The house looked unassuming. I checked the note I'd made, double-checked the address, and nodded. Walking up to the front door, I could hear laughter ringing from within—happy laughter. Balling my magic into a fist, I knocked on the door in a credible reproduction of how a human would.

I heard hooves sound on the floor within as somepony approached the door.

Shining Armor opened the door. "Oh! Hey, Lyra. Twily said you were coming over to study. Come inside."

As Shining backed up, I stepped inside. The house was warm thanks to a crackling fire, and sitting on a couch was Twilight and her parents. I put on my best smile. "Hi."

"You must be Lyra. Twily's been telling us all about you. I'm Night Light, and this is my wife, Twilight Velvet. Now, if you want to not go crazy while here, call our little filly Twily, and my wife Twilight." Night wore the biggest grin I'd seen on anypony except Pinkie (nopony could rival her).

"It's a family tradition, in case you were wondering why I'd be crazy enough to confuse literally everypony who has to be in the room with both of us," Twilight Velvet said. "Twily said you only started learning magic a little after she started at Princess Celestia's school."

"Yeah! We—my family—came through a portal-kinda-thing from another world, and we didn't have any magic there, so it was really surprising to have it now. Twilight—Twily—has been helping me catch up with class, but I think she wants to push me past what we were meant to learn," I said before I made the connection. "Hold on. Shining's here?"

"He's my big brother." Twilight Sparkle looked a little confused. "Why wouldn't he be here?"

I blinked a few times in surprise. "Well, my mind's officially blown. I didn't know you were brother and sister."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you meet Shiny?" Night Light asked.

"Dear. If we're going to grill her for answers, we should at least let her get comfortable." Twilight Velvet turned from her husband to me. "Please, sit down and get comfortable." She gestured to the other couch in the room.

"Thanks. It's hard to get used to just being able to stand all day without getting tired, but it's still nice to sit down." I climbed onto the couch and folded my legs down to get comfortable. "I met Shining on my first day moving to Canterlot. He was up at the castle. Zest Spiral asked him to help us find our way around."

"What's our little filly going to teach today?" Night Light asked Twilight Sparkle. "Not plant transmutation, I hope?" By the way Night Light and Twilight Velvet shared a giggle, I knew there had to be a joke I was missing.

"Transmutation?" I asked.

"You wouldn't believe what Twily did when she was being tested for admission to Princess Celestia's school. She had a little magic surge, and next thing you know she turned us into houseplants!" Twilight Velvet giggled behind her hoof. "It was a unique experience, that's for sure."

Looking at Twilight Sparkle, I could see embarrassment written across her face—this might have been something she didn't want her friends to know. "You have no idea. I got turned into a unicorn as an adult, so the first time I got hit with magic it went everywhere! I created a whole invisible marching band, started dancing uncontrollably, and when I escaped I was attacked by a roll of plastic wrap."

When both Twilight Sparkle's parents stared at me with surprise, I gestured at Night Light. "From what I hear, everypony has an embarrassing surge at least once."

Night Light froze and looked back at me as though he suddenly got what he was doing to Twilight. "Oh! Ah… I might have accidentally made a telescope out of Mom's pots and pans, then teleported inside it when she screamed at me. It took the Royal Guard to get me out with a saw."

"I was skydiving. My magic went haywire, and instead of activating my parachute, I produced nearly a hundred mattresses." Twilight Velvet's description was shocking so far as I hadn't realized foals would be allowed to do such dangerous things. "It was a surprisingly soft landing until the mattresses vanished and I fell from the top of the pile to the ground. I broke my leg."

Clearing his throat, Night Light looked down at Twilight Sparkle. "We should let you two go and study. Have fun!"

Twilight Sparkle (I had to keep reminding myself to use their full names in my head. Madness abounded, as Night Light said, if I tried shortening them) jumped off the couch after a quick hug with her parents. "Come on, Lyra!"

"It was good meeting you, Lyra," Night Light said as I climbed off the couch.

Twilight Velvet nodded in agreement. "You'll have to come around some day and have dinner. Do you have any family in Canterlot?"

I nodded. "I live with my mom and step-dad."

The news seemed to brighten Twilight Velvet's night further. "Well then, next weekend you'll have to invite them over. We can have dinner and get to meet you."

Wondering what I was getting into, I couldn't think of a single thing that would cause this except pony friendliness being a little different to Australian. "Sure! I'll let them know."

"Come on. I want to see if you can do this spell!" Twilight Sparkle, I discovered, was adorable when she was impatient.

"Sorry Twilight, Night, but my teacher is demanding my attention. I gotta go!" As soon as I took a step after Twilight Sparkle, she seemed appeased that I was following her. As soon as we were out of the living room, she directed me to the back door of the house.

Outside, the air was crisp (as it always was in Canterlot) and there was just a thin scattering of snow on the ground—though the weather ponies had announced they would be dropping more overnight. Weather reports and warnings in Equestria were strange, though a lot more accurate than back on Earth. "So how do I do this?"

"I thought you might have tried researching it on your own. It's actually really simple once you have the weave-pattern right." Of course, what Twilight Sparkle thought was simple, was usually far from simple. She used her horn to flash an image of the magic weave, which was a complex form involving two completely different types of magic.

Okay magic, don't fail me now. I eased the bare minimum of power into my horn (just enough to light it) and started building my own. It wasn't easy, and took me what must have been a good ten minutes of careful study and reproduction. The reason for using the least magic possible to make the spell, of course, was that it would not be enough to actually fuel the spell.

"You need a tighter half-turn on the third quadrant. That zig-zag along the edge needs to be sharper…" Twilight started correcting my form, and I wasn't stupid enough to ignore her—she knew this stuff better than any book.

I made every correction she pointed out until Twilight was standing right in front of me and looking at my spell-weave with great intent.

"So?" I asked.

Twilight nodded. "It's perfect." There was a reason to get weaves perfect, and it had nothing to do with how permissive magic was to small errors, but everything to do with the fallibility of memory. I could cast this spell with almost half the weave slightly altered, but that meant that I had to have as few errors in my starting weave as possible and that I'd have to re-memorize the weave regularly to keep the pattern fresh. "Don't forget to memorize how much magic you use to keep track of drift."

"I know, Twilight." As she'd trained me, and as we were being trained in class, I studied the weave to commit every part of it to memory. Every line, every thickness, and every pattern as a whole. I didn't do it just once, of course—memory was about repetition.

By the time I studied the pattern for the fifth time—and found every detail to be how I remembered it—I gave Twilight a nod. "Okay. I've got it."

With a puff of her magic, Twilight Sparkle destroyed the weave I'd been projecting with my horn. I was unsurprised, this was how we'd been learning together. "Okay, build it again."

The first was a test of accuracy. I took my time and rebuilt the weave entirely from memory. Having just seen it, this served to reinforce the weave in my memory, and prove that I wasn't about to blow all my magic into a bad casting of a complex spell.

Again Twilight made corrections. I knew better than ask her how she knew the weave so well she could critique mine without a reference. Correcting my own, I raised an eyebrow at her. "Another accurate one?" I asked

"Yes."

So I made another accurate one, trying to drum into my stupid brain the changes she'd made. She only managed to correct two parts. "Now do a quick one."

I could have done better, but that was the point. Casting spells was often done fast—spur of the moment—which meant that mistakes would be made and were expected. There were a few mistakes I saw right off the bat. "Less than two percent?"

Twilight Sparkle nodded.

"Okay," I said as I dropped that weave. "How do I integrate the target into it?"

"It's the bottom right part of the weave. The values modify the twists in the threads of motive magic so that it sends the dimensions for the spell." As she spoke, Twilight brought the weave up with her own magic, and then twisted and adjusted her weave in the manner she spoke, making calculations appear beside it to show how she got her results.

So when I made my third practice weave, a mix of fast and accurately detailed—what would be the actual basis for my first casting—I ran the calculations for a two-length jump past Twilight, worked the numbers into the weave, and looked at Twilight. "How is this?"

"You could do better with the detail, but the calculations are correct. Cast it." Twilight stepped to the side to give me room.

I didn't need to focus on my target, or even worry about what was going on around me. Magic was about calculations most of the time, and if Twilight Sparkle said mine were correct, and my weave was tight enough to cast, they were and it was.

Without further thought, I relaxed the tight grip I'd had on my magic and let it flow down my horn. The weave evaporated from my vision and I felt a single atomic moment pass. Before that moment I was standing still and casting the spell. After that moment I was two ponylengths away with a chunk of my magic energy missing.

I'd done it. The spell had worked. I'd teleported! "I did it!"

"You did it. Now try again, faster." Twilight Sparkle wouldn't be happy if I'd saved the world. She would ask me to do it again faster and/or more efficiently.

But I was too excited to let Twilight's striving for excellence bring me down—after all, it made me a lot better at this stuff. The calculations were the only slow part of the spell. I built the weave again and teleported to the other side of Twilight, turned so I was facing her. "Boop!" I said, reaching out to poke Twilight in on the nose.

Twilight stared at me for a moment with wide-eyed surprise. She started reaching her own hoof up to my nose, but I was quicker with my teleport than she was with her hesitant poke. "Hey!"

I blew a raspberry, but had to move quickly when I saw Twilight charging her magic and building a weave—damn she was fast. I barely got my own spell off before she appeared where I was, but before I could cast again she'd fired another rapid teleport and was right in front of me.

"Boop!"

I actually laughed at Twilight's boop on my nose, but she was gone again before I'd even finished blinking. "Come back here!" I said.

Building a weave, I realized I could leave the actual inputting of direction until the last moment. I planned five different targets, ran the numbers for each, and when Twilight teleported near one I appeared close enough for her to gasp and teleport again.

It didn't take long for me to burn up every ounce of magic I had trying to chase her down. In the end I just flopped on my belly in the snow. "You win."

Twilight, who had picked up on my trick of pre-building a weave for modification later quickly, used her last teleport to appear right in front of me. I had the distinct pleasure of at least seeing her puffing from the magic exerted. "Are you going to come inside? I think Mom was making us some snacks."

I pushed down with my hooves, shoving myself out of the snow and back to all fours. "Just so long as I don't have to teleport there," I said.

To Ms. Sweetie Drops: Miss drops, for what reasons would a... Bonnie lass, such as yourself, wish to fight monsters? Any particular motivations behind that decision?

"I just want to get out and help ponies. Equestria is what it is because ponies help each other, and I want to do that as much as I can. Also, I want to be challenged." Sweetie Drops nodded succinctly.

Support me on Patreon or fuel my writing on Ko-Fi!

Join me on Discord. Please use your FimFic name as an alias. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.

Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
Boulder
Canary in the Coal Mine
Daremo
Dio-Drogynous
Lazyreader19
Nils
Sirion123

And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Lab