//------------------------------// // 4. Fire! // Story: Magic Tutor // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// Within a second, Trixie, galloping as fast as her hooves could take her, was out of her living room and in her main hallway. Half a second after that, she was in her kitchen. It took several more seconds for her to negotiate the unfortunately steep stairs that lead down into her basement. She was nevertheless standing before Alula and Firelock, eyes wide, horn glowing bright, and trying to remember if the lone shield spell she knew was fireproof. She found Alula with a first-aid kit held in her mouth, staring at her with wide eyes at the speed with which she had barreled down the stairs. Firelock, meanwhile, was sitting in front the crate of fireworks, the instructions and warning manual that had come with it in her hooves, reading everything contained therein by horn-light that would occasionally loose a tiny spark that Trixie desperately hoped was just spare magic, and not an actual ember. She was not comforted by the fact that Firelock seemed to be trembling slightly. “Hhhhhiiii girls,” Trixie breathed, trotting forward carefully and making sure to keep one eye on Firelock as she did. “Um…Alula, thanks for getting the first-aid kit, why don’t you take it upstairs? Firelock – ” “Blitz Bang’s Boomers?” Firelock exclaimed suddenly, jumping into the air. She looked to Trixie. “You’re gonna have Blitz Bang’s Bombastic Boomers at your next show?” “Yeah – ” “And the Crazy-Curling Colorful Cocktails of Konekticut, too?” Trixie thought to what she’d ordered, looking at the crate. It was closed securely, though the wood was a little too thin for her liking. “Yes,” she said. “Firelock, why don’t we – ” “Tell me that you have Full Flame’s Phlogiston Fuses!” “How do you even know the word ‘phlogiston?’” “Because I love fireworks!” Firelock exclaimed, throwing herself at the crate and embracing it tightly. Her horn let loose another few multicolored sparks as she did. In another moment, she was on top of the crate, hopping back and forth from one corner to the next. “They’re all peeeewwww! Whiz! Zoom! And then bang! – whoa!” Her last leap missed a step, and she slipped from the box. Trixie caught her telekinetically before she could be injured. Firelock barely missed a beat, however, letting out a squeal as she squirmed excitedly in Trixie’s telekinetic grasp. “I can’t wait for the Ingathering!” she proclaimed as Trixie set her back down. “Can we set off a few fireworks?” “N-” Trixie began, though then she saw that Firelock was looking at her with wide eyes, flopped ears, hooves pressed together…the puppy-dog stare, almost as good as Dinky’s. Trixie shut her eyes quickly against her greatest weakness, but the memory of the eyes remained. No! Trixie railed against herself. I have to be strong. This is exactly what Raindrops was warning against. Étoiles dans le ciel, I can stand up to this foal! Trixie opened her eyes, looked to Firelock, and realized that there was no way she was going to be able to stand up to this foal. Merde. Well, maybe I can mitigate the damage. “How about,” Trixie ventured, “I teach you a spell to create illusory fireworks?” The change was profound. Firelock’s eyes grew even wider, her ears went perk, her mouth split into a massive, toothy grin, and her whole body quivered with excitement. “Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!” She exclaimed, beginning to leap from front to hind hooves and buck like a bronco. Trixie, meanwhile, let out a slight sigh of relief as she telekinetically picked up Firelock and brought the excited filly upstairs, Alula following. --- “Okay.” Trixie sat with the semicircle of foals in front of her again, each staring expectantly, save Dinky, who was sitting beside Trixie as her teacher’s assistant. Trixie raised a hoof. “I’ve decided that the first spell I’m going to teach you,” she said, “is how to create illusory fireworks.” “Yes!” Firelock exclaimed again, hopping in place and horn letting loose a few sparks. The other foals talked amongst each other at that as well, already discussing how they were planning to use the fireworks. Trixie made a note to warn Rarity about Sweetie’s plan in particular, then raised a hoof. “I should warn you,” Trixie said, “that it’s…well, not a hard spell, but not exactly easy. There’s a good chance that you might not be able to do it by the end of the day. But, what I show you should be enough to allow you to keep practicing.” She smiled. “Best of all, it’s basically just a glorified version of making your horn glow, so I’m pretty sure it’s something any unicorn can do, regardless of special talent.” “Pretty sure?” Tootsie Flute echoed, head tilting to the side. “You don’t know?” Trixie paused a moment. “Er, no.” she admitted. “But what if we can’t do it at all? How will you know if it’s just because we need to practice more, or if it’s because we can’t ever make fireworks?” “I wanted to learn a pottery spell,” Alula ventured softly. Trixie winced a little. “Um, Alula…” she said, “I…don’t know any pottery spells.” At Alula’s dejected look, Trixie quickly added, “b-but I could probably help you refine your telekinesis! That would help with pottery, right?” Alula brightened, nodding and looking satisfied with that. Now, however, Firelock stepped forward. “Wait!” she cried. “Does this mean that I won’t get to learn how to make fireworks?” Trixie blinked. “No, we’ll still do that,” she insisted. “Just, maybe Alula can sit this out, and then after I’ve shown you all my fireworks spell I can help Alula – ” “But what about me?” Snails asked. He shifted awkwardly from one hoof to the next. “The whole reason for doing this was supposed to be to help me with my under-channeling.” “Well, yeah,” Dinky interjected in Trixie’s defense, “but to do that you just need to use your magic more often. Learning how to make fireworks should be fine for that!” “But Miss Trixie’s teaching Alula something special!” “She’s not really,” Alula ventured, tapping her hoofs together. “It’s just helping me with my telekinesis…” “Then Alula’s learned something special and so has Firelock!” Tootsie objected. “And what if we can’t make fireworks?” “I’ll be able to make fireworks,” Firelock declared proudly. “Maybe, but what about the rest of us?” Sweetie asked, looking down at her blank flank. “I don’t think my special talent is going to involve setting stuff on fire.” “Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” Trixie said quickly. “The spell was going to be a glamor – an illusion. Remember? No real fire or heat, just light and noise.” There was a moment of silence, when Firelock stepped forward again. “Then what is the point?” she demanded. Trixie blinked. “You…can use it safely indoors?” Firelock looked down at that, then sighed, trotting back over to the semicircle. “That’s cool, I guess…” Trixie began to object, but then remembered that she was dealing with a foal, and one who was possibly pyromaniacal at that. She pushed aside her bruised pride in illusioncraft. “Okay okay okay,” Trixie said. “How about this: I’ll try and teach each of you some spell you might want to learn, if I can. In the meantime,” she looked down at Dinky, “Dinky, I’ve shown you how to do a lot of basic cantrips over the past few months. You, as my teacher’s assistant, can try and show everypony I’m not currently working with how to do them. Okay?” Dinky nodded, and Trixie did as well. There – crisis averted. “Now, Firelock,” Trixie said, and the foal eagerly perked up. Trixie held up her hooves. “Snails raised a good point about the big reason anypony is here today at all, and I did promise I’d help him with his problem. So I’ll spend some time with him first. Then you, since I said we’d do fireworks, and then I’ll randomly select everypony else’s order. Does that sound fair?” Firelock looked to Snails in jealousy, but sighed again. “Okay…” she moaned. “That’s fair, I guess…” “Okay,” Trixie said, as Snails trotted over to her. “Everypony, listen to Dinky. Dinky, you’re in charge. Don’t go mad with power the way I would. Okay?” Dinky nodded, grinning at Trixie’s jab at herself that was, at the same time, a gentle reminder of Dinky’s minor spat with Tootsie from a few minutes ago. Dinky was a smart foal and, whatever bad habits Trixie had that may have been rubbing off on her, she was fundamentally a good pony. After the accident with the golf ball, Trixie was certain that Dinky would be on her best behavior, and wouldn’t get herself into another fight. Trixie looked to Snails. “Okay, come on, we’ll go into the backyard for some space,” she said. Snails followed her. “Any thoughts on what you want to learn?” Snails thought as the two trotted. “I think it’d be neat if I knew how to make my animal friends bigger!” Trixie saw a newspaper headline in her mind’s eye: FOAL MAKES 100-FOOT-TALL SPIDER, NAMES HER “SUPER FUFFY. And in a related article: Ponyville representative missing; presumed eaten and/or exiled. “I don’t know how to make animals bigger,” Trixie said, which fortunately enough was the truth. “How about something else?” --- Dinky watched Trixie go, then looked back to the other foals, and in particular Tootsie. She tapped her hooves together for a few moments, then let out a long sigh and held forward a hoof. “Tootsie, I’m sorry that I fought with you over the golf ball,” she said. Tootsie Flute, much to Dinky’s relief, didn’t waste any time in tapping her own hoof to Dinky’s. “It’s okay,” she said. “I was being at least as bad. I’m sorry too. Friends?” Dinky nodded, then stood up straight and put on her best smile as she held up a hoof. “Now then,” she said. “What kind of spell would you like to learn? I can make really bright flashes with my horn, or throw my voice, or muffle sounds, or make dancing lights…” “Can you do fireworks?” Firelock asked. Dinky considered. “Not really,” she admitted, looking up at her horn and running some of her magic through it. She was able to make a few sparks of light leap from it, but nothing more than what any foal, even Snails and Sweetie, was capable of. “Besides, Miss Trixie will be showing you that, Firelock.” Firelock nodded, looking up at her own horn. Channeling magic through it, she was able to set off notably more sparks than Dinky. “I think I’ll just practice this,” she said. “Miss Trixie can show me more. You guys can do your own thing. I’ll be listening, though.” “Okay…” Dinky intoned, gaze lingering on Firelock. Miss Trixie was already going to show her all about fireworks, so why wasn’t she taking the opportunity to learn more? After a few moments, though, Dinky looked to the remaining foals. “So, what else?” She asked, considering the minor cantrips she knew how to cast, the majority of them just being variations on making her horn glow. “I can make dancing lights! Want me to show you those?” “I can do those too,” Tootsie said, closing her eyes and setting her horn alight. Two small motes of light sprung into existence around her horn and began an orbit around her body. After a few moments, she opened her eyes again, smiling brightly. “Well, I can’t,” Sweetie noted. Snips and Alula echoed their own lack of ability. “Okay,” Dinky decided, looking at Tootsie. “How about you and me help Sweetie, Snips, and Alula?” Tootsie nodded, and looked to the other three unicorns. “Okay, first,” she said, “you have to gather the magic at your thauma, just like when you’re lighting up your horn. The trick is pushing the magic out of your thauma. You need to – ” “Wait, what?” Dinky asked. Tootsie paused, looking at Dinky. “Huh?” “What’s a thauma?” Sweetie grinned, holding up a hoof. “The part of a unicorn’s horn that controls magic!” she exclaimed. “You are a dictionary,” Snips declared. Sweetie started to defend herself, but Dinky spoke first. “I’ve never heard of it.” Tootsie blinked at that. “Really?” she asked. “I haven’t either,” Snips ventured. “I have,” Alula said, looking up at her horn and poking it a few times. “I used to go to the doctor’s every few months to make sure that my thauma was developing okay. I didn’t really do any unicorn magic when I was a baby, so the doctors thought that maybe I only had a vegetable horn.” “Vestigial,” Sweetie corrected. Dinky looked up at her own horn. She could only see the tip really, of course, but she’d always thought that it was just…well, a horn. She’d never really considered that there was more to it than just the bone and thin layer of fuzz that covered it. “And it controls my magic?” she asked, poking the base of her horn. “Well…part of it,” Tootsie said. “There’s the thauma, the alveo – ” “Gland that runs through the horn’s center,” Sweetie provided. “ – cornumusculum – ” “Muscles in the base of the horn!” Sweetie exclaimed. “I didn’t know about those,” Alula put in, eyes wide and glancing at her own horn. Dinky’s eyes widened, hooves at the base of her horn and feeling around her head now. Snips was doing likewise “I have muscles in my horn?” she asked, mind suddenly filled with the image of being able to wiggle her horn around as easily as she could swivel her ears. She closed her eyes and tried really, really hard to make the muscles that she never knew she had move, but nothing happened. Tootsie giggled. “They basically squeeze the thauma and control how much magic you’re letting out,” she said. “They don’t do anything unless you’re doing magic. Didn’t Miss Trixie tell you this stuff?” Dinky shook her head as she opened her eyes. “Miss Trixie just…shows me magic,” she said, setting her horn aglow again and conjuring a dancing light, making it float between her two outstretched hooves. “She says to just picture what you want and imagine it coming from your horn. It always feels different for each spell. Like, with dancing lights, it feels to me like I’m…I’m blowing a bubble, I guess.” Tootsie stared at Dinky. “Huh?” she asked. “But then how do you know how to shape whatever magic you want to do?” Dinky shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I’m always grabbing things so hard,” she admitted, but then looked to Sweetie, Snips, and Alula. “But…yeah. Miss Trixie didn’t tell me about that stuff. She just kinda...shows me what to do.” She held forward her dancing light. “Like this! Just run magic through your horn and imagine yourself making a dancing light.” The three began to try, but Tootsie shook her head. “But you need to know what you’re doing,” she insisted. “You’re pushing the magic from the thauma and through your alveo. The glow around your horn isn’t just light, it’s your actual magic from your alveo. You need to take that magic and shape it. That’s where the cornumusculums – ” “Cornumuscula,” Sweetie corrected even as she concentrated on her own horn. “Dictionary,” Snips added automatically, equally focused. “ – get involved,” Tootsie finished. Dinky frowned, making another dancing light in front of her, then a third. She didn’t really feel anything happening in her horn, beyond just the normal tingle. It certainly didn’t feel like there were muscles flexing or thaumas being squeezed, or whatever Tootsie was saying. “I think you’re making things too complicated,” she said. “No I’m not!” Tootsie objected. “It’s really important!” “Then how come I’m just as good at magic as you?” “Hey,” Firelock interjected, as she stared at her horn and kept trying with her sparks. “So I just imagine that there’s a bag or whatever at the base of my horn and I’m squeezing fireworks out?” “No, your muscles are squeezing your thauma,” Tootsie insisted. “No, you’re just imagining yourself making fireworks,” Dinky said at the same time. Tootsie whickered in annoyance, stamping a hoof. “But that’s just your imagination!” She objected. “Plus I haven’t even gotten into how you have to make sure that you’re using the right kind of magic.” “It’s only dancing lights! That doesn’t even matter!” Dinky insisted, whickering herself, then stepping up close to Tootsie. The other unicorn didn’t back away as their horns and muzzles were practically touching. “I don’t need to know what all the parts of my legs are called to walk! You’re making things too complicated!” “No I’m not!” Tootsie insisted. “This is all really important to know – ” “Hey!” Snips exclaimed. “I’m doing it!” “Me too!” Sweetie added. Dinky and Tootsie turned to look, and saw that, indeed, the two other unicorn foals had both managed to create simple, faint glowing orbs – orange in Snips’ case, and lime green in Sweetie’s – that hovered in front of their faces. Sweetie managed to get hers to move through the air first, but Snips wasn’t far behind. As Tootsie and Dinky watched, Alula managed to create a purple orb as well, her wings flaring in excitement as she quickly caught up to her companions in maintaining it and making it move. Tootsie and Dinky glanced to one another, before the latter finally asked the question both were wondering. “So who’d you listen to?” Sweetie, Snips, and Alula looked between each other for a moment, then back to Tootsie and Dinky. “Um…Firelock, actually,” Snips said, as he brought his dancing light around and in front of him, and tried grabbing it with his hooves. It was just a ball of light, though, completely intangible. Sweetie and Alula nodded in agreement with Snips. “What she said about squeezing a bag at the base of your horn,” Sweetie said. “I just did that. And look!” she held her hoof forward, dancing light orbiting around the end of it. “It worked!” “My first real spell,” Alula nodded happily, wings still flared. She closed her eyes, concentrating harder, and made a second dancing light after a little effort, the two proceeding to orbit the tip of her horn like a halo. When she opened her eyes and saw them both, she laughed with delight. “Momma’s gonna be so happy!” Dinky and Tootsie blinked, then turned and look to Firelock, still focusing on her own horn, then each other. “I guess…” Tootsie ventured. “There’s more than one way to do it?” “I guess,” Dinky said, looking down. She’d almost gotten into another fight with Tootsie, and only a few minutes after apologizing for the first one. “I’m sorry.” “Me too,” Tootsie said, as the other three unicorns cancelled their dancing lights, all looking tired from the exertion, but happy at having all learned a new spell. Tootsie stood up straight. “No more fighting with each other! Okay?” “Okay!” Dinky agreed, stomping a hoof and feeling determined to make sure it didn’t happen again. She looked to the other three foals. “Okay, so that’s dancing lights! Keep practicing it and it’ll get easier and easier. So now, who wants to learn – ” “Got it!” Firelock exclaimed suddenly, making the other five foals jump and look at her. Firelock was standing as though she were ready to pounce, still looking at her horn. It was shooting out a multicolored sparks – mostly red or green, but there were plenty of other colors mixed in. As the foals watched, she managed to create the sparks in thin air a few inches above her horn, then another one a few inches above that. Small crackling sounds and pops came and went with each little burst. “Wow!” Snips exclaimed, trotting forward. “You learned how to do that all by yourself!” “And it’s got sight and sound,” Dinky observed. “That’s really cool! Even Miss Trixie normally has to cast two different spells to make illusions for sight and sound both – ” Dinky’s train of thought was interrupted when she saw a few of the sparks touch down on Miss Trixie’s nearby couch. Most of the sparks were flared out wisps of magic, but a few made it all the way down still glowing with magic – and, evidently, heat, as one spark left behind a smudge of black. Cautiously, Dinky came forward, next to Firelock, and extended a hoof towards the sparks going off in the air over her horn. “Ow!” she exclaimed as she recoiled when one of the sparks landed on her fetlock. It hadn’t really hurt all that much, but it had hurt a lot more than it was supposed to if it was only an illusion. She backed away from Firelock in fright. “Firelock, those aren’t illusions, those are – ” “Real fireworks!” Firelock finished for Dinky, grin somehow growing yet wider and eyes growing even wider. “I can make real fireworks! I’ve always wanted to! Ever since I went to Hoofington and saw Blitz Bang’s Bombastic Boomers! Now maybe I can open my own fireworks store in Ponyville! Firelocks’ Fantastic and Fabulous Flaming Fireworks Funhouse!” Dinky started to try and bring Firelock back into focus, but Snips let out a huge gasp first, pointing at Firelock’s side as a glow appeared there. “Your flank!” he exclaimed. Firelock froze, then slowly turned her head to look at her flank, just as the glow that had been there subsided, revealing a trio of bursting fireworks, two green and one red. Firelocks’ eyes grew wider still. “My cutie mark!” she exclaimed, hopping from hoof to hoof again, horn glowing brightly and setting off more fireworks, starting with the loudest, brightest one yet. “I got my cutie mark I got my cutie mark I got my cutie mark – ” --- “Make legs longer?” Snails asked, as he and Trixie stood outside, in her backyard. “Your legs are petty long already,” Trixie noted. “I meant a bug’s legs.” Trixie sighed. “I don’t know how to do that,” she said. She’d been saying as much more often than she was comfortable with over the past few minutes. “Um, Snails, look,” she held up a hoof. “I’ll be honest with you. My special talent is magic, basically, but…I don’t really know all that many spells. Most of what I do know are illusions. They can’t make any real changes. I practice them all the time so I’m really good at making illusions do whatever I want.” She demonstrated this by turning around, horn glowing, and creating an illusion of colorful fish swimming through the air. But she reached out and ran a hoof through them, demonstrating that they were mere figments. “I can do the same stuff with sound. But outside of that?” Trixie shrugged. “I’m…sorry, I don’t really know much.” Snails sighed, looking down at the ground. “Oh,” he said dejectedly. Trixie winced. She’d promised to show Snails all kinds of amazing magical feats, but right now it seemed like she was incapable of showing him anything that he actually wanted to learn. It wasn’t a good feeling. “Maybe think of things other than bugs,” Trixie ventured, looking down at her hooves as she considered the non-glamor spells she did know. “I know how to make a few simple shields, how to make small bolts of lightning. I could help you with your telekinesis the way I’m going to show Alula. There’s my memorizing spell, or I could show you a few glamors, or – ” “Hey, wait,” Snails said, perking up. “Memorizing spell?” Trixie blinked, then smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “You can use it to perfectly remember anything you’re looking at for about a day. It’s like taking a picture and keeping it in your head, though you can only have one at a time.” Snails considered that for several long moments, then smiled. “That’d be fun!” he said. “I could take a picture of all my animal friends at home and carry it around with me all day long!” “Or you could use it to help with homework, or for a test,” Trixie pointed out slyly, nudging Snails with an elbow. Snails frowned as he considered that for a moment or two. “That sounds like cheating, though,” he observed. “I don’t want to cheat, even if it would help my grades.” Trixie sighed. “Well, Cheerilee would approve of that, at least.” “Is there a way I could share the picture?” Snails asked. “Like, take what’s in my head, and move it to somepony else?” Trixie considered a spell she knew that did exactly that, which functioned by forming a physical conduit from the caster’s brain to the recipient’s via the most direct magical route – the mouths and tongues of the caster and receiver. Or in other words, it required the caster to kiss his or her target. With tongue. “No,” Trixie lied, for once confident that a lie she had told was both completely justified and had no way of coming back to bite her in the flank. “Sorry.” “Oh, okay,” Snails said with a sigh. Trixie let out a sigh of her own that Snails wasn’t focusing on learning a spell that would, at the very least, get her in trouble with (in order of whom Trixie feared the reprisals of) Raindrops, Luna, Snails’ parents, and the law. “Well, the picture spell sounds really cool anyway! Teach me that.” Trixie nodded, taking off her hat and setting it on the ground in front of him. “Okay, now focus on the hat,” she said. “At the same time, I want you to imagine…imagine your magic.” “What’s my magic look like?” Snails asked. “Well, to me, your magic looks like a kind of green-gold tapestry,” Trixie answered. “But that might not be what you imagine it like. Dinky, for example, imagines magic as kind of…sensations, I guess. Like, when I taught her dancing lights, she said it was easiest if she imagined she was blowing bubbles, but from her horn. If she was learning this spell, she’d probably imagine it as being like…like water flowing from her horn to her eyes, or something.” Snails paused. “Wouldn’t that sting?” he asked. “Probably. I just imagine magic as colors. This spell I imagine is a kind of bright light, like a camera bulb’s flash.” Snails considered a few moments more. “And that’s not what Dinky imagines her magic like,” he noted. “It’s what she imagines her magic doing. What’s she think her magic is like?” Trixie blinked. “I…don’t know,” she said, and realized that Snails had a point – Dinky had never really defined what she imagined her own, personal magic to be like, the way Trixie imagined her own magic as being like a big ball of many colors inside of her, just waiting to pour out of her horn. She shook her head. “We can ask her later. What do you imagine your magic to be like?” Snails considered for several long minutes. Trixie gave him the time – this was a very personal question, after all. At length, he looked back to Trixie. “Flavors,” he answered. “Flavors?” Trixie asked. “That’s what I’m thinking of, whenever I do manage to make my horn glow,” Snails said as he looked at his horn. “Every time, I remember mom’s cooking. ‘Cause the first time I made my horn glow, it was at dinner, and we were having…I forget exactly what, but it involved hot peppers. And it was so hot that my horn glowed!” He smiled. “That’s what Raindrops said, anyway.” Trixie nodded. Flavors seemed a little odd, but she could work with it. She pointed at her hat. “Okay, so what do you imagine a memory spell to be flavored like? What’s a really memorable flavor?” “Sour apples,” Snails responded, puckering his lips at his own memory as though he had just bitten into one. “Fair enough. So just focus on that flavor. Try and wrap it around my hat, make my hat taste like – ” Trixie was interrupted by a loud snap from within her home, followed by a series of crackles. She whinnied in surprise, Snails as well, and the two retreated to the other end of the back yard in fright before stopping, looking back at the house. “What was that?” Snails asked. “That didn’t seem anything like sour apples!” “It wasn’t you, it came from inside,” Trixie noted. She looked to Snails. “Stay here, I’ll go figure out what’s going on.” Snails nodded, and Trixie cantered back to her home, stopping only long enough to grab her hat and set it back on her head, then trotted into her home, making a beeline for her living room. She saw several flashes from inside, and heard Firelock’s voice. “I got my cutie mark I got my cutie mark I got my – ” Trixie turned around the corner, looking into her living room. Most of the foals were in one corner, away from Firelock, who was prancing in place in the center of the room, her flank now indeed carrying a cutie mark consisting of a trio of exploding fireworks. Magically-created fireworks were being set off from her horn every few moments. The sparks didn’t seem to bother Firelock herself, but the burning smell in the air evidenced that the fireworks were no mere glamors. “Firelock!” Trixie exclaimed. The foal jumped, turning to face Trixie and accidentally lobbing a firework in Trixie’s direction. The adult mare let out a yelp of surprise, throwing up her cape. The enchantments in it rendered it all but fireproof, and the firework ricocheted off of it and towards her kitchen. Glancing, she saw the firework bounce off of a metal pan hanging from its rack in the ceiling – and then down, and into her basement. Trixie stared for about a quarter of a second, before dashing towards her kitchen and looking down the door that lead to the basement. A red glow emanated from down there, and there was a sound of sizzling. “Oh no,” Trixie said. She turned, looking down the hallway, at the foals, except for Firelock, who had their heads poking out the door to the living room. She’d never grab them and pull them from the building in time, and even if she did, that many fireworks going off under the building… Trixie let out a cry of frustration. “I swore I’d never do this again!” She cried in futility as she leaped down into her basement, taking the steps three at a time. At the bottom, she found the crate of fireworks had had a hole burned through it by Firelock’s magic. It had probably hit only a single fireworks’ fuse, but that would have lit more, and more… Trixie had seconds. Crying out in frustration, she leaped forward, grabbed the crate, and closed her eyes, horn glowing bright as she thought of her back yard – and then remembered that Snails was still out there. Shouting in frustration again, she thought instead of her front yard, and willed herself to go there, and to take the crate of fireworks with her. There was an azure pop, and the briefest instant of nothing. With another blue pop, Trixie opened her eyes – and found herself not in her front yard, but on her roof. “Send me to the Sun!” Trixie cursed as she dashed away from the crate of fireworks, but made it only a few steps before the sound of sizzling abruptly stopped. Trixie was too familiar with the way her life progressed to be fooled. She threw herself to the thatched roof beneath her, and covered herself with her cape. BANG. It wasn’t the loudest sound that Trixie had ever heard, but it wasn’t far off, either. Aside from the fire protection, Trixie’s cape offered a degree of protection against damage as well – not much, but it probably saved her from getting more than bumps and bruises as the crate of fireworks went off, scattering wood chips and pieces everywhere as the fireworks arched into the sky. For whatever reason, not every firework went off at the same time, instead creating an impromptu show as they one after the other sailed into the sky and exploded in broad daylight. Some of the fireworks, meanwhile, instead launched horizontally, streaking over Ponyville to go off just a few dozen feet from the ground, though fortunately the sparks they released were too weak to start any fires, even on the thatched roofs that Ponyville favored. And lastly, one firework was pointed down, and skidded along her roof before sailing down and into the ground in her front yard, and exploded. It felt like forever until silence returned, though Trixie knew that it had been, at most, only a few seconds. Cautiously peeking out from under her cape, Trixie saw that her roof was intact, if scorched in places. Ponyville wasn’t on fire. That was good. Trixie elected to not even bother checking her office window. No, the unicorn faced a couple more immediate problems – how to get down from her roof, and what to do to Firelock once she was back inside. --- Getting into her home turned out to be easy, at least – Trixie had left a window open on the second floor, and climbed in easily enough. She stomped across her upstairs, then down the stairs to the main floor, horn glowing a crystalline, angry blue. Once downstairs, she found all the foals had gathered in the kitchen, looking down into the basement. Firelock didn’t seem to be there, but Snails was. Trixie set aside her anger, or tried to at least, for a few moments as she looked down at the foals. “Is everypony okay?” She asked. Everypony nodded slowly, but stared at Trixie like she was Corona returned. The acrid smell of smoke coming from her coat and probably singed tail didn’t help, she imagined, but Trixie also didn’t care. “Where’s Firelock?” “N-no!” Alula exclaimed. Trixie’s gaze fell on her, and the foal backed away in fright, but swallowed. “No, w-we won’t tell you, y-you can’t be mad at her, it was an – ” “Where’s. Firelock.” The five remaining foals, as one, pointed down the hall, back to the living room, as Alula shivered in fright. Trixie turned around, stomping back down the hall and whickering in anger as she went. That was it. She was going to lay down some law. She was going to teach Firelock how to behave and hopefully break the foal’s rather unhealthy love of fire. She was going to send everypony who wasn’t supposed to be here home. She was going to… Trixie looked into her living room, and saw Firelock exactly where she had been when she’d launched the firework at Trixie, staring at the door. Her eyes were wide, and her breath coming in short gasps as she trembled. At the sight of Trixie – tail flicking in anger, eyes narrow, lips pulled back into a snarl – the foal let out a sharp whinny of fright, turning and retreating to a corner of the room before realizing she was trapped and turning back around, legs shaking. “I – I – I’m sorry!” She exclaimed as she huddled in the corner. “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry! I was just so excited ‘cause I earned my cutie mark and please don’t be mad!” Trixie opened her mouth to exclaim that she was so far past mad that she couldn’t even see it anymore, but stopped when she remembered what she was looking at: a little filly, who had just earned her cutie mark, who had been excited, who hadn’t meant to hurt anypony, even if she almost had. Trixie took a step into the living room. Firelock flinched, hunkering down more, tears streaming from her eyes as she put her hooves over her head, crying without any shame in a way that only foals could. She looked absolutely terrified – and the object of her terror was Trixie. The unicorn looked away for a moment, looking at anything other than Firelock. Her gaze settled on her couch, which had a few small burns from some of the earlier fireworks that Firelock had been setting off. Nothing major – nothing a minor cantrip wouldn’t repair. Her roof, too. It was only thatch, easily, cheaply fixed. And her window – well, it had been awhile. It was due for a repair, anyway. Trixie took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, looking back to Firelock. “Hey,” she said as softly as she could manage, trotting forward slowly and carefully. “Calm down, kiddo. I’m…not going to do anything. Okay?” Firelock didn’t seem to believe her. Trixie had reached her now, and after a moment of thought she took off her cape, holding it up before Firelock. “Fireproof,” she declared. “I’m fine. All I’ll need is a bath to wash out the smell of smoke.” The foal didn’t seem to really hear Trixie. The older unicorn let out another sigh, putting on her cape as she sat down beside the foal, pressing her barrel to Firelock’s own. She looked her over, noticing the cutie mark again. “So…fireworks,” Trixie said. “That’s a good special talent.” Firelock looked at Trixie, then burst out in a fresh round of tears. She buried her face in Trixie’s shoulder and neck, though, and Trixie took that as basically a good sign as she used a hoof to pat Firelock on the head. “Just…be more careful, okay?” she asked. “I try!” Firelock exclaimed. “But I always do this! This is just like when the town hall basement flooded, a-and I tried to start a fire to fix it – ” “Um,” Trixie interrupted. “What?” Firelock sniffled, looking at Trixie. “’C-‘cause you use water to put out fires…” she explained. “S-so I thought…I thought that you could use fire to get rid of water…if you had enough…” Trixie nodded for a moment, before what Firelock had said hit her. She chuckled a little. Firelock giggled too. The memory of what had just happened was a little too close for Trixie or Firelock to move much beyond that, but it seemed to help the small foal, at least. After a few moments, Trixie gave Firelock a friendly nuzzle, which the foal returned. “Do you know Red Splasher?” Trixie asked, naming Ponyville’s resident fire chief. Firelock flinched, looking back down. “He doesn’t like me very much,” she said. It didn’t take a genius to realize why, but Trixie didn’t say that. “You know a lot about fire,” Trixie said instead. “But I think you need to learn a little about fire safety. Especially with a cutie mark like that.” Firelock looked like she wanted to object, but thought better of it and nodded. “Red Splasher doesn’t like me very much,” she repeated. “I think he’ll like you just fine. Red Splasher likes putting out fires, after all. You’ll give him plenty of opportunities.” Firelock was still for a few moments, but then nodded. Trixie stood, helping Firelock to her own hooves and leading her from her living room, back to the kitchen. The other foals had their breaths held as the two trotted in, Trixie nodding to them as she got a cloth and helped Firelock with drying her eyes. She took a few moments to look at each of the foals, as well. She hadn’t even taught any of them a single spell yet… “If anypony wants to go home,” Trixie said, closing her eyes and letting out a long sigh, “you should now. I…I don’t think I’m doing a very good job at this. I think…I think I’m in over my head, trying to keep an eye on all seven of you. You haven’t even learned anything.” “That’s not true!” Sweetie Belle objected, stepping forward and letting her horn glow. After a moment, a small ball of lime green light appeared in front of her horn, and began to orbit around her body as she swung her head. Snips and Alula both created dancing lights of their own. “See? Dinky showed us!” Trixie blinked a few times. “Dinky?” “Uh-huh!” “But I still haven’t learned anything!” Snails objected, looking between the various dancing lights that the other three unicorns had made. He glanced to Firelock. “Firelock got her cutie mark and can make fireworks, you three can make lights, Tootsie and Dinky are almost as good as you, Trixie…” That wasn’t true, though for foals the two were still very good. Still, Trixie grimaced as she looked down at her hooves. Great. Dinky was a better teacher than her. She looked to Snails. “Okay,” she said. “I need to focus on Snails. But as for the rest of you…I think I need some help. Somepony who can keep an eye on you all and…well. I can’t do both, so I need the help.” She tapped a hoof to her mouth in thought. Lyra, her first choice, was out of town, doing a concert. Trixie didn’t know Rarity, Sweetie’s older sister, very well, but she did know enough to know that she probably wouldn’t appreciate being dropped in on unannounced with a half dozen foals – certainly Trixie didn’t appreciate it. Trixie wasn’t sure if any of the other foals had free parents or older siblings who were free, at least, no unicorn ones – and if she was going to pretend at all that she was still trying to teach these foals magic, she needed another unicorn, who had the free time, who preferably knew a fair amount about magic, and who had a big home with lots of space… Trixie realized she knew a unicorn like that. Trixie let out a long sigh. “Okay, follow me,” she said standing. “We’re going on a field trip.” “Where to?” Tootsie asked. “You’ll see,” Trixie said, as she lead her small herd out her front door and lawn. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the scorched grass from where the firework had gone off in her yard, and winced, stopping. “But, um…first, Dinky. You’ve been over my place often enough…how much do you think the window’s gonna run me this time?” “Um…nothing?” Dinky asked. Trixie started, turning and looking at her office window. The firework had gone off maybe ten feet from her window. The sound of the explosion alone should have at least cracked it. Yet, the window, against all odds, in defiance of a curse that was at least eight months old so far, was intact. “Ha!” Trixie exclaimed happily, prancing in place a few times and glancing at Firelock. “You’re okay, kiddo!” Feeling much, much happier, she began trotting off, the foals following. Most of them affixed Trixie with looks of confusion, Firelock included, but Dinky only giggled. It was probably for the best that she was out of sight of the Residency when a rogue baseball from a too-eager foal came crashing through the window, leaving a fairly neat, baseball-shaped hole in its surface. --- Twilight Sparkle had only been back at work for a few minutes since Applejack left when the library door opened again. Letting out a slight sigh, she trotted down the steps from the upper floor again, looking at her front door. She wasn’t very surprised to see Trixie, though she was somewhat surprised at the somewhat haggard appearance and faint smell of smoke that Trixie was sporting. What really surprised Twilight, however, was the small herd of foals surrounding Trixie, each of them glancing around the library and its piles of books in confusion. “Hi, Sparkle,” Trixie said. “I…need some help.”