First Lessons.

“So Luna, what did you want to cover in our first actual lesson?” Twilight asked. Sitting down on a cushion across from Luna. Luna was drinking a cup of tea and going over her thoughts on the lesson plans she had devised for Twilight.

“Well, I have seen first hand your prowess at magic, and I know Celestia has taught you very well so far.” Luna said, Twilight was simply sitting and nodding. “I know it sounds like filly stuff, but I want you to try lifting some things so I can get readings” At this Twilight’s face fell slightly. Luna felt slightly bad after seeing this but didn’t show it.

“I don’t want you to feel bad, this is actually going to be different than what you are thinking. Because you have changed your frequency to match my own, we can test your telekinetic strength by having you try to lift an object while I try to hold it in place. Like this we should be able to get better readings into how strong you are.” Luna explained. Twilight was now sitting at rapt attention.

Luna took a small, dense stone sphere from one of the bags that she took from Canterlot. Twilight looked upon the stone, recognizing it as one of the heaviest standardized stones used in unicorn magic testing. Luna set the stone down on the table before explaining the test in detail.

“So, we will start this test with you simply lifting this stone. As you will probably remember, this specific type of stone requires 100 lumens of magic power to lift. After you lift the stone I will start pulling the stone down again with a force of 10 lumens, increasing by 10 every 10 seconds. We will stop once you are no longer able to lift the stone.” Luna explained.

“And what if I manage to overpower you?” Twilight said jokingly. Luna however looked dead serious.

“If you manage to overpower me, Lumens would no longer be a suitable measurement for magical power.” Luna said.

“What do you mean by that?” Twilight asked. Lumens, from what she remembered, were the basis for quantifying unicorn power, they also related power used with the luminosity of the aura surrounding the horn.

“Lumens are a magical unit based on my own magical power. I created the first set of spheres used for testing with the smallest one being equal to one Lumen.” Luna explained.

“Oh.”

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Luna had sweat on her brow, the magical exertion was finally catching up with her. Twilight was currently matching her at 900 Lumens, both of their horns were flooding the library with light near equivalent to looking at the sun. Luna increased her magic again, the stone dropped slightly, and then twilight pushed the stone back up.

Luna knew that they would soon approach her limit of 1000 Lumens. Luna could see that Twilight was also getting near her limit, her responses were no longer as quick as they were when they started.

Another increase, another response. Another increase,

Thud

The stone sat on the table, slightly rocking back and forth from the landing on the table.

“940 Lumens, *pant* most impressive Twilight.” Luna said, trying to get her breath back. Twilight was even more exhausted than Luna and so did not respond. “I can see why Celestia wanted me to take over teaching you. *pant* She would never say it to you, *pant* You have nearly twice the raw magical power at your disposal as she does.” Luna explained. Twilight suddenly froze, her eyes wide.

“Twilight, breathe.” Luna said calmly. Twilight slowly came back to her senses, steadying herself with long deep breaths. Twilight still seemed like her world was upside down. Luna could see why. The way that Celestia was seen by the populace, it was hard to think anypony was more powerful than her. The incident with the Changeling queen notwithstanding.”

“What is your max?” Twilight asked. Genuinely curious about how outmatched she had been.

“I have a maximum magical power of 1000 Lumens. 60 points above yours. You are officially the 2nd most powerful unicorn in history in terms of raw power.”

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After the strength test, Luna and Twilight took a few minutes to regain their breath. Twilight was still a bit shocked at the numbers that they had managed to pull off. Twilight knew from at least the ursa minor event and when she got her cutie mark that she commanded a lot of magical power. But she never considered that she would nearly max out the scale.

Luna’s voice brought Twilight out of her reflection.

“Oh, sorry what was that Luna?” Twilight asked, rubbing the back of her head in slight embarrassment.

“I was simply asking if you were ready to continue with our lesson. I do have a few good ideas of how to continue now that I know we have current measurements.: Luna explained, Twilight simply nodded and waited for Luna to continue. “I assume you have heard about the so called ‘Forbidden magics’, am I correct in this?” A nod in reply. “These magics have been branded forbidden not because they are inherently evil, but because of the danger they would pose if they ever landed in the wrong hooves.” Luna told Twilight.

“So we are going to be studying these magics then?” Twilight assumed.

“That is correct. But I will say that we will not be starting for a while with actual magic. These magics require a lot of preparation before even the simplest can be safely explored.” Luna cautioned.

Luna looked down at the table, a shadow of a memory seemed to flicker across her face.

“Luna…?” Twilight asked, concerned for the Princess. She briefly considered looking directly into Luna’s thoughts to see what was causing her strife, but quickly decided against invading her privacy.

“So how do we prepare?” Twilight asked instead, hoping to pull Luna away from her seemingly darker thoughts.

“Right, it has been a while since I have taught anypony in this subject. The preparations are rather simple, but are in place as a sort of test to see if the pony is truly ready to begin. The pony wishing to learn has to prove that they will be able to resist the temptations that come with the power they are asking to control. Accomplished in steps normally. Even though I personally do not think you would do any harm to ponies, we will still follow the standard procedures.” Luna said. Twilight nodded an affirmative.

“Alright then. To begin the preparations. What is the funniest joke that you or one of your friends have come up with?” Luna asked looking dead serious.

“What?”

“You can tell a lot about a pony from their sense of humor, I will say no more until after you tell me your best joke.

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“That was definitely… Something” Luna said.

“Hehe… So did I pass?” Twilight asked.

“Yes, but if you were being graded on joke quality, you would have failed easily. I think that will be enough for today.” Luna said before she walked away from the table.

“I think I will take a nap and then we can go do something else if you want to.” Luna said going up the stairs to her room.

Author's Notes:

I feel like nothing really got done in this chapter. But it is something to set up some other concepts for the next few chapters maybe. Also I don't know if there is an actual magic scale in the show, but I like the concept, so I threw it in. If anyone has anything to say on whether this was good or not then I would appreciate hearing it so I can hopefully make the next chapter better.