"Okay, lets start simple." Gingersnap gestured with a hoof toward the barbells on a heavy mat. "Start with the first, let me know when you are struggling. There is no failing with this, only working out what you can and can't lift and how much work to put in to improve."
The unicorn sounded very friendly and Penny braced herself. She reached out to the first weight and smiled as she lifted it.
A clipboard floated over and the teacher made a note. "Next one."
Sally put the first down and reached for the second one. To say it felt like a rock was an understatement.
"You can lift it when… you are having trouble?" Gingersnap sounded surprised. Her own magic reached out and brushed Penny's from the weight, lifting it up. "No, there is nopony playing a trick…"
Stick had a hoof over Penny's shoulders, comforting the mare. "We need to explain something, do you have a diagram of how a unicorn's magic flows?"
The orange mare reached over and pulled down a chart that was spring loaded. "This do?" It had a picture of a unicorn on it, showing an overlay and descriptions of the major magic points and a zoom-in on their horn.
"Can you see magic directly, or do I need a prop?" Stick was already looking for a prop and grinned when she found some twine.
Gingersnap looked between the two, unsure what the changeling was about but interested if it meant an explanation for the lunar unicorn's abysmal lack of strength.
Stick nodded and her green tongue poked out the edge of her mouth as she started working her magic. She highlighted a green area in the picture's chest as 'emotional center' and then ran two lengths of twine down from their horn to that, splitting off from the paths and flowing down to there. "This was the result of an injury. She can weaken the flow of magic to her horn, but these paths siphon off her strength and channel it-"
"Through her emotional centers, where it radiates?" A lot of things clicked in Gingersnap's head. She gave a stern look at the changeling then a softer one to Penny. "Is this changeling taking advantage of this?"
Penny's eyes went wide. "No, I love her…"
There was a much greater force of magic swelling, Penny could see primarily cerulean swirls of power wrapping around and flowing over her.
The whole display, the mare realized, was not a show of raw power but of carefully built spells that Gingersnap was weaving and, just as suddenly, were gone.
"Okay, I wanted that settled." The teacher looked over to Stick. "I am sorry for the accusation, but you understand why I would do that?"
Stick sighed. "Changelings aren't as well thought of, I know. We did some bad things, there are still plenty that are doing bad things."
Penny was at her marefriend's side, hugging Stick as tight as she could. She glared up at the teacher but didn't put much heat in her words. It was more anger at the social norms that would have the conclusion Gingersnap reached be the most believable. "We are to be married, Cadance herself will be performing the ceremony…" She trailed off, unsure why she was getting so worked up.
Gingersnap gave a small smile. "Okay, so I understand a lot more of you two than I did when we started. That doesn't fully excuse your strength, a section of your raw power is lost, so we must build more raw power." Making notes, the teacher tugged the cord and the little poster zipped back up into it's holder. "So, does this affect your spell casting? You know all the alphabet?"
Penny smiled again, her emotions swinging in the breeze. "I know some of it. Silver… Ambassador Silver Lining has been teaching me the basics."
The name got a raised eyebrow from Gingersnap. "Silver Lining? I would have hoped for a pony a little more… relaxed, to be teaching you. Regardless, lets see what you know."
Penny started with the runes she knew well, forming them much more easily now, but about halfway through the alphabet she faltered.
"Stop, there is room for improvement on most of those, and you have much to learn." Gingersnap reached out a hoof to tilt Penny's down-cast snout up. "Lucky you are in the perfect place for that, school! Now, I am not sure if we can really test everything you can do, but Stick, if you would try and lift those bars?"
The first was wrapped in green magic and lifted easily. Then at the teacher's nod the changeling put that down and lifted the second. "Can I try the third?"
Gingersnap beamed at Stick. "Please do, there are no baselines for this, how would you rate yourself among other changeling… drones?" Stick nodded to her use of title, more notes were made.
The third bar lifted smoothly and lowered. "That was more work, I want to try the fourth." Lowered back down, the third bar rolled a touch before the next one started to wobble. "Oh wow, that is…"
"Much heavier. The bars increase in weight exponentially." Penny's ears twitched as Gingersnap said the familiar, yet uncommon word. "Each grows at a rate ten times the previous. So, firmly a three, but you could make that four twitch, very good."
Stick was panting and nodding. Penny, however, had an idea. "Hay, when I channel, Stick seems more… capable. Should we try that?"
Both the other mares looked surprised, the changeling replied first. "I hadn't really noticed, am I really?" Penny nodded to her. "Well then, give me what you can and lets see if I can get that four in the air."
Penny closed her eyes and thought about her love for her partner. Her horn didn't glow, she had mastered the art of shunting her magic completely out now, with the practice born of much use.
"Okay, now that IS interesting. So a feeding changeling can perform beyond their normal levels." Gingersnap's quill was working furiously and she had to flip the paper on the pad to keep going.
Opening her eyes, Penny saw the fourth bar in the air, wrapped in green magic. Stick was giggling and set it down. "Wait, don't stop, I want to try… oh." Penny saw Stick's magic wrap the five but it didn't so much as twitch. "Aww…"
Gingersnap wasn't as disappointed. "I would have honestly been amazed if you had lifted that. There are few unicorns alive who could."
Stick bounced back from her funk with the reassuring words. "So is a four good?"
"Four is acceptable." Gingersnap was very excited at this. She could totally get a book published with just the information she had so far. "Now, alphabet. Do changelings have such?"
Penny settled in to lay down to the side, letting her special somepony have the spotlight. Stick nodded to the mare. "We mostly just use our tricks, but there are some spells I have learned."
Stick started with an easy one, fireworks. "Hay, Silver taught that to me!" Penny's indignation was met with a raspberry from the changeling. "You left your book laying around."
Gingersnap grinned, repeating the spell herself. "That one was actually created by a mare who attended here for her final project. She spent a lot of time researching and getting it just right."
"Trixie Lulamoon?" Penny smiled, remembering the mare from the show.
The teacher nodded, looking a touch perplexed. "Just the one, you have met her?"
"No, but I have heard good things about her." Penny was about to try and duplicate their efforts with the spell but stopped.
"You can cast it if you wish, you know the runes for it." Gingersnap cycled the pattern on her own horn, giving Penny a cheat-sheet, as it were.
She focused on the runes, the timing, the pattern. Letting her magic flow, Penny played the spell out and heard the popping as the motes of fireworks started going off around her. The pull on her magic still felt a little odd, new.
"There you are. Now I don't want you casting anything without supervision, but if you want to practice, just come find me."
Penny smiled wide, the teacher's reassurance working well on her, despite her knowing the tricks being used. "Okay, so alphabet, I was already working on that."
Gingersnap nodded. "And strength, I will assign a trainer to help there. Our goal is to get you lifting at three-" Penny looked about to cut in but the mare glared at her. "No, no 'if's 'but's or 'maybe's. You are going to get stronger, you are going to learn."
Stick turned to look at her special somepony. "She is your teacher, you have to do what she says."
Penny took a few deep breaths. She had promised Cadance, Luna and even Celestia she would do this. She knew if she pulled out of the school or misbehaved it would reflect badly on all three. "I do." Penny put her all behind it.
"Now, there were some other notes the princess left. Your history lessons are lacking." Penny jerked when Gingersnap said this, blinking. "I am not going to question how a mare comes to me not knowing her alphabet or the history of her homeland." The mare grinned. "I am a teacher, I love my job. Finding somepony lacking in knowledge, but willing to learn? Come on, lets get started."
The speech lifted Penny, the mare unable to feel down about her lack of knowledge in the face of such inspiration. She was a student, and now she was in a school, with a teacher. Penny's smile echoed Gingersnap's own.
Stick was thoughtful on this too, she seemed invited to learn as well and her own mind tingled with the delight of new knowledge to come.
Twilight looked at her list, it was complete. A small sigh, the finest of satisfactions settled over her.
"I would ask what happened to put such a smile on your face, but Twilight, I can only assume it was something to do with planning?" Princess Fast Change was watching the sunset, Twilight at her side.
The alicorn barely noticed the closeness, the fact their flanks were just barely touching. "Completing things, particularly a list so involved." Twilight spun the scroll again, ensuring every little box was checked or ruled out. "You have something that brings you a level of closure and relief, I am sure."
Fast nodded. "My hive. Every day I learn at least a hundred new things about what changelings are, that nopony would ever think to write down. To learn about how we like to relax, for example."
"'We'?" Twilight smiled. "You have embraced your new friends."
The changeling found herself grinning at the thought. The little things all her drones did, especially when they made mistakes. How Stand In put on such a stern face, but softened at the first hint somepony needed comfort. "They are more than friends. They are my family." Fast looked to Twilight, seeing the mare's smile in profile.
"Family are the best friends." Twilight sensed the changeling moving closer before she actually felt it. She found it impossible, in the lovely evening, to get flustered at Fast's now obvious, to her, advances. Twilight lifted a hoof to the side. "Friends?"
Fast blinked, she had been getting mixed signals for a little bit. Twilight seemed to have relaxed her guard but the hoof lifting confused her. Then she realized what the mare was about. Raising her own hoof and clopping it against the other princess', Fast nodded. "Friends."
There was silence a while as the two sat watching their peers' work, the sun sinking down and the moon rising. Fast gained some insight that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't a friend whose flank she needed to climb.
"Just friends?" Twilight breathed deeply as she asked. It wasn't what she really intended, but something in her liked the attention Fast had been giving her, even if she was not sure about the intended result of them.
Fast blinked, her eyes widening a moment before she caught on. "There is never 'just friends', friendship is magic and magic is all about change." Fast found her heart beating faster at the thought of what Twilight had implied. Was there still a chance?