My Little Changeling: Friendship is Survival

--Canterlot Intruder--

--Part II--

A new day had arrived and despite my exhaustion from a poor nights sleep hiding in the back of a library, I was ready.

…

A dark blue mare strode towards the Canterlot academy office, a fairly large structure set near the front of the castle. The mare let himself in through the double doors and waited alongside a few other ponies.

Various looks were cast from the ponies in that room, each one searching the blue mare with a slightly befuddled look before settling into one of recognition. The blue mare took this as his cue to approach the front desk.

“D-duke Astral Skye?” a nervous pony working behind the counter asked.

The duke nodded at her in response. “I believe you can help me enroll my son?”

She hesitated for a moment before suddenly scrambling to grab some papers. “Of course! I wasn't aware you had another child.”

He gave an indifferent grunt at her attempt to chat. “I'm leaving Canterlot very soon and I need this taken care of immediately.”

“Of course Sir! We-”

“My son will be arriving here shortly. I take it I can trust you to handle this?”

She stopped organizing her paperwork briefly. “Uh, sir? You mean letting you bypass the paperwork as well as setting up his living arrangements in the academy?” she squeaked out.

The duke leaned in towards the counter slowly, “If you can't handle this, than I will find some-”

“No need sir! No need!” She got into action immediately as the duke left.

“...Just get this done.”

…

I kinda feel bad for being so mean to that poor pony.

Duke Astral Skye. Very well known, absolutely terrible attitude. He was a good choice though, his well known aggressive personality made it easier to force my way through that conversation and he was leaving Equestria indefinitely to enjoy his retirement after he received some sort of injury, I didn't know the details. I couldn't find much information on his family, his wife was presumably joining him and he had two kids that had recently graduated from the academy. I have no idea where they are now.

I let myself into a small shop's bathroom to change into Duke Astral's “child”. I didn't get too creative with my new appearance, instead opting to copy from pictures of the duke as a child. I locked the bathroom door and looked into the mirror. A green light flowed from my horn and wrapped around my body before bursting.

In terms of appearance I pretty much looked the same. The only major difference was my dark blue fur and unicorn horn. I made a point of leaving my green eyes unchanged, I wanted something to be familiar when I looked in the mirror. I was about to unlock the door before noticing that something wasn't right about my disguise.

I hadn't given myself a cutie mark.

That was a problem, I would never gain a real one but if I made a fake one it would create the impression I was good at whatever skill it represented.

And I'm off to the library again.

I looked through the library for books on various cutie marks, particularly those commonly seen on unicorns. There were some vague looking ones with loose connections to astrology, They would make a good pick since I would never be expected to show my skill off seeing as no one would know what it really represented.

However I eventually reached a section that contained magic related marks.

Specifically, I took interest in a certain brand of them. My history class had briefly gone over a pony named King Sombra, he was the ruler of the now lost Crystal Empire, and specialized in using some kind of dark magic. I didn't enjoy the idea of it, but I figured being a changeling meant I would have a higher degree of talent in that field than any unicorn.

A snicker escaped me at the notion that I had automatically become some sort of evil servant of darkness just from learning what I really was.

I dug through magic related books trying to find any basic example spells that were similar to what King Sombra used, unfortunately there weren't any.

So I dug through textbooks specifically about darkness magic, but many failed to go any further than a history lesson involving King Sombra and a few other historical ponies that learned that brand of magic.

Ostensibly darkness magic existed, various ponies had used it throughout history. I was surprised to see that a cursory glance of those ponies history revealed that... some, of them hadn't used their power maliciously, leaving me confused as to why this magic appears to be so difficult to find information on.

I put my last book up with a drawn out sigh before leaving the library. There's no information available on the subject, which actually kind of made the whole thing more appealing. I completely discarded the notion that being a changeling somehow meant I should be good at this, I was genuinely curious about it.

There's nothing I can do about it.

Enough time had passed for me to return to the academy office in my new form. I decided to leave my mark alone for now, it would be a couple more years before my lack of one became extremely concerning and I was sure I could find an appropriate one to fake by then.

I was concerned about the fact that I couldn't really prove that I was the Duke's son, all I could really say to them was something along the lines 'Hey, I sorta look like him.'.

It didn't end up being an issue though, I was asked if I was the Duke's son the moment I walked through the door by the pony from earlier. She looked stressed and seemed to be trying to get some paperwork taken care of quickly.

“Yep, that is definitely me.”

“Oh! Good, good...” She fumbled through a few papers before continuing. “I'm sorry your father didn't give me your name.”

Whoops... Should of that about that earlier.

“It's... Bright, er... Night,” I fumbled.

She wrote something down. “Brighter Night? Got it.”

“...Uh, yep.” It would work.

She let out a frustrated sigh as she got her papers together. “I don't suppose your father arranged for you to have a place to stay while we get the enrollment process finished did he?”

Now I feel really bad for being mean to her earlier.

“No ma'am,” I said as innocently as I could manage.

Inaudible grumbling escaped from her mouth, I was pretty sure I heard something accusatory directed at royals in there somewhere.

A wide, obviously forced smile formed on her face as she spoke. “Well dear... I'll just have to take care of that... As well.” Those last two words came out quieter than what had come before.

“Sorry about this... My dad is...” I let myself trail off wordlessly praying that this awful, awkward situation would resolve itself any second now.

I was on cloud nine when a different pony showed up to take over for the mare in front of me. By the look of his uniform he was apparently in charge around this office, which hopefully meant he could assist me more easily than this mare could.

“I got off the line with the academy, they have someplace they can put him right now. We got lucky, a few students just up and left.”

A confused look crossed her face as she responded. “What happened?”

“Dunno, students have been gone for 'bout a month now I think. They all disappeared just a week after the school year started. 'Nuff time has passed I suppose, they've decided to clear their rooms out.”

A smirk formed on his face as he patted me on the head. “Your pretty lucky, perfect timing I would say,”

“Yep,”

Lucky. Right...

…

A few hours crept by painfully slowly as the pony finished up his work, evidently he was going to be escorting me personally. It would have been a very nice gesture but I couldn't help but get the feeling it had some sort of political motivation.

The perks of being royalty I guess.

I could not have been happier to finally get out of that boring office. The pony in charge of that place, a brown colored earth pony named Rustic, attempted to make some idle chatter with me a few times, but we really didn't have anything to talk about. He asked a few questions about my 'father' Duke Astral, but I really couldn't get into a conversation about it, I just ended up quoting some, according to his book, “interesting” facts from his biography.

I had never even seen a school like the academy so I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew they had rooms for students to live inside the academy, I assumed it was for ponies who's families didn't live in Canterlot but wanted their children to go to a fancy school.

The thought that Celestia lived very close to the academy hung around in the back of my head as I entered for the first time. The academy was right next to the castle and it actually looked like it was part of the castle grounds due to their similar aesthetic. A fence separating the two structures was the only thing keeping them apart.

We stopped by the front desk so Rustic could take care of my enrollment before we were shown where my room was. The school was quite a bit larger than the one I had gone to, the school grounds had been broken down into multiple sections that contained different grade groups. The fifth to eighth graders went to the southern most building. Seventh graders were housed on the third floor of that building.

Part of me kinda assumed that because Canterlot's elite go to this school it would be really fancy, a gargantuan room, filled with candy, at least one hot tub, the works. It didn't have any of those things of course, the room was kind of small but I had it to myself. I was always told you were supposed to have a roommate when you went to a school like this, I guess not having to share a room is a good thing but I still kinda felt like I was getting cheated out of the real experience.

Rustic hung around for a bit after that, we still didn't have much to talk about. He was curious about my complete lack of luggage, which I didn't really have an answer for. I was glad when he was relieved by the schools headmaster.

Rustic spoke first. “So... I guess I'm done here?”

The headmaster, A gray colored stallion, responded, “Of course, thank you for taking care of this personally.”

Rustic spoke as he walked away. “Yeah, well... Couldn't exactly send him up here by himself.”

The headmaster turned to me after Rustic left. “Why is it that your parents couldn't escort you here?”

I stiffened, “Oh, well... He- they had to leave immediately.”

He raised an eyebrow expectantly at my response.

“Uh, because...”

“...”

“Because, he was... late?” I asked.

“I've always known the Astral to be quite punctual... Strange.”

Uh oh, he knows the duke...

“He also never threw his royal lineage around in such an inappropriate manner before.” The headmaster continued.

I was frozen in place, I probably would have been hyperventilating if I could breathe.

This is it... It's all over for me.