Ch. 10 - Unqualified Instructor
The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian
Unqualified Instructor
It had taken nearly ten minutes for Ditzy and Pinkie Pie to get the cake pan pried off Twilight’s head without doing any more damage, although Twilight was not positive if Pinkie was worried more about the waste of cake than the damage done to her head. Once freed, it only took her a moment to magically fix the cake pan back up, good as new and ready to be dropped on another unsuspecting head as soon as Pinkie Pie refilled it with delicious cake. Ditzy looked as woebegone as ever, with her I-Really-Need-A-Muffin expression intact despite Pinkie’s near-endless supply of baked goods during the ordeal.
“I’m really, really sorry Twilight. Are you sure there’s not anything I can do to help?”
“No!” she said, carefully checking her horn for damage. “I really think you’ve done enough for one day. Oh, wait,” she called out as the depressed pegasus prepared to fly away. “There is just one thing you can help me with. How much do you know about this Green Grass?”
She listened with interest as the grey pegasus cheered up and happily chatted about the tutor. Apparently for a long time after Amethyst Star, or Sparkler as she preferred to be called by friends, had gotten her cutie mark, her skill at cutting gemstones had been iffy, at best, and terrifying for anypony in the vicinity at worst. ‘Breaking’ things was the least of her problems, Ditzy tended to use the word ‘explode’ and ‘detonate’ with alarming regularity when talking about her older daughter’s antics last year. For a while, she had even considered that Sparkler was doing it intentionally to increase the amount of time her single mother would be able to visit Windowpane, the handsome repair⁽*⁾ pony.
(*) Available 24/7, discounts for single mares.
—
Ouch. At least nopony is trying to set me up with some random stallion.
The other teacher on the tutor circuit had not been much help, tending to suggestions that Sparkler should simply stop trying to use her special talent for a while in the hopes that her problem would eventually take care of itself. Green Grass had still only been student teaching and still under the direct supervision of Superintendent Masters when he had been talked into taking Sparkler as an extra student, somewhat older than he was used to, but with extremely satisfactory results.
Sparkler now had a part-time job with both the town jeweler and Rarity in order to save up the immense pile of bits it took to start a jewelry store of her own in Canterlot, while still living at home to save money and making some money foalsitting. There was a little glint in Ditzy’s mismatched eyes when she talked about her daughter, hinting at the welcome possibility of future grandchildren. The walleyed pegasus had similar success stories regarding the other foals the tutor had worked with over a year ago, and it rankled Twilight (just the smallest bit). As a teacher, his full-time job was teaching, and therefore that should make him at least capable, but still she could not think he would be as good a teacher as the personal student of the most powerful alicorn in the entire country.
So am I taking Ditzy’s pride in his ability to help Sparkler as a slight against Princess Celestia’s teaching, or to my own abilities? Second-best. That’s what this is all about. You’ve never placed second academically anywhere. Put it to one side, Twilight. You know hundreds of spells, and dozens that you created all by yourself. In any contest of talent, you could show... This is Trixie all over again, isn’t it?
She held the image of the tutor in her mind and tried to picture him as the blue braggart, but it seemed... weak. “I am the Great and Powerful Green Grass! Behold as I teach this colt how to create a little light on the end of his horn!”
“Um... Twilight?” Ditzy poked her in the shoulder with one hoof. “Were you talking to me?”
“Oh! No, I was just... thinking out loud. Yes.” She wiped a bit of frosting off her shoulder and tasted it.
Divine, just like all of Pinkie’s pastries, but if Pinkie met somepony who could bake better than her, she would probably not compete with him, she would marry—
Twilight shook her head vigorously to get the thought of little Pinkie Pies out of her mind. “Ditzy, do you think I could get you to set up a meeting with him? I mean... Oh, no. Not that. Not a date. Just sometime when he is at work. Yes, that’s it! If I can see him work, I can get a better evaluation of him evaluating. Perfect!”
* * *
Oh no! Oh no! I’m late, I’m so very late⁽¹⁾.
(1) Not that way! Bad readers! Behave!
—
Twilight fairly burst into Sugarcube Corner, relaxing only fractionally at hearing the subdued roar of energetic, playful foals still screaming around the second floor. She passed Mr. and Mrs. Cake at a near run as she dashed up the stairs and screeched to a halt just as Tootsie Flute came prancing happily out of the office where the teachers were doing evaluations.
“Hi Twilight!” she bubbled, hopping about nearly as perky as Pinkie Pie. “Your coltfriend is really neat! He showed me how to bon-sigh a fern! We’re going to trim plants every day! That’s so much better than those dumb books Miss Primrose was having me read.”
“Who wants to play Pin The Tail on the Pony?” called out Pinkie Pie, passing out tails to the happy horde. “Hi Twilight! You want to play too?”
“No, Pinkie,” she responded automatically. Her emotions were still churning, trying to determine if being late, or defending books to Tootsie Flute was the most important thing to worry about at the moment, when the decision was taken away from her.
“Twilight!” squealed Dinky in exaltation, flinging herself across the room and wrapping herself around the unicorn’s neck like a vice. Definitely a family resemblance here, thought Twilight while gasping for air. “Mommy said you were going to show up! Snails thought you got tied up in a book and weren’t going to make it, but I knew better! Come on! I’m going to be the last one there, and I want to get done before Pin The Tail on the Pony is over.”
* * *
The two teachers were seated behind the bakery’s huge wooden business desk while the green-coated tutor was standing casually in front of it, with a collection of educational unicorn toys scattered across the top. Amethyst Star greeted Twilight when she entered the room, but all she could see was Green Grass. And his head.
Twilight stared at the tutor in shock and blurted out, "Y-you... Where is your horn!"
He isn’t even a unicorn. Ditzy thinks he’s a better magic teacher than I am, and he isn’t even a unicorn! He’s an earth pony. How can he teach magic without magic?
His hat and cloak were hanging from a nearby hook on the wall; she could not help but look back and forth between them and his naked head. She might have said something even more embarrassing if Dinky had not suddenly popped up and said, “Oh, I forgot. You two have already met.” The little filly turned to her sister, Amethyst Star, who had turned a little pink from holding her breath and whispered quite loudly, “Twilight was in his wagon when our class went to the library yesterday morning.”
“Really?” Sparkler maintained an amazing amount of control and kept her straight face by the smallest of margins. The same could not be said of Cheerilee, who had fallen behind the desk and was now making whimpering noises from badly suppressed laughter.
“Yep. She was all wet and dripping and out of breath. Were the two of you fighting, Twilight?” asked the filly with innocent eyes.
“Yes! Yes we were,” said Twilight abruptly, grabbing for the escape with all four hooves.
“When the mommy cats are fighting with the daddy cats outside, Mommy goes out with a bucket of water to separate them. Did you have to do that to Twilight, Mr. Green Grass?” There was a thump from behind the desk as Superintendent Masters joined Cheerilee on the floor in muffled laughter. Even Dinky’s sister had crossed her eyes and was breathing heavily while looking at the floor.
“Dinky,” said the green (and pink-faced) tutor with no little effort. “Can we focus on your evaluation? I want to see what your sister and T-t-twilight have taught you.”
“Okay!” The little unicorn grabbed her flute case and began opening it up, assembling her flute half by magic and half by hoof while chattering away nonstop. “Sparkler showed me how to use scales to use the steps in levy-tation so I can hold my flute and blow and make the keys move all at the same time. It’s really diffycult, but Mommy says she can hear the tune even though my sister is a meanie and says it just sounds like a duck.” She paused to stick her tongue out at Amethyst Star, who returned the favor, complete with a quite realistic duck quack.
Twilight had to admit, although she was still mortified at the humor everpony else in the room seemed to be having at her expense, the tutor seemed quite interested in the lessons she had been teaching the little unicorn. He even went so far as to ask Dinky just what exactly ‘Miss Sparkle’ had been teaching her, and was (apparently) amazed when she could recite the lessons almost verbatim. The rest of the evaluation was fairly rote: a few skill tests appropriate for unicorns her age with a constant stream of feedback, mostly positive. The ending was a bit strange, and she struggled mightily to avoid commenting as he talked.
“...marching bands have to hold their instrument and march while playing. I know that’s awfully advanced for such a young unicorn, but I want you to try just marching in place while blowing across the mouthpiece. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow after school over at Roseluck’s flower shop, and you can play music for the flowers while Tootsie trims them. Do you think that’ll be fun?”
“Oh yeah! Rose always lets us nibble on the trimmings and after she does a flower arrangement, we get to lick the bowl. Thanks, Mister Green Grass.” The little filly launched herself at Green Grass’ neck with almost the same energy as she had tackled Twilight earlier, and that creeping sense of envy started to crop up again in the librarian’s mind, to flare up even worse when the little filly went running into the other room without even stopping for her.
“You didn’t give her any lessons?” blurted out Twilight moments after the door closed. “Just march in place and blow on her flute? She can already do that.”
Green Grass showed almost no sign of having heard her except for a slight twitch as he loaded his educational toys and testing tools into his saddle bag, with Cheerilee and Superintendent Masters simply staying behind the desk and attempting to remain inconspicuous. Watching.
After he finished loading up his bags, he turned to Twilight and asked abruptly, “Did you like the apology cake? Well, cakes.”
Twilight twitched in response and quickly edited her first response to be more polite and less profane. “Yes, it had quite an impact on me. And the first one was very... Spike liked it a lot.”
“Good.” He motioned to the door. “May we go now?”
“No!” She stomped one hoof when anger flared momentarily, only to have the emotion die down into a cold lump in her belly as she saw the reflection of fear in all three ponies. Three ordinary ponies, trapped with an angry powerful unicorn between them and the only door out of the room. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” She quickly scooted to one side and the three school ponies filed out, the tutor bringing up the rear after putting on his hat and cloak.
Instead of leaving, Green Grass paused at the door and closed it, not looking back at her while he talked. “When you were Princess Celestia’s student, you used to walk around while reading books, right?”
“Sometimes. Well, almost all the time. Walking seemed to be such a waste of time without something to do.” She scowled at the insensitive lout, a gesture which was spoiled by him remaining facing away from her so all she could see was his twitching tail and his green flanks.
“So you used your magic to hold onto books because you loved to read, right?”
“Yes. So?”
The tutor took a deep breath, and the distracting twitch in his tail began to slow. “While you were walking around the school, suspending a book in front of you and turning pages, were you using an obstacle avoidance spell?”
Twilight scowled. “Yes, and a navigation spell⁽²⁾ so I’d wind up where I was intending to go. What’s your point?”
(2) And a timekeeping spell, and a scheduling spell, and a dictionary spell, but she never counted them because they were active all the time anyway.
—
“So you were doing something you loved to do, while maintaining four different spells almost all the time. Don’t you think that had something to do with how powerful you became?”
“I also did exercises, and read all the books I could find on magic, and practiced every single day. I worked really hard to become as talented as I am.”
The green tutor finally turned half-way around to look Twilight in the eyes. “So have I.” He gestured at his own flank, showing the cutie mark of a rather small and blunt unicorn horn with a few weak sparks around it.
“I put in years of college to do this, but it’s really more of a joy for me than just work. My talent is to find things that young unicorns like to do, and let them grow their talent while doing it. Tootsie Flute’s father is a doctor and her mother is an administrator at the hospital. They work horribly long hours and don’t get to spend very much time with their only child. He wants her to be a doctor too, but all she can see is that overworked doctors don’t get to spend much time with their children. She didn’t want to get any better with magic, because that would mean she would be farther away from her parents. By letting her practice her magic on a few innocent flowers, she is doing something she loves to do, and improving her skills. You just have to look below the surface of the mask she projects, and see the flower underneath.”
“Oh,” said Twilight quietly. “Well, what about Dinky?”
“Her?” Green Grass chuckled as a broad smile swept over his face. “She just loves making noise. Now she can stomp as well as honk her flute. Tie a pair of cymbals to her tail, and she’ll never quit.”
Twilight could not help but chuckle too at the mental image. It was fairly obvious once she thought about it. Her own teaching sessions with Dinky were so focused on the various components of spellcasting that she had not even considered the larger picture of the pony herself. In one simple lesson, he had taught both of them to look at the fun behind learning, and it felt remarkably good to admit it to herself.
“So what do you see in me?” she asked without thinking, feeling her heart thud after hearing the words leave her mouth.
“I see,” started Green Grass with a theatrical flourish of one hoof. “A beautiful young mare, who someday will meet a handsome young unicorn stallion who possesses grace, manners, and an enormously huge library. The two of you will fall hopelessly in love, and have dozens of small children, of which I shall be more than honored to assist with their instruction. At least until they reach a dangerous age, and then they’re all yours.”
The small giggle that Twilight had been suppressing finally bubbled out. “I see your father has taught you the noble art of flattery.”
Both eyebrows rocketed straight up under his hat as Green Grass stammered, “B-beg pardon?”
“Your father? Baron Chrysanthemum?” Twilight felt a twinge of guilt as the green stallion seemed to collapse from extravagant flirt to depressed moping glob in one heart-rending sigh. “I take it the two of you are not on the best of terms?”
“Us?” said Green Grass with a sharp tinge of bitterness to his voice. “Oh no. It’s just so many of the ponies I meet who are nice to me, are doing it just to suck up to him, and he’s more than willing to drag me in. I hate playing that game. I would much rather nopony knows who my family is.”
Twilight snorted in sympathy as she pointed to herself. “Tell me about it. As personal student to the Princess, I’ve been acclaimed, bribed, coerced, flattered, seduced and every other letter of deceitful tricks. Everypony wants something from her, and I’m just the path they think they need.”
“Ouch.” Green Grass winced and looked up. “Seduced? Your brother must have been a busy Royal Guard with that many bodies to hide. Speaking of which, we probably should not spend much more time in here. I understand there are a number of rumors about town, and the longer we spend in here, the worse they will get.” The tutor fixed his face in an expression of bland formality before sweeping open the office door and gesturing broadly to the room filled with happily playing students. “After you, M’Lady Sparkle.”
“Thank you, kind sir,” she responded with a gentle curtsey of an invisible skirt, before proceeding out the door, head held high and taking slow deliberate steps just the way Princess Celestia had taught her. “Such a polite gentlecolt,” she murmured as she passed him. “We should do lunch.”
“It should be my pleasure,” he responded with all the formal tones of a royal accepting an invitation to take tea with Princess Celestia. “Would M’Lady have an opening on— I mean would noon tomorrow at Gustav’s be an acceptable time for me to apologize for this week’s inconveniences?”
“Oh yes,” she cried, turning around so fast she almost knocked one of the students flying. “Noon is good. But that would be too much like a date. How about we just have lunch over at your— no, that won’t work. There’s no kitchen in your wagon. Library?”
“It would be my pleasure.” Green Grass nodded and kept walking while Twilight backed through the crowd of playing students. “We can go over the student evaluations, and I can get your opinions on them. Shall I bring another apology cake, since you said the last one had such an impact on you?”
“No!” she said abruptly. “Just a quiet lunch with no compli—”
Pinkie’s voice suddenly got loud as she yelled, “No, Dinky! That’s not the pony you want to pin the tail—”
Twilight’s eyes grew large as she gained a second tail from the blindfolded filly. The instinctive reaction to having a steel pin shoved in her rump caused her to reflexively lunge forward, plowing into Green Grass. The two of them landed in a heap in the middle of the floor, nose to nose while the entire party of students looked on and giggled. The only way it could be more embarrassing is if—
A brilliant camera flash filled the room just as Twilight brought her lips together to ask, “What?” She leapt off the floor and into pursuit of the camerapony, young colt with a “Foal Free Press” card in his hat that went flying as they raced around the room, making two complete circuits before he made his escape out the door, still being followed by the shouting unicorn.
Green Grass watched in stunned amazement, shaking his head. “Oh, this won’t end well.”
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Poor Twilight~~ *giggles*
Haha funny chapter! The picture in Foal Free Press isn't going to go over well I bet.
GABBY GUMS STRIKES AGAIN!!!
Huh, never even occurred to me that he might be an earth pony. What a
! Unless I just missed it of course.
Interesting ability of his, and I love the idea that Twilight has that many spells just running all the time.
He also sells dishwashing supplies!
whoops
'underhoofed', maybe?
1787277 Fixed all 3 of 'em. It did kind of sound like Windowpane was made out of glass, didn't it? If you catch any spots where I did't telegraph Green Grass being an earth pony correctly, let me know too. He's the black sheep of the family, not quite treated as a special gift like Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake, being as he is the only earth pony in a family of unicorns. You should see a bit of resentment at his parents trying to marry him off earlier that will show up later too.
1787433
Er, I wasn't pointing out a mistake with #1, I was headcanoning that Windowpane runs a window repair/dishwashing supply store, along the lines of Quills & Sofas. (I will never get tired of that joke.)
Oh, Featherweight. You're growing up to be a fine member of the pegarazzi.
Glad to see these two getting along. Only a matter of time now.
1787433
I thought he was a unicorn with a taste for earth ponies too.
I like that it's a surprise for both me and twilight at the same time tho.
Also, I figured it was a family tradition to marry only unicorns, but seeing as they are trying to arrange unicorn grand kids it seems a little cruel from his perspective, trying to dilute and remove his kind's blood from the gene pool.
I like it all so far, I even Favorited it.
Wow. if she had forgiven him any faster I think the readers would've gotten whiplash. I mean he did everything on her checklist to piss her off and him being nice to her for about two minutes and she's pretty much set out the garden path. Ids she meant to be bipolar?
I don't quite get the joke in footnote 2 but great story regardless
Srry i meant footnote 1
denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2604-Luna_saw_what_you_did_there.jpg
"What about Dinky?"
"Oh, she just likes to make noise."
No, Featherweight! NO! Bad colt!
–Ouch. At least nopony is trying to set me up with some random stallion.
Actually, I think the author is doing that at this very moment, Twi.
–“Did you like the apology cake? Well, cakes.”
“Yes, it had quite an impact on me."
Oh-ho-ho my God.
Looks like Greeny and Twi have finally gotten a bit of sane closure at last. Also, those author's notes are quite neatly in key, well done.
Ahh, they're FINALLY getting along.
Darn it, Featherweight!
I must have missed something because I am so, so, so lost here. Everything went by in a flash, and I have no idea what is going on, why it is going on, where they were talking all that time, and ahh!
Huh. It actually makes a lot of sense that, in a society of herbivores, a flower shop would be viewed by the young ones as similar to a confectionary. Headcannon get!
For a brief, bright moment, Featherweight became Best Pony!
Awww... This writing's so good, and mine is so bad
Note to self: find way to cast Twilight's reading-while-walking spells in human-land.
That was nice.
And everyone on the other side of the fourth wall laughed and laughed...
You're right, the author isn't a pony.
Ah... ah! A-BUAHAHAHAHA!
Sorry, had a second-degree sneeze there.
HGGGGT!
That's a new one...
G-g-GUFFAW-zuntite!
That was totally a sneeze... yup, just a sneeze
PFFF-FFFT... FFFFFFT. FFt fft.
Breathing exercizes are fun... right?
Category 4 sneeze detected. Activating launch sequence in T-minus 3... 2... BUAHAHAHAHACHOOZIE!
Murphy's lawfully wedded husband and wife decided to make headlines before actual marriage.
9202103
You know that anime trope where the male character trips and falls on top of the female character, and somebody walks in and sees them like that at the entirely wrong moment?
Yeah, this story...
9314563 Multiple times. Twilight certainly has a gift for timing. And I do such terrible things to the two of them. Over three stories. And some side-character stuff in Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies under the alias of Lucky, and an alias of Green Mountain in Equestria : 1940.
Ship! Ship! Ship!
Can you explain footnote 1?
10053871 Someday, as you grow up and develop a dirty mind, you will understand, young one.
Your footnote went there long before I could; doubt I would have, since thoughts of white rabbits tend to be more... traumatic to anyone with knowledge of
The Demon Beast of Whitetail WoodAngel Bunny.Not gonna lie. Considering that's technically exactly what happened, I'm rather lucky I wasn't drinking anything as I read that. I swear, if there was an activist organization for People Against Keyboard Abuse, I'd probably have a 24/7 protest outside my house just because of all the fics like this that mine get subjected to.
Fear not, young tutor. I doubt the lofty Chrysanthemum Estate subscribes to a school newspaper in an out of the way tiny town like Ponyville.
It's not like they might have a slew of such subscriptions just to be charitable. And a staff member assigned to keep an eye on the ones from that particular locale just in case any interesting tidbits of small-town gossip about a certain six now-famous mares happen to show up in it despite escaping the attention of more.... professional journalists.
That could never happen!
But they only had one attempt, they need at least a few tries to get it right
*smack*
Okay okay fine, jeez
You're late, you're late for a very important date!
Well that's not offensive or specist in any way.