MLP:TiM Story 1- Freeze Frame Chapter 4

My Little Pony: Teaching is Magic


Freeze Frame: Chapter 4


"Alright, if you're planning on waking up Wish to ask her about magic, then I had better go and round up the rest of the group and get those snacks." Tea Leaf declared as she leapt off of Twilight's back. She then began to trot towards the general direction of the kitchen.

"Why?" Spike asked as he placed the scroll that he had just read into a basket with similar rolls of paper.

"This will be really hard for Wish to talk about; she won't even talk to us about it. If she's going to forced to talk about all of this then she's going to need her friends and all sorts of support and comfort." Tea Leaf explained. She then disappeared around a corner in the hallway.

"So… should we wait, then?" Spike looked at his friend for an answer.

"I suppose that we should get ready for whatever it is that we're going to do," Twilight Sparkle answered with a sigh. She went over to the table in the main room and levitated the wooden horse head off of it. She then started to do what she did best: she organized a workspace for note taking and research. Spike, seeing that his friend was working on her own project, went about cleaning and setting up the rest of the room for the impending inquisition.

A soft thud, the sound of clattering of dishes, and whispering that could now be heard told of the arrival of the young ponies that Spike and Twilight had been waiting for. Each of the three foals emerged from the hallway carrying something on their backs. Spike led the trio to the table so that they could relieve themselves of their burdens. Tea Leaf placed a tea set that Twilight had all but forgotten the existence of on the table. The tea pot was emanating a fresh herbal scented steam that promised a warm soothing brew. Compass Rose set down a basket filled with an assortment of pastries, smelling fresh and sweet. Bright Knight slowly came to the table last, bearing a tray laden with a stack of dishes and some cups on his back. "Isn't that a bit heavy?" Twilight asked with concern.

"No ma'am," Bright Knight grunted, "I'm a lot stronger then I look." The spiky maned colt tried to look confident as he trudged slowly towards that table, but there was a distinct wobble in each step.

Tea Leaf carefully stirred honey into the pot of tea. "I tried to tell you that a whole stack of dishes would be too heavy to carry by yourself Bright, and so did Rosie."

Bright Knight glared at mothering filly. "I'm fine Tea; I just need to walk slowly."

Twilight levitated the dishes off of the colt's back and laid them out on the table. "You did fine. Thank you for carrying all of that." As she checked out her own handiwork, she inhaled from the basket of treats and was surprised by the scent that was invading her nose.

She looked into the basket and found that her nose had not lied. How in Equestria did Tea Leaf know that lemon-clover scones were one of her favorite treats? Once again, Twilight found herself looking at the light green filly with surprise evident on her features. Tea Leaf shrugged when she caught the lavender unicorn's stare. "When I was on my way to the library I passed by Sugarcube Corner and went in to buy some muffins to go with the calming tea that I had gotten from my Mom's shop. I was about to ask Mrs. Cake about getting the muffins when Pinkie Pie burst through the kitchen door with this basket in hoof. She gave it to me free of charge and said that there was a message for you."

"What's the message?"

"She slipped into the basket before I left. So should I wake Wishing Star up now?"

"What?" Twilight had located a pale piece of paper that was attached to a lurid pink bow tied to the top the basket's handle. She had been about to open the note and Tea Leaf's question had caught her off guard because she hadn't quite heard her.

"Should I wake Wishing Star up now?" Tea Leaf repeated her question patiently.

"Yes, splendid idea." The mare replied, flushing because she had gotten distracted by something in front of these foals again. Her mental scolding was interrupted by a hoof on her shoulder. She looked down to see that it was Compass Rose with a semi-sympathetic smile.

"You should go ahead and read your note now, while you still have the chance." The lilac filly's sympathetic smile transformed into a wry grin as she continued, "Once Wish is awake, Tea won't let any of us rest until the boys are unfrozen." The grin, coupled with the knowing tone that the choppy haired pegasus' voice held told Twilight that she spoke from experience. With that realization, the unicorn mare quickly read her note:


Hi Twilight!

Good luck today, I have a feeling that you're going to need it. Come by Sugar Cube Corner tomorrow for breakfast and tell me all about it.

-Have Fun!

Pinkie Pie


Twilight Sparkle chuckled; even after all of these years, Pinkie Pie's Pinkie sense never ceased to amaze her.

"Wishing Star, you need to wake up, little rain cloud." Tea Leaf's gentle, motherly voice was so effective that it pulled Twilight from her reverie. She looked up to see the wavy maned filly gently shaking the snoozing grey filly awake.

Wishing Star stirred slowly, opening her eyes and stretching, taking in her new surroundings groggily. "Where are we?" she asked sleepily, confusion clouding her wide green eyes.

"We're in the library, honey comb," Tea Leaf replied, gently helping her friend to her hooves.

"The… does that mean my brothers are okay?" Wishing Star looked around the room hopefully. Her ears fell, her face visibly drooping when she saw her still statue like brothers, and she let mane fall over her face, covering both of her eyes.

"Lucky Star and Shooting are fine, they just can't move yet." Tea Leaf lifted her friend's chin, pushed her bangs out of her eyes, and then led her to the table. After she had settled herself and Wishing Star onto a pair of cushions, Tea Leaf continued, "And we can fix that problem as soon as you have a talk with Twilight Sparkle." She kept a firm hoof on her now nervous, smoky colored friend as she motioned for Bright Knight to sit on the other side.

Wishing Star furrowed her brows as she let her bangs fall over the right side of her face, covering her right eye. After a moment of letting her mind process all of the new information she had awoken to, she stammered, "H-how is that going to help?"

Twilight Sparkle sat down where she had made a spot for note taking. She noted that Tea Leaf had sat her nervous friend directly across from her. "If I know all the facts that can possibly be brought to my attention, then I can effectively utilize my resources to properly deduce the enchantment that was executed and in turn perform a counter-spell that will release Lucky Star and Shooting Star from their current state of immobilization."

Everypony stopped whatever they were doing to stare at Twilight in utter confusion. Spike paused in his task of setting a place for everypony to give his old friend a raised brow and a rueful shake of the head. "What she means," he translated, "is that if you tell her everything that you can about what happened this morning then Twilight can use the books in the library to cast her own spell that should undo whatever froze your brothers in the first place." The sound of 'Ohhhhh' echoed in the room as each of the foals echoed their understanding.

"Thanks, Spike," Twilight murmured as her assistant walked past her to continue his original task.

The dragon stopped behind Twilight. "Not a problem, Twi," he whispered back. "But from now on you need to be careful about what you say. I've been around you long enough that I understand what you mean when you start getting all academic, but these ponies are just kids. If you keep using such big and complicated words, you're going to get them all confused and upset."

"I'll try to keep that in mind."

"So do you really think that you can use all of these books to help out Lucky and S.S.?" Compass Rose asked. She had taken a seat between Twilight and Tea Leaf.

"Not all of the books, but I'm sure that I have a reference guide in here that will be useful," Twilight assured her. "I may even be able to figure out what kind of magic it is that you can use, Wishing Star." She added this almost as an afterthought, but it was this statement that truly caught Wishing Star's attention.

"You could really do that!?" The grey filly's excitement at this prospect caused her to jump up and nearly launch herself across the table at the older unicorn, but she was held in check by Tea Leaf and Bright Knight.

"Yes, I believe that I can," Twilight confirmed, oblivious to the outburst, "but to be of any help, I'm going to need to know what happened earlier this morning."

Wishing Star visibly deflated when the lavender mare said this. "Oh," she said glumly as she slumped back onto her cushion and looked forlornly across the table, not really looking at anything. In the following silence, Tea Leaf and Bright Knight looked at each other meaningfully. Then, as if they had just discussed what to do with each other, the two began to act in unison. Bright Knight pulled Wishing Star up to a position where she was resting against his side, his foreleg wrapped around her shoulders. While he did that, Tea Leaf swapped Compass Rose's steaming and just-filled cup with the empty cup that had been in front of Wishing Star. She then grabbed a raspberry muffin from the basket of goodies and forced both items into the hooves of her despondent friend. After a long drink of the soothing brew and a bite of the pastry that she had been given, Wishing Star finally spoke again, speaking clearly, but still melancholy. "Okay, I'll tell you what I can, but it all happened so fast, and I'm kinda fuzzy on the details."

Twilight Sparkle finished organizing her teacup, scone, and various note taking materials, even stacking her books neatly between herself and Spike. "It's fine that you don't remember it all, just tell me what you do know. Talking about it is likely to jog you memory."

Wishing Star carefully sat up and slowly nibbled on an edge of the muffin that Tea Leaf had given her. "This morning, while we were having breakfast, dad told us that the whole family was going to Canterlot to see him off for his next trip. He said that before he left, we're going to get to go sight-seeing, and that there were some neat places that he wants to take us."

Compass Rose looked up from the chocolate chip muffin that she had been munching on. There was a chocolate chip stuck to the tip of her nose. "That's what those two were arguing about this morning? Considering how loud they got and all, the reason behind all that yelling seems kinda silly to me."

"Shoot and Lucky Star did get pretty bad this morning," Tea Leaf agreed as she used her napkin to pick the stray morsel off of her friend's face. "Not even Bright Knight could get them to stop."

"It's not really a silly reason," Wishing Star interposed. "My dad is a navigator. When I was little, we used to travel with him all over the place. Once we got old enough to start going to school, mom had us settle down and live in one place. Dad still goes on trips to keep trade routes straight for cargo ships and caravans; over the last several months he's been going on these big airships that are supposed to be used to carry big cargo."

"But you've dealt with that stuff before, haven't you? Compass Rose asked. "How was this morning's argument any different from all of the other arguments that your brothers have had to make it as bad as it was getting?"

Wishing Star sighed and took a sip from her cup. "I know you know that we're used to it. My dad has to go on a lot of trips, but this time it's different. It always gets a little tense around the house when dad is about to go on a trip, but that's usually for a trip that lasts a couple of weeks at the max. This time, he's going to be gone for over two months this time."

The foals gasped at this statement. Bright Knight turned his pink and green maned friend towards him so that she had to look at him. He stared intently into the eye that was not covered by her bangs. "Why didn't you say anything to us about this?" he asked, his concern plain on his face.

"Yeah, I thought we were all friends." Compass Rose added, slapping a fore hoof on the table for emphasis.

Wishing Star squirmed out of Bright Knight's grasp and hunched over, refusing to look at anypony. Her pink bangs fell over both of her eyes and covered her entire face so that none of her features could be seen. "I only found out about how long dad's trip would be last night. This morning mom and dad made the announcement about spending the weekend in Canterlot."

"So what is it that made your brothers start fighting?" This time it was Spike that had interrupted Wishing Star. He had also sat down to listen to Wishing Star's story.

"Spike…" Twilight began in a warning tone. Before she could reprimand her assistant, she was cut off by the very filly that she had been trying to defend.

Wishing Star looked over at Spike and pulled her bangs over to one side of her face as she replied to his question. "What started the fighting is when dad gave us this list of some of the things that we could do together in the city. He said that we could pick some things on the list to go do and see together. When we were on our way to school, we started looking over the list while we were walking through the forest…"

"Hold on a minute, what did you say?" Twilight cut in, fighting back shock. "Where do you live?" The word forest immediately conjured images of the Everfree Forest into the mare's mind, and the thought of anypony raising a family there; much less letting their children walk go near the place disturbed her.

Wishing Star's brows knit together in confusion at the concern that was on Twilight Sparkle's face. "My house is in a clearing towards the edge of the White Tail Woods. I think mom said something about us living next to some 'Running of the Leaves' trail." Twilight's concern melted at Wish's words, prompting the filly to ask, "Where did you think that I was talking about?"

"The Everfree Forest," Twilight answered sheepishly.

"What's that?"

"How do you not know what the Everfree Forest is?" Twilight asked, her shock returning in full force.

"I… I just don't." Something about her apparent ignorance clearly bothered Wishing Star; her head sank so that her eyes were below the level of the table. The only thing that anypony on the opposite side of the table could see of the filly was her horn, ears, and some of her pink bangs.

"She hasn't been living in town for long. You can't expect her to know everything about Ponyville," Bright Knight defended. He pulled Wishing Star up from her slump and into a more upright position. He then took her teacup and thrust it into her hooves. "You're fine, Wish."

"Okay, so it's been established that Wish and her brothers were walking through White Tail Woods this morning, not the Everfree Forest," Compass Rose summarized. "Can we please move on with the story now? I don't know about you guys, but I want to know what happened!"

Now everypony turned to look expectantly at Wishing Star again, who had a mouth full of muffin at the moment. The group waited, with varying degrees of patience, as Wishing Star sipped some more tea and had another bite of muffin. "So, we were on our way to school. We were walking through the trees, looking over a list that dad had given Lucky before we left the house. It was a lot of fun looking at all of the cool things that dad wanted to show us. The whole business of narrowing down the choices of what to do, that's what started the fighting: Lucky wanted to go to a Wonderbolts Derby and Shooting Star wanted to go and see the Royal Guard's public presentation."

Twilight nibbled the corner of her scone thoughtfully. "So why can your family not go to both events? Are they at the same time?"

"I'm pretty sure that we can, and I tried telling my brothers that, but they weren't really paying attention to me anymore." Wishing Star sighed, a sigh that said that she was used to this sort of thing. "It's hard to get their attention once they get going, but I did try. I tried to get them to stop yelling so much, and I think that I almost got the m to stop, but then Lucky told Shooting that we should do what he told us to do because he's the oldest." Every other foal at the table let out a groan at this last part of the story.

"Am I missing something here?" Spike made a sweeping gesture with a cookie to indicate all of the foals that were now in various states of aggrieved disarray.

Twilight Sparkle gave a bit of a shrug. "I'm just as confused as you are, Spike. Why are you ponies acting like this?" She addressed her question to the top of Tea Leaf's head, which was slumped on the table.

Tea Leaf sat back up and brushed some errant strands of hair out of her eyes and back into her bangs. Smacking her head against the table had mussed her hair out of its previous state of organized chaos. "The thing is, Shooting Star is normally pretty level headed. Most of the time he makes a great leader, but…"

"But Shooting Star and Lucky Star fight more than any other brothers, like ever!" Compass Rose popped up from her sprawled out on the position on the floor and pounded a hoof on the table to emphasize her point. "Lucky is the oldest out of the six of us and he keeps trying to lord it over us. Nopony actually listens to it, but it really bothers Shooting Star for some reason. Just about every time Lucky brings up age in one their fights, it pretty much guarantees that S.S. will lose his head."

Spike reached for the tea pot to refill his cup. "Does age usually bother Shooting Star?"

"No." It was Wishing Star that replied. She was carefully rolling a piece of muffin into a ball as she spoke. "My brothers and I are triplets. Lucky is the firstborn; he was born 38 seconds before Shooting, and I was born 47 seconds after that."

"How do you know the exact times?" Spike asked. "And how can you be triplets? No offense, but none of you looks alike."

Wishing Star smiled ruefully at him. "Mom and dad made the mistake of telling Lucky the times when he asked; he hasn't let any of us forget about it since then. I don't mind hearing him brag about it, but it really does bother Shooting for some reason. As for us being triplets: when I asked, dad said that we were fraternal triplets."

"Oh, right. I knew about that sort of thing," Spike said, blushing in embarrassment at the foolishness of his own question.

"Shouldn't Wishing Star get back to explaining why Lucky Star and Shoot are frozen?" Tea Leaf pointed out sensibly.

The ponies' undivided attention had now shifted back to Wishing Star. The filly sighed, clearly she had been wanting to avoid further exposure to the spotlight. Before Wishing Star could begin retreating into her mane again, Bright Knight laid a hoof on her, causing her to look up at him. "I know that you feel bad about what you did. I know that you don't want to talk about it because you don't understand it, but Miss Twilight needs to know everything that you remember. The sooner she knows all of that, the sooner she can figure out how to break the spell."

Wishing Star inhaled deeply and straightened herself. "You're right; I need to do this to help my brothers." She looked over to her sky blue friend and smiled warmly. "Thanks for the encouragement, Brighty."

For a split second, Twilight Sparkle saw the calm unicorn colt's pupil's contract in shock. Bright Knight stared at Wishing Star and her grateful smile as if she were a ghost or nightmare made real. The moment passed quickly, leaving in its place a very embarrassed young pony; Bright Knight pulled his hoof from Wishing Star's shoulder as if it had been burned, a hot flush spreading across his cheeks. To cover this, he grabbed a particularly large muffin and began to munch on the pastry with gusto, effectively hiding most of the lower half of his face. Compass Rose and Tea Leaf giggled over their friend's humiliation, but Wishing Star stared at all of her friends at the table with great confusion marring her small face.

Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat to gain the attention of the table again. "Not that this isn't entertaining, but Bright Knight has a point: the sooner that I know the whole story, the sooner I can remedy the situation."

Wishing Star gulped the contents of her cup, took one more deep breath, and faced Twilight with a look of renewed determination. "Where was I again? Oh right, the argument. After Lucky had provoked Shooting, things only got worse. I tried to calm him down, but Shoot was ignoring me and Lucky wouldn't stop egging him on. By the time that we got to school, my brothers seemed like they were actually going to start hitting each other. Then we were in the schoolyard and everyone was staring at us. I didn't like all of the attention, especially that kind, and I really didn't want to see Lucky and Shoot hurt each other…" Wishing Star trailed off with a look of immense guilt washing over her face.

Twilight could tell that the filly was on the verge of bursting into tears again, but she had to know what had happened to those two colts. "What happened next, Wishing Star?"

The grey filly did not begin to cry, but she had visibly drooped. "I got upset and yelled for them to stop. When I did, there was this big flash of light, and then I felt really tired, and the yelling had stopped. I figured that the bright light had shocked Lucky and Shooting into stopping or something.  When I could see again…" Now her eyes began to well with tears and she could no longer speak. Tea Leaf pulled her distraught friend into a hug, and was shown no resistance.

"You saw that your brothers were frozen?" Twilight finished for her, her voice gentle. Wishing Star nodded her reply into Tea Leaf's mane; she was clearly beyond words now. Twilight looked around the table at the rest of the foals. "Did anypony see something else that might be important?"

"Pretty much just the big flash of light," Compass Rose confirmed.

"Well… I only saw the flash of light too, but I think I heard something," Tea Leaf offered.

Twilight turned her attention directly towards the soft green filly with a piece of parchment and a quill poised for further note taking. "What did you hear? Think carefully on this: any piece of information that you may have heard could be vital."

The shrug that Tea Leaf gave was accentuated by her mass of curls' slight bounce and Wishing Star's slight bob in correspondence to being attached to her earth filly friend. "I don't really remember exactly what I heard; I know it was something that Wish was saying, but I couldn't hear much over Lucky Star and Shooting screaming at each other. I do know that she said something more than just stop when she started to yell whatever she yelled."

"I was closer than you, Tea," Bright Knight mused. His muzzle was covered in crumbs from the muffin he had tried to hide in, making his thoughtful pose rather comical. "I heard Wish try and yell something, but the only word that I could make out was when she screamed 'stop'." Even if he had more to say, he couldn't have continued. Tea leaf had seen his messy face, and had shifted her hold on Wishing Star so that she could reach over her and clean the crumbs off of Bright Knight.

Twilight repressed a giggle at the foals' antics. She levitated the cup that Wishing Star had been using to poke the filly in the back. When she had the young unicorn's attention, Twilight asked, "Do you remember what you said?"

Wishing Star shimmied out of Tea Leaf's forelegs and sat upright, effectively blocking Bright Knight from the napkin that had been scrubbing his face clean. "I… I want to remember, but I can't. I don't even really remember yelling that well; the only thing that I remember clearly is that I wanted my brothers to stop."

Twilight looked up from the clues that she had been adding together. "Stop what?"

"Just, stop." Wishing Star shrugged, unable to further elaborate.

Twilight Sparkle rubbed her chin thoughtfully with a hoof. "That still doesn't tell me much. Does your magic always work when you really want something?" From her discussion with Compass Rose and Bright Knight earlier, Twilight doubted this was the case, but she had little information to work with. It would help if she could get Wishing Star to talk about other things that her magic had caused in the past.

Twilight was surprised when she heard Wishing Star give a bitter laugh. "I would love that to be true. Sometimes my magic works for me, but a lot of the time it feels like it's working for somepony else."

"How do you know your magic is working because of somepony else?"

"I don't know how I do. When my magic goes off sometimes, I can just feel that it's because somepony else wanted it to."

Spike took a long slurp of his tea and stretched his arms above his head. "So, what kind of magic have you done… unintentionally, then?"

Wishing Star popped the last of her muffin into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "Well, let's see. I made a pony float, I caused it to rain, I made the moon rise for about three seconds…"

She was interrupted by the unanimous shock of everypony at the table. "YOU RAISED THE MOON!?!" They all stared at Wishing Star in disbelief and awe, Twilight included. From the shock that they had all expressed, it was clear that Wishing Star had not told her friends much about her faulty magic.

"I-It was only for three seconds, and I immediately passed out afterwards," Wishing Star stammered. "That's what happened after almost all of my spells. I could feel every time somepony wanted something when they…" she trailed off with a look of dawning realization in the eye that was not hidden by her mane.

Twilight Sparkle stopped taking notes to look expectantly at Wishing Star. "They what?" Her voice snapped Wishing Star out of the trancelike state that her own epiphany had cause.

Wishing Star shook her head to clear it. "Twilight Sparkle, can something that somepony says affect the magic that somepony else has?"

Twilight was already levitating new volumes and books from the shelves and scanning them as she spoke. "I suppose that it's possible. What you describe sounds like some sort of verbal lock or word of power, and that sounds like a rather archaic form of magic. I believe that I've read about it somewhere, though. What phrase do you think is affecting your magic?"

"I-I'm afraid to say it out loud. Bad things seem to keep happening when 'it' gets said."

"What if you wrote it down?" Tea Leaf suggested.

"That works. Thanks Tea," Wishing Star said with a smile. "May I borrow a pencil and a piece of paper, Miss Twilight?"

"Of course. Here" Twilight levitated the requested items across the table and set them before the grey filly. As soon as she had the paper and pencil in hoof, Wishing Star began to scribble furiously. When she was finished with her writing, she passed the note to Bright Knight, who passed it to Spike, and he passed it to Twilight. On the paper was scrawled two words: 'I wish'. "I wi…"

"Please don't say it out loud," Wishing Star begged.

"Fair enough," Twilight relented. "So, this phrase, every time somepony says it you have some fierce compulsion to comply to their desires?"

All of the foals sitting at the table gave her blank looks. Spike snatched the note from Twilight's magical aura. "Oh, what Twi is asking is, if somepony says this phrase, are you forced to use your magic?"

"Yes! I think that's what's happening!" Wishing Star cried joyfully. "So how do we fix it?"

"Give me a moment." Twilight scanned through a book that was now floating before her. "We have all of the clues now; I just need to put them together." She finished with the book that she had before her, and quickly replaced it with a new volume. "Let's see, no, not that one…" She flipped through another book before startling the group at the table. "Here it is, wishing magic! I knew that I had read about this kind of magic somewhere." Twilight gave the pages before her careful inspection. "Wow, your magic really is quite rare and archaic; the last unicorn in recorded history to have similar magic to yours was almost a century before the reign of Celestia. That pony was a stallion named Brass Lamp and his special talent was granting ponies' wishes, but that seems to be one of the only similarities you share with him. While was only able to use his magic for others, you seem to only have a verbal lock…"

Spike snapped his claws in front of Twilight's face. "Twilight, focus."

Twilight looked away from the book and returned her attention back to the table's occupants. "Right, sorry."

"So, you know how to fix?" Bright Knight asked.

"Yes, I believe that I know exactly how this problem can be resolved," Twilight replied with confidence.

"Fix it already, then!" Compass Rose demanded. Bright Knight and Tea Leaf both gave the pegasus filly hard looks. Compass Rose blushed. "I mean, please help my friends and fix this problem for us… please."

Twilight grabbed another sheaf of paper and wrote out some instructions on the paper. She then floated the note over to Wishing Star. "I want you to stand in front of your brothers and read what's on that paper."

There was hope in Wishing Star's visible eye as she clutched the paper like a life line. "Do you really think that this will work?"

"It will if you want it to."

Wishing Star carefully transferred the note from her hooves to her mouth. She then got up from the table and made her way over to her statue-like brothers. There were calls of encouragement from her friends as she stood in front of the immobile Lucky Star and Shooting Star. All eyes were on Wishing Star as she read over what had been written for her. Wishing Star blew her bangs out of her eye and spoke in a surprisingly powerful voice. "I wish that my brothers could move again."

As these words were spoken, a flicker of aqua colored light sparked from Wishing Star's horn. The spark quickly bloomed into a strong and blinding glow that filled the room, blinding everypony and prevented them from seeing what happened next.