Celestia's Tiny Student

by CommanderX5

Bonus Ch - The Return of Fort Book

Twilight looked around the bedroom as her two guards settled into chairs for the evening, becoming as silent and obtrusive as statues, though one time, Overwatch had leaned in to whisper into Steel Blade’s ear, provoking a hilariously histrionic grimace out of his usually stoic composure. White Path’s bedroom was not nearly as big as Celestia’s, and although he did not have nearly as many books, it was quite neatly packed with such a huge variety of toys that her eyes sparkled with joy.

“So, what fun and cool stuff do you do at the castle?” asked White Path, hesitation and embarrassment in his voice. He had other little colts over to play before, but never a young mare, and the fact that the mare was far, far smaller than him did not make the situation any less awkward.

“Maybe we can read something together,” Twilight stated cheerfully, trying to break the awkwardness of the situation with the most exciting and fun activity she could imagine.

White Path did not share her enthusiasm, pausing to look at his collection of nearly untouched books. “Reading... I suppose, we could. But I was looking for what fun stuff you would like to do.”

After a short debate where Twilight had tried to convince the reluctant unicorn colt how exciting and fun reading was, she slowly came to the realization that not every pony shared her attitude towards books. However, an idea did come up that she had never tried back at the castle, and she decided it was worth a try.

“When I was a very little... I mean young filly, I tried to build a fort out of books. What would you think of that?”

White Path’s annoyed expression vanished as he smiled widely, diving for a well-worn box. “That’s a great idea! We can build forts and play a wargame! I’ve got some soldiers, and some catapults. We can wad up scrap paper for ammunition and I can show you the rules I worked out. It’s easy, but I never can get mom or dad to play.”

Twilight was a bit hesitant about the whole war game idea, but accepted nevertheless. With the similarly reluctant acceptance of the guards, and a sincere promise that they would not damage any of the books used, they began to pull books off the shelves. White Path was fascinated at Twilight’s ability to levitate even books many times her size and, after several false starts attempting to levitate the books himself, decided to ask outright. “How do you do that?”

“You mean levitation? It’s a basic spell for every unicorn,” Twilight answered as she rolled her eyes.

“I know, I know. But I can’t even levitate anything as heavy as me, and yet you just levitated all those books like it was nothing.”

Twilight sighed. She had gotten used to the new guards or servants asking over and over how she could levitate objects other unicorns could only dream to move with their magic. “It’s a long story. I will tell you all about it later if you want, but for now let’s just say that Princess Celestia would not take me as her personal student if my magic was not very strong.”

White Path was quite impressed, and despite the unusually small size of the young mare, the idea of playing with Princess Celestia’s personal student was thrilling. Every other filly or colt would love to be in his situation. “That’s so cooooool...”

Both Twilight and White Path busied themselves with their own book forts, drawing on a pile of around forty books in a heap between them. Twilight made good progress, a feat that would have been impossible without her powerful magic, although she was slowed by having to peek at the titles of each book that went into the construction project. Fortunately, she had read all the books so far, and her tiny size gave her a great advantage in precision placement of the walls, as she could put the massive slabs in place with near millimeter accuracy.

While Twilight levitated another book on the top of her fort, she noticed that White Path rarely used his magic, using his physical strength instead. It raised Twilight’s curiosity. “Excuse me, may I ask you a question?”

The young colt just looked back and smiled at the funny sight of the little unicorn looking out of a window in her book fort. “Shoot.”

“I noticed that you rarely use magic. Why?”

White Path patted his neck with his hoof several times while he thought. “I’m not sure. It’s not because my magic isn’t strong enough yet, it’s just easier to use hooves instead.”

Twilight thought deeply for a moment, while White Path watched her curiously. “Interesting. I’ve always relied on my magic to compensate for my small size since I became Princess Celestia student. I almost never use my strength at all. Maybe...” Twilight gave a determined look at a large book lying in the middle of the floor.

“Umm... What are you doing?” White Path asked curiously, caught off guard by the little unicorn marching across the floor in the direction of the large book. “That’s too heavy, you really shouldn’t...”

Twilight ignored his words as she shoved her head under the edge of the book, lifting it up as she crawled underneath it and standing up with a grunt.

White Path could not help but stare at Twilight in awe. “Wow... You are strong. Are you sure you’re not a super pony?”

Twilight tried to look up at the giant book she had now precariously balanced on her back, easily several times her own weight. There had to be more to her relative strength than the Square-Cube Law could adequately explain. Her additional lifting power was most probably due to the protection spell that Celestia had been casting on her every day.

Now that she thought about it, this kind of strength was, in all likelihood, completely necessary for her training under the Princess. Levitation was not a free lunch, after all; about four percent of the levitated weight became additional pressure on the unicorn casting the spell. In addition to the strain of casting, and with the weights she had been lifting—upwards to a hundred kilograms—Twilight had been experiencing forces of easily up to eight times her own weight.

By extension, that meant that if she wanted to improve her magic and levitation skills any further, she needed to be strong enough to withstand the strain, and that means a physical training regimen in addition to her magic sessions.

Slowly and with considerable care, Twilight managed to turn around and face White Path with the heavy book on her back. One cautious hoof in front of another, she walked up to the white colt, saying, “I’m starting to think I should not rely so much on my magic either. I’m going to need exercise too, if I’m going to be the kind of student Princess Celestia expects.”

As they continued to build their forts, Twilight began to use her magic to lift heavy books only when it was absolutely necessary. For the rest of the construction, she used her own strength, much like the little colt, who she glanced at frequently to study his technique. Being a unicorn left Twilight far weaker physically than any earth pony of the same size, but levitating heavy weights in the past along with her growing determination made Twilight both physically and mentally strong, and she would only get stronger the more she challenged herself.

Once both forts were ready and the little military toys were properly deployed, the combatants began their battle. Using magic to maneuver their respective forces around both forts, they fired paper ammunition in great barrages to provide cover for their feints and raids. White Path launched an aerial assault on Fort Book with his pegasi guards, but Twilight evacuated her soldiers into encyclopedic shelters, and moments later launched a counterattack from her unicorn forces hidden behind a wall of alphabet books. Tiny blobs of paper blasted into the air, peppering the wobbling pegasi and allowing her earth ponies to roll out a catapult so large it took two pages of paper to load. After a quick check of the rules White Path had shown her earlier, she fired, knocking a battlement of ‘Little Duckling’ books to the ground and scattering the forces who had taken refuge there. A momentary pause in the combat ensued as each side double checked their rules, marking the appropriate forces stunned, wounded, or almost-killed-but-not-really according to their posture on landing. Other little ponies might have cheated on those rules, tilting a soldier upright to show they had not actually been struck, but both little generals hewed to their morals with precise judgement, even though it cost White Path three more pegasi and a unicorn in losses than his honorable opponent.

The resulting war was relentless. Every time White Path marched his forces on Fort Book, Twilight’s brilliant strategy allowed her to counter each assault until the defeated warriors were forced to retreat. There may have been just the smallest of advantages to her defensive plans, due to a few well-timed “huh-uh” and “uh-huh” noises from her otherwise immobile and very attentive guards, but both little ponies were so tied up in their game they did not even notice the rapt attention of their audience.

Finally Twilight spotted a flaw in her opponent's defenses, bringing her reserves out from their concealment in a puppy book bunker to strike across the battlefield. Airborne and ground forces stormed the paper-littered grounds of White Path’s fortress, and soon he was forced to draw and raise a white flag over his conquered territory.

They played several more games that night after a drowsy Hot Tea dropped by to deliver a late-night snack and notification that Princess Celestia had approved an overnight stay, provided both of the little ponies were on their best behavior. Twilight was already making notes for her return the next day, planning out an exercise schedule and interview questions for the guards and servants on how she could repay the Princess for her generosity.

Furthermore, she made a commitment to train not only her magic in the future, but her own relatively minor physical strength. While she would never be a strong as an earth pony, she would at least be in good shape and not so defenseless even if her magic should fail.

As a symbol of her new commitment, she spent the night sleeping on a cushion in Fort Book. In some way, she was no longer just a defenseless filly, but a warrior of very small size. But even warriors were never too old to play with a fellow pony.