Coal

     There was a buzz, and moments later the gates swung open. My escort turned and left without a word.

No doubt off to get paid, I thought with contempt.

The Academy was huge, to say the least. It was made up of four buildings, each big enough to be a school in itself. The grass was cut short as far as the eye could see; amongst it was not a single anomaly. It disgusted me. Walkways surrounded every building, branching out and connecting all of the buildings; coming together into a medium-sized fountain inbetween the four buildings. It was there that I noticed small congregation of ponies, or more specifically, unicorns, and moved to join them.

It made sense, I suppose. The other races couldn’t be magically gifted without magic, could they? I mean, there wasn't a flight school for unicorns, right?

As I neared the crowd, a magically-amplified voice filled the air; “-when orientation is finished you will all be shown to your respective dormitories. Now if you will all follow me, I will show you to the first of our academic facilities: The Arcana. The pony whom I assumed to be the instructor made her way out of the crowd, and proceeded to the first of the buildings.

Because of the size of the campus, the walk to the building was a long and boring one. Much of what wasn’t silence was filled by the blathering on of the instructor about the “high quality and standards of our academy.” She was insufferable. I’d been eager to reach my dorm and get some alone time before having to interact with anymore ponies, but it seemed that that simply wasn’t going to happen.

The Arcana was growing ever larger as the distance between it any myself diminished. It wasn’t long before that magically-amplified voice filled the air once more.

“This is the Arcana, it is here that all of your studies will take place," she said, gesturing towards the enormous building, "we offer a variety of courses on the development and strengthening of magical ability. Later on, you will receive a list of available courses, and you will be able to decide for yourself in which area of magic you would like to direct your studies, but for now let us continue with orientation.”

The instructor turned and began walking towards the next building. I was a little-less uninterested now; I hadn’t been expecting options of any kind in how I finished off my required schooling. The question that presented itself foremost amongst my thoughts was; What should I take?, following close behind was the arguably-more-important question; What is there to take?

“And here are the staff dormitories. You are never to enter without an invitation, and should only do so if there is a dire emergency that the staff members need be made aware of. Understood?”

A chorus of half-hearted acknowledgements came forth from the crowd of students. The instructor, satisfied with this, gestured towards the building directly across from the staff dormitories.

“Those are the male dormitories, and those,” she said, gesturing now to the building directly across from the Arcana, “are the female dormitories.”  “See that you don’t get the two mixed up,” she said. “Now, you will need to break up into gender-specific groups and proceed to your respective dormitories. Once you arrive there, you will meet the staff members assigned to watch over your dormitories. They will show you to your rooms, and distribute the course lists and sign-up sheets. You should have all of your courses selected by the end of the day tomorrow. Classes begin the day after. What you do with your time between now and then is your decision.”

With that, the instructor turned and walked into the staff dormitories, and left us. Groups had already begun to form; there were two for each gender, male and female socialites had broken away from the whole to form their own groups and were already chattering away, the other two groups seemed to consist of quieter ponies. I joined the quiet group of fillies as they began making their way across campus towards the female dormitories.

    The walk was uneventful and blissfully silent. It was a long walk to the female dormitories, but we made it there before long. As we walked through the main entrance, we were greeted by an orange and green unicorn who was a little too cheery for my taste.

    “Hello everypony,” she said, smiling a smile that was far too wide, “I’ll be showing you to your rooms now, won’t that be terrific?”

    Somewhere in the back of my head, I was thinking of that same overly-cheery voice saying; “I’ll be taking your skin now, won’t that be terrific?” Why that thought came to mind was beyond me, but it was inexplicably funny, and before I knew it I was laughing; perhaps a bit too loudly. When I’d calmed down I opened my eyes to find everypony was staring directly at me.

“Umm, sorry...” I said, directing my gaze at the ground.

    Everypony stared for a few moments more and then began moving to catch up with the unicorn that had begun showing people their respective rooms during my fit of laughter. I felt like a fool, but that thought remained; making being overcome with laughter an ever-growing threat.

    I stepped into my room and closed the door behind me with a sigh of relief; realizing it was already furnished, I tossed the course list onto the desk beside the door and moved to close the curtains. The room purged of light, I lay in bed. Content to take in the silence and the darkness; I preferred it very much to the company of other ponies, even the not-so-noisy ones. The darkness seemed to grow closer with each passing moment, not that I minded, and before long, it was all encompassing.