than three seconds loses,” “When you pinned Twilight, you said you would make it quick,” Fluttershy realized, eyes going soft, “Oh Trade Wind, did you?” the pegasus rubbed her head.
“Yes I drew them out in the past, eventually defeating her but she could tell I was going easy on her.” It probably did not help that she told the magic prodigy to look at non-Starswirl magic books to study from because sticking with Starswirl was not going to get her anywhere.
And she might have told her that Starswirl was a xenophobic asshole who did not deserve the reverence of anyone and should be erased from the magic hall of fame.
The following fight ended up nearly destroying the maze if Trade Wind hadn’t cut off her magic attacks and pinned her to the ground.

She probably should not have been so blunt, but if Twilight was going to be the Alicorn of Magic in this ever-changing world, she did not want the unicorn limiting herself just because of what Starswirl wrote a thousand years ago.
“I do not mean to sound rude, but darling, it would have been easier if you went all out from the beginning,” Rarity had a point but Trade shook her head, grimacing.
“It was meant to be a duel to show off our skills, what we were learning underneath our respective teachers. When we first started and she found out it was a magic dual, Twilight asked why since I was a pegasus,” there was a moment of silence. Rarity looking exasperated while Pinkie and Fluttershy shared looks with one another, Zephyr rolled his eyes.
“She is a Starswirl fanatic,” Lyra sighed, not surprised, “Which I’m guessing you insulted at one point, I know how blunt you can be,” Trade winced.
“Guilty as charged, that first match I just used the wind (that unicorn passed it off as regular pegasus magic) to push her back or throw stuff at her. This ended up drawing out our duel for several hours till she ran out of magic and could not cast anymore. Master Po and Princess Celestia were not pleased with me but did not tell me till after our fourth duel that I was to go all out.
So I did during the fifth time we dueled, using my Blessing to cut off her magic and it caused her to have a panic attack when she could not draw on it and I ended up pinning her with my hooves.” Her Blessing had grown over the past eight years, and one of its skills was letting her cut through magic (something she guessed was a result of that botched ritual.) Master Po had been very thorough in testing out what it could cut through in their training and beating her down to the ground.
To make sure she did not get a big head of course, and sometimes Princess Celestia or Master Ruffalo would join in as well.
Trade Wind inwardly shivered as she continued.

“She tried accusing me of using runes or some sort of magical artifact to render her magic useless. Trying to explain my Blessing to her proved fruitless when she used Starswirl as a point of reference,” which is how she ended up insulting the ‘oh so powerful unicorn.’ “So I just left it as is and said she would need to learn how to get around such things anyways and continued ‘cheating’ in each and every duel. Usually, I let it last maybe five or ten minutes when we run into each other, but today I just, didn’t want to humor her,” a snort interrupted her explanation.
“You took her down in one second, that is more than just not humoring her,” Zephyr stated, amused, Trade frowned at him.
“Says the stallion who prefers dancing around duels rather than using his sword hilt to knock his opponents down,” she shot back, recalling his own duels at the University with some of the more arrogant students like Blueblood.

Especially Blueblood.

“Hey, that’s an entirely different thing,” the stallion claimed, smirking as he cut a piece of cake before turning to look at the room behind them, “So, is no one going to come in at any point? Aren’t there a bunch of shows for you to do?” he directed this to Lyra who shrugged.
“I record shows in advance for times like this, right now everyone is listening to the new episode of the ‘Bard of Whistle’, are they going to be surprised when they realize that-” “Uh uh, nope, I’m still catching up, do not spoil anything,” Zephyr glared at her in warning, Lyra snorted.
“Whatever you wish,” “Alright can we get back to the conversation at hand?” Rarity cut in, tapping a hoof on the table in irritation, “Look, I get that Twilight might have some issues with you, but surely if you tell her why you could-” she was already shaking her head.
“Enough ponies are already aware, and I cannot tell anymore. This is why I did not want to go to Ponyville, and why I asked you girls not to mention me to her,” she directed this to her sisters, “I was hoping after Nightmare Moon she might take her magical combat more seriously and loosen up with friends, but unfortunately that seems to not be happening. There is also the matter of her librarian duties, I did suggest Princess Celestia hire an assistant if Twilight wanted to just focus on her studies-” “Hopefully Princess Celestia does not mention that to her,” yeah, Trade Wind hopes for that as well. 
With Spike attending school, Twilight was going to be learning a lot of new skills she should have had years ago.
Hopefully without blaming Trade Wind for it.

Again.
“Anyways, I am sorry, my appearance disrupted your group, and my ordering you around to pin down Applejack and Rainbow Dash probably didn’t help,” Rarity huffed.
“Darling, I was already at odds with Applejack, this did not change anything, and I’m not surprised you had Fluttershy take care of Rainbow Dash. Who, I am suspecting, is responsible for talking Twilight into her little plan,” right.
“I’ll talk to her,” Fluttershy suddenly said, surprising Trade Wind before she could suggest herself, “Trade Wind, you cannot for obvious reasons, Pinkie would prank her, and Lyra,” she sighed, ignoring Lyra’s indignant ‘hey!’ “I’ll see what is going on, and depending on the results, I’ll tell you what is happening,” Trade Wind sighed.
“I suppose that’s fair,” she sipped her tea and stiffened when the looks in their eyes changed.
“Now, about Garble,” oh shards.
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Twilight saw Spike looking around his new room with wide eyes and swallowed, trying not to let him see how upset she was.
She couldn’t blame him for alerting Zephyr and in turn Trade Wind, it did not occur to him that she would do what she did. Even going so far as to ignore Princess Celestia because she did not like the alicorn’s orders.
He never understood her stance on Trade Wind, no one did. 

Princess Celestia even refused her request to get rid of the arrangement, stating that she wanted Twilight to figure out how to get passed the pegasus’ ability to ‘cut’ through her magic. She even added that the reason she didn’t have Twilight in charge of the restoration was because of her lack of experience and that she did not want the unicorn overwhelmed with both her studies and her role as the town librarian.

Speaking of libraries, she did not even know it was possible to expand the tree till Princess Celestia used her magic to create an additional room for Spike along with a desk and bed. When she asked after the spell the Princess informed her that she would need to know every spell contained throughout the library in order to weave the necessary magic.

“I will also be splitting your account, one side meant for your studies and the other meant for the library itself.” the numbers were shown to her and Twilight winced, with these numbers it would be almost impossible to get the ingredients she needed for her experiments. 
And how was she going to get new books as well?
“Don’t I get a separate check from the mayor herself for maintaining the library and another one for my role as your student?” she asked, Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“Twilight, the payment for your role is included in that divide, and if you wish to raise money for the library there is a list of events you can do in the library’s archives. If you are worried about not having enough books for studying, you can always use your library card from Canterlot and have five books delivered,” “Only five?” she protested, going quiet at the quelling book, “Yes, only five. Also, if you wish to practice your magic in combat, you can always ask some of your friends, Rarity I understand is quite the duelist,” she left before Twilight could ask her anything.

The purple unicorn blinked, several times, Rarity, a duelist?
And why was the Princess so insistent on her doing combat? She didn’t need it for wielding the Element of Magic.
A thought came to mind of her wieldiing it against Trade Wind in a duel and she shook it off, no way, she wasn’t going to cheat.
She’ll figure out how the younger mare is cutting off her magic, she was bound to find it in one of Starswirl’s books. The Starswirl the Bearded Wing in Canterlot should have what she needed, and she would definitely win the next duel.