Aptitude

Chapters

Prologue: Crisis Averted
Relocation
Day One
A Small Wish
Summer Storms
Saturday!
Going With the Flow
Laying Low and Finding Home

Prologue: Crisis Averted

Prologue: Crisis Averted
Aptitude
MLP: FiM
By: Kestrel

The earth shook, sending the citizens of Hollow Shades sprawling. Thankfully, the rumbling was fairly minor, and the forest the town was built around was well equipped to deal with nature’s wrath. None of the buildings were showing any signs of structural damage, but it was dangerous to be exposed nonetheless. Young trees fell and clattering arose from within the houses as dinnerware and furniture tumbled about.

“Oh no… not again,” mumbled a lone unicorn gripping onto a sturdy tree near the edge of the town. His knees shook as he held fast to the tree, afraid of not the earthquake itself, but what would come after.

Hollow Shades had been suffering unexplained natural phenomena for the past several years, according to the rest of Equestria, but the citizens of the town knew better. Once the shaking had quelled to a mere rumble, a few ponies took to the streets, slowly making their way toward a house atop the crest of a hill.

The unicorn ran toward the house as stealthily as his snow-white coat could afford. He knew that while his neighbors were nice, but they were scared and upset, and they knew exactly where they could vent their frustrations at. Who they could blame for this.

Thankfully, the back of the house was devoid of the angry ponies at the front, and he slipped through the door into the well furnished house, making his way up the stairs and into his bedroom and throwing a sheet over himself with his magic.

Despite the sheet and being a story above the crowd behind closed doors, the poor young stallion could hear the ire of the other ponies and the raised voices of his parents trying to calm them down.

“Everypony, calm down! Blizzard Warning didn’t do anything wrong, he’s been in his room all day,” the night blue stallion tried to convince the crowd.

Blizzard’s dad was trying his hardest, but his argument seemed to fall on deaf ears. This kind of thing had been happening for the last five years or so, ever since Blizzard had gotten his cutie mark.

“Ever since your son got his cutie mark, this town has been a disaster area! We’re lucky nopony’s been hurt! Can’t say the same for our stuff though…”

More upset voices rang through the air.

“We’re all grateful for your service and emergency response, but we can’t just ignore this issue because he’s the son of the great hero Lodestar. We're thankful for your service to Equestria in the Royal Guard, but you don't get special treatment.”

“Yeah! Fix what’s wrong! You’re from the Starswirl bloodline! You can fix anything, so protect us from Blizzard Warning!”

“Mayor Lodestar, that child’s going to bring calamity to our village if you don’t keep a handle on him!”

Blizzard’s mother cut in quickly once the parentage of her child had been called into question. She was all but a blur of yellow and purple as she flew to the door, flinging it wide open with her magic.

“Now you ponies listen,” she began. “My son had nothing to do with this, even if there has been lots of things happening since his cutie mark appeared. It’s just coincidence that they all started happening now.”

The crowd fell hushed, at least to a dull roar as many of the ponies figured that Blizzard really didn’t have anything to do with the recent earthquake and decided to go home and fix up their houses.

Relieved, Blizzard Warning removed the sheet from covering his head and popped his head up over the window sill. There were still a few ponies conversing with his parents.

Curious, he crept out of his room and toward the stairs, keeping out of sight, but within earshot.

“Look Honey Breeze, maybe you’re right and he didn’t cause anything,” a concerned looking mare said to Blizzard’s mom. “But we also can’t believe it’s just pure coincidence. I mean, these incidents have stuck around ever since your son got his cutie mark. Hollow Shades hasn’t ever had these sorts of weather patterns before.”

Honey Breeze looked down and scuffed the ground with her hooves, not knowing an adequate response to the statement.

“Sorry Breeze, but we’re afraid of what might happen if he grows up and has stronger magic,” an elderly stallion in the remaining crowd announced for the others. “It’s your job to make it safe. We don’t mind Harbinger living here, it is his home, but we can’t afford to let all of his antics go unchecked.

Breeze nodded while Lodestar stood by with a stern look on his face. He put his hoof on the door and pulled his wife back into the house.

“Thank you for your concern, but my wife and I can handle this, and his name is Blizzard Warning” Lodestar growled as he shut the door, his red mane seeming to flare up from its professional look. “We’ll handle this together.” Nopony could hear him after the heavy door closed, but Honey Breeze and Blizzard were comforted by his words.

Blizzard slinked back to his room and knelt on the floor while his parents shared a tender embrace. Slumped against his bed, Blizzard Warning began to wonder yet again about his place in town.

“Maybe it’s true…” Blizzard mumbled to himself. “Maybe my talent is only to break things and cause trouble for other ponies.” He put his hooves to his head and shook it out. “But I’m not a bad pony! I don’t mean to do that stuff, and it’s not always me either!”

The young stallion decided to retrace his steps in his mind. He had just gone out earlier into the warm summer day to explore the forest around Hollow Shades, and had found some wilting flowers in the shade of another plant that had grown next to it. Blizzard had figured out years ago that his talent in magic beyond simple levitation and illumination extended to nature spells, being able to conjure up weather changes and manipulate the elements.

He used his magic to dig up the flowers and then moved them to a more ideal location for them to grow. Blizzard Warning had felt pretty satisfied about himself for helping the flowers, but about five minutes later when he had come back to Hollow Shades, the earth started to shake.

It seemed like that kind of thing always happened whenever he tried to use his spells. What good was a cutie mark if you couldn’t practice your special talent? Maybe he was better off someplace else. It wasn’t like he had much to lose here. All the ponies he went to school with had started avoiding him out of fear after his first few episodes.

Blizzard turned to the window and looked out on the town. All the ponies in the town, mostly, earth ponies with some unicorns worked to repair the damage around their homes. He gazed into his reflection in the window saw his reflection looking back at him. His bright white and blue mane was in an unkempt mess as usual and his icy eyes were drooped in sadness. He looked up to the sun, (wincing from the glare of the bright star) and asked Celestia’s advice.

“Princess Celestia, you’re the one who makes the sun rise and set. I’ve read it’s a star that’s real hot and it burns anything it comes close to. But you make just feel warm and nice. How can I do that? Any time I want to turn up the heat, things start to fire up, literally…”

Being satisfied with sending his worries up to Celestia, though he wouldn’t expect an answer to his prayers, Blizzard settled down to read his comics. Things had already gotten a bit hectic today, and he didn’t want to stir up any more trouble on accident.

“Blizzard Warning, it’s time for dinner! Come on down!” Honey Breeze shouted up the stairs.

Blizzard closed his comic book and threw off his sheets haphazardly and took off toward the dining room. No matter how bad his day was, his mom’s cooking always made him feel better. Cherry changas! Or was it chimmy cherries? Whatever, they tasted amazing.

Eager to eat and bored of being holed up alone, Blizzard hopped into his chair and waited for his parents to join him.

After everypony had settled at the table, Blizzard dug into his cherry changa with delight. It took him a full minute of scarfing down his food to notice the unusual silence at the family dinner table. Soon enough, he noticed that his mom and dad were staring at each other, giving him occasional looks. Not wanting to be in the dark to whatever they knew, Blizzard broke the silence.

“What’s going on guys?” he asked. “Why are we all so quiet?”

Lodestar and Honey Breeze exchanged one more glance and nodded to each other before turning to their son.

“Listen, son,” Lodestar began. “I realize things have been difficult for you these past few years, and today wasn’t a lot of fun for you. While you were up in your room, your mother and I have been talking. We wanted to ask your opinion on living here. I understand that it’s been rough on you having to deal with everypony running scared.”

Blizzard put down his food and payed close attention. His father’s words had set him on edge somewhat.

“Ask me about what, Dad?” Blizzard asked.

“Well, we know that you’re trying really hard to work on your special talent and learning how to use it well, but we aren’t sure you can do that here. There are a lot of ponies who are scared of you, and nopony here at least knows what to do. We were thinking of enrolling you into a school.”

Blizzard rubbed his hoof through his mane in confusion.

“School? Uh… Dad, I’m already in one, you know. I get that you’re busy as mayor, but you had to notice that much,” Blizzard Warning said snarkily.

Honey Breeze decided to try and take it from where her husband ended, hoping she’d have better luck finishing the point.

“The school we had in mind would be away from home,” she said. “Have you heard of Starswirl Academy?”

Blizzard’s confusion was suddenly doubled as he scratched his mane once more. Starswirl Academy was one of the best schools in the country! Of course he’d heard of it! It was very prestigious, and very hard to get into.

“What’s my great-great-great-great-great-great-great… something-or-other grandfather’s school have to do with my… situation?” Blizzard asked.

“That’s where we’re planning to enroll you,” she answered. “We’re confident that the professors there will be able to help you control your magic while you learn how to use your talent.”

“Wha— wait, how the heck did you manage to swing that!? I’m not a bad student, but I’m not smart enough to go somewhere like that.”

“I suppose you should chalk that one up to your father. It turns out that being part of the founding father’s family gives us some extra leeway. The school would be delighted to have a member of Starswirl’s family return to the academy, so they’ll make sure to give you all the academic help you’ll need.”

Blizzard weighed the idea in his head. Leaving home and seeing a new place and being given a chance to fix his problems sounded like a great deal. But he didn’t want to leave his family behind, or his friends… well, if he had any of those here.

“Wait! But, what about you guys? Won’t you miss me being here? I do think it would be really cool to go and learn there, but I’m not sure I’ll fit in there either. I mean… what’s to say nopony would figure out that I’m the Harbinger?”

Blizzard’s face fell at his own mention of the nickname he had received from the villagers. Yup, the more or less solidified it. Nopony here appreciated him as much as he would have hoped.

“Blizzard,” Lodestar said with a low rumble to his voice. “That is not your name, and none of the ponies of this town ever had the right to call you that. You are a proud member of the Starswirl family line, and don’t forget it.”

Blizzard raised his chin and nodded to his father, managing a faint smile at his parents for their support.

“Now, remember, we only talked about this, nothing’s been decided yet,” Honey Breeze reminded Blizzard. “We wanted to ask you. We don’t want to take you out of what you’re used to unless you want to.”

“Yeah, I want to go. Maybe you guys are right and they can help me find out how to put my talent to good use,” he said. “I want to be useful to others, but I’m not sure how to be here.”

Lodestar and Honey Breeze looked to each other once more, trading smiles and knowing looks. They had expected he’d want to attend the school and see the rest of Equestria.

“Okay dear, we’ll go ahead and get things arranged for the fall term,” Honey said. “As you know, the school is out near Baltimare, so it’ll be a long train ride. Oh, and you’ll be living on your own, needless to say. There will be adult ponies there for you to talk to if you need them to help you out, but you’ll be in charge of cleaning and studying on your own. Oh, and make sure that you pack enough clothes for special occasions, since you’ll be doing your own laundry. Oh, and—”

Honey Breeze was cut off as Lodestar put his hoof over her mouth while she continued to talk, unfazed.

“Honey, don’t worry so much,” Lodestar interjected over her muffled voice. “We’ve got a few months to prepare for him leaving. We’ll make sure he’s got absolutely everything he could ever need for his temporary home.”

Blizzard gave his mom and dad the biggest smile he had managed to produce for weeks. Being registered in a new, awesome school far away from home would be so exciting. He’d be leaving all the ponies who treated him like an outcast. And to top it all off, cherry changas! In all the talk, he had completely forgotten the glorious food in front of him. Taking his favorite dish in his hooves, he continued to chow down like he wouldn’t live another day.

Then a thought hit him…

If he was going to move away to go to school at Starswirl Academy, then… then… no more homemade cooking! No more mom’s cherry changas!

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Author's Note

So this is the first chapter of a new story I've been writing for the past few weeks. It's going to be an all OC cast of my own creation. This was partially something I've just wanted to write and also a challenge for me to get writing my own characters rather than predefined ones. Go ahead and tell me what you think! :twilightsmile:

Relocation

Chapter 1: Relocation
Aptitude
MLP: FiM
By: Kestrel

The summer passed uneventfully in Hollow Shades, with very little of note happening. While most would consider it boring, Blizzard Warning found it to be relieving since it meant that nopony was trying to bash down his door to yell at him. He hadn’t had the time to practice magic anyway. There was just so much to do with preparing for the next school term. He had to fill out a class form, health forms, room forms, forms about forms. Wasn’t this stuff meant for adults?

One of the things that Blizzard had learned over the summer was that at Starswirl Academy, he’d have to share a room. Being an only child, he wasn’t used to the concept of sharing his living space, but was willing to give it a try. Blizzard just hoped that he’d be able to make friends there while he learned to direct his magic in a less destructive way.

Apparently classes at the academy were fairly standard, with some specialty classes offered for varying talent fields. As such, in addition to all the normal classes for unicorns and general studies, Blizzard was going to take classes in the natural aspect of Equestria, ranging from weather management to farm practices.

His schedule included his specialty class, a class for unicorns on how to direct magic efficiently to avoid fatigue, the other compulsory unicorn class about practical uses for magic, an Equestrian history course, a health class, and an elective for interspecies relations.

Blizzard looked up from his schedule and around his room. It looked so different now. To him, it felt that his entire life had more or less been packed up into just a few solitary suitcases. He had all his formalwear and school uniform in one bag along with some personal mementos, and all his school supplies in another with his own leisure reading and his Joy Boy game system.

Looking around the room, Blizzard thought on how much of his past few years he had spent holed up in it. While it had afforded him safety from the anger and fear of the other townsponies, it also forced him into lonely isolation. Without any friends, he only had his books and videogames to turn to.

The floor of the bedroom was clean, for once in his life, and it almost made Blizzard sad. It really did feel like he had packed up his existence to be moved to another place. He’d lived in Hollow Shades ever since he was a young foal. He had been born elsewhere, but his home was always here.

Taking one last look at the room, he slung on his saddlebags and lifted his remaining luggage with his magic. Today was the day he’d finally be leaving for Starswirl Academy. He’d be riding the rails to get there, and he had to get to the station for the train that was leaving in about twenty minutes.

“Next time I come home, things’ll be different,” Blizzard said to himself. “I’ll be able to help ponies around here rather than just be a disaster waiting to happen.”

He shut the door.

“I’ll miss you so much when you’re gone!” Honey Breeze cried out, not really caring that she was in public and other ponies were giving her looks. “Make sure you write home often! And don’t be afraid to ask for us to come down sometime.”

Blizzard huffed a sigh, again. To his mom’s credit, she had only had four extremely embarrassing outbursts. Avoiding the snickers around town from other ponies had been unsuccessful to say the least, and Blizzard was surprised his coat hadn’t turned permanently red. He tried his best to make the wood of the train platform creak as loudly as possible to cover his mother’s wailing, but to no avail.

“Honey Breeze, quit embarrassing him,” Lodestar said, putting a hoof directly into his face. “We knew that this was the best decision for him and everything that meant. I’ll miss him too.”

Honey Breeze only clung tighter to the unamused colt. Blizzard Warning’s ears flopped down in irritation. He took a glance up at the big clock at the station directory. There was still ten minutes to go before boarding time! Though his mother was clinging to him like a foal, he plodded onward to line two of the station, currently the only one working due to a slight… mishap involving a freak earthquake some months ago. Orders had gone out for the metal to repair the railing, but for now it lay broken.

“Ooooh, look at my little snowflake! You’re growing up so fast!” Honey sniffed, with tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Blizzard winced as another sob rent the air around her. His face flushed scarlet once more.

“Moooom! Don’t call me that!” he whined. “That’s so embarrassing!”

The sobbing mare detached herself from Blizzard with a sniff and promptly latched onto her husband, earning a grunt from the stallion.

“Ugh…” he managed to get out from the sudden impact. “Sorry about that, Blizzard. But we were young once too, and we were embarrassed like that too.”

“Gee… thanks Dad,” Blizzard said with a deadpanned expression. He decided to quickly take a few steps back to avoid another latch-on from his mom.

“Now then, Blizzard Warning, you know what you need to do to get there, right?” Lodestar asked with a picture of concern painted on his face. Despite being willing to let him go off on his own to figure out his own life, Lodestar was still worried for his son’s well-being.

“Yup!” Blizzard answered enthusiastically. “I’m gonna be riding the line from here to Canterlot, and then I’ll transfer onto the school chartered train straight to campus from there.” Blizzard stood up smartly and puffed out his chest in pride. Then he remembered something that his dad had drilled into his head over the past week. “And I’ll stay right by the platform when I arrive, I’ll head straight to the platform and sit there until it leaves.”

Lodestar nodded his head sagely and put a hoof to his chin in thought.

“Hmm… I hope that nopony there will treat you differently,” Lodestar said. Blizzard seemed to shrink at those words, hoping vigorously that nopony would find out his issue with talent related magic. Lodestar caught on and his eyes widened. “Oh! Not like that! I mean that it’ll probably be fairly well-known by now that you’re from Starswirl’s family, so I hope that you won’t get swarmed by the other students there.”

“W-w-wait!” Blizzard exclaimed in shock. “Everypony knows already!?” He was ready to shake off the loneliness he felt here in Hollow Shades, but he wasn’t quite sure he had been prepared to be on the opposite end of the spectrum in so short a time.

“No, no, no, not everypony knows, or at least specifics,” Lodestar admitted sheepishly. “The professors know who you are, as does the headmaster. But the students only know that a Starswirl family member will be joining them this year.”

Now that his mind had only been semi-blown from the sudden fear of being recognized like that, Blizzard managed to close his mouth, which had somehow fallen open without his knowledge.

The ground began to rumble beneath the hooves of the ponies at the station, the tremors resounding through the wooden platform, only this time it wasn’t natural, but a train coming into town.

Blizzard’s mom started crying loud enough to be heard over the train, much to his chagrin. Lodestar just gave a nervous smile to Blizzard.

Blizzard mouthed ‘good luck’ to Lodestar as the train came to a stop. The train blew its whistle, smoke puffing up into the air as if the train’s engine had just finished a tasty meal.

“All aboard!” called out the conductor, who had vacated the train and was ushering ponies between the carriages and platform. Blizzard picked up his luggage and made his way quickly to the nearest seat by a window.

He put down his things and used his magic to open the window. The excited young stallion popped his head out the window and started waving to his parents with a huge grin on his face.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad!” he yelled out. “Thanks for letting me do this!”

Both his parents were waving back at him, and Honey Breeze had even managed to stop her tears for the moment.

“Make sure you write to us when you get there!” Honey called back. “I’ll miss you!”

“Make some new friends and have a good time, son!” Lodestar shouted.

Blizzard threw a salute to his parents and struck a confident pose.

“Sure thing, Mom! And don’t worry, Dad, I’ll make loads of new friends,” Blizzard responded, confident in himself for the first time in a while.

Soon enough, the ponies boarding the train had finished and the conductor was making his rounds to close the cabin doors. The whistle blew once more as the train started to chug along slowly, making its way out of town.

Blizzard rolled up his window but continued to wave until he couldn’t see his parents anymore. But even after they had gotten out of sight, they still weren’t out of earshot.

“Goodbye! I love you, my little snowflake!” Honey Breeze called out at the top of her lungs so loud that Blizzard could clearly hear inside the train.

He slammed his head into the empty seat in front of him, his face red once more.

It had been years since Blizzard had left Hollow Shades. His last vacation was about five years ago, shortly after he got his cutie mark that winter. The world outside of the cradle of trees and foliage seemed so alien. The openness of the Equestrian countryside was expansive and frightening, but also welcoming and warm all the same. Trees didn’t block the sunlight from reaching most parts of the area, and there was a clear view of everything for miles. It was so different from what he was used to, and he relished in delight at the sight. Suddenly all the talk about leaving and seeing the world started to sink in and become real to Blizzard.

There weren’t many other ponies from Hollow Shades, especially that he wanted to talk to, on the train. With nopony to talk to, Blizzard spent his trip watching the fields roll by. Hill upon lush hill faded in and out of view, sprawling with fresh grass and the occasional farmer pony. The trip to Canterlot was the first of two legs for the journey to Starswirl, but this line seemed to definitely be idyllic and rustic to say the least. While it was beautiful, the countryside didn’t have much to offer in the way of excitement. Blizzard nodded off to sleep.

The train puffed on toward its destination, chugging along at a brisk and steady pace, softly bouncing the carriages in a rhythmic manner. Blizzard hardly even noticed his two hour nap go by.

The blare of the train whistle woke Blizzard Warning with a start, sending him sprawling to the floor of the car. When he looked up and out the window, the train was beginning its ascent to Canterlot proper. The majestic city was situated on top of a great mountain with tracks and tunnels coursing through it.

“Woah…” Blizzard breathed out in awe. Canterlot sure was amazing. Even from this distance, it was very bright and magnificent. It made sense, he supposed, considering that Canterlot Castle was where Princess Celestia and Princess Luna made their homes.

Darkness overtook the train and obscured the colt’s view of, well anything, outside of the cars as the train entered the first tunnel. Shielded from the sun, Blizzard’s eyes opened wider as his vision adapted to the shadows of the mountain, sparsely lit by only a few torches hanging from the walls.

It only took a few minutes for Blizzard to get comfortable again and locate his things before he had to shield his eyes from the sudden pain he felt from the sun forcing his vision to adapt once more.

When Blizzard Warning took his hoof away from covering his eyes, he was greeted with the sight of the Canterlot city walls and the impressive sight of the royal guards standing watch. The guards saw the train’s approach and opened a gate into the city. As the train veered off to the side, away from the main road, Blizzard cast his gaze downward over the expanse where the earth ended and only the rail held the train up.

He was shocked by the insane height of Canterlot. Looking down, the fall to reach the ground from here must be at least fifteen seconds long or so, not that Blizzard ever had the idea to try it, he wasn’t a pegasus.

It only took a few more minutes for Blizzard to reach the Canterlot station and disembark.

The station was in a word, crowded. Ponies congregated in nearly every nook and cranny of the place, packing it very full. There were a whopping eight platforms, dwarfing the size of the train station of Blizzard’s home. With all the ponies around, he hoped he wouldn’t have trouble finding the right platform.

The snowy colt reached into his suitcase and produced his train schedule. He had arrived with about forty-five minutes of layover time. Throwing caution to the wind and promptly ignoring his father’s advice, Blizzard pranced around, exploring the new place enthusiastically.

Checking the clock, Blizzard decided he’d be safe to explore around for twenty minutes or so. He took a short moment to secure his belongings to make sure he wouldn’t lose anything, and then took his first steps into high society. Things just got a lot more fancy. Paved roads! Stone houses that reached up multiple stories, shops that sold nearly anything Blizzard could think of! There was so much that Blizzard had never had access to back home. It was such a shame he couldn’t immerse himself here for longer.

Clank! Clank! Blizzard’s ears perked up at the sound of a royal guard patrol coming down the street. A pair of stallions with shiny armor and stony expressions marched in sync down the pathway, and the young colt opened up a wide grin. Gosh, they were so cool.

Blizzard remembered a few of the stories his father had told him about the time he had spent with the royal guard. They went to so many places and even had a few battles! Blizzard hadn’t ever actually seen his dad have to fight, but he did see how he cleaned up after his messes back home, so it must have been something. Lodestar had met Honey Breeze while on a mission near Las Pegasus, but Blizzard always ignored that part about all the gross and mushy love stuff.

At one point, the colt even wanted to follow in his father’s hoofsteps and be a guard as well, but he wouldn’t have it. Maybe it was due to Blizzard’s unruly magic or something, but his dad had told him he never wanted him to enroll to keep his lineage from being a burden to his daily life.

After recovering from the catatonic state Blizzard had found himself in from watching the patrol, he felt his belly rumble. He hadn’t had anything to eat since leaving Hollow Shades, so he took a stroll down the way to the nearest bakery he could find. Taking a moment to dive into his saddlebag, Blizzard managed to find enough bits to pay for an overpriced slice of cake. It didn’t taste any better than anything else he had ever had. Lodestar had said that Canterlot was snobbish and expensive, but Blizzard supposed that maybe it really was true based off of the cake.

The ornate clock standing in the bakery began tolling out the hour in repeated rings. Blizzard temporarily choked on his cake as he realized that he only had fifteen minutes to get back to the station and find his platform.

The snow white colt raced through the streets, with his mane becoming a blur of blue and white that made him look like a speeding snowball. It took him five minutes to reach the station and promptly bump into somepony on his way to work. All the fancy language went right over his head as Blizzard apologized frantically. He raced up to the directory at the front of the station.

“You gotta help me!” Blizzard Warning cried out to the poor mare behind the glass who suddenly flinched back.

The mare got over herself and forced a smile at the slightly crazed and sweaty young stallion.

“Sure thing, sir. What can I do for you?” she asked politely.

“So I got here from Hollow Shades and I was gonna go find my terminal for my connecting line, but I got distracted and headed out to explore Canterlot and had some cake and then I was late and I had to race back here and now I’m here and I can’t find my terminal!” Blizzard explained at mach speed. The mare blinked and spoke her next few words carefully.

“Sir, what terminal are you looking for?” she asked. “If you tell me, I can help you.”

“Uh…” Blizzard stopped to fish out his ticket. “Uh…” He searched the ticket to find the platform he needed since he didn’t have time to waste exploring the station anymore. The directory mare rolled her eyes and mouthed the word ‘kids.’

“Oh! I need to get to platform four! It’s the chartered train for students to Starswirl Academy!”

The mare raised her eyebrows, impressed that such a disorganized and apparently tardy colt could be a student to such a prestigious school. But she kept her thoughts to herself and pointed the stallion on his way.

As he approached the boarding area, all the students had congregated and lined up in front of what Blizzard assumed was a staff member. She was calling out names for attendance. He vigorously prayed that his hadn’t been called yet. It would be a terrible first impression to be counted as late on his first day, heck, it wasn’t even his first day!

Blizzard waited until the unicorn mare calling attendance was looking down and snuck into an open gap in the group of other ponies, earning snickers and giggles from the others around him.

“Trade Winds!” the mare called out. An earth pony mare with a ship emblazoned on her yellow flank raised her hoof. The mare checked off a box on her list. Blizzard tried to keep his cool and wipe off some of the sweat that had accumulated on his forehead from running and nervous energy.

“Basil!” the mare called out. Another hoof raised in the air, though Blizzard couldn’t see this pony, nor what type he or she was, but assumed it was another earth pony because of the name.

“Scissor Kick!”

“Aww yeah! That’s me!” an outspoken young pegasus said. His coat was an abrasive red and his flanked was marked with his cutie mark of a hoofball. It took all of a second for Blizzard to guess what he was going to Starswirl for.

“Okay, now that I have gone through the list…” the mare began. Blizzard turned white, or would have if he wasn’t already, as he realized that his name hadn’t been called. “I will go through the list to make sure we don’t leave behind any stragglers.”

“Blizzard Warning!”

“Here, ma’am!” Blizzard announced half-heartedly as he got more looks and snickers from his soon-to-be classmates. The mare marked another box on her checklist and made a discontented snort. She didn’t call any other names. Blizzard had been the only one late. He really hoped that wouldn’t go down on a report card.

“Alright everypony,” she said as she floated the clipboard into her saddlebag. “It’s time to board the train. Single file! No fighting! Up to four ponies per cabin! It will be a long ride, so I suggest you get comfortable. Stow your luggage on the cart next to me and it will be delivered to your assigned home for the year.” She made a move toward the open cabin door and waved a hoof to the still stationary colts and fillies. “Get moving, you all,” she said, kicking the young ponies into gear.

In less than ten minutes, the train had blown its whistle and was moving toward Baltimare and Starswirl Academy. Soon, the posh heights and snooty citizens of Canterlot were left behind, and the open and rolling hills of the Equestrian countryside lolled lazily into view once more.

The train had been moving for about ten minutes, but Blizzard had yet to find a compartment that had room for him to sit down in. Most were taken up by other colts and fillies who were spending their trip either looking out the windows, chatting, or just taking a nap.

Blizzard crossed a connection door and made his way into a new car. This one seemed less full. But most compartments were already filled with ponies engaged in deep conversation, and Blizzard didn’t want to interrupt, so he decided to come into a compartment where there was only one pegasus filly and a earth pony colt. Nopony was talking, so Blizzard broke the silence.

“Uh, is it okay if I sit in here?” Blizzard asked.

“Sure thing!” the filly exclaimed happily, spreading her purple wings out excitedly. “My name’s Merry Weather, what’s yours?” Blizzard blinked, taken aback by how forward the other pony was with him. Nopony had been willing to be so friendly for a long time.

“It’s… Blizzard Warning,” he said with an unintentional pause. While he was still getting over the temporary brain disfunction, the earth pony coughed, catching his attention.

“Are you going to stand there like a dork all day, or are you gonna take a seat?” he asked somewhat dryly. The stunned colt shook his head out and focused on the coffee colored colt with a mane that reminded him somewhat like blood… which further set him off seeing his cutie mark of a syringe.

Blizzard’s cheeks flashed a slight pink, earning a giggle from the filly. He quickly made the move to sit down in the empty seat and looked out the window, detaching himself from embarrassment.

“Sorry about Double Dose, he comes on a bit strong,” Merry Weather giggled at her own joke. Double Dose rolled his eyes disinterestedly.

“She’s an airhead,” Double Dose said, waving a dismissive hoof. Merry huffed at him and prodded him playfully with a hoof. He didn’t budge, merely shrugging off the contact from the smaller pony.

“Me and Double-D were classmates last year too! So now we’re friends, he just doesn’t like to show it off to anypony cause he’s a big softie,” she said with a snicker. Double Dose snorted and threw a glance in Blizzard’s direction.

“Yeah, I’m studying medicine, and she’s studying weather management,” he said. Merry Weather threw up her hooves and made a face, sticking her tongue out at Double Dose. It struck Blizzard that Double Dose was probably older than Merry Weather. They both looked to be around his age, but Double Dose clearly handled himself more maturely.

“So…” Double Dose began. “What are you going to Starswirl for?”

Blizzard returned his thoughts to active conversation now that he had been re-invited into it.

“I uh… well, I’m not quite sure yet,” Blizzard managed to mumble out, barely audible. “I’m basically just taking the unicorn classes and a few classes in weather and some electives.”

“Ooooh, weather!?” asked an elated Merry Weather. Double Dose put his hoof to his face.

“Oh boy, here we go…” he whined.

“I’m studying weather too! Well, you know that, D-D just said that,” she giggled. “Anyway, my mom is the boss of the Cloudsdale weather factory, and I’m gonna grow up to be just like her. I’m gonna take over the business someday.”

She puffed out her chest with pride and pointed to her flank, adorned with a pair of clouds connected by a rainbow.

“I’m gonna live up to my name and make sure everyone gets weather that makes them happy!” she boasted. “It’s my duty as a pegasus!”

Blizzard kept quiet and admired her passion for her ambitions. If he had just half her direction, he might be able to be as excited to start classes. Taking note of the quiet colt’s reticence, Merry continued.

“Soooo… what’s your cutie mark mean? It’s uh… snowy?” she asked. “Oh wait! I get it, you’re gonna be a snow plow pony! That’s why your name’s Blizzard Warning!”

Finally managing to find his voice, Blizzard decided he’d better speak up and defend his reputation before he was deemed a snow plow pony for the entire student body.

“Actually, my name’s Blizzard Warning because I was born in the middle of a snow storm,” Blizzard began. “My mom had a lot of trouble getting to the hospital when I was born because of all the snow and ice. The doctor said that we were both lucky that my mom didn’t get there any later than she did, or there might have been complications.”

Merry Weather took the cue to close her mouth and listen. She didn’t feel like making any more a fool of herself in front of her new friend. That is, they were friends now, right? Even Double Dose gave his attention to Blizzard Warning.

“It’s okay, I’m just fine and so is she, we just cut it close is all,” Blizzard explained. “Anyway, my cutie mark is a blizzard because… well, I’m not sure. All I really know is that I got it during a blizzard and during a particularly rough time for my hometown.”

“So, you don’t know what it means?” Merry Weather questioned. “That’s kinda weird.”

Blizzard liked talking with these new ponies, and they seemed pretty nice, even if Double Dose was kind of insensitive, but he didn’t want to share what he was apparently really good at. Blizzard wanted to avoid the kind of mistreatment he received at Hollow Shades.

“I’m not sure, maybe my cutie mark means that I’m just good at surviving and being safe during natural disasters?” he half said, half asked. “I just know that I’ve been through way more disasters and bad weather than a lot of other ponies.”

The other two ponies in the cabin fell silent. There just wasn’t a great deal to be said about the topic. All three young ponies’ gazes drifted to the passing scenery. The hills of Central Equestria had given way to flatter land and a forest that seemed to be a sea of trees at the high speed of the locomotive. They were getting close to Starswirl Academy.

Merry Weather decided to break the silence.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find out what your special talent really is soon enough,” Merry Weather assured Blizzard. “Anyway, we’re getting close. I’m gonna go visit another friend now. It was nice meeting you, and I’m sure we’ll have at least one class together! We should talk more often!” Merry Weather got up with a start and gave a hug to Blizzard, leaving the poor, defenseless stallion blushing hard. She quickly turned and left the compartment, zipping off toward the front of the train.

Double Dose snickered.

“Glad to see I’m not the only one who finds that weird,” he jeered. “She did the same thing to me when I became her friend.”

Blizzard’s blush faded and the two colts sat in silence for another five minutes or so before Double Dose stirred, moving from the reclined position he had been in for the entire ride from Canterlot.

“Well, I’m gonna get going. I don’t wanna be the last one off the train,” he said. “Gotta get off before the crowd comes barreling through.”

“Yeah,” Blizzard replied, but didn’t move.

“You know, this was kind of nice,” Double Dose admitted, showing a faint smile. “I’ll catch you around. If you’re gonna be hanging out with Merry Weather, then I guess we’ll see each other now and then.”

“Sure thing!” Blizzard smiled at his new friend. “Thanks.”

“No problem, it’s nothing big,” Double Dose replied. Blizzard just smiled back. He realized how making friends probably wouldn’t be anything new to other ponies, but this meant a lot to him. “Oh, another little tidbit of interesting information. Apparently, there’s a rumor going around that we’ll actually have a Starswirl family member here this year. I wonder if he or she will be worth the name.” Double Dose started to walk out, sliding the door shut after him. “See you around,” he said before sliding it completely closed.

Blizzard kept his silence. Nopony knew who he was for sure yet, right? Even so, he was suddenly filled with dread. Nopony knew him, and yet he was already being set up to an expectation. Starswirl the Bearded. His great-great-great-great-great-great-great something grandfather. The young colt had to fight back his nerves and he made a very audible gulp.

The whistle blew as the train screeched to a stop. The world outside stopped speeding by and the colt was greeted by a nice, but not fancy stone paved platform station. Ponies were starting to get off the train and were walking toward the campus in the distance. It stood tall, proud and imposing.

Blizzard Warning got to his hooves to find they were shaking. Stifling more nerves, he slowly made his way out of the compartment and through the train cars, being bumped my other ponies in a rush to get off the train. He was a quivering wreck, and it showed. The first day of school started tomorrow, so he had today to get settled in.

Well, here he was. His new home. Nine months on his own in a new school. Here goes...

Author's Note

Man, wouldn't it be cool to go to school in Equestria? Learning about how to control weather, cast magic or fly or heck, be a clown would be so much more awesome than school here on Earth :rainbowwild: Hopefully our friend Blizzard will be able to find out a bit of what he should do with his talent this year, hm?

Day One

Chapter 3: Day One
Aptitude
MLP: FiM
By: Kestrel

Daylight crept in from the window, bathing Blizzard and Flathoof’s dorm room in a soft glow. As a beam hit Blizzard Warning in the face, he turned over and took a look at his alarm clock. Seven o’ clock. He could afford to get a bit more sleep. Blizzard rolled over to the other side of the bed and into the wide, open eyes of his roommate.

“Hey there,” he said. “You should really get up, it’s time to get ready!” The yellow pegasus was once more in Blizzard’s face and he reacted in the best way he knew how, by freaking out.

“Gyah!” he yelled, flailing with his bedsheets and backing away from Flathoof. Flathoof tipped his head and laughed like he usually did. Blizzard responded by tossing a pillow, which bounced off the pegasus, leaving him stunned momentarily.

Flathoof shook his head out and put his front hooves up on the bed once more to a bemused Blizzard Warning.

“Seriously, you’re gonna want to get up,” he reiterated.

“But it’s only seven,” Blizzard whined. “Classes don’t even start until eight… I’ll start moving in about fifteen minutes or so.”

Flathoof shook his head knowingly.

“Trust me, you’re gonna want to get moving before all the hot water’s gone.”

Blizzard just grumbled and turned over, tossing his sheets over his head once more. Flathoof nickered and rolled his eyes.

“Suit yourself, I’m going to go get breakfast,” Flathoof said before trotting out of the room quietly.

Blizzard’s mind drifted back to his shattered dreams. He had been awake for a whopping three minutes now, but had utterly lost the ability to fall back to sleep. Stretching and yawning occupied his next few minutes as he trudged to the shower in the bathroom.

Brrr… Flathoof was right, while it wasn’t cold yet, the water definitely wasn’t warm, and it broke Blizzard free of his morning stupor. Not the most fancy or quiet plumbing in Equestria, but it got the job done as Blizzard twisted the knob and the water squeaked to a halt. The young stallion shook his body, sending water droplets to collide against the shower curtain while levitating a towel to dry what he couldn’t shake.

Brushing his teeth was a quick affair thanks to the dedication Flathoof had shown earlier, which still disturbed Blizzard. Once he was satisfied that his teeth were clean, he flashed a goofy grin at himself in the mirror and fussed with his mane until it was laying in its usual unkempt and messy state.

Ready to face the day, Blizzard floated his saddlebags on and put on the school’s uniform scarf, embroidered with a pattern depicting Starswirl the Bearded’s cutie mark.

“I’ll make you proud, Starswirl,” Blizzard Warning promised his ancestor. With that, he swung open the door and strode out proudly onto the balcony and saw that there was exactly nopony there. Only slightly weirded out, Blizzard decided to proceed down into the breakfast area.

Fancy carved wood constituted the old-fashioned doors, which worked and sounded in peak condition despite probably being at least two-hundred years old. Inside the room were multiple long tables where there were a sparse amount of other ponies eating their breakfast. They all looked to be first year students since they were smaller than Blizzard for the most part, but there were a few ponies his age in the dining area as well.

Blizzard trotted up to the buffet line and began to load his plate with what they had, which mostly consisted of pancakes, apples, and orange juice. It was by no means the usual gargantuan feast he indulged himself in, but he ate heartily anyway, scarfing four pancakes in addition to his apple and a few glasses of juice.

A glance up at a grandfather clock confirmed the time: a quarter to eight. He decided it was time to get moving, as did most of the other students.

Outside of the Enchantment Hall, a small group of first-year students were stampeding down the hill toward the school buildings. Apparently, Blizzard wasn’t the only one to underestimate the distance from the Enchantment Hall to the rest of campus.

It seemed that there were still a few students trotting from other directions. Blizzard looked away from where he was going for a split second and tumbled headlong into a unicorn filly, stumbling and causing both of them to spill the contents of their saddlebags.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Watch where you’re going!” Blizzard picked his face from off the ground, brushing the dirt off of it, or at least what he could manage before scooping up all the things that had fallen out.

Once he figured he gathered enough, the colt turned to face a very angry sky blue unicorn mare with a green and pink braided mane. Blizzard shrank in fear from the unicorn, and got a good look at her cutie mark… it was a skull. Now Blizzard Warning felt as if this was a warning, and gulped audibly. The young mare rolled her eyes and snatched her things out of the colt’s magical grip with her own magic.

“Are you just going to stand there shaking in your horseshoes, or are you going to get to class?” she asked rather harshly. “I swear… you newbie.”

Blizzard was horribly confused. This pony was younger than he was! Newbie? Come on, he may be a new student here, but she obviously was too.

“Newbie? Yeah, this is my first year too,” he said. “Wait, newbie… so you’re not a new student?” He tried to sound less incredulous than he actually felt. It didn’t work, and he was rewarded with a slug to the chest from the smaller pony.

“No! I’m in my third year, well, not exactly. Urgh!” she groaned. “Look, I’ve got to get to class. You’re a unicorn, do you know where they’re holding the unicorn class for directing magic?”

Blizzard took a quick look at his schedule and map, noting that he too had Directing Magic as his first class of the day. Room 105 in the Starswirl Hall.

“Hey, you’re in my class! I’m Blizzard Warning, it’s nice to meet you!” he said to the filly, happy to meet somepony else who he was taking a class with. She rolled her eyes and Blizzard snapped back to the task at hoof. “It’s in 105, Starswirl Hall, let’s go together.”

“Fine, I’m Strata,” she said, slightly annoyed. The two ponies started off at a gallop to make up for lost time. The clock now read seven fifty-eight.

“So, what are you studying?” Blizzard asked cheerfully. “Oh, and you said that you’re in your third year, but not exactly? What’s with that?”

“Less talk, more running! We’re going to be late!” Strata answered, upset that her first day of the year would be marred by tardiness.

Students were whispering and conversing amongst themselves in Room 105 as the teacher made her way up to the desk at the front of the room. The room itself was large enough to seat at least seventy-five students, but right now, there were about eight empty.

The teacher’s bright pink coat and blonde mane stood out in the drab brown of the classroom, as if to attract the attention of students like a lighthouse.

“Good morning, class!” announced the teacher, grabbing a ruler with her magic and slapping it on the head of the desk loudly to draw the attention of the young unicorns in her classroom. “Welcome to Directing Magic. I’m glad to see all these new faces today. I am Mrs. Guiding Light. We’ll get right into it.”

All the ponies at their desks scrounged through their saddlebags to find their notepads and pens as they prepared to write. A rainbow of colorful glow illuminated the room as the full group of unicorns payed close attention.

“Okay then, now I’m sure we all know what makes a unicorn different from other ponies,” she forced out trying to stifle a laugh. Laughs emanated out from the classroom as the students were caught off guard by the lesson from magic kindergarden. “Our horns, duh! I mean right? Well, you’re here to learn about just what makes those horns—”

Clatter arose from the hall as the door leading into the classroom burst open and two ponies fell over each other onto the floor of the room. A cobalt blue filly regained her hooves first, still standing on top of the bright white colt who laid sprawled out on the ground.

“So nice of you to join us!” Guiding Light said almost patronizingly. “We have a few open seats for you two, right near the front. That way I can keep an eye on you two lovebirds. Why else would you decide to be late on your first day of class?”

Strata’s face contorted in rage as she slowly ground one of her hooves into Blizzard beneath her, forcing a few yelps out of the poor stallion before she got off and made her way to her seat. Blizzard slowly recovered and hobbled over to the adjacent seat as the Guiding Light directed.

“Ahem,” she began once more. “As I was saying, we’ll see just how our horns tick and how to best allow the flow of magic to continue so we don’t get tired. Raise your hoof if you ever got tired from trying to cast too much magic in one day before.”

Out of the now nearly seventy students in their seats, the majority raised a hoof.

“Well, there are several reasons for that, which we’ll get into as we get on into the year,” she explained. “For now, we’ll start by passing out textbooks. Please form a line at the front of the class and we can hopefully get this done in short order.”

Twenty minutes of waiting and registering later, Blizzard received a fairly light textbook for the class from the teacher. He leafed through the pages to find that there were only about five chapters. It was an introductory course, so it was supposed to be easy. After all, this class was actually only going to go on for a month or so. Apparently the introductory courses for each pony race was already considered common enough knowledge that they only bothered with a few specifics.

“So for the remainder of class, I want you all to read up on chapter one of the textbook,” she directed the class, writing on the board the page number of the chapter. “We will have a test next week over the content.”

Blizzard spent the rest of the day reading about how to avoid mental strain by proper resting and recovery methods through certain kinds of foods and medicines. The reading was boring, but somewhat insightful. At least he knew that there was a reason for eating tomatoes, he just didn’t care much for them. He simultaneously occupied himself by dodging glances from Strata as she gave him the evil eye.

Brrrrrrrrring!

The bell couldn’t have rung soon enough! Blizzard got out of his seat and made a beeline toward the door before Strata caught up to him and pinned him up against a wall. A few other unicorns from the class laughed at the situation. It was embarrassing for Blizzard, being held against his will by a smaller pony.

“You,” she said with a certain weight to her voice that made Blizzard’s soul want to escape his body. “You… do you know where our next class is?” she asked, swallowing a great deal of pride to ask him. Blizzard blinked. Oh no, this crazy mare was going to be in his next class too!? He had already had enough physical abuse for one day, thank you.

“Mhm…” he whimpered out slowly. “J-just follow me.”

“Oh, sorry about being all scary earlier, I was just stressed,” she admitted. “This is the first time I’ve actually been here.”

First time? But she had said she was in her third year. It was obvious she was a new student though since she was taking that first year unicorn class. Blizzard had to take it as well despite being in his second year of schooling.

“How’s that? Didn’t you say that you were a third-year?” Blizzard put his thoughts into words. Strata swayed her head a bit from side to side.

“Well, you see, I’m a third-year student by merit, but I’m the age of a first-year, and am therefore a new student,” she explained. “Thankfully, they allowed me to take aptitude tests to let me skip up to where I am rather than having me repeat classes.”

Blizzard was taken slightly aback. She was younger than him, and apparently a lot smarter. She got in with some serious skills, he got in through something like nepotism and networking. Classes were rumored to be tough, so Blizzard hoped he could measure up to the strain. It would be embarrassing for certain if he couldn’t.

“Oh, right, and you asked me earlier what I studied,” she continued. “Well, despite your hilarious look of fright earlier when we bumped into each other, it doesn’t mean that I kill ponies.” Blizzard smacked his face with a hoof. Did he really look so frazzled earlier? The filly laughed in amusement at the silly colt in front of her.

“Your name might be Blizzard Warning, but you definitely can’t keep your cool very well!” she giggled, leaving Blizzard to regard her with a deadpanned expression that would make Double Dose give a deadpanned nod of approval. “Anyway, I’m going here to study archeology.”

Archeology? Oh, so that explained the skull. That sounded cool! Like all the Daring Do books he read in his room. Maybe she’d have adventures just like that explorer pony. The author, A.K. Yearling had announced her retirement after the last book in the series was released some five years or so ago.

“Wow!” Blizzard exclaimed. “Like Daring Do! Are you gonna go on adventures to hidden temples and fight bad ponies and all that?”

Strata scoffed at the notion, making the snow colored colt want to slap himself for being such a fancolt.

“No, no, no,” Strata admonished with a serious glare. “That’s just fiction, real archeology isn’t like that at all. The real danger is going deep underground for excavations. The stuff Daring Do does in her books is more just for the reader’s excitement, it’s not that great a book series either in my opinion.”

Now that he felt silly for talking about Daring Do to her, he just tried to play it off.

“Oh, yeah, it’s totally not real stuff,” he said unconvincingly as he shifted his ice blue mane around. In Blizzard’s mind, he had actually thought it was all real. Maybe he was just making assumptions from what his dad had told him about his own adventures. He’d also heard stories about the deeds of Princess Twilight when a monster from Tartarus took away everypony’s magic before he was born. Perhaps being raised around such stories of grandeur had made him automatically believe it all.

“Right…” Strata jeered at him. “Well, you said you knew where the class was, so lead on!”

The two ponies walked on together and made their way into the Moon Building, one of the other two campus buildings, the last one being the Sun Building out of respect for the princesses. Room 208 was the destination for the next class: Practical Magic for the Average Unicorn. Blizzard assumed that this class would be another lame and boring class about things most unicorns already knew by just being… alive. Levitation and illumination. Couldn’t get much more practical than that, right?

This time, the two arrived on time and chose seats close to the middle of the room, which was situated much like the one in Starswirl Hall, but was designed with a lunar motif, having blue wall paint and posters of the constellations and the like hanging about. Clearly, this building was newer than Starswirl Hall, which made sense. Starswirl Hall was the first building and hadn’t received too much update over the years.

More students trotted in as the bell rang and an elderly, but spry unicorn popped out of nowhere in front of the students. His white hair frizzed out in all directions, clashing horribly against his charcoal black coat. He wore cracked glasses and coughed up a bit of smoke as he appeared, wobbling uncontrollably. Another strange character to be sure…

“Hello my little ponies!” the teacher yelled enthusiastically. “My name is Professor, and I’ll be teaching you all a little something about magic and what it can do for you.” A low roar in the crowd of student ponies rippled through the room. Professor? Seriously? That couldn’t have been his name?

A pony raised his hoof.

“Yes, you with the silly mane!” Professor cried out. The pony instantly took a hoof to her mane and adjusted it in panic.

“Uh, yes uh… Professor… is that your real name?” she asked, thoroughly confused like a great deal of the class.

“Of course, my dear!” he answered happily. “I’ve been teaching here for fifty years now, I should know my own name!” The odd old stallion guffawed, holding his side with a hoof. Nopony was convinced.

Blizzard shifted in his desk to whisper to Strata.

“He’s silly, I bet he forgot his own name for real!” he giggled. His smile faded all but instantly as the bush of Professor’s white mane assaulted his face as he teleported up to Blizzard’s desk.

“Whispering in class!?” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I want to hear secrets too! Let me join in! Go on, speak up!”

Blizzard shifted slowly back in his seat and tried to swallow his words until the hard gaze from Professor forced them back up his throat.

“I uh… I commented how I thought you probably forgot your own name…” Blizzard Warning admitted, slightly ashamed for having shown disrespect on the first day. Professor nodded sagely.

A collective, hushed gasp escaped several students in the back. That took a lot of guts to admit to a mistake like that, especially in front of his peers. Professor turned on his hooves sharply and flashed over to his original spot.

“Alas, it’s true…” he admitted, provoking some giggles from the students. “Some of the teachers here even want me gone because they think my memory’s going. But I have tenure! If they want me to leave, it’ll have to be by dragging out my dead carcass!”

Putting his hoof down to complete the gesture, Professor walked back to his desk and prepared for his first lesson of the year. A few of the students put their hooves together for a small round of applause for the elderly teacher. He gave them all a warm smile in return and looked at his notes.

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat. “Now, being our first day, we will not go into any material today, but I will explain to you the gist of the class.”

Blizzard recovered from being put on the spot and quickly acted to prepare to take any required notes. Strata was already scratching away on her notebook.

“In this class, Practical Magic for the Average Unicorn, I will be teaching you all to cast spells that most ponies would find useful in a variety of professions and situations. You may learn in other classes or by your own practice that unicorn magic generally pertains to their talent, ordained by their cutie mark. However, this does not bar you from casting other spells outside of your expertise.”

This was news to Blizzard. Maybe he could use some of these spells rather than his own talent area? Perhaps they’d be less prone to disastrous effects?

“To start, you saw me teleport today, multiple times,” he pointed out. “My talent deals in magic, so naturally, I am very adept and it is actually within my talents as a magician pony. But anypony, unicorn that is, can use the teleport spell. I will teach you how.”

Excited whispers took the crowd by storm once more. Teleportation? Awesome! Can he do that? I wanna use it to visit my parents in Trottingham! More and more comments reached Blizzard’s ears, though it did little to break his focus. He was very interested in this strange stallion and what he could teach him.

“There are often side effects that are associated with spells outside of your talent area. Some of the spells you learn in this class may already be some you use, as they could coincide with your special talent. But I can guarantee you that you will learn something new and useful before this course is done.”

The clock was ticking fast, only five minutes left in the class, and yet Blizzard Warning didn’t want it to end! He wanted to learn, actually listen and learn! He was confident that he could pick up something redeeming in this class. Besides, he was a descendant of Starswirl. Just because he was a failure at nearly every other instance of magic he tried wouldn’t mean that he couldn’t have success elsewhere, right?

“We will go over a new spell every Monday and practice on Wednesdays, followed by class performance tests on Fridays. I can assure you that this will be a tiring class on Fridays, so be sure to eat and sleep appropriately to prepare and recover.”

The bell rang in the middle of his explanation. Suddenly, the smokey black stallion did an about face in his personality once more, reverting back to his silly and rambunctious side.

“Oop! It’s quittin’ time!” he exclaimed with a hoot and a holler. “Dismissed! See y’all later!” He disappeared with yet another flash of teleportation. Blizzard took note of the drawl to his voice as he excused himself. Was Professor from Appleoosa? He seemed so professional and serious when he was talking. Maybe he just had a split personality? The colt shrugged and left the class, Strata still sticking to his side.

The pair of unicorns had finished up with their morning classes and made their way to the mess facility, located directly across from Starswirl Hall. Blizzard Warning was famished, he didn’t have as much time as he thought to eat during breakfast and had spent four hours of class time between then and now.

A gurgle from the colt’s stomach provoked Blizzard to give a sheepish grin as his ears flopped down. Strata shook her head in mock disbelief, softly rolling her eyes as the two entered the mess hall.

There was a fair line stretching up to the buffet tables with another line for a made to order hayburger stand. Opening night’s picnic dinner had hayburgers last night and he was hungry, so Blizzard Warning decided to stay in the buffet line.

When the line had finally dissipated to where Blizzard could see the food, he was still wowed by the variety of meal choice. Some pasta, some veggie casserole, tomato soup (ew!), and… cherry changas! Blizzard snatched two cherry changas in a heartbeat and picked up a scoop of veggie casserole.

Finding a table was thankfully not a big issue, with several tables still open. Strata came to sit down with him, floating a tray containing a hayburger and a cup of soda. She placed down her food, gave Blizzard a small smile and started to eat her food. Blizzard followed suit.

It took all of Blizzard two bites to become dissatisfied with the cherry changa. It didn’t hold a candle to his mom’s cooking. Heck, it was actually not that great. His expression turned to a crestfallen frown as he sniffed and cried on the inside for the wasted potential that was his lunch.

“What, did you expect all the food here to be five-star material?” a gruff voice said. Blizzard looked up to see Double Dose setting down his tray and taking the seat directly across from him. Merry Weather had accompanied him and waved as she set down her own tray. Blizzard felt a rush of wind as the seat adjacent to him was occupied by his roommate. Blizzard almost didn’t even want to turn to recognize his presence.

“Hey! I haven’t met you yet,” Merry Weather commented to Strata. “What’s your name? I’m Merry Weather! Those bozos are Double Dose and Flathoof.” Pointed her hooves and named names, earning a flat expression from Double Dose and a dutiful salute from Flathoof.

Strata took a look around the table, taking in the sudden arrival of the earth pony and two pegasi. She drank down a gulp of her soda before opening her mouth to answer.

“Hi there, I’m Strata,” she politely responded. Merry Weather smiled.

“It’ll be great to have another girl in the group!” she exclaimed happily. Strata merely looked confused. Blizzard felt a twinge of sympathy for her confusion. He too had been adopted as a friend by the outgoing pegasus filly. Strata twisted her braid with a hoof.

“G-group?” she stuttered. “I-I’m fine on my own. I’ve just been going around with this guy cause he’s in my classes and knows where he’s going.” Aww, she was shy! Blizzard felt his heart swell. His new unicorn pal sure was cute when she was embarrassed. Huh… was this what he looked like when he blushed?

“Ooooh, looks like somepony has a crush on Blizzard!” she cooed playfully. “Wow Blizzard, you’re just a mare-magnet, aren’t you?” Blizzard hardened his gaze at Merry.

“Seriously? We just met like three hours ago,” he answered dryly. Merry dismissed him with a wave of a wing and reached over to bop him in the nose. Blizzard Warning winced and put a hoof to his nose while the other colts at the table snickered, their silence restored by an evil grin from Merry Weather.

“Ah, don’t worry about that,” Merry said, returning her attention to the other unicorn. “Here, I’ll tell you a bit about myself. It sounds like you already know Blizzard, so now you can get to know me! We’ll be friends, you’ll see.”

Strata nodded cautiously and took small bites of her hayburger as she listened intently.

“So you already know I’m Merry Weather,” she started. “Being a pegasus pony, you might guess I’m from Cloudsdale, and you’re right! I’ve lived in Cloudsdale all my life and I’m going to school here to learn about weather control. Classes here are really interesting and I’ve already learned a few things that I haven’t picked up yet at the weather factory because my mom won’t let me work with thunderclouds yet.” As she finished this, she huffed and folded her wings back. “Anyway, I like to make friends and go on adventures! So what about you?”

Strata seemed to be fairly comfortable despite having the outgoing pegasus in front of her bombard her with stories, but she seemed even a bit more open now. Maybe it just took an outstretched hoof to get her to join in.

“Well, it certainly sounds like you’ve got more prominent parents than I do,” Strata commented. “I come from a pair of high-society ponies in Canterlot, and I’m here to study archeology.” Blizzard blinked. Canterlot? That’s where he met Merry Weather and Double Dose, more or less. He found it strange that he never saw her on the train. “My parents weren’t too happy at seeing what I was destined to do as they thought it was ‘too dirty for a foal of theirs,’ but I managed to provide a decent argument, so now they’re letting me come here.”

“Cool!” Merry exclaimed. “Tell me more!”

Blizzard smiled and looked around the table. Double Dose was listening with his head propped up on one hoof while periodically taking a bite of his food. Flathoof was furiously scribbling down notes, which Blizzard couldn’t decide if was related to the conversation at hoof and whether he should be concerned or not.

“Alrighty then,” Strata said with a blush. “I discovered my talent and passion for archeology during one of my parents’ trips to Saddle Arabia. We were there on vacation, and we went to go exploring in a gem mining cave. My parents were interested to see all the sparklies, but I was interested in something else that had caught my eye. It felt like I was drawn to the wall, but I picked up a drill and took down one of the rock shelfs further away from the operation. It turned out that there was some really cool fossilized sphinx!”

“Wow!” interjected Flathoof. “That’s quite the accomplishment! Sphinxes are among some of the rarer creatures in the world today, only found in places like Saddle Arabia in the vast deserts away from civilization or in San Palomino Desert. I’d say you were lying, but I checked out your records and saw that you’re quite honest.”

In a synchronous effort, all four other ponies shifted away from Flathoof in discomfort. The pegasus colt rubbed the back of his mane in embarrassment.

“Oops... I did it again, didn’t I?” he called himself out. Double Dose launched an oat at Flathoof’s face, which bounced off without the other pony missing a beat. “I promise I’m nice!” he blurted out.

“Yeah, he’s alright,” Blizzard cut in, trying to salvage the situation. “He’s actually my roommate. We’re staying in Enchantment Hall.”

Strata mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ while giggling a little bit.

“I’m staying in Animation,” Strata answered to Blizzard, earning a breathy and exaggerated gasp from Merry Weather. The pegasus filly had put her hooves to her cheeks and squished them together while making a starry-eyed expression.

“Oh. My. Goodness!” she got out. “Me too! We can totally hang out together and it’ll be so much cooler than anything the boys can do.”

“Hey…” Blizzard complained. Merry just stuck her tongue out at him while Strata giggled.

It was good to see the two of them were hitting it off.

“So Blizzard,” Strata said, getting the colt’s attention. “You and I were talking earlier and I forgot to ask you about yourself, I was so busy talking about me, and you know, forcing you to lead me around.” Double Dose snickered and imitated a whipping noise. Blizzard shot daggers at him with bared teeth. Wasn’t it supposed to be called ‘being a gentlecolt?’

“Oh, right, well I’m studying weather here, and I just managed to get into this academy moving from going to school in Hollow Shades,” he answered. “And I guess since we’re also apparently on the topic of parents, my mom used to be a medical mare like Double Dose is studying to be, and my dad was part of the Royal Guard.”

“Part of the guard?” Strata asked. Living in Canterlot gave her proximity to the guard on a near daily basis, so it would make sense that she would be somewhat interested. Maybe she was just trying to see if she had seen him.

“Yeah,” Blizzard affirmed. “But he quit when I was about two years old. He was apparently a fairly popular guard. He told me about some of this border skirmishes. Apparently, as a ranking officer, he led a group of ponies against a bunch of rogue ponies who tried to attack Vanhoover by causing calling on a full grown dragon.”

Strata gasped audibly as Flathoof’s pencil snapped in his mouth. He knew exactly how this was going to go and waved his hooves furiously at Strata not to.

“Wow, wow, wow!” Strata exclaimed excitedly. Then she lowered her voice to a barely contained whisper. “You’re him! You’re the Starswirl family member!” Blizzard lost color to his coat in sheer desperation, which thankfully didn’t show.

“Whaaat?” he said slowly, trying to play it off. “Me, a Starswirl family member? No way, if I was, I’d be waaay better at magic.”

Strata was undeterred from her hypothesis. She shook her head and grabbed Blizzard by the shoulders.

“Nope, I know it,” she assured him, making him feel weak in the knees. “I know cause of your dad and what else you said. The hero Lodestar is obviously the one you’re talking about, and everypony knows that he’s of Starswirl’s blood, and he was the one who led that group of ponies against the dragon while Captain of the Guard Shining Armor was away on diplomatic business guarding Princess Cadance. He mysteriously quit a few years after that and virtually fell off the face of Equestria. Wow! It’s so cool to meet you! I would have totally treated you better if I knew who you were!”

Double Dose and Merry Weather’s jaws hung open while Flathoof had his face pressed against the table. Now some other ponies were starting to look Blizzard’s way with awe and wonder painted on their faces. He couldn’t be here, he needed to leave. He felt short of breath. Time to go…

“Uh, I need to get to my next class,” he said, excusing himself. He picked up his tray with some unstable telekinesis and emptied it, placing it haphazardly on a dirty dishes table before making his way out the doors.

Nopony had to know, why did they all seem to find out? How long would it be before they discovered his reputation back home? Hopefully nopony would follow him. He needed to get some fresh air.

Back in the dining area, murmurs of intrigue spread through the crowd. Flathoof had picked himself up from the table and was giving Strata a glare that would make Double Dose jealous if he wasn’t too busy being in a vegetable state.

“Was that supposed to be a secret?” she asked, clapping her hooves to her mouth, pain welling up in her eyes. She hadn’t meant to reveal something like that to everypony, it just sort of slipped out.

All of Blizzard’s friends got up and left the cafeteria to go look for their friend before their next classes.

Author's Note

Well... that didn't take long to hit a snag. Everypony talks, right? And perhaps it was just too much to hope that a secret identity would stay that way? :trollestia:

A Small Wish

Chapter 4: A Small Wish
MLP: FiM
Aptitude
By: Kestrel

Already, it felt like Blizzard’s world was starting to cave in at the edges. Through a completely innocent mishap, one of his new friends had already managed to figure out his secret and let it slip. Word spread like wildfire, and ponies everywhere were giving him looks. Most seemed to be a sort of odd reverence, but he didn’t want the attention all the same. All it meant to him was more pressure to live up to the expectation of his name.

Blizzard had taken to hiding on the roof of the school library building, standing a little ways off from the rest of campus. He could see his friends searching for him, but felt little reason to go down while he was still worrying and moping. But despite trying his best to wallow in self-pity, the bell rung from a central timepiece, beckoning him to his next course. He still had a job to do, famous and swarmed or no.

The nervous colt began to creep silently and stealthily toward his next class in Sun Hall. Interspecies Relations. He had been looking forward to being in this class, as it was the only one he actually chose, the rest being assigned to him. Even so, Blizzard’s enthusiasm had been severely diminished the reason his heritage had been leaked.

He arrived in a timely manner to the class and promptly took a seat in the farthest corner from the front, where hopefully nopony would see him. Such hope was tragically short-lived as a unicorn colt waved up at him and joined the sulking white pony.

“Hey Blizzard,” he greeted him. Great, now everypony knew his name too. That already put him at a disadvantage. “It’s awesome to meet another great unicorn. I’m Regal Virtue and I’m in my fourth year here.” The new pony stuck out a hoof. Blizzard forced himself to look up to see a tall young stallion with a gleaming cream colored coat and a long, bold red mane that was just a little shorter than a mare’s mane, but spikey and dangerous like a character out of his comic books.

Blizzard wanted to be polite, so he reached out to shake the hoof, but did so unenthusiastically. He just wanted to be alone, and this pony wasn’t helping.

“I have to say, I wasn’t planning on attending this class today,” he continued despite Blizzard Warning’s fairly obvious desire to be alone. “But I couldn’t refuse the opportunity to meet up with you when I heard that you were heading this way.” Oh boy… a fan, like Blizzard needed those. It was his family that was great, not him. He just wanted to be able to be treated normally. It would only be a matter of time before all the reverence he was likely to receive would turn to hate once they learned of what his magic did.

Blizzard turned away from Regal Virtue and looked around the room. There were ponies of all kinds here, and some pon— other… students here? Apparently, Starswirl Academy was the temporary home of more than just ponies. There were a few griffons present as well as a lone buffalo, each seemingly formed into their own groups.

The door flew open as a middle-aged griffon strode into the classroom wearing a golden necklace, a ring, and several other shining trinkets. The griffon students stared in awe, the buffalo student cocked her head in confusion, and some of the ponies shielded their eyes as the reflection from the sun glinted off the accessories and into their eyes.

At the front of the room, the griffon wiggled his talons daintily as he picked up a piece of chalk on the chalkboard and scrawled out his name. Professor Giubardo. As soon as he finished writing, he set the chalk down and pushed out his wings, using them to turn on his back paws to the rest of the class.

“Good afternoon, students,” Giubardo said in a voice much lower than Blizzard would have expected from the dainty, feminine movements he had made earlier.

“Welcome to the start of Interspecies Relations. I hope you are all prepared to step out of your comfort zones, because you’re all going to be learning a little bit about your fellow classmates and how they live.”

Professor Giubardo stopped for a moment to pick up a claw mirror and adjust the feathers on his crest. Regal Virtue nudged Blizzard in the side.

“What a preener!” he whispered. “I can’t stand stuff like that, thinks he’s better than all us.” Blizzard managed a somewhat genuine snicker. This particular teacher did seem to be a bit more… comfortable than other teachers.

“Starting this week, we will be going over the history and conflicts of each civilization that makes up the great nation of Equestria. You will learn about the origins of ponies, (earth, pegasus, and unicorn, which are all different and should not be considered to be one race) as well as the buffalo, griffons, yaks, and even the changelings.”

Changelings? Blizzard had read some news articles about how changelings were just misunderstood beings, but he had heard the story of his father’s superior’s wedding and how changelings nearly ruined it and kind of wrecked Canterlot. Despite all the hardship they had faced, changelings had become a more prominent part of Equestrian culture.

And ponies were different? That seemed to fly in the face of what he learned during his early years of education. Blizzard Warning had always been taught that earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi were all the same, not physically, but had lived in harmony for time out of mind. Besides, there was only one time they ever fought, and that was resolved in what became the Hearth’s Warming celebration, right?

“You will learn how to deal with other cultures, which will be helpful in all trots of life,” Giubardo said. “And by the end of the year, I am determined to drive the looks of doubt in some and the looks of prejudice in others I see. We all live together in one land, and I hope to knock some sense into all of you.”

The classroom remained silent as each race present kept segregated and cast looks of doubt to each other. Blizzard felt bad for the lone buffalo calf.

“Look at all them,” Regal Virtue said, breaking the silence near Blizzard. “They’re all separate and scared, scared of us. There’s a reason why there’s not many non-unicorns in Canterlot. Other ponies and the other races don’t like us because of our magical power. They’re afraid of us.” Blizzard was confused. He had seen lots of unicorns in Canterlot, in fact, the majority of citizens there were unicorns, but he hadn’t expected there to be any particular reason for it. “Really, they’re all kind of scary. I’ve heard tales about how unicorns are mistreated out of fear. My parents always taught me that what we didn’t know could hurt us, so we have to protect against all possible threats.”

Blizzard’s mind stewed over his classmate’s opinion. Could there be merit in it? After all, it seemed like what a lot of the mostly earth pony citizens of Hollow Shades did with him. Perhaps harmony wasn’t as easy as the storybooks made it out to be.

The rest of class went on much like the others. Blizzard received a rather hefty textbook, adding to the heavy load in his saddlebags. And he still had one more class to go! When he had received his book, Regal Virtue was right behind him, and he couldn’t help but notice some of the dangerous looks he tossed in the direction of the griffon students, who shot looks back at him.

When the bell rung, students rushed out of the room. Talk about Blizzard being a Starswirl descendant was apparently still hot on everypony’s lips. Regal Virtue came up to his side and threw a hoof over his shoulder.

“Hey Blizzard, stick with me, and I’ll make sure nopony messes with ya,” he told Blizzard. “You saw the looks of those griffons, right?” Blizzard nodded hesitantly, and raised a hoof to object.

“Weren’t you giving them a glare right back?” Blizzard Warning questioned.

“What!?” Well, yeah… but that’s because they were shooting daggers at you!

“Why would they be angry with me?”

Regal shook his head, trying to find the words to explain.

“Well, maybe not so much with you, but with unicorns in general,” he admitted. “You see, my family has a long history in the Royal Guards, and I’ve already done training there. I learned there that griffons value strength and are extremely jealous of those stronger than them. So they don’t like unicorns.”

Blizzard turned his gaze downward, watching his hooves move in front of him, like a piece of clockwork clunking onto the next operation, which turned out to be Health class. Regal tipped Blizzard’s chin up.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Stick with me and my buddies, we’ll make sure you’re not messed with. Come drop by Conjuration sometime and I’ll introduce you to the gang, I gotta run to my next class though, see ya around!”

And just like that, Blizzard felt alone. He took a glance behind him and noticed a griffon looking at him. It didn’t seem like there was any malice in her gaze, but Blizzard suddenly felt a lot less safe now that his self-proclaimed protector had left.

Picking up from a walk to a steady trot, Blizzard left for next period swiftly, not wanting to stick around to test Regal’s theory on griffons.

Blizzard Warning’s health class was on the ground floor of the Sun Building, so he didn’t have to travel too far. The room was slightly different than the other classrooms around the building. Instead of sporting the solar motif and bright colors of day, it was a more drab and bland room, mostly consisting of white walls and old, gray desks. Obviously one of the older rooms of the building.

But one thing the room did have to it was that it was clean. Spotless, even. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen, it smelled like it had been bleached down recently, and the whiteboard was so clean that Blizzard could see his reflection in it. He flashed a smile in the mirror-board to amuse himself. A few fillies near the front of the room giggled and swooned. This is exactly what he didn’t need: fillies looking at him like that, more interested in his title than him.

The colt looked away and made his way toward the back of the room, seating himself once again away from the rest of the group.

“What was that about earlier?” asked a deep voice without any actual greeting. Blizzard turned to meet the hard gaze of Double Dose. Of course it would be him, this was a health class.

Blizzard was glad to see a friendly face, but at the same time dreaded any different sort of treatment that Double Dose might give him now that he knew he was the Starswirl descendant.

Double Dose sat down next to him and tossed a concerned look his way.

“Look, you can be quiet all you want, but I know that I and the rest of our friends would like an explanation,” he stated. “It can wait until after classes, but we didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Blizzard put his head in his hooves and propped them up on his desk. He knew they didn’t mean any harm… but thanks to them, Strata specifically, his life would be a bit more complicated now.

“Okay… but I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Blizzard answered after a lengthy silence. Double Dose nodded.

“Alright. I wanted to focus on this class anyway,” he answered nonchalantly, completely unbothered by Blizzard’s attitude. At least he didn’t obsess or try to ask him about his life. Too many ponies had already tried that just during last passing period alone! He hoped that all the hype would die down in time.

Suddenly, Blizzard yelped slightly in pain as Double Dose’s hoof impacted the back of Blizzard Warning’s head bluntly. He looked over, hurt and offended into the undaunted stare of the earth pony.

“Merry Weather gives her regards,” he said before turning back to his notes. Blizzard rubbed the pain out of his head and grumbled to himself, also returning his attention to the front of the class. Now the teacher had shown up. This time, a pony with a grey coat and a strange mane style was waving hello to students showing up.

“Good afternoon children, I am here to see you bloom!” she spoke in rhyme. Okay, that would probably get on his nerves eventually. Why was she doing that? Only zebras spoke in rhyme, which could be cryptic and difficult to comprehend. Maybe that’s why nopony had come across one for some time… and this pony was imitating a zebra.

“Healing is what you shall learn to do, as I teach you things to brew.”

Okay, so based on that, Blizzard deduced that they’d be learning some rudimentary alchemy. A memory surfaced in his head for when he got an alchemy set for his birthday before he had his cutie mark. Heh, even before he had the unfortunate talent to burn forests down, he still managed to cause trouble. After his first brew, he managed to cause a small explosion and burn an art easel in his room. He never tried to do alchemy again.

Suddenly… he felt a bit less confident about success in this class.

Listening to the teacher, Ms. Imani as he managed to pick out, was difficult. She spoke in rhymes that seemed like riddles. Apparently Double Dose was having better luck, as his notebook was being jotted down with notes. Blizzard leaned over to peek at his notes and began copying. Double Dose caught on, but didn’t seem to care, merely rolling his eyes.

Teacher: Ms. Imani.

Course Goals: Basic medicinal alchemy, first aid measures, anatomy.

Test Procedure: Monthly brew exam and identification tests. Three first aid showcases in the first semester, and one anatomy exam. Final during the last week of the course.

So this was what he was up against. He had to learn to listen better, or he was sunk! Good luck identifying potions if he couldn’t identify the teacher’s words! He strained to listen more clearly to the zebra in front.

“Sorry everypony,” she said. “I studied medicine recently in the zebra lands. My voice is still recovering from learning from the best, I hope it doesn’t put you under any duress.”

Most ponies spoke so much more plainly, so Ms. Imani had completely caught him off guard. He prayed that the textbook wouldn’t be written in cryptic rhyme too. Speaking of which… where were the books? There wasn’t even a cart in the room like there had been in other classes.

He was about to raise his hoof to ask, but somepony else beat him to it, also seeming to share a thought process.

“Ms. Imani,” asked a colt near the left side of the room. “Is there a textbook with this class?”

The zebra-pony shook her head wisely.

“I have no book for you to receive, you must learn with an alchemy kit at home, I believe.”

Whaaat!? Now Blizzard had to invest in an alchemy kit? He sighed. Time for a letter home asking for bits…

The bell rung and students started to move from their seats as Imani made a motion of mock dread and theatrical sorrow.

“Oh how the bell does toll, it pains me so to see you all go!” she said in a sing-song voice before Blizzard and Double Dose got up to leave. “See you in class later!” she corrected, trying to get the hang of Equestrian common speech once more.

The two colts walked out of the classroom and into the hallway, opening into the common grounds to the campus’ center. Colts and fillies looked his way from everywhere, like as if they had been drawn to his presence like moths to a flame.

Double Dose tapped him on the side.

“Blizzard Warning, we’ll all meet you for dinner. Buy a hayburger or something and meet us on the stargazing hill by the river.”

Blizzard nodded and trotted on his way back up the hill to the Enchantment dormitory. He had a letter to write.

Back in the dorm room, everything was right once more. Nopony bothering him, nopony oogling over his status or shooting daggers at him for it, just bed. He laid down in his bed and threw a sheet over his head, like he did back home. The sun shined down on the back of the sheet, hitting his head, but he didn’t make a move for another five minutes.

Finally, he remembered what he needed to do. His ink was on the desk, next to a stack of envelopes that his mother had sent with him for the express purpose of writing back. Based on how many she had sent him with, it would probably cover for a year or two, and she’d send more later, he was sure.

Blizzard got down to writing.

Dear Mom and Dad,

So far, this school stuff has turned out pretty well. I got my class schedule and have sorted into classes pretty nicely. The teachers are a bunch of strange ponies, and a griffin, and I still have a class I haven’t gone to yet. I hope that the professor there is good, because I’ll be spending a long time in those class periods.

I got moved into the Enchantment Hall for my dormitory. I’m sharing a room with a rather strange pegasus stallion named Flathoof. He seems to know everything about me, so I hope that you guys keep any of your important financial information and the like secure. Not sure what he might do if he got his hooves on it, cause he could probably find out.

The first night was really fun. I met the headmaster in an assembly and he looks like a pretty cool stallion, and I made some friends! (Flathoof is actually one of them.) They’re a lot of fun to be around, and I think they’re good ponies. I’ve made friends with an earth pony named Double Dose, a pegasus named Merry Weather, a unicorn named Strata, and another unicorn named Regal Virtue. On the first night, we had a really cool picnic! It had fireworks and lots of food and a bonfire.

I do have some bad news though… At that picnic I mentioned, I kind of lit a firework with my magic, and it caused some things to start burning. But you guys were right, the staff at Starswirl is really good. They had it all contained momentarily and nopony caught on that it was because of me… But it only took one day for somepony to discover that I was the pony from the Starswirl family. I want to trust my new friends, but now I’m worried some ponies might only be interested in my name rather than me. I guess time will tell.

Love,

Blizzard Warning

The pen in his magical grip floated down to touch its resting place on his desk as it was exchanged for an envelope. He sealed the letter in the envelope with care, hugging it to his body. While he wouldn’t trade the opportunity to go to this school, even if he had a few things go wrong, he still missed his family.

Sunset dripped down on the horizon as the hours blended together. Blizzard had made an honest effort to try and study on his first day, cracking open each of his textbooks and reading from them. But he just felt so distracted most of the time. It wasn’t like reading his comics, so he got bored and started to forget things.

Like the hours, topics started to blend together, and once Blizzard had tried to remember that the alchemical recipe for a teleportation spell involved griffins and hours of riding a unicycle, he felt it was time to take a break and go eat.

On the way out, Blizzard deposited his letter home carefully into the mail slot. Maybe he’d hear back soon.

In the meantime, it was time to go meet his friends for an outdoor meal on the stargazing hill by the river. But first, he had to buy a hayburger.

Getting a hayburger was easy! Getting out on the other hoof… When Blizzard arrived at the cafeteria, the rumors had spread completely. Ponies got out of his way and let him get his hayburger, cutting the entire line in the process. That was cool, but what wasn’t was the way everypony was staring at him as if they were going to record every time he sneezed or scratched his head.

If he was considering skipping out on his friends to eat in the cafeteria before, he was certainly rethinking it now. By the time he evaded the last of the stragglers following him, his hayburger was no longer hot.

Thankfully, the hill was close by, and Blizzard was soon able to spot the forms of his friends in the distance. On top of the hill was a single tree with a few low hanging branches. When he got to the top of the hill, he noticed both Merry Weather and Flathoof sitting on higher branches while Double Dose and Strata leaned on the low hanging branch.

Blizzard came up behind his friends while they were chatting and propped himself up on the lower branch. The knock of wood warned his friends to his presence, prompting smiles from the majority, while Strata gave him an ashamed half-smile, half-grimace.

Double Dose scooted over to the side to allow Blizzard room to set upon the low hanging branch. On the higher branch, Merry Weather and Flathoof were busy discussing flight techniques, but soon stopped talking as Blizzard joined them. They all had something to talk about.

“Blizzard…” Strata started with a nervous tremble to her voice. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt out your identity, and I didn’t know you wanted to keep it a secret. Can you forgive me?”

From across the branch, Blizzard looked back at her with a sullen gaze. Thanks to her slip-up, things would be a lot more difficult, especially to get privacy on campus, at least for a while. But she seemed genuinely remorseful, and being able to cut to the front of the hayburger line was pretty nice.

“Strata, I’m sorry,” Blizzard responded with his own apology. “I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. I left you guys earlier at lunch because I thought that once you knew who I was, you’d be more interested in my lineage than who I am.”

Double Dose threw a mildly irritated glare in his direction while Merry swooped down from the branch above and made a face at Blizzard while upside down, crossing her hooves over her chest. It was difficult to take her seriously, and Blizzard might have even laughed if it weren’t for Double Dose’s own gaze paralyzing his nerves.

The earth pony and pegasus exchanged glances before Double Dose just snorted and turned away, taking a bite of his own dinner. Merry Weather poked Blizzard in the nose with a hoof.

“That’s low, Blizzard!” she berated the colt. “Give us some credit. We were your friends before we knew who you were. Did you think it’d change after? It’s not like you’re a different pony. We liked you because you’re funny and kind and it’s interesting to talk with you.”

Flathoof swooped down next to Merry Weather, holding a wing in front of him like a vampony.

“It’s true!” he said with a imitation Trotsylvanian accent. “I may have figured out who you were, but I still wanted to be friends, and I even agreed to keep your secret.” The yellow pegasus seemed to swell in pride at this statement while the unicorn filly shrank behind Double Dose.

Blizzard huffed and sighed to himself. His friends all looked back at him again, waiting for a response.

“Alright,” he finally said. “I’m sorry for doubting any of you. It’s just that I don’t want to be famous. I’ve had some issues with ponies back home giving me too much attention, and I don’t want it to repeat here.” He decided to leave out the part that it was rather negative attention, but they didn’t need to know. Then they might not be true friends for a different reason, but one problem at a time for now.

“It’s all good, Blizzard, but I have one thing you have to accept from us as a group before we’re satisfied,” Merry said. Blizzard’s mind raced. A present? For him? That sounds cool! His birthday wasn’t even for another two months.

Blizzard’s train of thought suddenly crashed when he found himself on his back having tumbled partway down the hill from a shove from Merry Weather. Tough love… At least his friends were willing to look past his status to give him well deserved physical punishment. At least they didn’t think he was above the time honored tradition of forgiveness through force.

Merry and Strata rushed over to where he had fallen and laid down next to him, both giggling at Blizzard’s plight while his eyes stopped spinning from rolling downhill. Flathoof and Double Dose joined at a slower pace, forming a ring of ponies looking up at the stars. The ponies’ heads were close together so they could still carry a conversation with ease.

Up above, stars twinkled brilliantly. There were lights dancing in the sky like as if Princess Luna had moved the legendary Grand Galloping Gala into the night itself. For a minute of silent bliss, everypony just stared wistfully above. The north star shined brightly. Blizzard felt as though it was his father looking down at him, trying to lead him onward through his crazy life.

A shooting star streaked across the sea of lights, Merry Weather sticking a hoof straight up to the sky and alerting everypony else. The comet blazed forward, leaving a streak of astral trail behind. Even in Equestria, where Princess Luna ruled the night, shooting stars were rare.

“Hey everypony! Look!” Merry Weather shouted excitedly. “It’s a shooting star! Make a wish!”

The other four ponies gasped in awe at the star, even Double Dose broke his stone faced expression in amazement. They all fixed their eyes to the comet.

“I wish…” Blizzard began as he thought carefully. “I wish for my friends to stick with me forever.”

Smiles lit up consecutively in the ring of ponies. They were all touched by Blizzard’s wish.

“You know,” Strata declared. “I think that’s something that would come true even if you didn’t wish on that star.” Blizzard nodded in agreement. Maybe he shouldn’t have used his wish on something that would be easy to attain anyway, but he didn’t regret it. He still got to voice one of his deepest desires and put in the word to Luna. Maybe his wish would be granted still.

Quiet returned to the hillside as the friends continues stargazing, and pointing out constellations. Suddenly, Blizzard recalled that he was the only pony to voice a wish with the shooting star. He sat up and looked around to each friend.

“Hey, what did you all wish for?”

Merry giggled while Double Dose huffed. The other two remained quiet.

“I don’t believe in asking for wishes,” Double Dose commented. “I prefer to be rewarded for my own efforts rather than it being given to me.”

“Of course you don’t, DD,” Strata said, rolling her eyes. In the time that she knew him, it seemed she caught on to how he acted fast.

“I’m not telling,” Merry said with a sing-song spring to her voice. Blizzard was taken aback and feigned hurt, making a puppy dog face at her. She just laughed.

“Come on!”

“Nope!”

“Tell us!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“I wished for a sandwich…” Flathoof said with a sheepish grin. Everypony looked at him with varied expressions ranging from laughter to disbelief. Strata facehoofed while Blizzard doubled over laughing, Double Dose shook his head slowly with a faint grin.

“A sandwich!?” Merry exclaimed. “I’m so sorry for you! You burnt your wish on a sandwich…” She had to try really hard to not laugh, and it wasn’t working very well, with little snorts escaping her.

“Hey, you know, I’m still hungry, so I wished for a sandwich,” Flathoof replied defiantly, provoking a laugh from Strata while the others continued to be amused.

Soon the night air got too chilly to be comfortable, and the friends all broke apart to head back to the dorms. It was late, much later than Blizzard had expected to be out. Bedtime was calling his name. He and Flathoof walked back to the Enchantment Hall to their rooms slowly. No words were spoken between the two, but that was alright with Blizzard. He knew that his friends were loyal to him already, and status, and hopefully they would be even if they learned of his true talent.

But his mind drifted back to the hillside and the shooting star. Strata had told him that he might not even need the star to make his wish come true. That was a confidence inducing ideal. One that he was willing to work toward, like Double Dose had said. A sudden wave of happiness washed over him, and he was already starting to look forward to the rest of the year. With friends beside him, nothing was impossible, no obstacle was too great, and everything would be alright. He felt like yelling into the night.

“My wish will come true!”

Author's Note

Man, I really liked writing that last scene on the hill with the stargazing. That would be so cool to do, just sit on a hill and see the stars with my best friends beside me. So out of curiosity, what do you guys think about making wishes?

Summer Storms

Chapter 5: Summer Storms
Aptitude
MLP:FiM
By: Kestrel

This morning, Blizzard beat his alarm clock to the punch, making sure to deactivate it before it could blast his eardrums early in the morning. He had decided to take the advice Flathoof had given him the day before and wake up a bit earlier to have time for a warm shower and enough time to eat.

Once he looked up from his alarm clock and had shaken off his sleep, it became apparent that Flathoof was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was down at breakfast already? Oh well, shower time!

Following his normal routine, Blizzard went into the shower and cleaned himself thoroughly, enjoying the (actually!) hot water. His mane slicked down as the water ran down his face. He could stay in the shower forever, but his stomach was starting to complain, the noise level rising above the pattering of water droplets against the glass door and his coat.

Rushing water turned to a steady drip and finally ceased while Blizzard Warning stepped out of the shower and dried himself with his towel. He smiled as his mane fell perfectly into its normally messy state, just the way he liked it.

Moving back into the bedroom, Blizzard organized his saddlebags, floating out the textbooks for his unicorn classes out while keeping the text for Interspecies Relations in the bag. Easily ten pounds lighter, it wasn’t such a burden to carry the bag as it had been yesterday. Apparently Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays would be good for exercise.

Blizzard trotted down the stairs into the dining area where Flathoof was chewing on a bowl of oats. Following suit, Blizzard procured his own bowl and joined his roommate at the table. As he was seated, Flathoof formed a look of genuine surprise, something Blizzard never expected from him.

“What are you even doing here?” he asked. Blizzard felt confused, it was time to eat and go to class, why else would he be up? “You don’t have any classes until after lunch…”

Blizzard’s eyes widened. That’s right! All his Tuesday classes were after lunch! He could have slept in. Now that he was up… what to do?

“Oh…” he admitted glumly, staring into his oats and now wishing he hadn’t woken up. Oh well, it wasn’t all bad. Now he could explore campus and see if he could find some cool things to do around here.

“Well, I’ve got to get off to my classes,” Flathoof said with a mouth full of oats.

“Okay, see you at lunch,” Blizzard said as his buddy got up from the table and flew on out. Flathoof’s classes probably had to do with either detective work or stalking, could be either. Yeah… especially since Blizzard never actually remembered telling him about his course schedule.

The colt took another bite of his own bowl of oats while contemplating how to spend his time. There were lots of cool places around campus. There was a riverbed, a forest, spotting good places to stargaze, and the library was also available. Ultimately though, Blizzard decided he really did want that extra sleep. If there was something he liked as much as eating his mom’s cooking, it was sleeping.

The walk to campus was long as usual, and Blizzard briefly wished that he lived a little bit closer to the classrooms for ease of travel. It was too much work to trot the whole way, especially if it was late.

On second thought… now that his secret was out, maybe it was good that he was farther away from campus. Ponies on the way through campus pointed him out to their friends and made a big deal about his presence. If only things were so easy to get used to for one day.

Halfway through the center of campus, a couple of admittedly cute fillies grabbed him and took him away for a picture against his will. He was too busy blushing to fight back, but he didn’t like that kind of attention. Everypony was just being so caught up in fame that he didn’t actually earn, he was just born into it. Sometimes it just felt that his ancestry was more of a burden than a blessing.

All the smiling and waving to practically everypony on campus, including a few of the teachers, Blizzard was finally able to drop the uncomfortable attitude for dealing with his fame once he got to the classroom, at least everypony couldn’t openly ogle about him during class.

Inside class, the group of griffons were sitting and turned their gaze, narrowing their eyes on all the ponies that entered the classroom. Maybe it made sense and they’d feel threatened or want to seem intimidating since they were a minority in the school, but it sure was unnerving. Things couldn’t have actually been so strained between the races like that, and Regal Virtue might have been wrong.

So he sat next to the griffons, immediately causing them to drop their jaws in awe. Soon after though, their hard expressions returned as a griffon with black crest feathers turned to face Blizzard.

“What’s a lame pony doing sitting next to us?” he asked, leaving nothing to the imagination that Blizzard wasn’t quite welcome.

The other griffons laughed after him. The black crested one must have been the leader of their little group. Blizzard decided to stick with the effort for a little while longer. Maybe they were just rough around the edges.

“I-I wanted to sit next to you guys so maybe we could be friends…” Blizzard trailed off. “You know, like how Professor Giubardo was saying…”

“Listen good, pony,” the griffon said, filling the gap in speech from Blizzard. “We don’t like you. Not only are you a sissy pony, but you’re one of those self-righteous unicorns. You all think you’re better just because you have magic”

Self-righteous? That didn’t sit well with Blizzard, as he thought himself to be fairly humble and fair with himself and others. He decided to show the better side of his temper and let it slide.

“Huh?” Blizzard questioned. “Unicorns aren’t better than anypony else because we have magic. You guys can fly! And earth ponies are super strong! Everypony is equal in my eyes.”

The griffon group of students let out a collective groan. Blizzard suddenly regretted saying what he did for fear that it upset them.

“Psh, ‘everypony.’ See, this is what we’re saying,” the griffon responded. “Even when the ponies came to ‘help’ Griffonstone, there wasn’t a unicorn who came along, and the ponies left the griffons to reconstruct on their own! No actual help was given whatsoever!”

Now Blizzard Warning felt a bit hurt. He knew that wasn’t exactly how it happened. The reason no unicorn was sent was because the Princess of Friendship ordered two ponies to go for Griffonstone relief effort, but neither were unicorns. And then they left, but it had been reported that Griffonstone was left in good hooves. So why was he getting so much flak now?

Blizzard backed up and out of his seat, not willing to try and press things any further with the irate griffons. As he retreated, the group snickered and laughed softly, believing Blizzard to be leaving because he was afraid. They weren’t completely wrong.

The young colt retreated up the stairs into higher rows of seats. When he sat down, Regal Virtue moved from where he had been watching to be next to Blizzard. A few of the griffons turned to the front of the class while a pair of more aggressive ones had their talons balled up and were smacking them against their open talon.

Blizzard’s veins ran cold, as if the griffons had just marked him for death for some reason. Regal Virtue made his own threatening motions back to the griffons, showing no fear or hesitation. Part of Blizzard admired that, but was at the same time afraid of such conviction. Why not just try to make friends first? But maybe Virtue already had tried some time ago.

“Dirty griffons,” Regal muttered under his breath. The older colt crossed his hooves over his chest as Professor Giubardo walked in and the class began. As fate would seem to have it, the first lesson was on the Griffon Kingdom, or maybe it was just some bias from the professor.

According to the book and lesson, the griffons were and are a race that valued power above nearly all else, be it military, economic, or social status. That explained why they had a strong fighting force mentioned in the textbook, and why they always seemed greedy in storybooks.

However, unlike ponies, they were united under a single ruler and persisted in cooperation for a very long time without having to put multiple races together in harmony.

“Now, can any one of my students tell me the reasons for the fall of Griffonstone?” Giubardo asked the class. One of the griffon students raised his hand. Giubardo pointed a talon toward him.

“The great Idol of Boreas’ theft by Arimaspi!” he nearly shouted in rage. “It caused the once proud kingdom of old to collapse due to demoralization.”

“Right you are, Gino,” the professor said. He returned to explaining the event, in which a one-eyed monster came into Griffonstone to steal their idol, and the brave fight the king at the time, Guto and his guard put up. Alas, the effort was futile and the idol was lost, and with it the pride that kept the griffons working.

The kingdom fell into disrepair and decline for the next few centuries, and griffons were seldom seen outside of the Griffon Kingdom unless they were part of a roaming mercenary band or delivery service.

Some time later, long after Griffonstone had fell into shambles, a princess of Equestria sent two envoys who started the long progress of resurgence into the kingdom.

“...thanks to the early departure of the envoys, the griffons were left floundering for several years before things truly got back on track,” Professor Giubardo explained. “The ponies were instrumental in the beginning of the restoration movement, but they left before stability was achieved.” Blizzard mused over this information in his head. Could the ponies have messed up? It seemed like such a heroic effort to help a dying kingdom like that. Why weren’t the griffons a bit more grateful? “Thankfully, Gilda the Kingdom Savior eventually came across the lost Idol of Boreas years later and the reconstruction effort hit a boom.”

Blizzard wrote down the information quickly. This was so much different than stories and rumors he had ever heard regarding griffons and ponies. The different perspective was really eye opening for the young colt. Regal Virtue wasn’t writing and rolled his eyes at the notes Blizzard was dutifully taking.

“Seriously?” he asked in a whisper. “You can’t honestly believe that. Maybe they did find that idol of theirs, but it was the ponies who gave them their pride back. The monarchy didn’t screw up making any decisions.”

Meanwhile, the lesson continued. Apparently the reconstruction effort boomed, but the ideals of the old griffons came back to the forefront along with the idol. While the ideals of friendship were still present, they took a backseat to traditional values of gold. Rather than working truly together, the current Griffon Kingdom was ruled by an oligarchy of the wealthiest griffons.

The economy of the griffon kingdom was powerful, but they lacked the social and financial equality that most of Equestria enjoyed.

Relationships with Equestria as of late had been somewhat strained ever since Gilda the Kingdom Savior had lost her power and sway over the griffons in wake of the finding of the Idol of Boreas. The griffon oligarchy generally viewed things in benefit to the griffons alone rather than try to make diplomatic friends. Griffons put themselves above the other inhabitants of the world as the strongest, having come out of certain ruin.

Class ended with the ring of the bell and Blizzard felt full of new insight. However, his new buddy still didn’t seem to appreciate his griffon classmates, though the griffons didn’t seem too thrilled yet either. Hopefully the heated glares would die as the year went on. Things just seemed kind of tense between them. Maybe they had some sort of falling out in the past few years?

As the two colts trotted on out of the room, Regal kept a sharp eye out on the griffons, unsaid threats seeming to cling to the air, making it heavy and suffocating. Blizzard decided that it would be best to save that can of worms for another day.

“So the griffons sure are interesting, aren’t they?” Blizzard tried to make conversation. Regal Virtue just flattened his ears out. Obviously he wasn’t too thrilled with talk of griffons.

“Oookay… how about that buffalo student?” Blizzard tried again. This time Regal snorted, but not with the same sort of anger he had toward the griffons, but he still seemed annoyed, prompting more curiosity from the younger colt.

“I don’t know. The buffalo aren’t quite as bad as griffons, but they’re trying to stop Equestria from expanding,” he said. “Their selfish desires almost prevented the city Appleoosa from existing because they were trying to remove its food source. Since then things have been quiet, but that’s because the buffalo kept to themselves. Now that we have a buffalo student here, I’m not sure it’s a good thing.”

That was kind of strange logic to Blizzard. He was actually kind of interested in the buffalo student, after all, as far as he knew, she was the only one on campus. He had seen a few griffons outside the group in Interspecies Relations, but no buffalo.

“Well, that’s a worry for another time,” Regal said. “I’ve got to get back to my government class before it starts. See ya later!”

Blizzard Warning waved goodbye to the older pony as he trotted onto his next class.

But when he got to the door of the classroom, there was a note on the front of the door around a small group of students standing around and looking confused.

Class canceled today, I’m sick and can’t come to class today. Your assigned reading is page 24-48 on herbs, weeds, and leaves. Complete the assigned identification practices and read up on poultice making with the ingredients therein.

Ms. Imani

Well, that was rather odd. The health teacher was sick… There was something ironic about that, especially given the fact that she had apparently hung the note on the door herself. Bad timing for sure, it was only the second day of school and a teacher had already canceled a class period! Whatever, it worked for Blizzard.

With a spring to his steps, Blizzard went out into the common area and read a comic book he had brought from home about the Power Ponies by the central fountain. He spotted a few colts across the field staring at him. He could pick out a few of the things they were saying. Something about power levels, super magic, and spell casting. Sounded like some real nerds or something, and just like everypony else who made a big deal about him because of Starswirl, Blizzard felt uncomfortable.

If only he could do something to prove he was just a normal pony like everypony else!

Back to reading it was. Blizzard tried his hardest to keep his head in his book as far as possible, to block out the passing ponies who gave him looks ranging from pity, to anger, to swooning.

The next hour would be a long one…

The intermission that the cancelled health class had left not only left Blizzard without a friend in the form of Double Dose to talk to normally, but forced him to spend it in public. The time he waited was spent dodging glances and anticipating his first day in his weather class.

The clouds overhead started to pack together and darken. That was weird. The daily weather schedules around campus didn’t predict a storm for another few days. In light of the possibility of rain, Blizzard opted to move to his next class a few minutes early.

But sadly, the rain started to pour down. Poor Blizzard got soaked running to class, but at least his books were all safe inside his saddlebags. Blizzard’s mane, now heavy with water, slicked down over his eyes, blocking his vision somewhat. Once he got into the building, he was greeted by a familiar giggle.

“You look like a disaster!” Merry Weather guffawed, clapping a hoof to her snout as a snort escaped her. Blizzard gave her a defiant look and cracked an evil grin.

“Oh Merry…” he began, inching closer to her. “I just wanna give you a biiiig hug!” He lunged and squeezed Merry Weather, showering her and a few other ponies with excess water as he shook himself. Merry started smacking him playfully while turning her face away.

“Ewww!” she shouted. “Get off of me! That’s so gross, Blizzard!” She was laughing though, so Blizzard wasn’t too worried. However, a few of the other affected, and now wet, ponies threw unamused expressions at him. Blizzard let Merry Weather go, dropping her back onto her hooves.

“Aww, somepony does love me!” she fake swooned, fluttering her eyelashes. Despite his usual weakness to somepony making fun of him in a romantic sense, he was used to it and ready for Merry’s joking.

“You wish,” Blizzard fired back good-naturedly. He was given a bop to the nose in response, making Blizzard rub out the sudden twinge of pain with his hoof, dropping his smile.

“Hmph,” Merry said, turning around and batting him with a wing in the head. “You’d be lucky to have me if I ever let you.” She turned around and stuck her tongue out at him and pulled an eyelid down to complete the effect.

Ponies in the area laughed. It was pretty clear that Merry would be the winner of this one, and Blizzard didn’t feel like digging a hole any deeper. He’d just take it how it was. It was time for class anyway, so he could spare the remainder of his pride and listen in on the class that was supposed to teach him his place in Equestria.

Inside the classroom was a lot different from any of the others in the Starswirl Building. It wasn’t rustic and full of ancient desks like the rest, it was a new atrium built onto the top floor of the building, a dome structure perfect for viewing the sky. That is, it would be if the sky wasn’t blocked by the cloud cover.

The ceiling stretched up high and a pegasus mare dropped from above. She was sporting flashy Wonderbolts goggles, though Blizzard had never seen her on any of the posters. Maybe she was a fan. Either way, Blizzard was pretty jealous of those goggles. Just because he was a unicorn didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy watching the Wonderbolts perform.

“Good morning class! Welcome to Specialized Weather!” she exclaimed, as if she were trying to drown out the storm above, which she may have been flying in not too long ago. Yet her smile beamed brightly like a light piercing the clouds, despite only being able to teach a hoofful of students. Being a specialized class though, that was to be expected.

Looking around the room, Blizzard was sort of confused as to the purpose of the class. If it was a weather class like she said, then why was he, and a lot of other non-pegasi, here? He was a unicorn, so he could move clouds with great effort and focus with his magic, but it would be taxing and shaky, even with his talent for natural forces.

“I’m seeing some of your faces, and while priceless, are not really necessary,” she explained. “This course will provide tailored curriculum to each student. As a specialized class, extensive research into your talent areas and an overview of your race has determined what you shall be doing in this class. So don’t worry, all you earth ponies in class don’t have to worry about cloud busting.”

A few sighs of relief filled the classroom along with good natured laughs. The pegasus mare winked and flashed a huge grin. It was clear she loved her job.

“My name is Mrs. High Wire, and I’ll be your teacher for this year.” This pegasus was quite pretty, and young for a teacher here. Her body was a bright, yet unoffensive red, and her mane reminded Blizzard of lemonade, both regular and pink. Her cutie mark was an image of a power line.

Merry Weather was squishing her cheeks in at the sight of her. She too had noticed the Wonderbolt goggles, and was in complete admiration mode. Hopefully she’d be able to still pay attention. Blizzard waved a hoof in front of her to make sure she was still with the class, and was rewarded with a swift jab to the ribs.

Blizzard shrugged it off and got his notes out. What was especially good about this class was that it didn’t have a textbook. Mrs. Wire flew up to one of the higher mounted chalkboards and wrote a large diagram, stretching to the lower chalkboards. At least it would be easy to read!

“Alright everypony, while some of you might be under the impression that weather is something that only weather workers and pegasi need to know, you’d be wrong,” she declared. “Weather is important to understand for other professions, like if you’re going to be a weather reporter, farmer, or architect, just to name a few.”

“Now, the first, and easiest natural element of weather is rain,” she explained. “Duh. It’s kind of vitally important to everything. Food grows with it, it’s good for drinking, ponies generally like to be clean with baths. Water is where all this stems from, and it is of utmost importance to understand the details of water and how to handle and deal with it.”

This part of the lesson was fairly basic, water got evaporated into the air for pegasi to collect or had to be sucked up by pegasus generated tornado, clouds were created in the weather factory, and later on, they’d be timed to rain down on the world below. Runoff would collect and the rivers would carry the water back to the ocean, like veins to a heart.

While this had more to do with the pegasi, Mrs. High Wire provided a few examples of how it could be useful to others, such as explaining how to manipulate the running water to form a water reservoir or how to distinguish flash flood danger areas from safe ones for the purpose of building homes.

This all seemed basic, but to be quite honest, Blizzard had never really thought about rain other than the fact it was wet and made it hard to see in front of him when his mane got wet. It wasn’t hot like shower water either, it was cold and could make him shiver.

And yet, despite all the helpful information, nothing seemed like it would help Blizzard out. Maybe in other parts of the class.

“So everypony,” Mrs. High Wire began. “This is going to be a special class, because we get to take some small field trips!” Cheers erupted from the group of ponies. Field trips hardly ever happened back home. Even when Blizzard had a tutor for magic kindergarden. “I’m sure you noticed the sudden, unscheduled storm?” Blizzard’s eyes narrowed as things started to line up and make sense. So his brief misery was caused directly by this mare…

Oh well, at least it had been an opportunity to joke around with Merry Weather. It was really cool that he had a friend in each of his classes. Although he did feel a pang of sadness that he didn’t have any classes with Flathoof, but he was roommates with the colt, so that kind of balanced out.

“Form a line and grab an umbrella and boots, it’s going to be wet out there!” High Wire said. The eight ponies formed a line and began to receive umbrellas, all except the more excited ponies, being Merry Weather and an earth pony. They decided to forgo having an umbrella.

The motley band of ponies ventured into the storm and trekked out to an open field. Blizzard was really glad for the provided boots. Mud was caked on the soles of his rainboots and mud was hard to get out of his bright white coat. He vigorously hoped that Merry wouldn’t try to get him back for his shenanigans earlier.

Class resumed once they reached a good spot where everypony could see. High Wire flew up to a low hanging cloud and brought it down without setting off its rain or lightning. The students gathered around in a semicircle, surrounding the teacher.

“Alright ponies,” she said. “Clouds are pretty great. They can be used for so many things too! Of course their primary use is to provide water to the earth, but they can be used as home building materials, like cloud houses in Cloudsdale. Additionally, they also create a good source of renewable electricity since they can contain lightning.”

She took the cloud and zoomed away from the students to a respectable distance and shouted back at them.

“This stormcloud has three charges of lightning! The pegasus controlling the clouds sets off the first one while the remaining bolts of lightning strike on their own accord!”

The teacher stomped down on the cloud, causing it to let loose a blinding flash, scorching the earth beneath it. She kicked the cloud back the other way, sending it away from campus so nopony would get hurt. A few of the students put their hooves together for the performance as she returned.

“Okay class, now I want everypony go out and catalogue clouds. Make sure to keep in mind proper storm safety. This isn’t a dangerous storm by any means, but you could get hurt if you make bad decisions.”

Each pony gave some sort of response in the affirmative, and Blizzard left to go start writing down cloud types. He lost Merry when she zipped off to find a higher viewpoint. Low ground was safer during thunderstorms, but Blizzard was sure she could handle herself.

Lightning flashed and arced in the sky, leaving impressions on Blizzard’s sight. Rather than rubbing the images out of his head, he smiled, relishing the fantastic power of nature. He only had one cloud left to catalogue, but it was a nimbus cloud, and he had been staying away from those. The couldn’t be set off except by a pegasus, but he was still cautious. He made his way up a hill to get a better view, making sure to keep an eye out for any rogue clouds.

On the top of the hill sat Merry Weather on a tree. She was busy cataloguing her own clouds, and apparently not having as much luck drawing them as he was. She was constantly erasing what she had and scribbling out strange shapes.

Suddenly, Blizzard felt a vague sense of dread in the back of his mind. Lightning coursed through his mind, striking at his nerves. Something bad was going to happen… He could see it somehow. There was a rogue cloud, and it was heading toward Merry! She wasn’t going to see it in time and it would strike her tree! He had to help!

“Merry Weather!” he called out. She stopped to look at Blizzard, not turning to see a darkened cloud making a beeline toward her. Blizzard was about to open his mouth but lit up his horn instead. The cloud crackled with energy and light began to pour from it.

“Watch out!” he yelled as he fired off a pressurized gust of wind from his horn into the cloud, pushing it far away. As the cloud soared across the sky, Merry finally caught a glimpse of the retreating black fluffiness and realized the peril she was in.

But the worst had yet to pass. Merry’s pupils shrank as the clouds that the blast of air hit suddenly became nastier. Mrs. High Wire came flying to check up on her students and she witnessed the disturbance as well.

“Funnel cloud!” she yelled. “Everypony, get to the ground away from trees and find shelter now! I’ll take care of this!”

Blizzard Warning and Merry Weather followed the orders with no hesitation, running off for shelter. Mrs. High Wire joined with the weather team that had come out from Baltimare and they flew off, creating their own counterspin to the collecting clouds.

The colts and fillies gathered together huddled in fear, but also in awe as their teacher bravely fought the onslaught of frightening natural fury. Windy blasts of rain blew in each of the pegasi’s faces as they flew faster and faster to prevent the funnel cloud from touching down. Now those Wonderbolt goggles would sure be useful.

Lightning struck one of the weather workers and he tumbled out of the formation, with one of his colleagues breaking rank to collect his fallen friend. Thankfully, his rubberized utility uniform protected him from electrocution, but the impact had knocked him out. The remaining eight ponies in the weather team and High Wire continued to spin their own counter tornado, finally seeing some results as the funnel cloud began to slow.

Unable to completely stop the forming cloud, the funnel touched down into a lesser cyclone that ripped up the field below. It would no longer do any severe damage to anything but a garden out in the middle of nowhere. As High Wire flew off to check in with her class, the weather team kept a sharp lookout at the spinning cyclone as a few flew to check in on their downed coworker.

Blizzard felt terrible. This had happened all because of him… but at the same time, he didn’t feel any regret. For the first time in his life, he had done something halfway decent with his talent. He had seen… something, and acted on his instincts, pushing that stormcloud away from his friend. Merry Weather looked at him in mixed emotions of worry and wonder. He looked like he had seen a ghost. There was something awfully impressive about what he did though. If it wasn’t for him, she could have been hurt badly, she didn’t have one of those rubber suits.

“Is everypony okay?” asked the drenched and windswept pegasus mare as she touched down. She took a head count and heaved a sigh of relief as she counted the full eight students were present. They were all shaken and frightened, but their fear gave way to elation as they started to cheer their teacher and hero. For a first day of class, it sure left a huge impression!

Mrs. High Wire shook her head out and wiped some of the water out of her mane. Dissipating a funnel cloud wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and she was exhausted. Her panting breaths and the sweat mixed in with the water from the rain was fairly obvious to the rest of the ponies.

“Don’t worry everypony, everything’s alright. The weather ponies and I are safe, nothing bad happened in the end. But I’m too tired to go on for today, so I’m going to cut class short today… Dismissed…” she said, heaving breaths at every pause. As each young pony passed her, they gave her encouraging pats on the back or smiles, except for Blizzard, who was too preoccupied with what he had done and what went on.

There was no doubt in his mind that he had caused that funnel cloud with his special ‘talent,’ and he was extremely thankful for the heroic and quick actions of the weather team and his teacher. But… what was that vision? Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Was it another manifestation of his cutie mark, telling his destiny as a harbinger of disaster? No, it couldn’t be… he hoped...

Author's Note

Well... that was weird. Wonder what went on there? Either way, man that Mrs. High Wire is pretty cool, right? So I'm one more chapter into this story, and I'm hoping you guys are liking it so far. I think this chapter came out pretty well. Stay tuned for the next one :scootangel:

Saturday!

Chapter 6: Saturday!
Aptitude
MLP:FiM
By: Kestrel

Morning came once more to the sleeping form of Blizzard and Flathoof in their beds. Blizzard had been having troubled dreams about what had happened earlier in the week in his first weather class. He only managed to show token focus in his classes for the rest of the week, probably not doing as well on his first few quizzes as he would have liked. But to him, his strange and hazy vision from several days ago took precedence in his mind. It had been his first chance to be something more than a burden or outright danger to those around him.

However, over time that Friday night, Blizzard eventually fell to sleep. Not even the sun could wake him and his alarm clock had been mercifully deactivated, and promptly tossed into a drawer.

By the time Blizzard Warning came to, it was long past morning, with the sun hanging tall in the sky. His stomach rumbled in want of food, and Blizzard realized he must have missed breakfast. A single sniffle escaped his nose and he held back tears as he took his daily shower and brushed his teeth.

He had already wasted a huge amount of time in bed, so it was time to go out into campus and have some fun, and get something to quell the pain in his stomach. Flathoof had started stirring in his bed, but Blizzard Warning assumed that he wouldn’t have any trouble finding him on his own.

Maybe he’d see if he could meet some of the others. If he was lucky, he’d see them at lunch.

Sadly, there was no food up for grabs in Enchantment Hall, since the cook staff didn’t work weekends. So that left the main cafeteria in the center of campus. When Blizzard arrived through the door, there were a lot less ponies around than he would have thought. He looked around for Strata, Double Dose, and Merry Weather, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, a hoof waved him over, a genuine smile on the lips of the waving unicorn. Regal Virtue was sitting with his buddies at a table. Blizzard returned the greeting with a smile and went to go get his own food before joining the older colt and his friends.

The first thing that Blizzard noticed almost immediately was that Regal’s entire group consisted of unicorns. Most were older than Blizzard, but there were a few around his age. After introductions, he learned a few of their names and that they were all from Canterlot.

The ponies flanking his seat were a brother and sister named Argent Blaze and Sable Promise who shared the same black coat, but had strikingly different manes. Argent’s being a fiery orange while Sable’s was a muted grey, and they had the same sort of gemstone motif in their cutie marks, both being shields with a single gem encrusted on it. A diamond and onyx respectively. Blizzard also noticed the cutie mark adorning Regal’s flank, as he had never actually looked before. It was a scroll with a crown atop of it, which fit, given his immense knowledge of things and his apparent skills in leadership.

“Welcome to the cool kids, Blizzard!” greeted Argent. “Stick with us and you’ll be the toughest, coolest colt in the school by the end of the year.”

“Sure, but not by hanging around you,” Sable retorted, propping her head on a hoof. Argent reached across behind Blizzard and tried to smack Sable’s nose, but Sable was too quick and smacked his hoof. The two devolved into tumbling on the floor, playfighting with one another. Regal laughed at his friends’ antics as he shook his head.

“You two are a couple of jokers!” he stated, looking between the brothers and sisters. “Things are never dull when you two are here.” A sickly green unicorn with a brown mane whispered into Regal’s ear. Regal dismissed him with a wave of his hoof and replied with a quiet tone that Blizzard almost couldn’t pick up.. “Nah, nah, he’s cool. After all, he’s a descendant of one of the greatest ponies to ever live, even better, a unicorn.”

The green unicorn seemed to accept this and brushed his mane out of his face with a hoof. He had yet to speak where Blizzard could hear him. His cutie mark was the image of a green hammer. For some reason, he felt that this little hang-out was a test of some kind.

“Hey, you guys want to go play a game to practice magic?” Regal asked the group. The sibling unicorns ended their tussle and stood up straight and saluted.

“Absolutely!” they exclaimed in sync. Blizzard was admittedly intrigued. Practicing magic sounded cool, as long as he didn’t cause any problems. Merry had seen what happened on Tuesday, but she hadn’t put together that he had caused the funnel cloud to appear. She just recognized that he saved his life, and to be honest, he preferred it that way.

A stack of dirty dishes formed in a collections tray as the group of unicorns departed the mess hall and made their way toward an open practice field meant for hoofball, which wasn’t set to start practicing for another week.

In the distance sat a little shack full of supplies for sports teams for the school. Sports weren’t the greatest attraction of this particular school since academics were what most students came for, but the magical sparring team had an intense rivalry with Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Most of the time, Starswirl Academy lost out, but both teams were always close.

“So practice for magical sparring starts up in about a month,” Regal Virtue began. “Who wants to put in some practice before tryouts?” A murmur of agreement went up from the other four ponies in the group as they all set about doing some basic stretches and mental exercises.

Regal Virtue finished his stretches early and took Blizzard off to the side to talk.

“Hey Blizzard, you’re new here, so I won’t force you to participate if you don’t want to,” he said kindly. Blizzard Warning shook his head confidently.

“No way, it sounds cool! I wanna join.”

Regal smiled at Blizzard’s enthusiasm and directed him to sit down and watch while the others practiced for a bit before he joined. It wasn’t a complicated game, but Regal insisted that he sit out to learn the rules and such.

“Now Blizzard,” Regal began as he stepped out onto the field with Sable while Argent and the green pony faced them on the opposite side. “In magical sparring, you are limited to three basic spells: a knockback beam, a shield spell, and a blinding flash. Any other spells are illegal, as it could give ponies with certain cutie marks unfair advantages. So we’re gonna show you how it’s done!”

All four of the ponies dropped down to a fighting stance, with a fair distance between them. Argent charged as he let out a roar, happy to be in the fray. His horn lit up with a fury as he launched a beam at Regal, who simply sidestepped the shot as he returned his own fire. The green pony reacted quickly, throwing a shield spell in front of Argent, the thin wall protecting him from the beam of light.

Several more vollies of magical energy spurred forth from both sides as they aimed for each other, casting protective shield walls to defend against the opposing onslaught.

Suddenly, a flash burst forth from Sable’s horn and everypony who was looking had their vision white out for about a second. Argent rubbed his eyes to get the lingering light out of his eyes, and when he came out of it, he tumbled to the ground, pushed back by a beam from Regal Virtue.

The green pony fired off another beam headed for Regal, who was exposed from taking aim and blasting his target back. Sable moved in front of Regal to block, but was hit by the beam before she could cast the spell, knocking her into the colt behind her. Argent was sitting out unhappily, as he got knocked out of the agreed upon boundaries. Both Sable and Regal were down, but not out, so they were still in the game, and still targets.

Relentless flashes of light surged from both downed ponies and the green pony covered his eyes and cast a shield spell instinctively. When his sight returned, he saw Regal jumping off of the hooves of Sable and ascending high into the air. Regal’s horn started to glow with energy for his next spell, and the green pony cast another shield spell to guard against the oncoming attack, only the attack came from Sable! It was a diversion! The green pony tumbled back, but regained his hooves in time to be beset by a follow-up attack from Regal, knocking him out of the ring.

“Nice try, Emerald!” Regal shouted out. “Looks like we got you that time. That should be a move we use against Celestia’s school!”

Blizzard looked at the green pony, now knowing him to be Emerald, and saw his scowl. Yikes, he didn’t like losing.

“So, I think that should be a good enough demonstration,” Regal Virtue said with panting breaths. “You want to try?”

Blizzard Warning needed no second invitation. He trotted out onto the field and was placed on a team with Argent Blaze and Sable Promise against Regal and Emerald. When firecracker they were using as a starting whistle popped, Blizzard was immediately knocked out of the ring by a blast from Emerald. Sable and Argent put up a good fight, but Regal and Emerald were in perfect unison, perfectly countering everything the brother and sister could toss at them.

The next several matches went just as badly and Argent Blaze started to get annoyed, even trying to kick Blizzard into gear with somewhat harsh words, only to be shot down, literally, by his sister.

Boom!

Off went the next signal firecracker, and Blizzard began with an immediate shield spell, successfully blocking the quick draw attack from Emerald, who seemed to have a particular penchant for attacking him. Argent and Sable laid down suppressing shots, forcing the other two to adopt a more defensive strategy. Blizzard decided now would be a good time to try a blinding spell. He flashed out light from his horn, but Regal was ready, and turned away.

Emerald threw up his shield while Regal dove to the side, unleashing a blast, knocking Sable out of the arena. The young mare tossed up her hooves in dismay. Even her patience was coming to an end in the face of repeated defeat. Blizzard and Argent pressed on, covering each other.

Both Emerald and Regal nodded to each other as another beam of light bounced off a shield spell in front of them. Two flashes bursted forth and blinded both Argent and Blizzard. But Blizzard Warning kept a cool head as he thought things through. He had seen this just happen! He whispered to his teammate quickly.

“Don’t shield!” he hissed. “Aim for them instead!”

When the light of the flash faded and was replaced by the light of day, Regal was once again in the air as Blizzard fired off a beam of light at Emerald, surprising the green stallion and sending him back across the boundaries. Genuine surprise showed in Regal Virtue’s eyes as Argent’s attack failed to find its mark.

With his teammate down, Regal should have been worried, especially now that Blizzard was starting to get it. The pair fired an onslaught of magic at Regal, who showed off his superior athleticism and training by dodging each shot, and soon managed to start firing his own shots.

His movements were nearly mesmerizing as he perfectly evaded each blast by nothing more than a hair’s breadth. Distracted by his form and expertise, Blizzard ended up on the wrong side of a blast of magic, sending him out of the ring. Argent followed soon after.

Regal Virtue held up a hoof to stop. His team was undefeated in their little scrimmages, but he looked exhausted.

“Whew…” he panted. “I didn’t think that last one would be so close!” Emerald shot a hate-filled glare at Blizzard. He was the only one on his team to even be knocked out once, and Blizzard was the one who did it. The colt was beginning to think Emerald didn’t like him so much.

After a rest period of about ten minutes, the teams were mixed up and Blizzard was paired with Regal and Argent. He still didn’t do to well, but he managed to hold his own fairly well for a new player.

A few more matches later, and they stopped for good. Regal came over to Blizzard Warning to say his goodbyes for the day.

“That was some really good play, dude!” he said. “I hope I can count on you to join the team this year. With a bit of polish, you could be a pretty great asset to the team.”

Blizzard nodded enthusiastically, too tired to form an actual response that involved words. Regal smiled back at him, but his smile faded as he looked over Blizzard Warning’s shoulder.

The group of griffons that seemed to have some hard feelings toward ponies came to the field, a hoofball in one of their claws.

“Hey, ponies. Get off of our field! We’re about to practice, and we don’t need any pointy-headed pansies getting in the way. This is our turf!” the leader said. Regal’s face, still soaked by sweat with his body heaving in exhaustion, turned into a defiant, violent scowl.

“You mangy griffons!” he retorted loudly. “We were leaving anyway, this isn’t your ‘turf’ either. So quit acting like you’re so tough, you’re not impressing anypony.”

The leader griffon’s wings flared out in anger as he scratched at the ground with a talon. He was ready to rumble, and Regal was willing to fight back. Regal’s friends took charge of the situation.

“Not now, Regal, don’t start anything,” Sable said. “They may be dirty, rotten stinkers, but you’re too weak and tired to fight. They’ll hurt you. We should just go.”

She and her brother had to physically restrain the angered Regal Virtue. The griffon leader pounded a claw to his chest, showing his dominance. Regal snarled and gave up, allowing himself to be hauled back by his friends as they exited the field.

Outside of the field, back closer to campus, Regal’s temperament hadn’t improved.

“I swear… next time those griffons try to threaten us, I’ll be ready to stand my ground,” he said distastefully. His friends nodded. “That just sets my nerves on fire! They think that they’re better than us, but ponies have shown time and again that we’re just as good or strong as anything else.”

More agreement from his friends followed. Blizzard went with the flow and nodded his head in agreement. He admired Regal’s passion, and would be willing to help his friend stand up to the griffons, after all, it wasn’t like they were about to try to make friends with him.

“Well,” Blizzard said, doing his best to excuse himself and interrupt the rising heat emanating from Regal. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry. I’m gonna go see if I can find a few of my other friends. See ya later, bye!”

He rushed off without awaiting a response. If he turned around, he would have seen Regal’s contorted face soften into something like a smile emerge. He mumbled under his breath some praise for the young colt.

“Come on guys, let’s go eat.”

Back in the cafeteria, Blizzard slicked back his sweat matted mane, and was slapped on the back by the strong hoof of Double Dose. His back stung like he had just gotten a shot… He winced and a small whimper escaped his lips. Double Dose gave him a look that suggested either pity or amusement. Blizzard couldn’t really tell past his solid expression.

“Nice to see you too,” Blizzard said in a deadpan. “Where were you all day? I didn’t see any of you guys around today. I was out playing on the hoofball field.”

“I’ve been out exploring in the forest with Strata. I’m not sure where Merry Weather or Flathoof were all day, but I found our trip to be rather productive,” Double Dose responded.

“So what did you guys do in the forest?” Blizzard asked, intrigued.

Double Dose opened his mouth to speak when a much higher voice filled the air around them.

“They probably were busy making out all day,” Merry Weather said, coming up from behind Double Dose, earning her an amused expression.

“Well, that’s farther than you would have gotten with me,” he retorted.

The pegasus filly crossed her arms and climbed onto Double Dose’s back. She reclined and made a silly face at Blizzard Warning, who returned it by sticking out his tongue and pulling down the skin below his eye.

“Ha ha, very funny, DD,” she replied. “Come on, I’ve got better stallions to go for than you if I wanted. I’m not that desperate yet.”

“But still pretty desperate…” Double Dose said under his breath into his drink. Merry’s ears perked up and she started to kick at Double Dose’s neck, much to his amusement. While that would definitely hurt Blizzard, Double Dose just always seemed to enjoy the punishment, as if he didn’t feel it.

“Booo!” Merry complained, flitting over to be next to Blizzard. “I don’t like you anymore, now Blizzard’s gonna take your place as my best friend. Too bad, so sad!”

Double Dose feigned distress. In an exaggerated manner, he placed a hoof over his heart.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he said in his best sarcasm.

The two ponies were about to get into a full-on play fight when a misty-eyed Flathoof walked into the cafeteria, smacking his lips together.

That’s right, Flathoof had been missing all day too. Blizzard wondered what he had been up to all day.

“Hey guys…” he managed to get out. “What’s up? I was asleep allll day.” The yellow pegasus let out a huge yawn as his mane fell over his face, covering his eyes. As he got his food and sat down next to Merry, she let out a little squeal.

The filly leapt up from her seat and dove to the other side of Blizzard, pulling up one of his hooves to cover his nose for him while doing the same for herself.

“Ewww!” she exclaimed. “You stink! Did you even shower today!?”

“Nope,” came the expected reply. All the ponies at the table slumped their shoulders in disgust as they scooted down the bench subtly. Flathoof continued to eat undeterred by their reaction.

“Hey, it’s a Saturday, I can be lazy if I want to.”

“No skipping showers!” Merry, Double Dose, and Blizzard yelled at him simultaneously, the combined force of their voices knocking him over.

Much of the remaining meal was spent in silence until all the food was gone and the dishes were stacked. The four ponies were left to talk casually.

“So…” Blizzard began. “Where’s Strata? Why didn’t she show?”

Merry began to bounce her eyebrows at the colt suggestively at the mention of Strata’s name, but before she could open her mouth, Double Dose did the favor of covering it for her, electing to provide an actual answer.

“She wanted to study and headed back to her room,” Double Dose said matter-of-factly, completely ignoring the unhappy filly he was gagging.

“Oh…” Blizzard said disappointedly. He knew that they couldn’t all be together all the time, just like he had been with Regal and his friends, but he felt like he had missed out on her company too. “Well, maybe we can all meet up tomorrow and do something together! The five of us!”

Double Dose looked to Flathoof, who slowly nodded while Merry Weather finally managed to defeat the offending hoof over her mouth.

“Yes, yes, yes! Let’s go swimming!” she shouted. Flathoof looked completely disheartened by the idea.

“Noooo, I don’t want a bath!” he whined. Blizzard’s mind was officially made up.

“Yeah, we’re going now,” he said, narrowing his eyes at his roommate. Considering how much that pony ran around collecting his ‘notes,’ it surprised Blizzard that he’d be too lazy to shower and actively fight it on weekends. Apparently, a few ground rules needed to be set out. Blizzard wasn’t a terribly clean pony, but he at least respected hygiene.

Double Dose seemed to be pleased by the idea. Knowing him though, he would probably just end up sitting on the sidelines rather than get wet himself.

Merry Weather smiled brightly at the (mostly) agreement going around the table.

“Awesome!” she shouted. “Everypony grab your swimsuits, I’ll tell Strata when I get back to the dormitory. We’ll meet by the entrance of the school at about ten. See you there!”

The pegasus zipped out of the cafeteria in a purple and blue streak. Swimsuits? Well that’d be interesting. He had managed to learn how to swim, but something gave him the feeling that Merry just wanted to see the colts in swim trunks.

For now though, the problem of a passed out roommate took precedence. Seriously, Flathoof had fallen asleep right onto the table, leaving a puddle of drool for some unfortunate custodian pony to clean up.

Double Dose bid farewell as he went off to his own dormitory, claiming that he had to go look for his swimsuit before he went to bed, leaving Blizzard alone with the sleeping pegasus colt. He debated leaving him there and going back by himself, but ultimately decided against it.

Blizzard tried poking at the colt, but he barely even registered the existence of life beyond steady breathing. After trying to carry him for about five minutes, Blizzard lost his balance and his friend crashed to the ground, still not breaking his slumber, and Blizzard Warning resorted to pulling him by the tail.

He’d better not be like this tomorrow…

After twenty minutes of dragging Flathoof by the tail, he finally arrived in the dormitory and threw him into the shower. The yellow colt’s coat was now smudged with dirt stains from his little trip, and Blizzard smiled evilly as he turned on the cold water and left, locking the door to the bedroom.

“Whyhyhyhy!” a distraught scream rang out from the bathroom.

Blizzard smiled to himself and laid down for bed, patting himself on the back mentally for a job well done.

Going With the Flow

Chapter 7: Going With the Flow
Aptitude
MLP:FiM
By: Kestrel

Both Blizzard and Flathoof departed from their bedroom in the morning having showered and prepared themselves by dressing in their swimwear. Despite having more clothes on than usual, Blizzard felt more exposed as a result, possibly because it drew more attention to the tone of his flank and made the extra point that he wasn’t wearing anything else.

Mares looked their way, with Flathoof giving winks and waves, turning them away. His reputation as a somewhat creepy, extremely observant pony disturbed ponies, and Blizzard could understand. Even though Flathoof thankfully scared away those ponies in short order, Blizzard still felt hot under the skin whenever somepony looked at him in his swimwear.

They had a quick breakfast consisting of some toast and jam and began to wait by the front of the school. Within a few minutes, Merry Weather and Strata came dressed in their own swimwear. Both mares looked exceedingly cute in their swimsuits, hugging their flanks tightly. Blizzard quickly closed his hanging mouth before anypony noticed him staring. As his gaze drifted back to the mares, he noticed one of them had a beach ball.

“Yay! A beach ball!” Flathoof exclaimed. “This’ll be awesome! Colts against fillies!” Merry growled and Strata flattened out her face.

“Wow, what a gentlecolt…” Strata remarked.

“That’s so unfair!” Merry Weather complained. “You guys have Double Dose! He’ll be able to spike the ball like nopony’s business!”

“Too bad! Already called it!” Flathoof exclaimed, not missing a single beat in his happy attitude.

At this rate, Blizzard was hoping Double Dose knew CPR, because he wasn’t sure Flathoof would get out of this venture without some mild drowning. His train of thought went off the tracks as the last member of the group marched toward them.

Double Dose was all decked out and ready to have a day on the water. He was wearing his swimming trunks, goggles, snorkeling mask, and had packed at least four different sunscreens. He also had an umbrella with a cooler for drinks, a beach chair, a book, and finally a rubber ducky personal floatation device.

Merry Weather and Strata tried their hardest not to laugh at the serious, no-nonsense stallion carrying so much swim items. Especially the rubber ducky ring! Seriously? Merry Weather couldn’t hold back and flopped onto her back laughing while Blizzard couldn’t stop a hysterical tear from flowing out of one of his eyes.

“Well,” Double Dose said through a full mouth. “Are yew gonna stand dere laffing like a village idiot, or are we gonna go?” Merry Weather had started to hiccup as her laughter hit an uneven pace, rendering her unable to speak.

“Y-y-yes!” Strata answered, desperately trying and failing to contain her laughter. “Come on everypony.”

Blizzard offered to help lighten Double Dose’s load, but the earth pony refused, not wanting anypony to mess with all of his stuff. The smaller colt shook his head thoroughly entertained by his friend’s antics.

After a small trek of about ten minutes or so, the group had to take a little hike over a nature trail to reach a part of the river that flowed slowly into a large natural river basin which was equipped with a nice little wooden dock for fishing. Everypony laid out their towels and rushed the water while Double Dose took his time carefully setting up his beachhead base.

Nearly ten minutes of playing in the water and floundering around later, and Blizzard stole a glance at Double Dose, who had succeeded in perfectly setting up his area. The beach umbrella stood proudly above the beach chair with the cooler resting beside it. He laid his own towel over the chair before slathering on some sunscreen and putting his book down.

Finally, with the ritual complete, Double Dose started to charge toward the water, but instead of running into it like the rest had, he barrelled for the dock and ran speedily across it, jumping at the end and tucking in his legs.

As his body broke the water, large waves rose up high and dwarfed the exposed heads of the other ponies in the water. Merry and Flathoof instinctively tried to fly to escape the deluge, but with their wings soaked, they couldn’t fly anywhere. The water came down and the four ponies were washed away several feet.

Coming out of the water left Blizzard’s mane sticking to the front of his face as he broke into a huge smile. That was awesome!

“Nice cannonball, DD!” Blizzard congratulated the blood red mass of mane that was visible on the other pony. Double Dose smiled before getting blasted by a wave of water from Merry Weather.

“It’s on!” she shouted. “Water fight!” Blizzard tried his best to backpaddle out of the ensuing chaos to get a more tactical view of the battle before joining, but he was too slow and got hit with a splash from Strata.

Water flew relentlessly from all parties as Blizzard tried his best to target the other four while avoiding getting splashed. Merry was having an epic duel against Flathoof, with both pegasi using their wings as extra tools to lop water at one another, until Double Dose came up from under the water and grabbed Merry, tilting her over and letting her fall back into the water.

After a moment, she floundered back up to the surface, coughing up some water she swallowed and mercilessly assaulted Double Dose with waves upon waves of water, ignoring the brunt of attacks from Flathoof. Blizzard was doing his best to remain undetected, by ingeniously sinking his head under the water to where nopony could see him, except for the white horn protruding like a periscope.

Strata caught onto his presence before he could surprise her. She decided to stop him in his tracks by waving a hoof underwater right where his nose was, forcing water up his nostrils. The startled colt broke the surface of the water sputtering for air to come back through his nose while he breathed from his mouth.

The unicorn filly took the chance to take advantage of his exposed state and clung to his back, riding him around while he flailed. She made a big deal about besting him, flaunting her victory by waving to the others and cheering. Eventually, she lost her balance under the flailing colt and was sent beneath the water.

Soon enough, the water war died down and Double Dose was floating around in his rubber ducky floatation device, continuing to earn laughs from his classmates and friends. Though laughing ceased as he produced the beach ball and tossed it up high.

The ball fell toward Merry Weather, who spiked it hard, smacking Flathoof in the face and rebounding to Strata, who bumped it back to Double Dose. Receiving the ball again, Double Dose gave the ball a light hit, easily sending it to Blizzard, who barely reached it in time to send it back toward Flathoof.

Flathoof was ready this time and swiped at the ball with a wing, sending water into Merry’s face as the beach ball made its way to Strata.

Splashes, laughs, and the sound of hooves hitting the ball rang through the area for what felt like an hour. At one point, the game of catch had turned into a focused, continued volley. The group had managed to keep the ball in the air for over sixty passes before messing up.

Later, they tried to play a makeshift game of water volleyball, though it didn’t last long. Double Dose was playing referee while Strata and Merry played against Blizzard and Flathoof. The boys were awful, plainly said, having no teamwork and not a great deal of accuracy.

That said, Strata and Merry weren’t much better. They played a better game, but they didn’t have an overwhelming team presence either. Every time Strata tried to set up a team play, Merry spiked the ball hard to the other side. Flathoof and Blizzard yelped each time the ball sped toward them, yielding a point for the mares. Sadly, the game had to be called off early after a particularly unlucky incident involving Merry’s penchant for spiking the ball.

After a particularly heavy spike from Merry, Blizzard hadn’t been fast enough to get out of the way and he cringed, his horn skewering the ball. On impact, the ball let out a dying squeak of expelled air. Though disappointed at first, the other ponies found humor in the accident since it involved Blizzard now toting around a multicolored horn sock.

The sun now hung high in the midday sky, coaxing the mares to leave the water and set out their towels for sunbathing. Flathoof and Blizzard continued to swim for a little more while Double Dose lazily floated in his innertube reading his book.

Soon enough, Blizzard was ready to leave the water for a little bit, wanting to snack on some of the food they had brought. Once on the shore, he wiped himself clean of the water for the most part, letting the sun air dry him. With a rumbling stomach, he opened the cooler and carefully selected a fresh banana and peeled it. Taking a satisfying bite, he slumped into the beach chair that Double Dose had brought, and he didn’t seem to mind, not taking an eye off of his book.

“Hey Blizzard!” Merry called over to him. Blizzard looked over to her with his cheeks still stuffed full of banana. She waved a hoof over at him with a contented smile. Clearly, the sun was doing a lot of good for her usually rambunctious personality. “Can you go grab the sunscreen?”

Blizzard nodded and swallowed the banana he was chewing. Fishing around for the sunscreen took longer than expected, being beneath a seemingly endless pile of random beach items. Just how much stuff did Double Dose pack!? Good to see he had managed to pack a first aid kit equipped with biowaste bags. How thoughtful… More bandages, a flashlight, some glorious food, another bottle of antiseptic— aha! Sunscreen!

Waving the sunscreen around proudly in a hoof, he trotted over to the prone form of Merry Weather. The pegasus had almost nodded off to sleep when he arrived.

“Here’s your sunscreen, Merry Weather,” he said with a smile, holding the bottle out gingerly. Merry returned the gesture with a yawn.

“Blizzard…” she moaned. “I’m so tired. Can you rub it on me please?”

The young colt’s mind broke as his face began to feel very hot, and not from the warmth of the sun shining down. He cursed his snow white coat as the blush showed through like a ketchup stain. Merry Weather giggled softly and wiggled her swimsuit clad plot at the stallion, egging him on further.

Blizzard had to swallow his nerves to just move a single step. He never responded vocally to her request, but his answer was pretty clear. Merry turned her head away and let out a sheepish grin as she felt Blizzard rub some of the cool lotion on her back, doing his best to coat the filly’s body without getting too adventurous.

Flathoof floated by on a log that he had found floating in the lake, followed by a slowly spinning Double Dose still reading his medical drama book.

“Oooh, looks like somepony’s getting extra friendly with Merry Weather today!” he jeered, forcing Blizzard to turn away and blush even harder. The moment he turned back, he still saw Flathoof sniggering at him until Double Dose was right next to him.

Putting a hoof on the log, Double Dose gave it a mighty twist, spinning Flathoof around on the log, coming intermittently in and out of the water while he held on for dear life. The earth pony never even looked up from his page.

“Let the kids have fun,” he said, reprimanding the other colt.

“They’re only a year younger than you…” Flathoof replied, showing his best sarcasm as he clung to the log which had stopped rolling.

However, Flathoof had gotten the message and left the filly and colt on the shore to their own devices.

Turning back to Merry, he rubbed more sunscreen on her, coating the same exact areas as before. Merry huffed at his reluctance, but didn’t actually say anything, understanding his predicament in a rare showing of mercy. Suddenly, she flopped over on her back, exposing her belly.

“Well, I think you got my back well enough, so get my other side, Blizzard.”

Instead of the blush that had been provoked each time he had rubbed the sun lotion into her skin, he returned her request with a deadpanned look of dread. Great, there was more?

As he rubbed the sunscreen into her belly, her smile increased in length and her tongue started to loll out and one of her hind legs started to kick out, reminding Blizzard strangely of a dog.

The moment he finished, he threw the sunscreen bottle into the sand near Double Dose’s chair and dove straight into the water, wanting to find a nonexistent piece of ice to camouflage himself with.

A mess of blue and white mane was all that was visible to the other ponies as Merry Weather yelled out to him.

“Thank you, Blizzard!” she bellowed from the shore. “I loved your massage, you’re really skilled with your hooves!” She was doing her utmost to embarrass him, and it was working.

Even Double Dose managed to look up from his book and cast a withering glare at him before going back to dutifully reading and floating around. Flathoof bounced his eyebrows up and down.

Blizzard sank further into the water, completely submerging himself beneath the current. Suddenly, an idea came to him to shift attention off of him. He broke the water with a small gasp.

“Hey, where’d Strata go off to?” he asked. Everypony looked about, but she was nowhere to be found.

Blizzard and Double Dose agreed that they’d go off looking for her while the others stayed behind in case she came back.

Sopping wet, Blizzard shook his coat out, drenching Double Dose. Not skipping a beat, he promptly wiped himself off with his towel and then wound it up, whipping the younger colt’s flank sharply with the now heavy towel.

Blizzard winced and threw a hurt look at Double Dose as they trotted into the forest surrounding the riverbed.

A short hike later, all uphill, the now wheezing Blizzard climbed a ledge with Double Dose’s assistance, the earth pony spryly jumping up afterwards. From their vantage point, they could make out a light blue mass in the distance, near a large rock.

Both colts ran up to the lone filly who was digging around for something.

“Strata! Why’re you way out here?” Double Dose called out. “We’ve been looking for a while, the others are gonna get worried about you. You shouldn’t wander off on your own.”

The unicorn turned around, hiding part of her face with her braided mane. She bent down and picked up a crystalline structure. It sparkled with a dull sheen in the light.

“Look,” she said. “Quartz crystals. It’s not a relic or anything, but it’s still a cool find, right?”

Blizzard cocked his head inquisitively, trying to figure out what was so special about a shiny rock, while Double Dose stared at her, waiting for an answer.

The first-year slipped the crystal structure into her saddlebag, shifting her weight slightly to her right, causing her to tip slightly. She blew her mane out of her eyes and looked off to the side, grinding a hoof into the ground.

“Listen Double Dose,” she began. “Can I talk to you about it alone?”

Blizzard suddenly felt hurt as he was singled out to be excluded from a conversation. Double Dose sensed his attitude as he gave him a pat on the back, passing off his sunglasses to him.

As the two ponies retreated behind the rock formation, Blizzard felt extremely curious, and a little self-conscious. He really, really wanted to eavesdrop, but decided against it. If it was important, he’d know in time, or just ask later.

He could overhear some faint snippets of phrases, but not enough to truly piece together a coherent thought. Overwhelmed by curiosity, he crept closer, keeping his noise to a minimum by stepping on flat ground that didn’t have leaves or sticks littered across it.

“So again, it’s just that I still feel a bit out of place still,” he heard Strata say.

“Look,” he heard the strong, deep voice of the colt say. “You don’t have to do everything everypony else does. That includes what Merry wants. Do what makes you comfortable.”

“Right… she’s been so nice to me, but today after we got out of the water, she wanted to talk to me about colts… and… I don’t really want to, it’s embarrassing!”

“It just means she trusts you. But if you need to have some personal space from topics like that, you should tell her.”

“Thanks, DD.”

Rocks and gravel shifted on the other side of the rock wall as the other two ponies finished conversing. Blizzard panicked as he swiftly and silently moved back to his position and took up a pose as if he had been twiddling his hooves the whole time, staring in the other direction.

Once the noise of two sets of hooves came closer, he turned around, pretending to have just heard them coming.

“Hey guys, what were ya talking about?” he questioned innocently. Despite having heard a lot of it, there were still parts of the conversation he had missed and wanted to know. Asking couldn’t hurt, right?

“Nothing,” Strata answered quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Double Dose gave a head motion to Blizzard for him to get up and follow them. The three ponies started making their way back to the lake.

At the shore, both Flathoof and Merry Weather were having a little conversation while looking at things floating on the water. They turned around as the search group returned. Merry flew up to Strata and hugged her, asking about where she had been. She covered by saying she got bored and wanted to look for stuff, pulling the crystal out of her saddlebag. That was a lie, well, only kind of, but Blizzard knew the truth… or some of it.

Merry Weather gasped at the sparkling rock, picking it up and holding it up to the more intense sunlight out in the open.

“It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. “Take me with you next time! Maybe I can find a ruby or something.” Soon enough, Merry was lost in her own dreams of luxury and fairytale.

The fillies started talking like as if Strata never had a problem. Blizzard smiled as they looked so happy, until he was pulled back by Double Dose’s hoof.

Blizzard only put up token resistance as he was taken away from the rest of the ponies.

“Hey…” Double Dose began. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop on other ponies’ conversations.”

Aghast that he had figured it out so fast, Blizzard’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

“What!? How the— How’d you know?” he asked in disbelief. Double Dose’s serious face melted into a wry smile.

“I didn’t. You just told me.”

Now it was Blizzard’s turn to exchange expressions with Double Dose, both colts having on the opposite expression of their usual.

“Look, just try to leave things like that to solve themselves,” Double Dose suggested.

After nodding his head in acceptance and agreement, Double Dose let Blizzard go.

With the sun setting fast in the sky, the five friends made a point of packing up quickly and heading to dinner. Just as when they had arrived, the shore was totally clean, with all evidence of their being there loaded up on their current beast of burden: Double Dose. Flathoof, Merry Weather, and Strata all walked ahead while Blizzard and Double Dose lagged behind.

It was hard not to try to listen to that conversation. He had just been so curious! But… if Strata was feeling lonely, then maybe they should all do something special for her. That would be really cool.

Laying Low and Finding Home

Chapter 2: Laying Low and Finding Home
Aptitude
MLP: FiM
By: Kestrel

Blizzard had managed to calm down on the walk to campus from the station. He fell in with a bunch of other ponies who had been shepherded up as other first years. He was slightly older than most of them, but he saw a few others he assumed were also transfers. The other ponies in the crowd were talking amongst their own friends, leaving Blizzard to just keep his mouth shut as they trekked to the school.

The campus was beautiful. There were flowers of bright hues and many overlooks that stood above the river where a few students had set up a picnic. Starswirl Academy was situated just a short distance away from Baltimare. Aparently lots of students traveled to Baltimare on weekends to go hit up the town or just go swimming in Horseshoe Bay.

Being in an already isolated and safe area of Equestria, Starswirl Academy lacked gates or walls. All it used were some ornate fencing around the perimeter of the property. Blizzard could see multiple buildings. Some of which, he assumed were dormitories, since he’d be living in one.

The leader of the little high-speed ‘tour’ lead the first year ponies into the main building. Inside was spacious, with the main hall extending up three stories with stairs flanking either wall and hallways cutting down to lead to classrooms. Instead of going through one of those directions, the group went straight into a pair of double doors at the back, leading into a big auditorium.

A few more adult ponies were stationed inside, waiting for the new students to arrive. Each and every one of the them were quickly ushered to a seat as a light flickered on the stage and shone upon a lone podium. Once everypony was all settled, a tall, confident looking orange unicorn stallion walked into the room, eyeing all the students amassed with a studious look. His cutie mark was that of an astrolabe, pointing fearlessly toward the ceiling.

Once the stallion had managed to make it to the podium, he got up and struck the microphone attached to the stand. The resulting feedback made all the colts and fillies cringe and cover their ears. The unicorn’s face broke into a smile.

“Glad to see you’re all awake!” he yelled into the microphone. The ponies in their seats continued to hold their hooves over their ears.

“Now,” he began again at a lower volume. “I want to welcome all you first year students to our lovely Starswirl Academy! My name is Keen Insight, and I’ll be your headmaster for the next few years of your lives.” Blizzard assumed that it would be alright to let his hooves down and just listen normally, without the grimace of pain on his face.

“As you all know, this school was founded about four hundred years ago in honor of the great wizard Starswirl. He was the absolute greatest magical mind of his time, a true paragon of his talent. And to follow in his daunting hoofsteps, we have all invited you here to share in the education that will help you reach your fullest potential.”

Blizzard’s mind drifted away from Keen Insight’s speech and to his cutie mark. This is what his parents had sent him away for, guidance. Could he really find the answers to his problems here? He had his cutie mark, but he hoped dearly that it didn’t mean what it had seemed to for the past few years.

“I guess I can start with a little about myself,” he said. “I was once a student here too, and I came to learn how to best practice my talent. I had thought that I was meant for being a cartographer, mapping out new lands like Daring Do might in one of those books. But after a while of studying, I was helping my friends, and I figured out that that wasn’t what my cutie mark actually meant at all. This astrolabe on my flank wasn’t pointing toward a destination, it was pointing to my friends!”

Keen Insight stepped down from the podium and raised his voice accordingly to be heard without the aid of the microphone. He propped himself up, leaning on the podium, taking a broad sweep of the students.

“Just like what I’m feeling right now…” he mused in a slightly quieter voice. “You’re all new students and new friends. And I want to help you succeed. Let the teachers here help guide you on your journey to greatness. Like an astrolabe, I will point your way to your place in the heavens...”

All the colts and fillies gasped and murmured in awe. It was quite a big promise, but with a reputation like Starswirl Academy’s, it wasn’t too farfetched.

“...so I invite you to join me on a journey to discover your place and join Starswirl up in that night sky, painted with the feats of so many great ponies over the centuries. On behalf of all the staff here at our great academy, welcome!”

The colts and fillies clapped their hooves together feverishly, Blizzard joining in. This headmaster pony was pretty charismatic.

“And speaking of Starswirl…” he started again. Blizzard’s breath caught in his throat. Uh oh, here it comes. “I want to share with all of you that we will be having a Starswirl family member attending classes this year!” Now all the ponies made a very audible gasp with some outright cheers from some of the more studious ponies.

Keen Insight waved a hoof to quiet everypony down. It took twenty full seconds for them to finally restore silence to the auditorium.

“So look left and look right, little ponies. One of your new friends might just be that pony. So let’s do our best to make Starswirl’s name proud!” he announced loudly. “Thank you everypony!”

The headmaster leapt off the stage and exited through one of the back doors as the rest of the ponies were herded out the way they came in. Gossip was ablaze through the crowd as they shuffled through. Blizzard casually conversed with some of the ponies who talked to him, but he generally kept his silence as he was a little nervous about the others discovering his secret.

Back in the main hall, the new students were being put into lines organized by school year to receive their schedules and room placement. Blizzard was put into line with a couple other second year students. The majority of new students were first years, with the other lines being markedly shorter.

It didn’t take very long for Blizzard to get to the end of the line and receive his schedule and placement. He was placed in his basic unicorn class first things on Mondays once a week for the first month or so of class. His practical spells class was in the morning later on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Then was his interspecies relations class every day after lunch followed by health. Finally, his weather class met twice a week for three hours.

Searching further down the official documents he had received gave Blizzard the location of his new home for the year: Enchantment Hall. All of the halls were co-ed, but had rooms designated to a specific gender. Each of the halls were based off of a type of magic: Enchantment, Conjuration, Illusion, and Animation. Blizzard would be sharing a two pony room. Rooms were arranged by year, so his roommate would be in his second year as well.

Each of the lines formed into smaller groups centered around one of four staff ponies, holding up signs for each of the halls. Blizzard trotted over to join the group going to the Enchantment Hall. Once all the students had conglomerated in their huddles, the ponies holding signs rounded everypony up and started the trek to each hall.

“Alright everypony, how do you like campus so far?” asked the mare leading Blizzard’s group. A resounding cheer went out among all the colts and fillies. “Good! You all will be staying in Enchantment Hall, it’s the second oldest dormitory of the school, right after the Conjuration Hall.” The mare giggled out loud. “Don’t worry though, they’re all up to date on all the amenities you could need.”

The group exited the main hall and took a left, heading up a small hill that overlooked most of the campus. While it wasn’t particularly steep, the hill was tall due to how long the incline was. The dormitory sat sleepily on the hill. It was fairly close to the rest of the campus, but it was far enough away for silence to reign. It looked to be a good place for stargazing or just studying.

The building itself was a genuine mansion. It was huge and ornate, and looked like a noble pony’s dwelling.

“This dormitory was actually once the headmaster’s quarters, until the student population of the school increased enough to warrant a new building,” the guide said. “Instead of building a new one, the headmistress at the time decided to vacate the house and renovate it into a new dormitory, opting to find another temporary home while the current headmaster’s house was being built.”

Some of the students murmured in awe at the sacrifice of that pony. This place looked amazing! It was a two story home with windows lining the entirety of the long property. It had been renovated, so there were more rooms in it than there ever used to be. According to the guide, the kitchen wasn’t ever removed, and the academy employed staff there to cook breakfasts for the residents, a perk that none of the other halls had.

“Well, here we are!” she exclaimed excitedly. “This is your new home, everypony. You should have no trouble finding your rooms. Your sheets should tell you where to go. The hall’s kitchen, dining and recreation areas are all on the first floor to the left, the right leads to the first residential wing, while the entire second floor is all rooms. Good luck, I can’t wait to see you all in class this year!”

As soon as she finished her piece, the new students cheered and promptly bull-rushed the foyer, stopping to look around at the balcony of the second floor with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Some of the ponies bolted straight to the recreational area, not concerned with going to their room and claiming a bed. Blizzard thought opposite. He took a glance at his schedule and room assignment sheet and saw that his room was 206. He made a break for the stairs and dashed to his room. Taking the key from the sheet in his magical grip, he tore it off of the adhesive and turned the knob of his door, entering the homely setting.

His dormitory room wasn’t large, but it would be more than comfortable. It had a small entryway with a coat rack for when it got rainy, and another door leading to the bathroom. He entered the actual bedroom to find that the bed nearest to the window had thankfully not been taken. Though, the other bed was already set up. And oddly enough… so was his. The staff from Starswirl Academy had said they would deliver his stuff to his room, but they wouldn’t open any of it. Blizzard’s ears pinned back to his head in annoyance.

Clearly, somepony had gotten a bit too comfortable with their job and decided to snoop around. Blizzard turned and began to storm out the door. He collided with a bright yellow stallion with a striking brown mane, only to be matched by the vividness of his green eyes.

“Hey there!” he greeted Blizzard. Blizzard Warning fell back onto his newly made bed with a startled yelp. The strange new pony tipped his head up and laughed. “You must be Blizzard Warning, the Starswirl family member. It’s a pleasure,” he said with a smirk.

Blizzard suddenly felt very uncomfortable. This new pony already knew who he was and… who he was. How did he know? The other stallion closed the door and locked it, making sure nopony could intrude.

“How the heck did you know that!?” Blizzard exclaimed, fully on his guard. The other pony just cocked his head and grinned.

“I know lots of things. Ever since I received the name of my roommate for this year, I just had to know more,” he exclaimed. “You see, I’m studying detective work. My name is Flathoof.”

Flathoof, huh? That explained a lot. For all he knew, this colt could have been following him since he left Hollow Shades. And looking around, all of Blizzard’s stuff was arranged in a messy and disorganized way, almost as if he had done it himself.

“Don’t worry, I’m just really good at what I do. I took a look at your file by uh… ‘accessing’ the documents on students here. I saw the name of your dad and knew who you were by association. I mean, who wouldn’t know of the hero Lodestar?” he said, attempting to dissuade Blizzard’s fear. Blizzard Warning’s face suddenly soured. Oh, so he was in a room with a detective colt who bordered on the line of a criminal stalker. Splendid.

“Well, I guess you already know everything about me… so keep it to yourself, okay?” he said. “I don’t want everypony to know who I am. I don’t wanna be famous like that.”

Flathoof put his hoof up to his chin, rubbing it in thought. He flittered around unevenly as he seemed to weigh a few options in his head.

“Personally, it isn’t your bloodline that has me most interested in you,” he admitted. “I read up on how you got in. It wasn’t because of your academic ability, right? Let’s just say you have a certain… talent, eh Harbinger?”

Blizzard’s blood froze in his veins. This pony knew way more than he was comfortable with. His ears flopped down and his face broke into a heavy frown.

Flathoof noticed the sudden shift in his roommate’s attitude and his expression morphed to that of shock. Whoops, he hadn’t quite meant to make an impression quite like that.

“Woah, hey now! Sorry about that!” he blurted out. “I really should stick my hoof in my mouth sometimes! Don’t worry, I actually think it’s pretty cool stuff!” Now the yellow pegasus was waving his hooves around frantically, his eyes closed in mock strain. Blizzard’s ears perked up. Cool? Nopony had ever described his penchant for wanton destruction as ‘cool.’

“Really…?” he questioned softly. Flathoof nodded vigorously.

“Yeah, dude!” he exclaimed. “I read up why you came here, and I believe in your mission one-hundred percent. I wanna help you. It’ll be like a mystery that the great Flathoof can help you solve! Don’t worry though, if you want, I’ll keep your secrets.”

Blizzard sighed unhappily. Secrets… how far could he trust this stallion to keep those? He didn’t want to be ostracized like he was back home.

“Tell you what… I already know about you, probably more than you’d prefer,” he admitted sheepishly. Blizzard aimed a sharp glare at Flathoof and nodded. “I’ll tell you about me!”

Blizzard decided that it would be rude to leave and might anger the pony who already held so much information he didn’t want to be shared. It wasn’t exactly blackmail, and Flathoof seemed to be actually pretty nice, albeit a little creepy, but Blizzard didn’t want to take any chances, so he stayed seated and listened.

“I come from Fillydelphia,” he started. “And as you can see…” he flashed his cutie mark of a magnifying glass. “I’m destined to become a great detective. You see, it all started when I was at my orphanage and the matron was so so sad because somepony had apparently stolen a bunch of money that Canterlot had sent it to help feed the orphans. Well… she didn’t tell me, but I found out.

“I mean, seriously? Who would steal from orphans? So I did all that I could, I snooped around my home and talked to all the ponies at school and around town. I also tapped into a few of the criminal records at the police station, also without permission.”

Blizzard suddenly felt like as if he’d be a wanted pony if he started hanging out with this one. But he had to admit, it was a strangely interesting story.

“I did a lot of investigation regarding the identities of all the orphans, our matron and all the potential adopters of that month. It turns out that one of the potential adopters had a criminal background, and I spent the next week gathering evidence. Being a little colt at the time, and a blank flank at that, I didn’t really feel up to confronting the criminal, so I brought my evidence to the police. At first they laughed me off.”

Blizzard nodded once more. Nopony would have believed him either if he brought criminal charges against a random pony when he was nothing more than a blank flank.

“But my evidence was irrefutable!” Flathoof exclaimed. “And the police ponies were forced to believe me. And it turned out I was right! I was given back the money for our orphanage and even given a special award from the police! It was then that my cutie mark appeared, and I knew what I was going to do with the rest of my life from that point on.”

Flathoof concluded and gave a bow, dipping his right wing low. Blizzard clopped his hooves together a few times, giving the apparently attention-starved other stallion some applause for his story. Blizzard once again felt the stirrings of jealousy in him. Another colt who knew how to use his talent and what he’d do with it.

“See?” Flathoof said. “Now you have my life’s story too, and I’ve got yours. No hard feelings?" He nervously reached out a hoof to shake, hoping that his actions had garnered a bit more respect rather than fear. Blizzard tentatively reached out and shook it.

“Great!” Flathoof said. “We’ll be great friends! I just know it!” Blizzard’s mind crashed. Friends? Again, so soon? It had been one crazy day for sure. Hugged by a filly who wanted to be his friend along with a colt who said he did despite not sounding the least bit thrilled and now having this strange pegasus adopt him as a friend. And yet Flathoof was the orphan, not him!

Flathoof flew out the door before Blizzard Warning could respond. Blizzard just rubbed his forehead slowly with a hoof. He had a sudden headache and wanted to lay down and take a nap. But his stomach cried out, telling him that it had gotten late and had yet to eat dinner. So Blizzard took a look at his schedule for moving day. It had one more event on it left, the opening banquet.

That must have been what Flathoof had rushed out to go to. The banquet would be in the common grounds out near the Starswirl Building, the main hall. There would be an all-you-can-eat buffet open for all students and staff.

Blizzard’s stomach growled once more, and Blizzard darted out the door as well.

By the time that Blizzard had reached the banquet, night had fallen. Lightning bugs were out and about, bathing the darkened landscape in a soft glow. Luna’s blanket of stars and the moon were shining down on Equestria. The weather was warm and there was a nice breeze blowing, all in all, a perfect evening for a picnic!

Blizzard approached the buffet table and piled his plate high with hayburgers, carrots and radishes, an apple turnover, celery, a cucumber sandwich, and a scoop of ice cream. He also picked up one of the many glasses of fruit juice on the table, carrying all of his food to a nearby bench.

With all the glorious food situated and his stomach practically eating itself from anticipation, Blizzard rubbed his hooves together and started tucking away into his food. It wasn’t the greatest food ever, but it beat his old school’s food by a mile. He was so enraptured with filling his stomach that he didn’t notice somepony come up behind him. Two hooves were thrown over his eyes and he flailed in fright.

“Guess who…” came a sing-song voice and a giggle. It didn’t take him long to figure it out, especially with the constant wind blowing on him in spurts.

“Is it Merry Weather?” he asked. The pony behind him removed her hooves and crossed them over her chest, huffing at how quickly he figured it out.

“Awww… you’re no fun…” she complained. He laughed out loud, and the purple pegasus giggled with him. “So how are you? Did you get comfy at your dorm?”

“Uh, yeah, it was great!” he half-lied. He was still recovering from the extreme invasion of privacy from Flathoof to be honest. “I’m staying in the Enchantment Hall. It’s pretty nice, and I even got the bed closest to the window!”

“Awesome!” the filly cried. “I’m staying in the Animation Building. It’s the newest one they’ve got, and it’s amaaazing! So did you meet your roommate? Who is it? Do you like him?” she asked, firing off questions.

“Yeah, I did, his name is Flathoof, and he’s… interesting,” Blizzard said, nodding after answering each question. Merry Weather suddenly backed up sharply.

“Did you say Flathoof?” she asked. Blizzard nodded in the affirmative. “That guy is kinda… kooky.” She started fiddling with her cotton candy colored blue and pink mane. Blizzard furrowed an eyebrow, he knew this already. “He knows like… everything about everypony. It’s kinda scary actually. He was in a few of my classes last year. He’s pretty nice, and uses his powers for good, but I have to admit it’s sort of unnerving.” Blizzard nodded and took a drink out of his juice.

Suddenly, a pair of hooves flew over her eyes this time. Blizzard hacked and choked on his juice as he saw the same yellow pegasus stallion that had told him his life story just a half hour ago.

“Guess who…” Flathoof said in a deep and low voice, perfectly matching Double Dose’s tone. Merry Weather put her hooves on her hips.

“Right, cause you could ever fool anypony, Double Dose,” she said snarkily. The hooves left her eyes and she turned around to look right into the face of Flathoof from less than a nose’s length away.

“Hi Merry Weather,” he said simply.

Merry screamed and launched herself into Blizzard. His cup flew right out of his hooves and he barely managed to catch it with his magic before it landed on the approaching form of Double Dose, the real one this time. Merry Weather clutched hard onto Blizzard as she pointed an accusing hoof at Flathoof.

“Don’t do that!” she screamed. Flathoof just laughed victoriously.

“I heard my name and I came running,” he answered nonchalantly. “How are you?”

Merry Weather huffed out a sigh and turned to face Blizzard, ready to say a snide remark before she noticed his raging blush. She groaned and smacked Blizzard playfully with one of her wings, causing him to lose focus on his magic. His cup, which had returned close to him dropped out of the air and onto the head of Double Dose.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked disinterestedly as his blood-red mane was dripping with the punch. Despite being recently drenched in beverage, his mood didn’t seem any different from his stoic expression on the train. Blizzard wondered whether he held his anger on the inside or simply didn’t care.

Now it was Merry Weather’s turn to blush. She jumped off of Blizzard, pushing off of his stomach, leaving him gasping from the expulsion of air, leaving him coughing and gasping now that the air had been effectively knocked out of him.

“No!” she fussed.

“Merry, Merry, Merry,” the third year earth pony remarked. “Going for the new kids when they don’t know anypony else. Smart.”

She fired forward from where she was hovering and punched her hooves into Double Dose’s side, knocking him over. He winced in pain as he hit the grass, but he still managed to break into a smile and stick out his tongue. Merry blushed once more, her face becoming a reddened patch on her purple coat.

“Hmph, well look at that,” Merry defiantly proclaimed. “I think Double Dose is into me.”

“Hey!” Double Dose retorted. “Am not!”

“Aww, looks like Double Dose doesn’t like the taste of his own medicine.”

“Ha, ha, very funny, Merry, haven’t heard that one before,” Double Dose said as he rolled his eyes.

Blizzard, Flathoof, Merry, and even Double Dose all laughed at the light-hearted frivolity they were sharing.

Flathoof walked over to where Double Dose laid on the ground and offered a hoof. Double Dose took it and regained his balance.

“So, I take it you all are Blizzard’s other friends?” Flathoof asked. “It’s good to see you all again after the summer break.”

“Likewise,” Double Dose answered, despite not really knowing the enigmatic young stallion. “And yes, we’re his friends. So if you disturb him too much, you answer to me.”

“Yeah!” Merry Weather interjected, holding up her hooves in a fighting stance. Flathoof laughed merrily.

“No problem, friends. He and I are roommates, and we’re friends as well,” he responded. “I plan to be good friends with all of you and help him out with anything he might need.”

The answer seemed to be good enough for Double Dose and Merry Weather, so they backed off and all four of the ponies settled onto the bench. There wasn’t enough room for all of them to sit normally, so Merry Weather sat on top of Double Dose’s shoulders. It didn’t look comfortable for him, but his expression betrayed no annoyance.

A flash of light momentarily blinded all the students engaged in conversation and stuffing their faces full. Once the brilliant light faded, headmaster Keen Insight was standing on the crest of a hill next to a pair of large wooden crates.

“Hello everypony!” he declared to the congregated mass of ponies. “Welcome to another great year at Starswirl Academy!”

Some of the ponies were still rubbing the flash out of their eyes, but the majority responded with cheers. The first night on campus was already pretty great, with free food that tasted pretty good and the ability to reconnect and make new friends.

“I hope everypony’s been having a good time tonight,” he said. “I hope that you’re all ready to kick things up a little bit,” he asked the crowd, furrowing his eyebrow in what apparently seemed to be something like a trademark look for him.

The ponies below cheered once more. Keen Insight gestured to the boxes next to him.

“Everypony line up, cause we’ve got fireworks!” he yelled out. “One firework per pony please, and wait for me to launch the first one before you start letting yours go off. You will find directions attached to each one.”

All the ponies raced to form a line at the boxes, stumbling over each other to get first dibs on the fireworks. Blizzard, Merry Weather, Double Dose, and Flathoof all got into line a good way in the line.

After about five minutes, all the students had received a firework stick to launch. Keen Insight made his way to the top of the hill and planted his firework into the ground. He looked to all the other ponies as they did the same. Once he had seen the other ponies ground their fireworks into the hillside, the headmaster touched his horn to the wick and let the first firework go off.

“Fire at will!” he cried in an exaggerated voice as if he were a commander in a warzone. His firework launched into the night, exploding in a dazzling array of sparks and color. These fireworks had been infused with gemstones, making the colors more vibrant than normal materials.

In sporadic bursts, the other students lit their own fireworks, and they launched into the sky in turn, painting the dark with color and booms. Blizzard broke his attention from the spectacle in the sky and lit his own firework. But as he turned away to back up, one of his hooves tipped it and the firework launched down into a buffet table, lighting it on fire.

A few screams went up from the area around the table as staff ponies were on it with fire extinguishers in moments. Blizzard backed away, ashamed at what had just happened. It seemed that nopony seemed to notice, aside from Flathoof of course, and Double Dose threw a quizzical look in Blizzard Warning’s direction when he saw his expression.

Blizzard saw Double Dose’s glance and knew he’d probably have to answer questions later. Besides, he’d understand, right? They were… friends, after all, right? Blizzard’s vision swam just a bit. He didn’t want anypony to link his ‘talents’ to his life back home. Flathoof had already put two and two together, how long would it be until other ponies figured it out? How many more slip-ups?

“Hey, are you okay?” Merry Weather asked, nudging the taller stallion. Blizzard Warning was sweating heavily from his worries. “You’re shaking… do you wanna sit down?”

“N-no, I’m fine,” he said. “W-wow! It sure is hot out, isn’t it?” Blizzard’s attempts to shift the subject were all but ignored by the unimpressed pegasus filly. She opened her mouth to speak before she was interrupted by another colt pointing and hollering at his friends to look at the headmaster.

Keen Insight ran to the bottom of the hill and snagged a piece of slowly burning celery before the ponies with the fire extinguishers got to them. He held it like a torch while the fireworks exploded overhead.

When the light show ended, he produced another flash of light from his horn and recaptured the attention of everypony as he cleared his throat.

“And now, we will light the bonfire of friendship and learning to light the path to a new year!” he announced. All the students laughed and cheered. Leave it to Keen Insight to find a way to turn an accident into a festivity.

The stallion made his way to a large pile of wood stacked high. Blizzard sat down and focused until his panicked vision returned to him. Now he was seeing the tower of wood, which looked oddly enough like a stack of books… Hopefully his classmates wouldn’t take the idea of book burning to heart, or else Keen Insight could have a lot of trouble on his hooves.

Flames licked the wooden stack of books and climbed higher and higher, burning more light into the night. Warmth from the flame radiated outward to where Blizzard could even feel it from the hillside. There had to be a section roped off around the bonfire to keep ponies from getting burned by the heat just from proximity.

Blizzard’s new friends took the opportunity to sit down next to him and quickly asked him about what happened when he seemed to have a seizure. But the snowy stallion was quick to shrug it off and pretend that nothing had happened. Flathoof eyed Blizzard carefully, but thankfully managed to figure out that Blizzard wanted to confess on his own time.

“Hey, you guys, you wanna hear about the time I found an orphanage’s funding from a criminal?” he asked the group. As gasps of awe went up from Merry and a surprisingly interested grunt from Double Dose, Blizzard thanked his lucky stars that Flathoof would help him out like that.

Soon the colts and filly were engaged in telling stories from their foalhood and from the last year they had at Starswirl Academy. Blizzard carefully left out anything that would be incriminating to his pariah status back home, but managed to tell a few enticing tales of his foalhood to the others.

Four stories in and Blizzard’s inhibitions had melted away from him. All these ponies had such interesting lives. He was barely able to keep up! And he was already doctoring these stories. He made a mental note to have some adventures of his own up here with his brand new friends so he could have more great memories to share. Just like this one.

So this is what it was like to have friends… Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Author's Note

Flathoof, well, aren't you just... interesting? Anyone else ever have that roommate who was just kind of weird? Hopefully he turns out to be a good pony, but better stay on guard just in case. Anyway, now that Blizzard has some friends, let's see what his first year at Starswirl has in store for him.