//------------------------------//
// First Lesson 
// Story: Midnight's Nightmare 
// by G33kySt3v3 
//------------------------------//

Twilight Sparkle walked calmly towards her destination, thinking about the oddity of her impulsively taking such a young student so soon. It was not like Twilight to make such decisions, and she was unsure if it was just because she had found a member of the Lulamoon family, or the filly had gained her attention some other way. Whatever the reason, she now had a student, and she was not going to waste the opportunity. Soon she found herself in front of her new student’s room and after greeting the guard with a few clicks and chirps that had taken her years to master with vocal chords not meant to make those noises, she entered Trixie’s room.

Inside Twilight found essentially the same thing she had left when she made the room all those years ago to house the student she knew she would one day take. But the decor of the room wasn’t the reason she was here, so she quickly moved to the bed and tapped the filly Trixie on the shoulder to get her attention as Twilight spoke the filly’s name. “Trixie Lulamoon, it is time to awaken so we may begin your lessons.”

Unfortunately, the filly did not seem as enthusiastic as Twilight would have been to hear such words at that age. Beatrix only turned over in her sleep and mumbled something about “five more minutes.” before pulling the covers over her head to try and block the light Twilight was emitting from her horn.

Twilight, however, only rolled her eyes and lowered her horn closer to the filly’s head and gave it a gentle tap. A quick spell later and suddenly Trixie was wide awake and breathing heavily, having just experienced quite the scare in the dreamworld to get her up. “Ah, good, you are awake my student. It is time to begin your lessons. If you have any morning rituals you would like to take care of, please do so quickly, I will wait for you near the door if you do.

Beatrix quickly located the adjoining bathroom to her new bedchambers and went about some simple tasks to keep up her hygiene and then left the bathroom to join her new teacher. “Trixie is ready for her lesson now Twilight, what amazing powers of the cosmos shall you teach Trixie to wield tonight?”

That got Twilight to flash a wry smile as she lit up her horn and teleported the both of them outside. Luckily for Beatrix, it was no longer her first time teleporting, and she had yet to have breakfast, so there was nothing in her stomach to empty out this time even if she had needed to. “While I appreciate the eagerness to learn, my student, overconfidence will only burn you in the future. Tonight I will find out what you know about the arcane arts so I may know where to start with your teachings. So, please, Trixie Lulamoon, tell me what you know of magic.”

Beatrix thought for a moment, and eventually brought forth the hat that still adorned her head so that she could show off the pocket dimension she had learned how to create. Unfortunately, Twilight did not seem at all impressed by Beatrix’s display, and quickly held up a hoof to forestall further displays of Beatrix’s prowess. 

“I see that you did not understand what I meant, Trixie. I intended to find out what you knew of the origin of your own powers, but it seems I will have to explain it to you. Magic is performed when someone draws mana from somewhere to do something, usually casting a spell. Most mana is drawn from the land, but almost everything has mana inside it, so really it can be drawn from just about anywhere. Usually a pony aligns themselves with the different types of mana that exist, allowing them to gain mastery over the things that mana can do. These different types of mana align with the Elements of Harmony, which are Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, and Kindness. You can align yourself with one of these, multiple of these, or even none of these, though when you are able to align yourself with all five you become aligned with the sixth element, Magic itself.”

Beatrix was stunned for a moment as she tried to take in all this new information. She seriously had never heard any of this before. All she knew was that if she thought hard enough about something and pushed magic to her horn, sometimes she was able to get things to happen. She decided to ask the most pressing questions she had after such an information dump. “What kind of mana do you think Trixie is aligned with then?”

“It is hard to say for sure with you at such a young age, but if I had to guess, your current goal of becoming a stage performer would cause you to become aligned with Laughter so that the magic you perform will come easily to you and entertain your audiences.”

“What kind of mana has Trixie already used to perform her tricks?”

“I have not seen all your tricks yet, but the pocket dimension you showed me is a form of mana that is unaligned, as it has no basis in the Elements of Harmony.”

“What kind of mana are you aligned with?”

That got Twilight to smirk again, “I told you before that I was the Alicorn of Magic, that was not a bluff. Aligning myself with any one type of mana did not agree with me even when I was your age, as such I saw fit to align myself with all of them and become aligned with Magic itself.”

“Do you think Trixie can accomplish that?”

“I cannot say for sure, and as it is not necessary for my plans for you, I will not be pushing you explicitly towards that goal, but I certainly will not try to dissuade you from pursuing that path.”

“What would Trixie have to do to become aligned with Magic?”

Twilight smirked again, quickly making itself a facial expression Beatrix was worried to see. “For now, you listen to what I have to say, so that your understanding of the arcane grows enough to figure it out for yourself.”

Beatrix slumped over and groaned at that, but quickly glanced back up to try and give her best attentive look to her teacher. She really wanted to learn how to do any of the cool things she’d seen Twilight do.

Twilight smiled sympathetically at that, and quickly began another lecture, something that seemed quite natural for the mare. “First of all, I said the main thing mana is used for is to cast spells, let’s go over what I meant by that, as there are different types of spells. The easiest to understand are those under the school of sorcery, when you use one of these spells, you call it into action, it does its effect, and then any trace of it goes away after the effect finishes. Things like my teleportation fall under this category. Next is the enchantment of places. Oftentimes we want a spell to keep its effect up after we cast it, to achieve this effect we usually place it on an area so that anyone nearby will experience the effects we desire. These can be helpful or harmful, depending on what we want to achieve, my castle for example has quite a powerful enchantment placed on it to instill a sense of fear in anyone I did not invite into it.”

“Trixie thinks she’s heard of enchantments before, isn’t the spell placed on her hat one of those?”

Twilight seemed genuinely excited to answer the question, like teaching was really what she wanted out of life, and not the domination of the most powerful country in the world. “An excellent question my student, but your hat actually falls under the category of artifact creation. This is achieved in a similar fashion to enchanting, but to create an artifact you cast a spell to be activated whenever you wish on an object, instead of on a place to be felt by those in its radius. Oftentimes we achieve this reactivation by pouring a certain amount of mana into the artifact again, but sometimes we just need to manipulate the object in some way, like pressing a button. Otherwise we can also set a timer so that the object casts the spell automatically whenever a certain amount of time has passed. Your hat falls into the first category, since to place an object in, or draw one out, you need to use a small amount of mana to achieve the effect.”

“Trixie thinks she understands, are there any other types of spells she needs to know about?”

“Yes actually, the final type of spells are those of summoning. Spellcasters often can not do everything on their own, so they’ll call upon allies to help them with whatever they’re trying to achieve. Usually these creatures become quite disoriented when called upon, so you’ll need to give them time after summoning them before you’re able to ask them to do things for you.”

“After being teleported twice without being ready for it, Trixie thinks she understands the sentiment.”

That actually pulled a girlish little giggle out of the alicorn, which seemed quite out of place coming from the ancient and mysterious alicorn. “Yes, I suppose you would, sorry about this morning by the way, I was just eager to get sleep, since I was excited to teach you tonight. Now, if you would like to continue what you started earlier, I’d like to see what type of magic you can perform already.”

There was no need to ask Beatrix twice, no matter who or what stood before her, the stage called, and she would not deny it. “Stand back and be amazed! As the Great and Powerful Trixie performs feats of magic greater than any witnessed by pony eyes!” She announced as she got onto her hind hooves and threw her forehooves over her in a grand gesture. But as she prepared to cast the spell to conjure fireworks she normally would at this point, something unexpected happened. A wave of rainbow light washed over the sky and passed the two ponies, and soon a sonic boom followed it, startling Beatrix.

The fireworks Beatrix had meant to cast quickly became a much larger issue than they ever would be, as they flew out of control, and detonated in much larger and dangerous explosions than they ever would. Soon Beatrix was faced with terrifying flashes of light rushing straight towards her, and she would have nothing to blame but her own spell work for the burns she was sure to receive from such explosions. But just as suddenly as everything seemed to be going wrong, large lavender wings enveloped her and kept her safe, which also had the added side-effect of canceling any more of the dangerous fireworks from being fired off.

Eventually, after the worst of the runaways spells had been cleared up, the wings encircling Beatrix drew away, and allowed her to see that even her teacher was unharmed by the explosions. “Trixie is so sorry!” She exclaimed immediately, hoping that her teacher would not dismiss her on her first day for the shoddy display of control. “Trixie was distracted by that rainbow light and lost control of her magic, please don’t send her away!”

A forehoof came up to forestall Beatrix’s worried ramblings. “It is alright Trixie, something similar actually happened to me the first time I tried to perform magic in front of others, though, the cause of my outburst was admittedly much less impressive. I am not mad, and am just glad I was able to keep you safe in time, you are alright yes?”

Beatrix just nodded, before overcoming her instinctual apprehension with the alicorn before her, and jumping at her chest in a hug. “Thank you so much Twilight, no one has ever cared enough about Trixie before to stop her from getting hurt, and now you’ve done it twice in just as many times as prolonged conversation with Trixie!”

Twilight was surprised at first by the contact, not used to being so close to anyone but Chrysalis in many centuries, but quickly allowed a hoof to come to rest on the filly’s back. “It’s alright Trixie, as long as you are my student, I will not allow you to come to harm that I do not deem necessary for your training, or that I can easily protect you from. Though, I think you may want to look at what your out of control magic has caused.”

Beatrix glanced up, and quickly backed up from the alicorn again, now realizing what she had done, then glanced around. A cursory glance around the clearing revealed nothing, and even scrutinizing the surrounding area more closely just revealed the same rocky area that had been there when they first arrived. “Trixie does not get it, what did you want Trixie to see?” Instead of a verbal response, Twilight just pointed at the filly’s flank. “Huh, you want Trixie to look at her own backside? Fine, but Trixie does not see what this will accomp- ” Beatrix suddenly no longer wanted to speak, as there adorning her flanks was her own cutie mark.

In the background of the image now adorning Beatrix’s flank was a sweep of blue in the shape of a crescent, like a wave a magic being flung from the object in the foreground. Which happened to be a wand with a shape that Beatrix had only learned the name for earlier today topping it. Right there on her flank was a 5-pointed star proudly proclaiming that whatever her destiny was, it was tied to the alicorn who was now her teacher.

“Congratulations my student, but before you explode with excitement over your achievement, would you sit with me in silence while the sun sets?” Beatrix admittedly did not want to acquiesce to that request, but nodded reluctantly anyway as she took a seat at the alicorn’s side.

Finally, the sun sank below the horizon, and the moon began to come up to replace it. Then, Twilight’s horn began to glow for a purpose unknown to Beatrix. Beatrix opened her mouth to question the alicorn, but that was when Twilight spoke. “I know you must have even more questions than when we started my student, but first, look up and tell me what you see?”

Beatrix was confused by the request, but acquiesced to it nonetheless, and when she glanced up she couldn’t help but lose her breath again for the third time that morning. The sky was beautiful! There were so many bright lights to fill up the usually daunting darkness of the night. Everywhere Beatrix looked something just seemed to grab her attention more and more, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Finally, a chuckle brought Beatrix’s eyes back down to her teacher, where she found Twilight’s eyes filled with mirth at Beatrix’s reaction to seeing the stars for the first time. “Those are the stars? Ponies all those centuries ago must have really been idiots to cause you to hide such beauty away from them!”

That got Twilight to adopt a more somber expression, undoubtedly thinking of events long passed. “For now Trixie Lulamoon, you do not even know the half of it. But dwelling on the past is not why I showed you the stars. For now, I just wanted to show you what your new mark came from, because you’re likely the first pony in a millennium to gain a cutie mark with a star on it. I also am aware that you probably have many things on your mind at the moment, but right now I need to investigate the cause of that rainbow light. It could be important that you gained your cutie mark after it passed over us.”

“You’re leaving Trixie already? But Trixie didn’t even get to learn any new magic!”

Twilight sighed then, but did not relent in her decision to leave. “Yes, I know, and I’m sorry we must part ways this early. For now, I have some reading that I would like you to get through in your room which you will find on your bed. You are also welcome to tour the castle while I am unavailable, anywhere you are not currently allowed to be, a changeling guard will prevent you from going. If you need any help getting around, ask one of the guards to summon Spike, I’m sure he would be willing to help out if he’s around like I asked him to be.”

“Spike? Didn’t you say that was your dragon half-brother or something? How can he even move around the castle?”

Twilight chuckled again, almost in a condescending manner. “Oh, not all dragon species grow to the size you’re probably thinking of. Though, even if he did grow to that size, we would have found a way to stay under the same roof, we’ve been through too much together to allow any other option. Goodbye for now Trixie Lulamoon.” And with that Trixie found herself back in her room in the castle, though, she felt like she might finally be getting the hang of this teleporting thing. Then she collapsed to the floor and almost passed out… Okay, maybe she still needed some time for that one.