The multiple "1000 years" of blank pages.

I walk along with Green back inside. Given the remote location of my tree, we’re the last ones to enter as we can see the last of everypony else storming up the stairs to the third floor, where all our rooms are.

Neither of us talks as we approach the staircase. It’s not an awkward silence I just don’t feel like talking and she doesn't seem like she wants to as well. Maybe she’s more mature than I think she is. Maybe. But she did show up faking that she was overly happy, so maybe she’s faking not being bothered by my vague, yet precise question. I guess I’ll know later.

In my sight I see the staircase approaching. When the time comes I take the left turn to go up, and trot up the first couple fleet of stairs, only to notice that Green isn't around me anymore.

So she’s the abandoning type? Does she really hate me for asking her why she was here? No...I don’t think so...She most likely lost me as I turned. She’s new here. I've been here my whole life. She’s my roommate...the first I ever got... I guess it makes sense that I go find her. Hehe. Yeah, like the chapter of the damsel in distress where the Great Alicorn Warrior shouts “Don’t worry! I’ll save you!” Yeh. I like that story. OK, off to save the damsel in distress! Hehe.

I walk back down the steps as I fantasize about the scene of the book but I', interrupted by a very distinct rusty voice.

“What’s the matter new kid? You lost?”

Big Hoof. He may be big, but his voice is like a pair of rusted horseshoes being rubbed against each other. If the pitch was lower maybe he could be as imposing as he looks, but instead it just makes him irritating like no one else.

I turn around the column, standing before the last fleet of stairs to the hallway of the cafeteria floor and I see the problem. Yes, as I suspected, Big Hoof is there, standing taller than his 3, 6... 8 friends, who are also there, and they have Green surrounded. They must have been free to leave from the basement when the bell rang, and most likely waited to intercept somepony so they could torment them.

One of Big Hoof’s friends pushes Green lightly, just enough to make her lose balance, so that another can push her back harder, making her barely able to stay on her hooves. I can see that she’s scared but also not shouting for help or making any noise.

“Not gonna say anything? Why don’t you say “Hi” to your new best friends?” Big hoof said as he pets her mane with his dirty hoof.

His hoof isn't necessarily dirty as in, covered in mud, but he just does too many mean things that it feels like they’re dirty.

For some reason, seeing him petting Green’s mane and saying that him and his gang are her friends, especially with that annoyingly rusty voice, makes me angry. I feel like I have to help her.

As the anger builds up in me because of the scene I see one fleet of stairs away from me, Green takes a short moment to look straight at me and then back to Big hoof. Big hoof turns his head to see what green glimpsed at. He sees me.

Great. Now I’m in the same shit pile as Green. But I don’t really mind... Wait...why do I not mind being in the same pile as her? I’m not in the same shit pile as her... I’m a fleet of stairs away; I can just run away and then come back later to bring her to the infirmary. But... no. I won’t do that...but...why? Just go away!

I get interrupted by the sound of rusted horseshoes getting rubbed together
“Oh! Thinky! There you are! Come help me give a warm welcome to the new filly! You know its tradition!”

How dare he associate me with him....in front of her... Again! Why do I care? Why am I getting angry?...I don’t know.... she’s new here, I’m her roommate, I've been here a while, I got to get her out of this mess, because if I don’t, she won’t know who to trust... But she lies about her emotions... How can I know I can trust her? Oh stop. Just stop it Thought Flare.
I silence the rising questions on what I’m about to do and gather all my willpower to saying with as much conviction as I can: “Leave her alone. She’s my roommate.”

Holy king have mercy...that was weak. It sounded way better in my mind, but it came out like the last bit of air from a balloon that’s getting deflated.

Big hoof just looks at me funny and explodes in laughter. Everyone else joins him in a chaotic choir of mocking laugh. Green is just shaking her head, looking at me like I committed a blasphemy.

So she doesn't even want me to try to get her out? She would prefer if I let her be? Big Hoof is big...he has 8 friends...were just 2...yeh... I’m an idiot. Better run while I can!

...

Screw that. I can still run, but I won’t. Even if I end up in the infirmary with Green, at least I would have shown her that I can be trusted. Like in the story, the Great Alicorn Warrior saves the damsel in distress no matter the odds....
But he has super Alicorn powers that I don’t have.....
Yep. I’m still an Idiot.

But she’s my roommate. She’s new here. She needs to know she can trust me. So I’ll stand up to those guys.

Though in the end I’m just going to run away...

ENOUGH THINKING, GET MOVING YOU IDIOT!

I walk down the steps as they laugh. As I reach the floor, Big Hoof puts his leg around green’s neck and holds her close against him. Green doesn’t resist. She just looks at the floor. He moves back, I, against my nagging thoughts, follow him, and the 8 buddies close the circle around me. No running away now.

“Oh really? She’s your roommate? Then best I warn her about your past roommate and what you did to her...”

What? Why does he lie like that...
OH! OK! To give Green the idea that she can’t trust me! Well shut up you big lump, I didn't come down these stairs and going in the same pile of shit as her for nothing!

“Let her go. Leave her alone.”

Surprisingly enough, this time, I had way more conviction than before, most likely because the option to run away is gone, so I have to stick to the stupid plan of standing up to him.

One of his friends on my blind side bucked my left flank right after I said that. It wasn’t too bad, they hit me worse before, but it still hurt and made me flinch from the pain.

“Why do go against me Thinky? You've been here long enough to know not to mess with me!”

I tell him, once more, and this time, with more vigor:
“She’s new here. She’s my roommate. Leave her alone.”

He pats her head gently. I just keep getting angrier at him.

“How rude! How about you ask again but politely, show me some respect, after all, I am able to use magic better than you!”

To prove his point, he has his horn glow, as well as a one of the sets of green hairs in Green's dark red mane, near the top of her head.
He tears it off.
Green flinches and moans a bit at that, clearly forcing herself to be as quiet as possible.

OK. He showed off his magic skills by hurting Green. That’s just wrong. To damnation how stupid standing up to him is, I don’t care. I’ll say what I think and make him know that it’s wrong.

So I begin.

“Respect? You want me to show you some respect? I know the books say that we have to be nice if we want others to me nice to us, but guess what, that applies to all of us, and you, Big Hoof, are part of the “us”. Having said that, don’t expect me or anyone to be polite or show you any respect since all you do is hurting and disrespecting others.”

He stands there stunned by such a large amount of words coming from me, who usually stays quiet and never says more than one short sentence. But he quickly recovers and retorts:

“But I've been nothing but polite to you so far! As the books say “The past is the past, right now is what matters!” and right now I am being very nice and polite to you. I’m sorry that my friend hit you, but that is him, not me! And why do you care what happens to her? She's not you!”

“Right now is what matters? Well, Right now, it’s been 3 times that I ask you to leave her alone. And right now, you hurt her to demonstrate your abilities in magic and how they’re better than mine. Completely disrespecting my request, and right now, you ask me to show you some respect? Do you realize what you say and do don’t make any sense? I ask you one more time. Leave her alone. She’s my roommate.”

Abandoning the path of playing the sarcastic innocent, he realizes that I am being serious. I too am realizing this. I have never been this serious about something, or ever set my mind on something to such a level. I don’t know... I keep getting the feeling that this is all stupid and that I should beg for his mercy... but I didn't spill my thoughts for nothing. I must keep it up.

Big hoof looks down at me, having let go of Green to place himself right in front of me, being as imposing as ever.

“...Or else what?”

He’s challenging me. Ok.... I have to prove myself stronger than him.
But... how?...

Now I feel really stupid.
Good job Thought Flare. You had a good run at being the Brave Alicorn Warrior, time to accept your condition as the weak one eyed unicorn.

Am I really that hopeless?
No... There must be something I can do to prove myself to him...
I easily best him when talking, I just did that. But now he’s going to attack me physically if I don’t do anything good enough....
I have a completely blind side and I’m just a little taller than the norm from the other 9 year old unicorns.
Big hoof, he’s 12, but he’s as big as 15 year old....
not to mention, pretty strong...
AND he can use magic...
Wait...
Magic!
I can try a luminescence spell, it just does light, so I can try to channel the overflowing mana to do more light, and if I remove the fix point on the tip of the horn restriction.... That can save me trouble when trying to regulate the flow, especially if I just do a activate -deactivate and not try to hold it.
That way he’ll be blinded, so will the others around, then I can grab Green and rush up to my room!
OK, here goes nothing! That big bulk of rotten meat will never see it coming!

“I said...”
I prepare the spell and then let the mana flow,
“LEAVE HER ALONE!”

As I shout this, my horn bursts into a wild and very bright light. I can feel it heating up as the mana rushes through it. The spell then takes effect through my whole body, like hatching from an egg; I can feel rays of hot light burst out of me. I then immediately start the spell deactivation. That part turns out to be harder than I thought it would be, because you have to surpass the spell's momentum with your mind to deactivate a spell. And with my situation, the spell generates it's own momentum...
After a moment that felt like an eternity, I managed to surpass it and stop the spell

But everything went dark right after.

When I came back to my senses, I was lying where I was standing last I remembered: in the hallway separating the access to the playground, the cafeteria, and in the middle of it, facing the cafeteria entrance, the staircase. Green was there, poking my hoof. I was numb all over. I couldn't feel her poking me, or my body. She sees my open eye and releases a sigh of relief.

She leans down and hugs my numb neck briefly.
“Thank the king you’re still alive!”

“How... How long was I unconscious?”

“Your freaky magic things stopped, you fell down, I poked your hoof a couple of times, and then you woke up!”

I try to move my legs. I can see them move, but It feels really weird, like, I see them one place, I feel like they’re at another. I try to get up, but I really am having trouble. Green notices and helps me up best she can. After a lot of wobbling and leaning on Green, I manage to stand on my own, getting my sense of touch back to normal.

Green was very enthusiastic, compared to moments ago when she was all scared of big hoof, I’m not sure what happened, but Big Hoof and his friends are gone. So I guess she’s happy about that.

“Um...Thought Flare...Your muzzle is bleeding....”

I shakily touch my muzzle and see that in fact, it was bleeding.

“Get me some brown paper from the cafeteria...I’ll be ok.”

She nods and rushes in the cafeteria, which was conveniently right there.
As she gets the brown paper, I sit on the lower step of the staircase to help me fully recover my balance, keeping a hoof to my muzzle to prevent the blood from staining the floor.

Green returns, gives me the brown papers that I then use to catch the blood instead of my hoof. She sits next to me in the staircase, on my blind side.

“Here, lemme fix that for you.”

“Fix wha- OUCH!”

She tugged on my headband that I use to cover my empty eye socket and tied a new knot, since it apparently got undone, or loosened. But she bumped a spot on the back of my head, and it was bruised.

“Sorry! Must have hit your head there... You know, when you fell.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.... You were levitating! And this bright white fire coming out of your body! Those guys were so scared! You should have seen their faces!”

“I was...what? Levitating? Fire? That has nothing to do with the spell I tried to use!”

"Oh..." she says, losing some of the enthusiasm she had.
“Is that what you mean by having a hard time controlling magic?”

“Yes... but this time I managed to stop the spell, and if I hadn't hit my head on the floor, I think I would have been stuck with just a bloody nose and numb body, instead of losing consciousness and spending half a day in the infirmary bed like any other time I tried to use magic.”

Green gives me a big authentic smile and says cheerfully:
“That means you can get better!”

I chuckle through the brown paper I hold on my muzzle:
“Hehe, Yeh. I guess you’re right!”
I sit there quietly, thinking of how I indeed can hope to one day control magic.
She breaks my silence and stream of thoughts with:
“Come on, let’s go to our room.”

I take off the brown paper and see that I’m not bleeding anymore, put the paper in the trashcan next to the stairs, get up and walk up the steps with Green, her still in my blind side.

As we walk up the third set, she nudges my shoulder lightly

“And um... Thanks for having stood up to these guys... I really appreciate it...”

I take a short moment and stop walking to take in the thanks she just gave me. I never got any before, because I never did anything like this before. Then again, I never had a roommate before... does having to save your roommate from trouble while risking yourself is what it means to have a roommate?

I don’t know... No books said anything about that, I mean, the Great Alicorn Warrior just saves the damsel in distress without getting a scratch because he has so much Greatness in him, so for him it’s all profit when the damsel and her family give him their thanks and gifts.

As for here, it’s all different... it’s like the regular colt who saw the damsel in distress get taken away is the one who ended up saving her just because of a lucky turn of events... Not his inner greatness... Or was it his inner greatness that triggered a lucky turn of events? Does that mean that everyone has some inner greatness in them? Not just the nobles because they have a holy mark?

I’m confused.

I know I’m not a Great Alicorn Warrior. Best I tell that to Green. I don’t want her to build a fake reputation of me. I don’t like lies.

“To be honest, I don’t really understand why I did. I got mad at them for some reason, and if I hadn't gotten the idea of using a light spell on the spot, I would have been the world’s biggest coward and idiot. Just know that I would never do something like that again, so don’t look at me like some Great Alicorn Warrior, because I’m far from being one. “

She must have been shocked by what I said and how dry and sharp I was when I said it. I didn't look at her, but all she said was:

“Oh...um... ok...”

And so we resumed walking up the stairs in silence.