Shuffling the Deck

While Sunset was more than glad to be permanently away from Trottingham, she had to credit the place with one thing. Being a unicorn in a town full of earth ponies, she was pretty used to feeling like the guinea pig… to the point that it only bothered her a little. Sure it was unnerving to be the first called and be the first to be directed by Corrugan (she needed to learn his second name… it felt wrong to keep thinking of him with his first) to the place he wanted the gathering class to wait, but not so much she was shaking in her hooves just from the experience. She silently waited and watched as ponies separated themselves from the crowd at the sound of their names and came to stand beside her.

They were quite the diverse group, even disregarding their names. Arty was among them, almost seeming to move between her classmates, eagerly asking to hear their names the ‘right way’ and repeating the question if she couldn’t remember at first. There was a teal pony named Lyra Heartstrings who didn’t even have her cutie mark yet, though didn’t seem to be bothering her mood any. Sunset idly shrugged at the idea. Maybe she was like Sunset herself, growing up in a town that knew next to nothing about magic, but just… less willing to experiment than Sunset. Trixie Lulamoon too. Sunset couldn’t get the look of curiosity on her face out of her head. Her eyes almost seemed perpetually widened, and Sunset honestly couldn’t be sure her mouth had shut yet. There were plenty of colts in the class too, but unicorn or earth pony, she was proved right that colts were all the same. Guffawing amongst themselves about all of the fillies. She rolled her eyes when they drifted to the tight circle of males.

“Okay! That’s everypony! Before we go to our section of the school, I’ll call roster one more time to make sure we’ve got everypony!” Corrugan yelled, shuffling his sheet as he did so. He muttered something under his breath even Sunset couldn’t pick out, despite how close she was standing to him, then returned his attention to the cluster of fillies and colts. “When you hear your name, call out the next number. We’ll take roll in class that way each day, so remember your number! For the love of Celestia, remember your number!”

He sighed, and before Sunset could really process why, Heartstrings sidled up beside her with a little nudge and whispered, “Is that a past issue I hear?” Sunset snickered, but she wasn’t able to reply, as her name was first.

“One!” she called out, and the sequence began with no small number of pauses from tired and distracted ponies. But luckily, there wasn’t anypony missing from their new class, and Corrugan folded the roster rather haphazardly with a satisfied nod.

“Lady, yours’re next up. All of us are still meeting down in the lounge once they’re all settled, yeah?” Corrugan sped off, Sunset arching her eyebrows, wondering if he naturally spoke that quickly.

“Yes, Corrugan, we are,” a white unicorn with dual emerald green mane and glasses replied, half irritated. “And if you feel you must call me by my first name, at least call me Elegant when students are around.”

“Ah, whatever,” Corrugan waved a hoof in her direction. “You’ll get over them teasing you like always. Ah… So…” He turned back to Sunset and the rest and gave them a quick, scrutinizing sweep with his yellow eyes and sighed again. Sunset blinked rather exaggeratedly, the effects of being awake well past midnight descending on her almost all at once. Maybe the prospect of a bed being so close was making her brain work less… Yeah, that was probably it. “Aright squirts, let’s go,” Corrugan said, significantly less boisterous, but no less audible.

And they all stumbled and shuffled into two rows behind him, taking the central spiral up to the third level, and feeling (if it was even possible) even more tired than before. Corrugan stepped onto the third level, backing up to allow everypony in their newly minted class to file onto the level properly. Sunset glanced behind her as they all crawled up, scowling a little and half-tempted to harp on them to hurry up so everypony could go to sleep. Oh wonderful. Yes, she definitely needed to sleep. She could feel herself growing moody. “Okay kids,” Corrugan addressed them in far more normal tones than below, “this is the third floor of the school, and while you are here, this is our floor. Our classroom, my office, and your dorm rooms are all located on the outer edge of the circle. We’re taking a tour of the whole campus tomorrow, and I’ll be explaining everything in much better detail then. But… for now… I want to sleep, you want to sleep, so we’ll go ahead and get your rooms assigned.”

He yawned and rubbed at his eyes, and several of the others followed suit. “Gleah,” Corrugan mouthed before going on, “It’s simple. You’re in pairs per room, one odd one even, and they’re numbered with both numbers in order. So… yep, go on, find your room and your roommate and have a good night’s rest. I’ll tell you welcome tomorrow.”

And with that, he walked away, stretching as he did so. The bundle of fillies and colts around her began to mutter and shuffle, trying to get where and with whom they needed to be without expending any more energy than necessary. Sunset turned her head from side to side, attempting to find Lyra Heartstrings, the second pony on the roster, and was grateful when she quite nearly bounded up to her. She was somehow still full of excitement and didn’t look the least bit tired. “You look like you need a pick me up,” she said as they wordlessly moved off from the rest to the door marked ‘1-2’.

“What I need is a bed and quiet,” Sunset drawled, opening the door manually and not even caring that the drag in her tone seemed to highlight her Isle accent.

“It’s cool,” Lyra replied, following her inside as Sunset rolled into the bottom of the bunk bed. She didn’t even care about snuggling into the sheets and comforter, and from the moment her head rested on the pillow, she began losing full track of everything Lyra was saying.

“... mind if I stay up a little while?” Sunset caught her asking through the growing sleep haze.

“Just don’t wake me up…” she mumbled as her eyelids and brain simply refused to stay open and active any longer that night.

* * *

Sunset was fairly certain somepony had cursed her head sometime when she was small. Her mother, as it happened, was also of the same mind. No matter how little sleep she’d gotten the night before, her brain stubbornly woke her at six in the morning, almost on the minute. And despite having very nearly collapsed on the bottom bunk and forgotten most of what her new teacher had told them the night before, Sunset’s eyes blearily cracked open at, sure enough, six A.M. She stared and blinked at the metalwork clock hanging on the wall of her dorm room for a while, just trying to be sure it was so early in the morning. And she groaned and threw her face back into the pillow when the clock hands didn’t shift.

But as per the usual, she wasn’t able to go back to sleep either. After a few minutes of stretching and yawning and more groaning, she rolled out of her bunk and lit her horn with a simple ball of light. Finding the chandelier was as simple as looking up and a flick of magic and thought shifted her little ball of light into actual flame that swirled around the candles until they all flickered, and it puttered out. Sunset nodded to herself at the job and eyed the room more closely.

It was… small. No, more than small. It was tiny. It took her all of three steps to move from the bunk bed in the corner to the vanity sink. There were two desks on either wall within those paces as well as two bookshelves mounted above them. The vanity area had a closet on one side and a bathroom on the other. And… that was it. A little twitch entered one of Sunset’s eyes as she took it all in again. She was supposed to live in this room… with another filly no less?! Her room in her family’s cottage back home had been bigger than this, and they… well, it wasn’t the biggest house in town.

However, she wasn’t given much time to dwell on her stunned thoughts. Heartstrings let out a very stallion-like snort before sitting up in the top bunk and rubbing her shadowy eyes with both hooves. She smacked her lips a little before turning to talk to Sunset. “Didn’t think you’d be up before me,” she drawled out, going cross-eyed as she stared disapprovingly at her mouth. “You were dead-on-your-hooves last night.”

“Couldn’t help it,” Sunset replied, glancing around, unsure of what else to say. “Um… you know where our things went?”

“I’d guess they’re being checked somewhere for any dangerous stuff,” Heartstrings said, and Sunset jumped when her horn lit and she warped down from the bunk with a sharp crack. “What?” she smiled with a giggle at Sunset’s probably surprised look. “Can’t teleport yet?”

“No… I,” Sunset swallowed, regaining her composure as Heartstrings casually strode to the vanity and started opening cabinets and procuring a toothbrush and toothpaste as if she’d been living in the place her whole life. “I from Trottingham, if you couldn’t tell. It’s an earth pony town. I’ve never met all that many other unicorns, not to mention ones who could teleport properly.”

“Oh,” Heartstrings replied with a nod around the brush and foaming paste. She turned back to the mirror and finished, spitting rather spectacularly into the sink. “Yeah, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I’d get over that quick. Most everypony here can probably do it,” she said, wiping her face clean with a towel. “They’ve got oats in the desk drawers for us for breakfast I think,” she added. “But yeah, I wouldn’t even bring it up. Like, in Baltimare where I’m from, you never wanna get in a magic contest in the yard. Not good if you lose.”

“Well, that’s a fine way to wake up in the morning, isn’t it?” Sunset replied, falsely cheery. She rummaged in the desk drawers a bit, and sure enough, there were indeed oats. Not the best thing in the world for breakfast, but she didn’t even know if the school had a galley.

“Twenty-four seven three sixty-five,” Heartstrings answered matter-of-factly. “But from what my mom-”

“You mean your mum?” Sunset asked with a touch of a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah,” she replied with a little smile. “I forget you’re not from the mainland. Anyhow, yeah, her. She told me that when she was here, it was crazy every day. The stuff we get to play with…” Heartsrings shivered in place and did something of an awkward dance. “Ooo! I get tingles just thinking about it. They keep us on our hoof-tips apparently.”

“Well that’s good,” Sunset said, closing the package of oats. Another odd silence spawned between them, though her roommate seemed completely unperturbed. She hopped over to her own desk and took to examining it, fiddling with this or that and trying to look at every part from every angle she could manage. Sunset just quietly sighed and shook her head, turning and smoothing out her bed sheets with a dust of magic before throwing the door open and sticking her head out into the morning air.

Everything was bathed in the soft light of the just risen sun, and the school itself had a thin layer of dew clinging to everything. Nopony was in sight, and Sunset idly wondered if the school worked on a much later schedule than Trottingham. “Watcha lookin’ at?” Heartstings whispered scratchily and conspiratorily, her head joining Sunset’s, but near the top of the doorway from leaning out from the bunk bed.

“Nothing, pretty much,” Sunset replied, pulling back inside but enjoying the natural air too much to shut the door. And Heartstrings’ head also still happened to be in the way. “I’m up too early again is all.”

“Wouldn’t say that just yet,” she said, also bringing her head back inside to look at Sunset. “That Arty girl’s comin’ this way.” Sunset scrambled up and was going to poke out to see if it was indeed her, but Arty was around the bend and inside their room before her flank even left the floor.

“Morning you two,” she said, slipping past Sunset and settling in the middle of the room. “I couldn’t sleep at all last night, so I figured I’d check around if I was alone or not.”

“You an’ me both, sister,” Heartstrings nodded emphatically. “I got maybe three hours, but that’s pushing it.”

“I need coffee,” Arty half-whined. “I won’t make it through the day without some. And I really hope they don’t ask us to perform any spells just yet. I need some good nights before I’m ready for that.”

“Yo, Sunset, I like this filly,” Heartstrings smiled at her from atop the bunk. “We should hang with her.”

“I’m just trying to figure out how you two can just act like you know each other,” Sunset sighed. “Isn’t that what we’re doing right now? I mean, it’s not as though we’ve got anyplace else to go just yet.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’,” Hearstrings nodded. “I was thinkin’ of kickin’ her out for just barging in like that, but she seems decent enough.”

“Aw… that’s not even funny as a joke,” Arty frowned while Hearstrings snickered under her breath. And even Sunset couldn’t help but smile.

“And we could use her full name to expel her properly,” Sunset added and Heartstrings broke into a full laugh. “Flora von Arts! You are hereby excommunicated from room 1-2!” Sunset declared grandly, sweeping her hoof from Arty to the door. And her face was too funny for Sunset not to giggle.

“Is that seriously your name?” Heartstrings guffawed to Arty, to which she nodded with the most severe frown. “Hooo! That’s brilliant! Sunset! You realize we are the official creators of class joke number one!”

“Oh yes, let’s enjoy celebrating how high-and-mighty my full name sounds,” Arty glowered, but her eyes stayed bright. “Why don’t we give it to Sunset to match her Isles’ voice?” she suggested with a wicked smile.

“Daaaamn!” Hearstrings exclaimed, and they all descended into fits of giggles. Yeah, Sunset could live here, small room or not. These two fillies alone were more fun to be around than all of Trottingham.

“Phew… glad we got that out of our system,” Sunset said when she’d regained enough composure to form a full sentence. “Imagine if we’d been laughing like that during class?”

“You don’t think we’re sent to the princess to be punished since this is her school, do you?” Arty asked, mortified. “I am so dead if that’s the case.”

“Ah, chill out. The princess’ probs got some kinda, oh, what’s the word…” Heartstrings said, motioning to the air with her hoof.

“Dean?” Sunset offered.

“I guess,” she replied. “Somepony stands in for her I’m sure. GAH! Sunset! Arty’s -!”

“What!” OW!” Sunset screamed as her head was yanked back by her mane.

“Why do you have it cut so short?” Arty asked from behind her, and Sunset was able to catch a view of a brush and comb hovering in Arty’s magic. “And in a braid? It would look so much prettier all long and grown out.”

“Long and grown out also means it’s infinitely harder to take care for,” Sunset huffed, yanking her braid away from Arty and turning back to the door entrance only to have her heart feel like it would explode out her chest. Corrugan was standing in their doorway, eyes shifting to each of them in turn with an amused smirk on his face.

“Hey, Sunset, what’s… motherbucker!” Hearstrings swore, scrambling upright on the bed when she caught sight of their teacher. “No offense prof,” she said, “but those eyes are wicked creepy.”

“Morning sir!” Arty waved from behind Sunset.

“Good morning yourself, Flora,” he replied. “And to the rest of you as well. Miss Lyra, you are not the first nor will you be the last student to say as much.” He chuckled, and Sunset gradually let her heart rate stabilize where it was supposed to be. “I have to admit, I was beginning to wonder if I’d have any early risers in this class. You three ready to start today?”

“Aren’t we going to wait for everypony else to wake up?” Arty asked, curious.

“Oh, don’t worry about them,” Corrugan waved his hoof. “I took care of it. They’re awake and getting their brains put together if they weren’t already up. But that’s not what I asked.”

“I am… sir,” Sunset replied a little awkwardly. “I want to start classes as soon as possible, but one day never hurt I guess. What is your second name, sir? It feels awkward to only call you sir.”

“Hah! I don’t have a second name!” Corrugan laughed. “I’m adopted actuallly, so I never had one. And don’t worry about calling me anything official. Just Corrugan is fine. Makes things easier on all of us. Plus it annoys everypony else on staff, so that’s always a nice bonus…” He sighed and looked the three of them over again. “This is gonna be a year…” he mumbled with a faint smile. “Okay then, since you three are obviously ahead of the curve… or just nervous out the backend, you can go ahead and walk on over to the classroom. We’re all meeting in there before we head out.” He paused and half turned away before leaning back and adding, “And since you three were up and about before everypony else, take me seriously and don’t go anywhere without me or another teacher until I’ve given you the all clear.”

And he was gone, leaving a fast beating heart in Sunset’s chest at the prospect of such strong magic being on campus that they weren’t even allowed to wander alone just yet. Maybe a day of touring the campus wouldn’t be so bad after all. “I like that teacher too,” Heartstrings stated straightly. “This is not gonna be like regular school.”

Author's Note

So, since I know a lot of you guys are more Lapis' readers than mine, I figure I'd give you an update schedule for this fic since that is a thing Lapis lets everypony know. 29 Hearts, Ace of Spaces will be updated every week, on Saturday or Sunday, depending on how soon I finish the chapter.

That is all. Thankee.

• Inky Jay