Confident that she had the whole thing figured out now, Starcrasher stood up again, smiling as she looked around.

- "Okay, i rested, what's next on the list? You mentioned telekinesis, right?"

Twilight wasn't so certain that Starcrasher had everything quite figured out yet, but she figured there was no point in dwelling on the matter any further.  Later confusions and misunderstandings could be corrected if they came upon them.  In the meantime they did indeed still have practice to do.  It wasn't going to be much longer before lunch time and she wanted to get in all the work she could with her pupil before they had to part ways.

"Right.  Since you're still getting the hang of stabilizing your spells, we'll start with something small." she said as she plucked up the cap of her juice bottle and set it down on the grass between them.  Even the youngest of foals just coming into their magic ability could lift something that only weighed a few grams, so she had no worries about Starcrasher needing to focus on feeding too much energy into her spell.  Twilight produced another book from her saddlebags and began flipping through it for a particular entry.  "I know that telekinesis is innate, but I've got a book that dissects its functionality and explains how it works.  Would you like to take a look first to get a better idea of what you're aiming for?"

Starcrasher thought for a moment, then nodded.

- "Yeah, i probably should. The way i do it now a disenchantment keeps slipping in, so it's better if i treat it like a new spell."

She would then start to read the entry much like she had done with the disenchantment spell, trying not to think of it as something innate that she could already do, but move through the steps one component at a time, trying to memorize the correct order.

Telekinesis was literally the most basic spell in all of known magic.  It was so simple that most Unicorns figured out how to cast it just by focusing their energy without direction at a young age and literally muscling their way through it.  It was the purest form of magical expression: exert force to gain an effect.  Despite how simple the premise was, the entry regarding Telekinesis was actually surprisingly complex and in-depth.  The reason being that, while it was the simplest form of magic, it was also the most versatile and had seemingly limitless applications.  It was useful in literally every potential field of work, study, and even leisure.

"Most of the time with Telekinesis, young Unicorns learn just by envisioning a result.  The first thing I ever did with magic was turn the page of this very book." Twilight explained.  She'd been in Starcrasher's horseshoes many years ago, reading up on Telekinesis and giving it a shot.  "I thought 'I want the page to move' and focused as hard as I could, then it turned.  Over time I got better at lifting bigger things, or maneuvering them with more delicate accuracy."

Twilight had come a long way since those humble beginnings -- even just a few years prior she was displaying tremendous capacity in lifting a multi-ton Ursa Minor, harvesting hundreds of apples from their trees without plucking a single leaf by mistake, and even snaring portions of a collapsed dam as they were being washed away down river.  Simple spells always had the potential to have the greatest impact so long as their user had sufficient skill and power to utilize their full capacity.  The book described common forms of visualization with Telekinesis -- imagining a tether of energy rising from the horn and snaring an object, or forming some sort of utensil to manipulate it.  Some of the more advanced forms discussed envisioning multiple phantom limbs, or even an unseen servant flitting about at its master's bidding.  There didn't seem to be a wrong way of casting the spell and it was different for every Unicorn who did it.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, Starcrasher started to focus. Before her were the most basic ways to use telekinesis, and pretty much the first thing she needed to do was keep in mind how the disenchantment spell was formed, and try to steer clear of that happening. She decided to test it on something other than the book though, no use accidentally tearing a page out trying to get it under control. Filly steps.

Looking around, she picked a small pebble to start out with. Forming the technique was harder than it seemed, not because of its complexity but because her magic had a tendency to slip into disenchantment patterns almost on its own from several years of unintentional casting experience. Trying to break the habit was proving to be quite difficult.

Twilight was not an idle teacher.  As Starcrasher focused on her task her instructor was there to help her, supplying advice and information all the while.  Whenever it looked like her magic would shift the wrong way, Twilight would light her horn and gently give the developing spell a little nudge to push it back into order.  A guiding hoof was needed for such things but Twilight didn't do the work for her.  She just made sure to keep her student pointed in the right direction while she took her own steps toward progress.

It again took a couple of tries, but ultimately Starcrasher found she got the best results by emptying her mind and convincing herself that she was trying to cast an entirely new spell despite her body remembering the casting process. Nope, different spell entirely. She concentrated, aided along by Twilight's gentle nudges in the right direction, until eventually the pebble, unmoving as it had appeared to be, finally wobbled a couple of inches over the ground. It was still far from steady, but again, that would come in time. And the most important thing, nothing was actually unraveling itself and losing cohesion!

She looked at Twilight, mouth open to ask her if she was seeing this, which caused her concentration to waver, once again disenchanting her own spell to create a mini-blast of air around where the pebble had been held as magical force was no longer restrained. Realization cut off what she wanted to say, but she had managed to lift something without it dispelling! Yay!

"Good job~!  Now let's try it again." Twilight urged with a smile.  Telekinesis was the simplest form of magic and, once Starcrasher had an understanding of it, she'd surely be able to adopt it as second nature in no time at all.  It was important that she did so as well -- the sooner she got comfortable with a new spell form, the easier it would be for her to start learning other spells too.  There was no telling what sort of potential the filly had, after all.  It may very well have been that she was like most other Unicorns and could only cast one or two spells, or she may have had the talent to explore even greater varieties of magic like Twilight did.  Only time, and practice, would tell.

Armed with the strength to cast the spell -- and more importantly, the confidence brought with the knowledge that she had succeeded in casting it before -- Starcrasher redoubled her efforts at attempting to lift the pebble. The amount of magical power she was putting into it had increased as opposed to her earlier attempts, knowing what worked meant she could apply it on a larger scale than when she was still trying to find out if she did it right.

LNot long after, the pebble rose again, this time both higher and a lot less wobbly. She had decided to apply Twilight's circular force field shape around the pebble rather than make a telekinetic platform to carry it on, making it more stable and less exposed to the wind or the irregularity of her own still crude spell control. As the book had explained, telekinesis had many different applications.

"Alright, good.  That's much more stable than before." Twilight appraised Starcrasher's work with a critical eye.  "By nature, Telekinesis is tethered to a Unicorn's horn.  You can move it about by turning your head or walking so long as you keep the spell active."  she demonstrated as she hovered her bottle of juice up and tilted her head from side to side.  True enough, the object swayed with her in direct relation to the position of her horn.

"You can maneuver an object at will, but it's good to be able to know where you can conserve your energy.  There's no reason to hover something around by application of force when you can just tilt your head and get the same effect." she continued, showing what she meant as she kept her head still and used her magic to make the bottle drift about instead.  "But at the same time, there are uses to maneuvering entirely with magic.  You'll always be aware of something you're holding in a spell even if you can't see it at the moment, which is really useful in a lot of different tasks." the bottle floated around behind her head out of sight and was joined by its cap, which screwed itself in place on its neck to seal it.  "It's generally not a good idea to try and grab something blind though.  It can safely leave your line of sight if you already have a hold on it, but grabbing something you can't see in the first place is tricky and can even be dangerous."

Starcrasher nodded in understanding, which resulted in a pebble getting bashed repeatedly into the ground. Surprised to hear a sound she turned in its direction while ending the spell, causing the pebble to get thrown over a decent distance to bounce off of a nearby tree. She turned back to Twilight, grinning sheepishly.

- "Okay, i... think i know what you mean now."

She took a deep breath, and figured that the best thing to test next would be control. There were bound to be more pebbles in the area, and she would start practicing by lifting two pebbles at the same time, keeping at it until she could move them independently from one another. But of course, learning how to move one came first, even if it was as easy as turning her head.

Twilight giggled a bit over Starcrasher accidentally flailing the little stone about.  She'd learn better control in time... but for now, it was reassuring that she could let her focus relax and still maintain the spell.  While the filly continued to practice on small stones and bits of debris around the clearing, Twilight idly conjured up a small rubber ball to bounce in place beneath her hoof.

"Here, let's have a little fun with it.  Plus this will be a good test to see how well you can maintain spell stability without going back to disenchantments." Twilight said as she hovered up the ball telekinetically.  "Ready?"

Once Starcrasher was indeed prepared, her teacher gave a gentle lob of the ball and released her magical hold on it to toss it along.  Playing catch was an easy enough way to practice, plus it had all sorts of useful learning benefits hidden under the guise of mere leisure.

As easy as it had seemed to levitate and control pebbles and small debris, anticipating moving objects was in a whole other category. She tried to form the spell while paying attention, but the ball simply passed through her net due to it not having formed fast enough, and the ball bounced against her horn back to Twilight. While she had been successful in returning the ball, it wasn't quite in the way she had intended it.

After some practice, she eventually found a good way. She would guesstimate the ball's movement through the air, and create a 'glove' of the type she had seen in sports. Using that image as a reference, forming the spell in its likeness was a little easier than doing it without the mental crutch, and after that was done tossing it back was easier. Well... easier if you didn't count getting the amount of force just right so Twilight wouldn't end up having to dodge a projectile, nor have it travel less than halfway to her.

The whole time they worked and played together, Twilight's thoughts kept drifting back to her younger days in school.  She had spent so many hours in just the same way, practicing by casting a ball back and forth with Princess Celestia.  She didn't understand at the time how much of an impact it had on refining control and concentration.  While she was grateful for the lessons, as she looked back on those memories with such fond nostalgia, she most recalled the long conversations she had with her teacher.

~I think I'll write Princess Celestia a letter... one that's not a Friendship Report...~ Twilight mused internally.  One of Starcrasher's tosses sailed past her head at high speed and she reflexively reached out with her magic, snatching it out of the air even though it was well beyond her in her distracted state.  It did bring her focus back on the present moment though.

"You're pushing with your magic, Starcrasher.  You don't need to put that much effort into it -- just find the right amount of energy to get the result you want.  Carry through with a motion and, at the apex of the swing, let go.  Physics will do the rest." Twilight demonstrated as she swung the ball back in an easy lob.  Just as the swing hit its rising point, she released her telekinetic hold and tossed it on over lightly.  "It's important to be able to feel force and resistance through your magic.  Applying too much energy can be bad if you're trying to pick up something brittle or fragile.  I can't count how many dishes and glasses my brother and I broke growing up..."

- "Yeah, i'm just... too used to this stuff not working i suppose. When a spell failed to work i just kept shoveling more raw power into it, so i'm still trying to get the hang of being subtle."

Starcrasher kept at it, attempting to copy the speed and momentum of the way Twilight had tossed the ball. Just move it along and let go of the hold... She sighed. Normally unicorn would learn this as one of the first things to do with magic, when their power wasn't as well developed. In her case, the circumstances had ended up with her having the raw power -- more so than most unicorns of her age due to constantly trying to cast at full power -- but she was lacking in control. On the upside, she seemed to be a fast student given how much she had learned over the past week, and some troubles with aim aside, the ball was now going at more acceptable speeds.

"You're doing fine so far.  This sort of thing doesn't all happen at once and you'll need time to practice before you get it locked down, but you're doing remarkably well already."  Twilight said encouragingly as she kept the ball moving about, tossing it back and forth.  "Was there any particular style of magic you were interested in learning?  I've always been terribly fond of Conjurations myself."

- "Hey, up until today i couldn't cast anything, so i'll take whatever i can learn to be--"

Starcrasher paused for a moment, catching the ball and throwing it with at least semi-decent accuracy back to Twilight. At least the power that went into the spell was okay now, and as time progressed she hadn't needed to adjust her telekinesis spell as much as she used to either.

- "..to be honest. Though disenchanting seems to be what i'm good at, so probably that, though i suppose i'd need something a little more variable."

"Well, it's all up to you.  I personally suggest trying all sorts of things to see what catches your interest." Twilight advised as the two continued to play ball.  Over time she began trotting about rather than standing in one place, leaving their game slowly working its way around the clearing with greater variety in their pitches.

"Ah, that reminds me -- I've been keeping progress reports on your studies so far, but I haven't sent any back to the Academy yet.  Would you like to help me write one for today?  I'm sure your teachers and parents will be excited to know how well you've come along."

- "Sure.. Might even give me my old name back."

Starcrasher kept lobbing the ball back, starting to get the hang of it. Most of it was just learning to aim again though, she could play catch with her hooves like Earth ponies and pegasi, but with her magic was a first. It felt like aiming from a distance, and she had to re-judge her throws accordingly.

"Your old name?"  Twilight asked as she snagged the ball out of the air and looped it around her head, giving it a long toss from a different angle than she'd been throwing it back with up to that point.

- "Mhm."

Starcrasher paused what she had been about to say to focus on the new angle the ball was traveling at, standing on her hind legs as a habitual reflex even though it was no longer needed for her magic. Trying to copy the angle and momentum she tried to toss it back to Twilight under similar circumstances.

- "It was supposed to be Star Dasher, but Mrs. Jennings over at the birth registry was getting kinda old and couldn't hear too good. So when my folks learned that i was having trouble with magic they decided to have my name be a prize for motivating me to solve my casting problems."

She caught the ball from Twilight again and tossed it back, this time from a different angle than her old attempts. She needed to get the hang of this after all.

- "...What, you didn't really think my name was supposed to be Starcrasher, right? I mean, most ponies have two names."

That announcement took Twilight so by surprise that she completely missed the next toss.  The ball whapped her square in the face with a dull 'whud!' and dispelled itself in a flurry of magical sparkles, though she hardly even noticed.

Starcrasher's parents did what?!

Twilight had learned quickly after her thoughtless reaction to learning of Rainbow Dash's contest.  She had an immediate response over Starcrasher's revelation but bit her tongue to keep it in check.  The last thing she needed to do was make another mess by giving a critical response without thinking it through first.  But oh, was it hard.  The very notion that Starcrasher... Dasher... that her student's parents would hold her name hostage until she learned magic was appalling!  How could they do such a thing to a young filly?!

"Okay, I think I'm going to schedule a parent-teacher conference." Twilight muttered to herself as she rubbed her sore snout.  She'd teleport all the way to Canterlot if she had to rather than let such a terrible notion stand.

Starcrasher was as surprised as Twilight was, though in her case it was for having hit her right in the face. Okay, she didn't really toss it that hard, but she did walk over to see if she was alright. And as a result, got close enough to recognize the look on Twilight's face for what it was. Grinning apologetically, she rolled her eyes before replying.

- "Eh, First born of a direct line of descendants from Star Swirl the Bearded... Oh come on, you're Celestia's personal student! Don't tell me you've never had to live up to expectations?"

She wondered what was so wrong about having her parents motivate her to do something she wanted to be able to do anyway. Sure, there had been a couple of laughs at the Academy when they learned of her name, but hadn't that only motivated her to study harder and put more effort into it? Wasn't that how things were supposed to be?

Twilight sat back on her haunches to mull over the whole matter for a few moments, taking her time to think before she spoke.  "Well, yes, I understand what you're talking about... my parents were always really supportive of me though.  I wouldn't even have gotten into the Academy if it weren't for them." she shook her head.  "I just don't think it's right that your parents would hold something like that over your head.  I'm sorry to be frank about it, but it seems cruel."

Starcrasher paused for a moment, thinking of the right way to describe it. As much as she wanted to react instantly that it wasn't cruel, she was trying to look at it from someone else's point of view, that didn't know her family like she knew them.

- "Well, it's not really cruel... I mean, they went through the same thing, and so did their parents as well. Okay, maybe not with the name, but other stuff too. My family's always been honors students, so yeah... I have to be one too."