Magic Tutor

by RainbowDoubleDash


3. Repeated Mistakes

The foals piled into the Residency, and Trixie directed them to go into her living room and make themselves comfortable. Once they were all out of sight, she stepped out of her home and up to Raindrops. “What is going on?” she demanded in a low voice as she closed the door behind her.

“I don’t know!” Raindrops responded, throwing her hooves wide. “One moment it was me and Snails trotting down here with Dinky, and Dinky didn’t know Snails was coming so I was explaining what was going on…then just when we reached the gate, Scootaloo appeared out of nowhere with all those foals in her scooter’s wagon!”

Trixie turned to glare at Scootaloo. The orange filly looked back confusedly for a moment, before realizing that Trixie didn’t precisely look happy, and her filly survival instincts kicked in. “Oh…um…” she said, glancing around a few moments before her ears and wings perked. “I’m, uh, supposed to be...grounded right now! Right! So I can’t be here! I’ll get in trouble! Bye!”

“Wait!” Trixie cried out, but it was too late. Wings buzzing, the orange filly shot off at full speed, leaving a dust cloud behind her. She had moved too quickly for Trixie to even consider using telekinesis or some other magic trick to stop her.

Raindrops raised an eyebrow. “Look, I guess there was some confusion or something,” she said. “Snails probably told a bunch of foals at school, and they wanted to come over and learn magic with him and Dinky. But what’s the big deal? I thought you liked foals.”

Trixie turned to Raindrops, one eye twitching slightly. “There is a huge difference between liking foals, and wanting to be stuck with a herd of them for a few hours!” Trixie shook her head. “This isn’t like some magic show, they’ll be expecting me to show them spells, teach them stuff…I don’t even know who half of them are!” She looked back to Raindrops, eyes wide. “You have to stay.”

“Huh?” Raindrops asked, whickering and wings flaring. “Trixie, I can’t.”

“Sure you can!”

“I have an evening shift today,” Raindrops said, waving a hoof up at the sky. “I can’t stay, Trixie, I’m sorry.”

“B-but…” Trixie tried, as Raindrops turned around. “But…what am I gonna do?”

Raindrops stopped her trot away, looking over her shoulder. “Well, if you really think you can’t handle it,” she said, “you should let the foals know that there’s been a misunderstanding, and send all but Snails and Dinky on their way. We don’t want this to turn into another Oaton, do we?”

Trixie blanched, once again making cutting motions with her hooves. “Totally different!” She insisted.

“Hopefully,” Raindrops responded, before turning again and heading off towards the weather station.

Trixie watched her go for a few moments, then glanced down, at her own hooves. Raindrops wasn’t the most verbose of ponies, but she sure had a way of packing a lot of meaning into single-word statements. After a few moments, Trixie looked back up, and grit her teeth. “She’s right,” she said to nopony in particular, turning back towards her door and trotting towards it determinedly. “She’s right. Je déteste. But I gotta tell the truth. I have to, I have to, I…”

Trixie opened her door, and found herself staring at a small, gray unicorn filly with a blonde mane – Dinky. Dinky was looking at her confusedly. Trixie stared back for a few moments. “H-hi, kiddo,” Trixie said, before stepping into her home. “Is…is everything okay?”

Dinky considered, sitting back on her haunches and tapping her front hooves together. “I…I thought I was your magician’s assistant, Miss Trixie,” she said simply, glancing up at Trixie, voice full of worry.

Was there anypony in the world as good at the puppy-dog stare as Dinky Doo? Trixie sighed, mussing Dinky’s mane with one hoof and briefly pondering what would happen to the world if Dinky ever learned to consciously invoke that look. “You are, I promise,” she said, leaning down to look Dinky in the eye. “And my friend. But Snails is my friend too. He doesn’t use enough magic so it’s been giving him problems. So I was hoping that you and me could help him learn to use his magic better.”

Dinky nodded. “What about everypony else?” she asked. “Sweetie Belle and Firelock and Tootsie…”

Trixie shook her head. “I don’t know. I think there’s been some misunderstanding.” Trixie stood up and smiled. “But! We’re going to go in there and clear things up. Okay?”

Dinky brightened up right there, nodding again and smiling. Trixie kept an eye on her as the two trotted towards the living room, where they could hear the six other foals talking to each other. Huh, she’s a little jealous, Trixie thought of Dinky, and couldn’t help but smile. Never thought Dinky had any flaws…wait, did she pick that up from me? Ditzy said that Dinky’s becoming a little more sarcastic ever since I started helping her…

Trixie entered the living room with the worry that she was corrupting the youth of Ponyville occupying most of her thoughts. She found the six ponies on or around her couches. Snails and Snips were sitting on the couch itself, talking to each other; Tootsie and the white-coated unicorn were on the floor, meanwhile, singing a song and clapping each other’s hooves. The winged unicorn was on the couch as well, though at the other end from Snips and Snails, and she was keeping an eye on the orange filly with the pale red mane. Said filly was next to Trixie’s wall, of all places, looking up at one of the gas lights.

No, not the light itself, Trixie realized…just the flame inside of it. She was staring at the fire. There was a faint smile on her lips, and her front hooves were gently tapping against each other. She was either lost in thought, or lost without thought, completely transfixed by the flame…

“Um,” Trixie said.

Surprisingly, that got everypony’s attention. Tootsie and her friend ended their game, Snips and Snails ended their conversations, and all six foals turned to look at Trixie as Dinky trotted out and amongst them. They were all staring at her, waiting, expecting her to show them how to perform amazing feats of magic, how to craft faultless figments, how to create things out of thin air, how to…

Trixie shook her head. No, that was a trap. She wasn’t going to fall into it. “O-okay,” she said, making a cutting motion with her hoof. “Okay, um…this is a little unexpected. I only thought Snails and Dinky were going to be here.”

The white-coated filly smiled broadly at that. “But you’re gonna be teaching us magic now, right?” she asked. “’Cause your special talent is teaching foals magic! Snails said so.”

Trixie stiffened a little, looking at Snails. “That is not my special talent,” she objected.

Snails thought. “Oh yeah…” he said after a moment. “It’s, um…doing magic for others. Right.”

“Same thing, really!” Tootsie Flute said. “Because to teach us magic you’ll have to do magic to show it to us.”

Trixie rubbed a hoof against the back of her neck. Tootsie technically had a point; indeed, that was the very reasoning she had given Pokey Pierce just a few minutes ago. “O-okay,” she said. “That is true…but I was really only expecting Dinky and Snails. Like, I only invited Dinky and Snails.”

The foals, save, Dinky, blinked a few times. At length, the white one turned to Snips. “Told you!” she exclaimed.

“That’s not very fair, though!” The orange filly insisted. “How come you’re gonna show them and not us? That’s like…that’s like if Miss Cheerilee was only gonna teach one of us math, but then give us all the same math test!”

“I’m not giving anypony a test, though,” Trixie pointed out. She took in a deep breath, and held up a hoof. “I’m sorry. Dinky’s my magician’s assistant, she helps me out with magic shows, and so of course I’m going to show her magic. And I’m helping Snails because he’s not doing enough magic, and it’s giving him headaches and insomnia.”

“Huh?” Snails asked.

“You can’t get to sleep.”

“Oh.”

Trixie closed her eyes, nodding. Good, the situation seemed to be under control. “It’s just that this is very short notice,” she said. “I was only expecting two foals. I’m really very glad and very honored that you all thought that I could show you all magic, but I don’t think – ”

Trixie opened her eyes, and saw five foals all on the verge of tears – lips quavering, breaths hitching, eyes wide and watery. “B-but…” the white filly said, “but my sister Rarity…sh-she was so much better with magic a-at my age…”

“A-and my momma doesn’t have enough time to t-teach me everything…” the winged one said, looking down at her hooves, wings clinging tightly to her sides, “a-and papa can’t help…”

“And I just wanna…just wanna hang out with my friend…” Snips insisted.

“A-and…a-and…”

Trixie’s mouth opened and closed a few times. She glanced at Snails, who had a comforting hoof on Snips’ withers. Dinky, meanwhile, was looking between all the foals, visibly torn between worry that she was going to be replaced, and worry that her friends would be disappointed. She looked to Trixie helplessly. Trixie shrugged her shoulders, covered her eyes with a hoof, and let out a sigh. “But I don’t think it could be permanent,” she said.

The foals all quieted a little, and Trixie looked back to them. “I could help you all a little,” she said. “Just for today. Okay?”

Yay!

The switch in demeanors was neck-breaking in its rapidity, as six sets of hooves were thrown to the sky in joy, tears disappearing instantly. Trixie blinked a few times. Had she just been played? Had these foals just played her? There was no way that was possible, they were too young to know how to do that…right?

Trixie shook her head. “Okay,” she said. “Well…let’s start with the basics – ”

“Levitation?” The white one asked.

“Conjuring?” Snips put in.

Ignition?” The orange one said with a beaming smile.

“Names,” Trixie clarified, as she trotted into her living room and sat down amongst the foals. “I know some of you already, but some of you I don’t. So let’s…let’s go around in a circle, and you can introduce yourselves to me, tell me a little about yourselves.” Trixie nodded, smiling. Just like what she had done with Cheerilee and everypony else back during the Longest Night. The foals obediently formed a semi-circle in front of Trixie. She pointed to the one at the furthest end, the one with wings. “So…let’s start with you.” She smiled. “You look like a princess.”

The reaction to that was somewhat unexpected. The foal started, wings flaring slightly. She sniffed as her eyes began to water. “I-I’m…I’m n-not a princess,” she said softly, looking away from Trixie.

Trixie blinked a few times, rubbing the back of her neck. This was not a good start. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Just, um…okay. What’s your name, then?”

The foal sniffed again, rubbing her eyes a moment before answering. “Alula.”

Trixie nodded, leaning a little to look at her side. “No cutie mark yet…what do you think your special talent will be?”

“Pottery,” Alula answered without hesitation, and brightening a little. “I don’t know why I haven’t gotten my cutie mark yet. I know my special talent already…”

Trixie smiled a little, touching a hoof to her chest. “Well, it might be something else,” Trixie said. “Or there might be some special quality about pottery you haven’t discovered yet. Like my special talent. I knew from the day I was born that it was gonna be magic, just like my Grandpapa. But it wasn’t until I realized that it wasn’t just doing magic, but doing magic in a way that made an impact on the lives of ponies in some way, that I earned my cutie mark.”

“Can we hear your cutie mark story?” Snips asked. “I bet it’s awesome!”

Trixie certainly thought it was, in its own way, but she was also pretty sure that it wasn’t the sort of thing she should be telling little foals. “Maybe some other time,” she said, looking to the white filly next to Alula. “Okay, you said you were Rarity’s little sister?”

The filly nodded. “Sweetie Belle!” she identified herself. “I don’t know what my special talent is gonna be. Me and Scootaloo try to earn ours all the time, but nothing ever seems to stick.”

“Well, it will eventually, don’t worry,” Trixie said with a nod, then looked to the next filly expectantly.

“Tootsie Flute,” the filly said. “I dunno what my special talent is gonna be, either.”

“Truffle Shuffle,” Snips said with a laugh. Tootsie started, then blushed as she looked away, but also smiled a little.

Trixie also smiled at that. She knew Truffle Shuffle, or at least knew of him. “Does somepony here have a crush?” she asked, leaning in a little.

“M-maybe…” Tootsie said, rubbing one hoof against the opposite leg.

“Not denying it?” Trixie asked with surprise. “That’s actually pretty mature for a filly your age. Does Truffle Shuffle know?”

Tootsie shook her head. “I’m, um…I was planning on waiting…for Hearts & Hooves day.”

Trixie tsked. Sure, she had issues when it came to…intimacy…but sweet, innocent little schoolyard crushes? Hardly. She had been raised in Neigh Orleans, after all. “Might not want to wait. Il n’est rien de réel que le rêve et l’amour.”

The foals all looked at her strangely. Trixie rolled her eyes. “Zut alors…” she sighed, looking to the next pony in line. “And you are?”

The filly smiled. “Firelock,” she said. “And my special talent is fire.”

Trixie blinked, glancing at the pony’s side. Her flank was bare. “You sure?” she asked. “It might be something else…”

Firelock shook her head. “Well, I mean, like you said, it might be something specific,” she said. “Like it could be pyrotechnics, or firefighting, or fire science, or…”

“Um,” Trixie said.

“…volcano inspector, or fire magic, or smoke jumping, or…”

“Uh,” Trixie added.

“…phoenix breeder, or fire eating, or fire wrangling, or…”

“Okay,” Trixie interrupted. “Firelock, is it? Yes. Very good.” She looked to the remaining ponies, though she kept an eye on Firelock. “Okay…Snips? Your special talent is mane-grooming, right?”

Snips nodded. He was one of the only two ponies in the room, besides his friend Snails, that had actually earned his cutie mark already. “Miss Rarity even said that I was good enough to do her own mane! Though she wouldn’t let me actually do it when I offered. But my dad lets me help out in his barber shop! I can do tails and beards, too.”

Given how his own mane looked, Trixie wasn’t very surprised that Rarity didn’t allow Snips to touch her mane; Trixie could only assume that just because one had a special talent for cutting and styling manes, it didn’t necessarily mean that one’s own personal style choices were going to be typical. She turned her attention to Snails. “And Snails, of course. Your special talent is…creepy crawlies…”

Snails laughed a little, glancing at his own cutie mark of a snail. “I like animals,” he said. “But especially invertebrates. They don’t get nearly enough attention in Equestria!”

“’Cause they’re gross,” Sweetie noted, sticking her tongue out a little.

“So? So are dogs,” Snails noted.

“They are not!”

“Are too! They drool, don’t they?”

Sweetie Belle didn’t respond to that. Trixie supposed that Snails had a point, and of course, a special talent of dealing with bugs and snails and worms and other such animals was actually invaluable in a farming community like Ponyville. Whatever Trixie’s own aversion to “creepy crawlies,” Snails would find no shortage of friends as he learned more about his special talent.

Trixie looked to the last foal. “And Dinky Doo,” she said. “You know everypony here already, right?”

Dinky nodded. “And I don’t know what my special talent is gonna be,” she said, glancing at her flank, “but that’s okay. ‘Cause as long as I don’t have my cutie mark, it could be anything! I’m full of potential.”

Trixie nodded. “Okay, then,” she said, looking at Dinky. “Now, Dinky, you’ve been here the longest. For today, instead of my magician’s assistant, you’ll be my teacher’s assistant.”

Dinky brightened a little at the responsibility. “What do I do?” she asked.

Trixie thought a moment. “Go to the basement and grab some of the golf balls I use for tricks. As many as you can carry.” Dinky nodded, dashing off. Trixie, meanwhile, stood and held a hoof out to her side. “And as long as I’m teaching magic, I’ll need my magic hat!” Her horn glowed, and with a blue flash and pop, her hat appeared in her hoof. She put it on as stylishly as she could.

The foals applauded lightly, and Trixie smiled. “To begin,” she said, casting her magic sight spell, “we’ll need to see where all of you are with your magic. Can all of you make your horns glow?”

There were nods, followed by each of the six foals lighting up their horns. Some of them accomplished this easily enough – the pale lavender glow of Tootsie seemed the strongest, though Firelock’s own red effervescence wasn’t far behind. Snails’ green-gold and Sweetie’s lime green magic were the weakest, meanwhile. The remaining two foals – Alula with purple magic, and Snips with orange – seemed to be roughly in between the two. More importantly, through her magic sight, Trixie saw that Snails, and to a lesser extent Sweetie, were both under-channeling, while the remaining four seemed to be channeling just the right amount of magic.

Trixie tapped a hoof to her mouth as she regarded Tootsie Flute in particular. Magic flowed from her inner reserves and through her horn with very little effort; even Dinky, after months of practice with Trixie, wasn’t quite at the same level, though she was pretty certain that Dinky had a larger inner reserve to draw from. “Tootsie, your magic seems to be pretty good already,” she noted as she cancelled her magic sight.

Tootsie nodded, though she shifted nervously. “My momma and papa have been teaching me. They’re both unicorns. They say it’s cause I come from a good – ”

“I’m back!” Dinky’s voice interrupted. Trixie glanced and saw the filly coming with the small bag that Trixie kept multicolored golf balls in. She was balancing it on her back, using her lavender telekinesis – a few shades darker than Tootsie’s – to balance it there. It didn’t look it, but it was actually more complicated a task than simply carrying the bag telekinetically. Was Dinky showing off?

I really hope I’m not corrupting the youth of Ponyville, Trixie mused. Trixie took the bag from Dinky, and hoofed out three balls to each foal, resuming her magic sight. “Okay,” Trixie said. “Everypony levitate just one ball.”

Each foal was capable of it, but Sweetie and Snails both visibly struggled. Trixie considered. “Okay, Sweetie, Snails, take a break. Everypony else, try picking up two at the same time, in two different grips.”

Sweetie and Snails both looked dejected at being told to sit out picking up two balls, but Trixie made sure to give them a reassuring smile. The remaining ponies managed two, but Alula dropped hers after a few moments, and Firelock not long after. Trixie looked between Dinky and Tootsie. “Okay, now each of you try for three,” she said.

Tootsie and Dinky both managed to pick up their three balls without a problem. “I could lift a whole lot more,” Tootsie noted.

“So could I!” Dinky insisted.

Tootsie grinned, standing, though only to drop into a challenging stoop. “You’re on!” she proclaimed, horn flaring slightly. Dinky met the grin eagerly, not standing but instead closing her eyes and spreading her front hooves wide. Snips’ and Snails’ golf balls were lifted in her aura, while Tootsie grabbed Alula’s and Firelock’s. Dinky took one from Sweetie’s pile, Tootsie another…and that’s when the problems began.

A pale lavender aura started to close on the remaining ball, but a darker lavender aura tried for it as well. Dinky opened an eye, looking at Tootsie, who looked back. Caught between two auras trying to pull it in opposite directions, the ball began to shudder. Sweetie backed away from it nervously.

Trixie glanced between them, raising a hoof. “Um,” she said, stepping forward. “That’s enough, girls. You two are the furthest along with telekinesis.”

“Yeah, but I could hold way more,” Tootsie proclaimed.

“I could too!” Dinky said. “If Tootsie would just let me…”

“If you’d just let me…”

Neither of them released their hold on the remaining golf ball. Trixie glanced between the two. Both were actually beginning to sweat a little, and their breathing was coming faster. “Actually, I’m pretty sure both of you are pretty close to your limits,” she said. “It’s okay, you’re only foals – ”

“Nuh-uh, I’m not at my limit!”

“I’m not either!” Dinky said.

The other foals had backed away a few paces. “Um,” Trixie said. “Look, why don’t you just put down the golf balls so we can move on…and let go of that one…”

Tootsie and Dinky glanced at Trixie, then back to each other. Every ball they had was lowered to the ground – but they continued their struggle over the remaining one. “I want to hold onto it!” Tootsie said.

“Miss Trixie said to let go!”

“I will if you do!”

“I’m her assistant, I’ll have to clean up the golf balls for her after we’re done anyway – ”

Compressed as it was between two young unicorn fillies, there was only two things that could have happened to the golf ball eventually. The first was that it would be crushed between their two telekinetic auras, reduced to powder. However, neither filly was quite strong enough to manage that under normal circumstances.

The second thing that could have happened was, held as it was in the imperfect auras of little foals, the two were not applying pressure equally across the entire surface of the ball. For a brief moment they both applied pressure equally on one side, while their grip on the other was just a little too loose…and the ball suddenly shot out of their auras.

Time seemed to slow for Trixie as the ball flew, and she tracked it. It first hit a wall and bounced off, leaving a dent. Next, it collided with the edge of a bookcase. This sent it rocketing towards the ground, where it bounced, and proceeded to head straight for Trixie’s head. In her slowed perception of time, what Trixie wanted to do was catch the ball telekinetically, put it away, and then lay down a little bit of law on Dinky and Tootsie over doing what she told them to do, when she told them to do it.

What actually happened was the ball smacked her right between the eyes. Her world was stars and pain and golf balls as she stumbled a little, then tumbled over.

Fore…

---

The world was a bright blue, slightly cloudy sky and a field of green as Vicereine Trixie Lulamoon, dressed in her finest Sunday getup, trotted through the golf course with her faithful caddy, Solrath the Dragon.

“The nine-iron, I think,” Trixie said as she set down her golf ball on the tee. Solrath obediently got her nine-iron and proceeded to hit the ball for her, sending it bouncing off a nearby tree and into Trixie’s head.

“Very good, Mr. Scary Dragon,” Trixie said from the ground as the tree loomed over her and the Moon looked down while the day turned to night and the stars into sunflowers. “Hole in one.”

“Very good, your excellency,” Solrath said, though as it turned out, he didn’t really exist. Where he had been standing, there was now a picture of a nine-iron. “Looks like it might rain, your excellency,” the picture said.

“Quite,” Trixie observed as the flood waters rose. She clung to her golf bag for life, but a shark grabbed her from beneath and started shaking her back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and –

---

The world slowly faded back into reality as Trixie realized she was being shaken awake.

“Miss Trixie! Wake up!” Dinky was exclaiming. She and Tootsie were on either side of her, shaking the larger pony trying to wake her up, while the other foals watched. Maybe. Trixie couldn’t seem to get a good look at them; her eyes were spinning a bit.

“I – I’m awake! I’m awake!” Trixie proclaimed. “I’m awake! I’m awake. Yes. Ow.”

Dinky and Tootsie stopped shaking Trixie, looking at her with deep concern. “Are you okay?” Dinky asked.

“We didn’t mean to!” Tootsie added. “Honest!”

“We’re sorry for fighting!”

“We’re sorry for not doing what we were told!”

“We’re sorry for nearly killing you!”

Trixie heard about half of that as she closed her eyes and put her hooves to her head, trying to get the world to stop spinning. You can walk straight after Oncle Sky Shaper’s moonshine, you can recover from this, she insisted over the pounding in her head. “Okay, okay!” Trixie said, raising a hoof and waving it at the two. “It – ow, la batterie, arrêtez de jouer de la batterie – it’s okay. It was an accident.” She rubbed her head, then looked at her hoof. She didn’t see any red. That was probably good.

“Okay,” Trixie said, standing. She wobbled a few times, but was otherwise okay, as she looked to the foals. “Okay, um…so that happened. Dinky, Tootsie, don’t fight. Let’s just move on – wait. Wait.” She counted the foals, then counted again to be sure. “There were seven of you, right? Where did – um…the one with the wings…”

“Alula,” Snails provided.

“Yeah, her. Where did Alula and Firelot – ”

“Firelock,” Sweetie corrected, as she pointed to the living room’s door. “They went looking for a first-aid kit. Dinky said there was one in the basement.”

Trixie nodded. She was normally better with names, too. She decided to blame the blunt force trauma, and an icepack sounded good right about now. “Okay. Once they get back, we can – ”

Oh, hey, cool! Fireworks!” A voice called. It came from outside the living room, down the hall, and from the basement, which was accessible from Trixie’s kitchen. It sounded like Firelock’s voice.

Trixie took her hoof from her head. She remembered what Firelock wanted her special talent to be. She remembered seeing Firelock staring, lost without thought, at a simple gaslight flame. And, she remembered that she had just purchased a new crate of fireworks, for the show she hoped to put on for the Ingathering in a few months.

The crate that was stored in her basement.