- "I get it. I think. My folks just have their parents pick a mare or stallion from one of the high-up families, i figured Widget was just the person your family picked for you. Kind of like how Princess Cadence became your foal-sitter because her family chose your brother for her to get married to."

Starcrasher nodded in understanding, it was all starting to make sense now. Oh well, another mystery solved.

- "Right then, what should i try first?"

"Ah... that's not quite what I meant.  Cadence became my foal-sitter to watch over me, not to be a match for Shining Armor.  Our parents didn't have anything to do with that; it just happened on its own between the two of them." Twilight corrected quickly.  "Arranged couplings and marriages went out of style in Equestria ages ago.  It used to be a matter of marrying into wealth or strengthening family bonds, but that's changed in the modern era.  Well... here, at least.  It's still pretty common in places like Chineigh.

As for Widget?  Well... he actually asked me out first.  I didn't realize his intentions and I spazzed out a little since I didn't think I was ready to start dating." she shrugged and still felt rather silly at the memory of her bad reaction.  "We'd been friends for so long already, and he is very charming... but our families didn't have anything to do with it.  I only just mailed home to tell them I've started seeing anypony in the first place.  I'm expecting a letter from Shining Armor demanding to put Widget through interrogation any day now." she was only half-joking on that point.  Part of her actually worried Shining Armor would send guards...

By then, the two had arrived at Twilight's training grounds.  She had her private clearing deep in the woods that she'd first shown Widget, though Starcrasher as well since it made the perfect place to practice her magic.  Like the Everfree Forest, the ambient magical energies were more potent there, but they didn't have the side-effect of making control any more difficult.  Starcrasher wasn't powerful enough to come close to depleting the leylines of magic and the extra atmosphere allowed Twilight to more accurately sense her pupil's fluctuating control.  All in all, the ideal spot for a Unicorn with difficulty manifesting magic to work in.

"Okay, let's get back on task." she chimed in as well.  A magical battery was hovered out of her saddle bag and set on the ground between the two of them.  It was a simple enough device -- merely a molded cylinder that contained a glowing crystal full of magical energy.  A little meter bar on the side showed that it was full to capacity.  "Let's start with some threshold testing this time.  I want you to try and lift the battery, but do so very gradually.  I want to see if we can determine a specific point of exertion at which your magic-negation kicks in."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:03, Mon 10 Sept 2012.

Starcrasher nodded again. Well... It made sense, in a way, for Twilight and Widget to pick their own dates given that none of their relatives lived in Ponyville, but what Twilight had said about her brother coming over for an interrogating session added up to what she suspected. He still had to pass according to the standards of her family after all.

Instead of continuing on that topic, she focused on the battery, as instructed gradually increasing the power she put into the spell to lift it off the ground. The magic swirled around the battery, close to touching it... but the moment the spell actually touched the battery its indicator started to empty rapidly, much like a bucket of water with a hole punched into the bottom. Noticing the movement she quickly stopped her spell, and the instant she did the meter stopped as well, hovering around the quarter full point.

She looked at Twilight as if to ask 'Okay, what now', though she didn't actually say anything.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:15, Mon 10 Sept 2012.

Twilight's horn glowed as she focused on the battery and recharged it, bringing the meter back to full strength.  "Again."  she intoned with a nod.  And again, and again.  Each time Starcrasher would drain the battery, Twilight would refill it and ask her to give it another shot.  The point wasn't to try and lift the device -- it was that they could both get a better feel for how Starcrasher's magic formed when she tried to cast spells.  Since Starcrasher went around not using magic given the side-effects, it meant she wouldn't have as solid a feel for knowing her own strengths or limitations in casting as more practiced Unicorns would.  So for the first part of the lesson, they just focused on getting her into a steady control.

"Alright, now I want you to focus your magic until just before the drain starts.  Hold it there and don't push any further, okay?" she instructed.

Starcrasher nodded, and again the magic started swirling from around her horn up close to the battery. The problem however was that the meter would drain the moment the magic even as much as brushed against it. While in the past week she had attained a modicum of control in that her magic no longer scattered all over the place -- as in, Twilight did not believe more power equaled better results -- the side effects remained as persistent as ever.

"Well, the good news is that you're not destroying the magical energy.  Just dispersing it." Twilight explained as she stepped up beside Starcrasher.  It was a world of difference in the details, but at a glance anyone would mistake one for the other.  Had she been destroying magic, then the battery would be impossible to recharge once she'd drained away its strength.  Instead her magic was just causing the energy stored in the battery, or in other spells, to get scattered away into the atmosphere rather than do its job.

Twilight lit her horn once more and channeled her magic gently into Starcrasher's spell.  At first there was no use as her contributed energy was dispersed away instantly, but she gradually increased the potency until she matched the strength that her pupil was putting out and stabilized the spell.  The two Unicorns were casting in equilibrium -- Twilight was more than strong enough to be able to pour in energy just as swiftly as Starcrasher's dispersed it, keeping the spell from collapsing away.

"Let's do it together now.  Slowly increase your focus and try to lift the battery.  I'll keep it stable for you." she instructed, ready to increase her own energy to match the filly's.

With Twilight's assistance, Starcrasher gently moved her magic towards the battery. Much as she expected, upon its touch the meter began to waver and drop slightly, but stabilized a short while afterward as Twilight's magic acted as a dam to prevent the magical energies from being dispersed. With the air around the battery charged to saturation, the meter did not drop further.

Another thing that would be clear to Twilight was that if the intention had been to disperse magic, her pupil's casting actually did a pretty good job. Rather than forcibly pull magic apart, or provide a counter to it, it instead ate away at the very framework of spells. In a way, it could be compared to breaking down a house by removing its supports. The brick and mortar would remain unaffected, but the building would collapse anyway.

Starcrasher however was not in a position to realize this due to the more subtle details being lost to her. What she did notice however was the battery starting to wobble as it was starting to fight the hold gravity had on it. As she put more effort into lifting it, the battery wobbled more violently, balanced on the edge and... fell over, rolling some distance away.

- "Sorry, i'll get it."

She headed off in the direction the battery had bounced off to, though fortunately that wasn't very far away. Picking it up with her hoof and kicking it to land on her back, she started heading back to Twilight again... which was honestly only a few steps away from where she had gone to search for the battery. Not like they were practicing on top of a hill or anything.

Years of research and careful study had given Twilight a knack for understanding magic that complimented her own innate skill.  She knew spellcraft inside and out, so it wasn't difficult for her to analyze the behavior of Starcrasher's own magic while she funneled her energy in assistance.  She stopped helping once the battery rolled away though and instead watched her student with an idle grin on her face.

"Starcrasher... you realize what you just did, right?" she asked as the filly returned with the full battery in tow.

- "I know, right?"

Starcrasher beamed a grin she doubted she could get off her face for at least an hour. She'd done it, she successfully cast magic! Oh sure, Twilight had needed to compensate for her own magic by quite a bit, and she didn't doubt the combined power that had gone into what she had just done would have been enough to lift a cart full of apples, but that didn't matter. She lifted a battery!

"It's progress.  Still... out of curiosity, have you ever tried to purposefully break a spell?  Like by casting a disenchantment?" Twilight asked as she set the battery back down in its place to double check its charge.  Yep~!  No energy drained!

Starcrasher chuckled for a moment at the question.

- "Heh, sorry. I seem to have that pretty well covered... But to answer your question, no. Same result, everything i try dissipates, kind of like back when my horn dragged me off somewhere."

"It might be worthwhile to try.  Given the nature of your--" Twilight began, thouhg she cut herself short when what Starcrasher said clicked with her.  "Wait a second.  Your horn did what?"

- "Eh... According to the teacher, it's like when you're ready for your Cutie Mark and your magic goes kinda wild to take you someplace?"

She waited a couple of seconds for a reaction, then started drawing circles in the ground with her hoof.

- "Anyway, mine took me to an area that was pretty rich in magic, rocks floating and everything, so i figured my Cutie Mark had to do with that. I was having trouble back then as well, and figured that if i'd get my Mark my magic would sort itself out and i could start casting..."

She took a deep breath, not really wanting to drag up the memory, but she was too far in to stop now.

- "So i did a levitation spell by the book and... well, everything just up and collapsed. Kinda scared me, didn't come out of my room for a week. And of course, no magical power Cutie Mark like yours."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:08, Tue 11 Sept 2012.

"Honestly, a Unicorn's horn physically dragging them somewhere is actually an absurdly rare occurrence.  I've only heard of it happening to maybe five Ponies in the past thirty years, and only once in a manner that resulted in gaining a Cutie Mark." Twilight explained.  She wasn't incredulous over Starcrasher's claim, but more shocked that her teachers hadn't mentioned it in their letters.  Had she ever told anypony before now?

The story Starcrasher told about accidentally destroying a magic well did raise a point of interest though.  She must have found a stable but cut-off resource of magical energy, no doubt stored in the rocks.  Natural wells like the one Twilight had built her clearing on were sustained by global leylines, so even if something heavily drained or dispersed the magic native there, it would just restore itself over time.  But either way, scattering that much raw magic at once was no easy feat.  It got Twilight pondering on the spot as she tapped her chin thoughtfully.

"Hm... interesting.  Back when you were in the fog in the Everfree Forest; you could cast your magic successfully there, right?" she wanted to confirm a point from a previous discussion about Starcrasher's misadventures in the castle ruins.

Starcrasher gave a quick nod at recalling her adventures in the forest.

- "Yeah. It felt... kind of like how my magic felt. Natra was having trouble with her magic and i think probably the poacher as well, but with me there was a delay, a moment where my magic worked. Then after a second or so i guess you could say it violently exploded. Levitation spells clearing out the fog, simple light spells becoming blinding flashes of light, that sort of thing. I... didn't really try any of the stronger stuff."

She blinked, looking at Twilight. In the time that she had known her she hadn't been likely to ask the same question more than once, and the times she did she often had a good reason for it. So what was on her mind?

- "Why'd you ask?"
This message was last edited by the player at 21:22, Tue 11 Sept 2012.

"That entire area is essentially a giant arcane singularity.  It's been the epicenter of some major magical events in Equestrian history and the Elements of Harmony were activated there three times to date." Twilight explained.  She'd gone into that area for study quite a few times herself given the peculiar traits of the region.  It was odd even for the Everfree Forest.  "Because of that, spells don't quit behave as normal -- they get supercharged with excess energy to the point that Unicorns lose control of their spells unless they can compensate for the difference.  When I was there, I cast a minor charging spell and the backlash tossed me across a room."

The lavender Pony ambled over to the battery and tapped it demonstratively with her hoof.  "When you moved the battery just now, it was because I was stabilizing your spell by adding in excess energy for the dispersion effect to eat up.  When you were in the castle ruins, the atmosphere was essentially doing that as well.  It flooded your spell with more magic than necessary, so first it prevented the anti-magic effect from kicking in, then overcharged the actual spell which caused them to explode."

At that point Twilight was in full-on scholar mode as she paced back and forth behind the battery, her focused on some distant point in the air while she mused aloud.  She had theories buzzing around in her head that needed testing, though she felt she was already onto something of a breakthrough given where the current information was pointing.  "Starcrasher -- I'd like to teach you a disenchantment spell.  They're not easy to learn, but I think it might be a good idea for you to try."

- "Disenchantment? Uhh... Sure, if you say so..."

While Starcrasher could follow the conversation -- mostly due to Twilight explaining it was sort of like how she helped her stabilize her spell earlier -- she gave her teacher a questionable look as she proposed casting a disenchantment spell. That was definitely among the more advanced of classes, and while that would fit into Twilight's teachings, she had her doubts. Not that it would do her any good though, it hadn't seemed to stop Twilight before.

- "Okay, so... Show me."

She took a deep breath, waiting for Twilight to show her how to cast the spell.

"It's not quite as simple as that.  There's different forms of disenchantment, after all.  They have the same final result -- that the magic is dispersed -- but to different effects.  Have a seat." Twilight gestured for Starcrasher to rest in the grass, which meant that she was about to launch into a lengthy lecture... again.

With a quick conjuring of a chalk board that floated in the air behind her, Twilight went on to explain the structure behind magical spells.  There was innate magic in the world that occurred naturally, but when it came to Unicorn spells, they took their own energy (or borrowed it from other sources) and shaped it into a tangible effect on the world around them.  As she lectured, Twilight illustrated on the board, representing a constructed spell as a snowflake-like lattice.  Even the same spell cast by the same Pony was different each time it occurred, and the differences became even more prominent when cast by other Ponies, or using different sources of energy.

But in all that, there was a constant -- the structure always had a core point of focus in it.  The spell would manifest as a point of energy and spread outward, taking shape and thus having an impact on the world.  So long as the spell had sufficient energy to endure, it would do so.  Disenchanting was the process of removing the spell's connection to the energy, be it severing the link to the Unicorn casting it or undoing its own stored energy.

"When it comes down to it, there's really only two ways a spell can be broken.  That's not counting suppressing the spell either -- in that case, the magic is still there but it's just being temporarily stifled.  Actual disenchantment completely removes a spell." Twilight explained.  "There's Deactivation, which is the most common method, and Nullification, which is a far more rare practice.  The difference being is that Deactivation is a precise, comparably surgical action while Nullification is brute force.  They're both effective, but not everypony has the sheer stopping power necessary for Nullification.  What you were doing to the battery earlier was Deactivation.  Compare:"

With that, Twilight pointed her horn at the nearby battery.  The tip of her horn flashed with a sudden bolt of purple light that struck the device like a crackle of lightning, knocking it to the grass and leaving it spinning on its edge.  As it settled, not only was the meter at absolute zero, but the magical crystal contained inside the battery casing had turned a cold gray color.  Twilight once more lit up as she did when she'd recharged the battery before, but this time it remained a dead cell -- its capacity for magic had been totally destroyed.

"A long time back, I made the mistake of casting a mind-compelling enchantment on a doll of mine that affected a lot of Ponies.  I couldn't Deactivate the spell because I couldn't get a clear shot at the doll, but in the end the spell was Nullified by some... ah... divine intervention." the Unicorn rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly at the memory of that particular event.  "Neither form is innately good or bad, nor superior to the other.  It just depends on what your individual need is, and what your own abilities are capable of supplying.  Being able to do both is ideal.  Are you following me so far?"

- "...So what you're saying is, my magic actually doesn't not work, it just kind of ends up deactivating itself?"

Starcrasher looked at Twilight while sitting on the grass, trying to see the point that her teacher was trying to get at. She had a couple of thoughts on what she could have meant however, but which was the right one would revolve around the answer she would get to her question.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:51, Wed 12 Sept 2012.

"Not quite.  The majority of Unicorn spells are learned, but a lot of the times we have innate magic related to our Special Talent.  My friend Rarity, for instance, has a spell that can detect gemstones hidden in the earth.  Nopony ever taught her that spell -- it's a natural ability.  When it first activated in her childhood, it dragged her off just like yours did." Twilight continued as she dismissed the chalkboard away in a puff of sparkles and smoke.  "Telekinesis is an ability all Unicorns have as well, but it does take practice to learn how to control it properly.  If one doesn't practice it, they never get any better.  There are other cases where some Unicorns never master any spells at all... like you."

Twilight joined Starcrasher on the grass and tucked her legs beneath herself comfortably.  She drew her bag over and hovered out one of her many books from within -- a spellbook, as the case was.  She had all sorts of writings from basic spellcraft to the advanced, experimental stuff, and based on the weathered cover it was apparent that the tome she had there was one of the more advanced pieces.  Twilight flipped through the pages to a later portion of the book which featured an illustration of a black-coated Unicorn with a gnarled horn and a shattered star for a Cutie Mark.

"Remember when I told you about Twist Horn the Accursed?  It took her a long time to find a place for herself in society because of the stigma against her -- she was a spell breaker.  Her Special Talent was being able to destroy magic." she continued at further length as she flipped along deeper into the old book.  "She eventually became a physician because her ability allowed her to lift magical ailments and dark spells; her first documented case was when she saved a group of local children who had been hypnotized by Will-o-Wisps and kept them from being kidnapped.  Later in life, she contributed a great deal to the field of magical theory -- she had a more intimate understanding of how magic worked because she was able to undo it better than anyone else, and her writings held true for hundreds of years before they were ever expanded on with new findings."

Twilight knew she was getting long-winded at that point and hoped to spare Starcrasher's attention span by getting to the point.  She turned the book around and pushed it back to her pupil to show a page detailing Twist Horn's essays and demonstrative instructions on Disenchantment.  The spell it listed was rather complex, but frankly didn't look like anything more difficult than Twilight had already been throwing at her in lessons so far.  Learning from a Pony like her did wonders to raise one's threshold for what 'difficult' meant in study.  "I agree with your own theory.  That could be why all other spells you attempt fizzle out.  What I'm getting at here is this: I think you've been unwittingly casting Disenchantment spells this whole time.  It's entirely plausible that you're a natural spell breaker, like Twist Horn was."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:43, Wed 12 Sept 2012.

Starcrasher lowered her head and her ears drooped a little when Twilight mentioned some unicorns never learned to properly cast magic. That was, until Twilight -- most likely sensing her mood -- walked up beside her to show her what she had learned of Twist Horn the Accursed. She looked at the black coated unicorn, but the lines of ancestry were too vague to see anything of herself in the picture. Still, it did cheer her up a little to know that even with that weird side effect, there was something she could be good at. She perked up even more hearing she'd actually have been casting spells all along.

- "Wait, really? I can... I mean, i'm already casting spells? That's great, that's... Wait, so how do i turn it off?"

Her initial enthusiasm was tempered a little with the realization that while it was good to hear she could cast spells, she still wouldn't be getting anywhere if they just kept dissipating all the time. Though it did make her feel kind of tingly inside to hear that every time she had tried to cast a spell she had unwittingly been casting two. At least, she thought she had been.

She started reading the essay and the first of the demonstrations written in the book. It looked pretty difficult, but she couldn't care about that: It could have been the ancient spell to regulate the speed of the Sun and Moon and she'd still have given it her best shot if it could make her able to cast magic.

"Control comes with practice.  Assuming the theory holds water, then you need to understand the principles of disenchantment so that you can know what not to do.  If you've been casting disenchantments innately this whole time, then it's your default method of projecting magical energy -- you can't be expected to just turn off what's essentially a reflex without understanding how it functions first."  She explained as she gestured to a particularly relevant paragraph amid the texts.  "When I first learned how to dispel magic, I did so by not only studying previous examples of disenchantment, but spell structure as well.  You've done plenty of structure studies already, so now we should focus on the flip side and get you familiar with deconstruction."

Starcrasher stopped reading for a moment to move to the paragraph Twilight had indicated, before continuing where she had left off. She was still paying enough attention to follow the conversation however.

- "That sounds kind of weird, knowing the spell but not the theory. It's like... the other way around, trying to figure out what you've been doing."

She really didn't know how to handle the situation, just going with Twilight's directions and hoping that at some point it would all start making sense. She felt as if she had heard enough new information to cram the few leftover spaces in her brain full, it was a surprise Twilight's head hadn't exploded yet for knowing about all of this.

- "Okay so... If this is my normal way of casting magic, how do i notice what's supposed to be there and what isn't? Can you disenchant a disenchantment spell?"

"Actually, yes.  It's called a 'counter spell'." Twilight re-conjured her chalk board, but in a miniature version that she could set between them and illustrate with as she spoke.  Again, she used a snowflake as an example.

"When magic is cast, it starts as a single focal point.  Usually the tip of the horn in the physical world.  In the intangible side of things, it's a point of energy that the Unicorn channels their magic through.  The spell builds outward from that point into a structured form and, when it reaches its finishing point, enacts an effect on the physical world." she explained as she drew first a dot with a bit of chalk, then illustrated it branching outward into a simple snowflake design to symbolize the structure of a spell as it was being cast.

"Disenchantment works either by completely overwhelming the spell's energy and destroying the structure, or by carefully disengaging a single part between the source of energy and the spell itself that causes the whole thing to collapse in on itself.  You've been doing the latter." Twilight continued.  "But like all developed magic, Disenchanting is a spell in and of itself.  It has a form, pattern, and structure to it like any other.

"A counter-spell is the application of raw magical energy to a spell that's currently being cast.  Control is very important when doing magic -- too much energy and it burns out.  Not enough and it just fizzles out.  Apply it in the wrong way and the spell spirals out of control, usually resulting in an unintended effect or just imploding in on itself due to instability." she illustrated further by actually casting magic overhead.  Twilight just shot a few sparks into the air from her horn -- first with too much energy, which made them burn hot and crackle away instantly.  Second with not enough, which made only pitiful little pops of light over her head.  Third she focused her efforts purposefully incorrect, which made what should have been sparks peter around like worms in the air before they vaporized themselves.  "What I was doing before, by stabilizing your spell for you?  That was essentially a counter-spell, if a very rudimentary form of the practice -- I was countering the disenchantment, which allowed you to use telekinesis unhindered.  With practice one can layer their own spell use to cast more than one at a time without much difficulty at all.  You see it most commonly when Unicorns lift two different objects with telekinesis independent of one another.  Presumably you should be able to learn how to stabilize your own spells and, from there, figure out how to stop casting Disenchantments by default."

Of course, that was a whole lot of energy and discussion on a single key point: "Assuming the theory holds true, that is."

Starcrasher paid attention to everything Twilight had been saying before turning back to reread one of the demonstration paragraphs again.

- "Okay, i think i have a good chance of pulling this example off, one-b. So umm.. What should i cast it on?"

She believed it was likely Twilight would simply conjure up or cast something with too much power for her to accidentally dispel which she would proceed to try and dispel so Twilight could get an impression of how good she could dispel. Or something. Either way, she waited with more patience than she had believed herself possible to.