The School For Good And Evil

The Great Mistake Part One

Rarity opened her eyes to find herself floating in a foul-smelling moat, filled to the brim with thick black sludge. A gloomy wall of fog flanked her on all sides. She tried to stand, but her hooves couldn't find the bottom and she sank; sludge flooded her muzzle and burnt her throat. Choking for breath, she found something to grasp, and saw it was the carcass of half-eaten goat. She gasped and tried to swim away but couldn't see an inch in front of her face. Screams echoed above and Rarity looked up.

Streaks of motion - then a dozen bony birds crashed through the fog and dropped shrieking foals into the moat. When their screams turned to splashes, another wave of birds came, then another, until every inch of the sky was filled with falling foals. Rarity glimpsed a bird dive straight for Her and she swerved, just in time to get a cannonball splash of slime in her face

She wiped the glop out of her eye and came face-to-face with a colt. The first thing she noticed was he had no shirt. His chest was puny and pale, without the hope of muscle. From his small head jutted a small muzzle, spiky teeth, and a brown mane that dropped over his beady eyes. He looked like a sinister little weasel.

"The bird ate my shirt," he said. "Can I touch your mane?"

Rarity backed up.

"They don't usually make villains with princess manes," he said, dog-paddling towards her.

Rarity searched desperately for a weapon-a stick, a stone, and a dead goat-

"Maybe we could be bunk mates or best mates or some kind of mates," he said, inches away from her now. It was like Autumn had turned into a rodent and developed courage. He reached out his scrawny hoof to touch her and Rarity readied a punch to the eye, when a screaming filly dropped between them. Rarity took off in the opposite direction and by the time she glanced back, Weasel Boy was gone.

Through the fog, Rarity could see shadows of foals treading through floating bags and trunks, hunting for their luggage. Those that managed to find them continued  downstream, towards ominous howls in the distance. Rarity followed these floating silhouettes until the fog cleared to reveal the shore, where a pack of Timberwolves, standing on two paws in blood red soldier jackets and black leather breeches, snapped riding whips to here students in line.

Rarity grasped the bank to pull herself out but froze when she caught her reflection in the most. Her dress was buried beneath sludge  and yolk, her face shined stinky black grime, and her mane was home to a family of earthworms. She choked for breath-

"Help! I'm in the wrong sch-"

A wolf yanked her out and kicked her into line. She opened her mouth to protest, but saw Weasel Boy swimming towards her yelping, "Wait for me!"

Quickly, Rarity joined the line of shadowed fillies and Colts, dragging their trunks through the fog. If any dawdle, a wolf delivered a swift crack, so she kept anxious pace, all the while wiping her dress, picking out worms, and mourning her perfectly packed bags, far, far away.

The tower gates were made of iron spikes, crisscrossed with barbed wire. Nearing them, she saw it wasn't wire at all but a sea of black wipers that darted and hissed in her direction. With a speak, Rarity scampered through and looked back at rusted words over the gates, held between two carved black swans:

The School For Evil Edification And  Propagation Of Sin

  Ahead the school tower rose like a winged demon. The main tower, built of pockmarked black stone, unfurled through smoky clouds like a hulking torso. From the sides of the main tower jutted two thick, crooked spires, dripping with veiny red creepers like bleeding wings.

  The wolves drove the fillies and colts towards the mouth of the main tower, a long serrated tunnel shaped like a crocodile snout. Rarity felt chills as the tunnel grew narrower and narrower until she could barely see the filly in front of her. She squeezed between two jagged stones and found herself in a leaky foyer that smelled of rotten fish. Demonic gargoyles pitched down from stone rafters, lit torches in their jaws, . An iron statue of a bald, toothless hag brandishing an apple smoldered in the menacing firefight. Along the wall, a crumbly column had an enormous black letter N painted on it, decorated with wicked-faces imps, trolls, and Harpie climbing up and down it like a tree. There was a blood red E on the next column, embellished with swinging giants and goblins. Creeping along in the interinable line, Rarity worked out what the columns spelled out N-E-V-E-R then suddenly found herself far enough into the room to see the line snake in front of her. For the first time, she had a clear view of the other students and almost fainted.

  One mare had a hideous overbite, wispy patches of mane, and one eye instead of two, right in the middle of her forehead. Another colt was like a mound of dough, with his bulging belly, bald head, and swollen limbs. A tall, sneering filly trudged ahead with dark pink skin. The stallion in front of her had so much hair in his mane all over him he would be an ape. They all looked about her age, but the similarities ended there. Here was a mass of the miserable, with misshapen bodies, repulsive faces,and the cruelest expressions she'd ever seen, as if looking for something to hate. One by one their eyes fell on Rarity and they found what they were looking for. The petrified princess in glass slippers and purple curls.

The red among thorns.