Trixie narrowed her eyes, focusing her vision on the shining red apple. It sat on a wooden table in middle of the deadly silent throne room. In the corner of her vision she could see Celestia silently observing. She concentrated on her target, and the light around her horn began to shift and shimmer as she focused. Seconds passed as the disrupted light spread and swirled around her horn, refracting and reflecting as it passed around it causing various different colours to appear. With a deeply inhaled breath, Trixie released the built up magic, firing the beam of light at the apple. It struck the fruit in a brilliant white flash, obscuring it from the vision of the two ponies in the room for a split second. When the fruit was visible again, the apple was nowhere to be seen, and a perfectly rounded orange had taken its place.

“Well, that was… interesting,” Celestia said as she stood up from the floor and approached the table. She lowered her long neck down to reach eye level with the fruit. She squinted, inspecting it closely; before grasping it in her magic, peeling its skin and pulling a section of the fruit out. She levitated it into her mouth and bit down.

“How is it?” Trixie asked in a smug tone, taking a seat on the floor.

“It’s certainly an orange,” Celestia answered after swallowing the fruit. “Although I’m more interested in the manner in which you cast the spell. You didn’t actually cast what I asked you to.”

“So?” Trixie replied, pointing a hoof to the fruit. “You got your orange didn’t you?”

“I can’t fault you for your creativity, you cast the spell in a most… novel manner. I could see you used a combination of many different spells in order to achieve the desired effect. I admire the unique approach, but sometimes we need to do things by the book.”

“You mean the old, boring ways.” Trixie rolled her eyes.

“Your way worked,” Celestia said, looking down at the orange again, “but you couldn’t apply it to every situation. If I had have asked you to transform the apple and make it grow larger for instance, you wouldn’t have been able to use your way.”

“But you didn’t ask me to do that.”

“No, but I did ask you to cast the spell as I demonstrated. Why did you do it differently?”

“I like to do things my way,” Trixie shrugged.

“You can’t always do things your own way Trixie, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.” Celestia removed the orange from the table. She turned to a nearby wicker basket and levitated another fresh, red apple onto the table. “Now come on, I know you are capable of doing this the way I showed you.”

“Fine,” Trixie groaned. She stood back up on her hooves and straightened them out. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Moments later the light around her horn began to swirl again.

I wonder if the egghead can cast this spell her thoughts interrupted suddenly. An image of Twilight popped into her mind, and moments later the air around her horn returned to normal.

“What’s the matter?” Celestia asked.

“Nothing!” Trixie answered quickly, shaking her head. She closed her eyes again, and her horn began to glow seconds later.

I bet she does it easily she thought, her mind wandering again. She pictured Twilight lifting a giant, transparent blue bear into the air. The light around her horn stopped glowing soon after.

“Damn it!” she cursed.

“Alright, you are clearly distracted by something,” Celestia spoke as she approached Trixie. “Is everything ok?”

“Yeah it’s… no big deal.” Trixie answered weakly.

“Trixie.” Celestia spoke her name in a way that prompted the magician to look up at her teacher. A warm smile met her gaze. “I know you may not have appreciated my teaching in the past, but please know that I’m not just your magic tutor. I’m very willing to lend an ear to any issues you may have, magic related or otherwise.”

“I thought this was a magic class, not sharing time?” Trixie pointed out, returning Celestia’s smile with a frown.

“Well, if there is something on your mind distracting you from your magic, I would think it is relevant to your lessons. And if I can do anything to help I will.” Celestia replied. Trixie turned her head away with a sigh, falling silent for a few moments.

“Your old protégé has me distracted,” she answered eventually.

“You mean Twilight?” Celestia asked. “How so?”

“Well she--“Trixie looked up to catch a grin forming on Celestia’s face. Something about the look gave Celestia’s thoughts away to Trixie instantly.

“You know already, don’t you!” she cried, pointing a hoof at the grinning princess.

“I don’t know anything you haven’t told me,” Celestia answered, the grin never leaving her face.

“Then you have an idea don’t you?”

“Well unless you tell me I can’t be certain, can I?”

“I’m not buying it!” Trixie yelled, her voice now thick with irritation. “Just admit you know what I’m going to say next!”

Celestia chuckled. “Ok, I can admit I have an inkling that you are looking to get closer to Twilight?”

“Pfft, an inkling is it?”

“Just a passing thought,” Celestia answered. “But if this is something that’s bothering you I’m sure it would help to talk about it.”

“Well you already figured it out, I imagine it was obvious, and now I’ve pretty much admitted it, so what else is there to say?”

“Well, I could give you some advice, if you’re willing to hear it.”

“Might as well.” Trixie sat down, crossing her hooves across her chest.

“Well, quite simply Trixie, if you’d like to get closer to Twilight; all you need to do is what you are doing here right now. Confide in her; open up to her, be less Great and Powerful Trixie and more Trixie Lulamoon. If you tell Twilight how you feel and show her more of you, the real you; she will feel like she can do the same.”

“That’s it? That’s your brilliant ancient Princess advice? I could have gotten that off a fortune cookie.”

“Perhaps you could!” Celestia laughed, “and the cookie would be just as correct as myself! In a situation like this though all I can do is give you advice. It’s up to you if you want to heed it or not.”

“You could also put a good word in for me, tell Twilight how awesome I am and how good an idea it would be for her to date me.” Trixie suggested with a grin. This elicited another laugh from Celestia

“Well, I can definitely tell her your magic is coming along well.” Celestia offered.

“And maybe throw in how great I look every morning?”

“Maybe,” Celestia chuckled, shaking her head.

*

Trixie sat at the writing desk in her castle bedroom, staring down at the blank parchment in front of her, two hooves holding up her head. This had been her stance for the last ten minutes, her eyes fixed on the parchment which, despite giving it her most fierce look; remained stubbornly blank. With an irritated sigh, she lifted her head and leaned back on the cushioned wooden chair she was sitting on, letting her hooves fall to her sides and the taught muscles on her forehead relax. She rubbed said muscles when the pain of releasing them revealed to her just how long she had been frowning at the paper.

I’m thinking far too much into this she decided. Stupid Celestia confusing me.

She leaned back over the paper and, with a determined frown; grasped the nearby quill with her magic, dipped it in the inkpot to its side, and began to scribble furiously on the parchment.

Twilight

You wanted to know what I did in my lessons, so here it is.

The first lesson today went well, except Celestia got all preachy on me as expected. I swear she just can’t stop herself dishing out advice, it’s like an addiction for her. We did some transformation magic. I turned an apple into an orange, nothing too difficult, although Celestia was oddly specific on how I was to do it. I did it my way and it wasn’t good enough for her. Suppose I better get used to following her specifics.

Anyway, I hope you had a safe journey home. I also want to apologize for being short with you earlier this morning, I just woke up and I am not a morning pony, as you might have already guessed.

Anyway, hope to hear from you soon.

Trixie

Trixie glanced over the words she just wrote, taken aback by how easy it was to speak openly on paper as opposed to face to face with her crush. She quickly grasped the letter in her magic and tossed it into the magical fire burning in the fireplace before her more closed off sensibilities took over. She watched as the bright orange flames flashed a startling green as they enveloped the letter, before returning to the normal colour. She then realised she was holding her breath, and released it in long sigh, becoming aware of how nervous the process of sending Twilight a letter had made her.

“Stupid egghead,” she muttered irritably to herself.

*

The front door of the Ponyville library swung open to allow an exhausted unicorn to stagger into its foyer.

“Ugh, that journey took forever!” Twilight groaned as she swayed towards the nearby couch, slumping into it.

“Oh, you’re back!” a voice called from the kitchen. “It is much later than you said you’d be,” Spike pointed out, glancing out the window to see a bright moon shining in the dark night sky.

“It takes so long for me to leave Canterlot now!” Twilight complained. “Everyone has something extremely important to tell me these days.” She sprawled back on the couch, shutting her eyes as her exhausted body relaxed into the comfortable piece of furniture. She felt her hooves throbbing as they were released from the weight of her body.

“Well, at least you are back now--*hurk*” Spike was interrupted by a torrent of flame leaping from his mouth, a crumpled scrap of parchment materialising in its centre and dropping to the floor.

“Seriously!” Twilight groaned as she laid eyes on the paper on the ground. “I just got back and somepony is sending me letters already? Which impatient pony is it from now? They didn’t even have the decency to seal the thing before they tossed it to me!”

Spike picked the letter up and unrolled it, glancing at the signature at the bottom.

“Its… from Trixie.”

Twilight’s frown suddenly lifted from her face.

“Oh… give it here Spike,” she requested, leaning forward from the chair.

“Why is Trixie sending you letters now?” Spike asked.

“I asked her to keep me up to date with how her lessons are going,” Twilight answered as she regarded the letter. A smile formed on her face as her eyes ran over the words.

“Wow, transformation magic already huh?” she mumbled to herself. She jumped up from the chair and approached her writing desk, grasping a quill in her magic.

Dear Trixie

I’m impressed to hear you are performing transformation magic already, I had no idea of the level you were at! I’m Glad to hear things are going well.

You should listen to Celestia’s advice, she has never steered me wrong in the past, and I’m sure any help she gives you is both accurate and very reliable.

My journey home was actually quite irritating. I know you find it annoying that I don’t appreciate my royal status, but you should have seen how much hassle it was for me just to get to the train station! Like you said before, I sprout a pair of wings and suddenly everypony has something incredibly important to say to me! I’m exhausted, and I’m looking forward to hitting the hay very soon.

“I’m also happy to see you decided to write to me and keep me informed on your lessons, please continue to keep me up to date with how things are going!

Your friend

Twilight

With a satisfied smile Twilight rolled the parchment up, wrapped it in a purple ribbon and levitated it to Spike.

“Could you send this to Trixie for me please?” she asked.

“Uhh, how do I do that? I usually only send things back to Celestia.

“Just breathe your fire as normal, I’ve cast the enchantments so the letter knows where it’s going.”

“Alrighty.” Spike inhaled a deep breath, and released a mighty torrent of flame that took his feet from the floor as he forced it out. It enveloped the letter, which vanished in the white hot centre of the flame.

“Right, now it’s definitely time for bed,” Twilight announced, hauling herself up from the couch and staggering towards the stairs.