Ain't No Space Safer Than That
Principal Celestia stretched her arms and looked at her desk. It was the moments like this one, when she truly enjoyed what she had achieved in her life. There was nothing better than a brief moment of satisfaction from a job well done. There was, however, one minor problem.
“Farmville request,” Celestia muttered to herself. “Another one. Just because the students can add me, doesn’t mean they can send me requests without getting suspended.” She groaned and looked at the monitor. “Who even plays Farmville anymore? That’s so 2012…”
The door of Celestia’s office opened. “Hello, sister,” Luna said, waving a piece of paper. “I have a little question…”
“I have a question too,” Celestia replied, her eyes focused on the monitor. “Can we transfer a student to Crystal Prep for sending me a Farmville request? I’d like to see them trying that on Abacus.”
Luna sighed. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.” She put a piece of paper on Celestia’s desk. “Also, I got this petition from our students and I believe we should issue some statement on that.”
She was speaking loudly and clearly. Long years of working with her sister taught her that Celestia’s approach to managing school matters was simple. Things Celestia didn’t hear about, or didn’t bother to listen were considered unimportant by default. Unfortunately, this seemed to be the case.
“Definitely,” Celestia muttered, clicking something on her computer.
“No, I can’t do that without your permission or knowledge,” Luna said. “For starters, we’ll probably need some place for that. Not to mention consultations with the–”
Celestia turned away from the screen. “You really want me to read that, don’t you?”
Luna nodded. Celestia sighed and took the paper. Her eyes were shifting from one side of it to another, as she read it in silence, interrupted only by the sounds of incoming notifications coming from her computer.
Finally, Celestia put the petition back on her desk. “Okay,” she said. “So, a group of students wants to create something called ‘safe space’ in the school, right?” She turned back to the computer and typed something.
“Yes,” Luna replied. “Frankly, I’m not sure what could that be. I mean, space is usually not safe. You die there and no one can hear you scream.”
“Well, I actually know,” Celestia said.
“You just googled it, didn’t you?” Luna looked at her sister and sighed.
“I’m not sure why it’d be shameful.” Celestia pointed at her computer. “Scientia potestas est, and this little thing has as much scientia as you can get.”
“You googled it too,” Luna muttered. “You always check your Latin sentences in the internet.”
“No, we had Latin at school.” Celestia looked at the monitor again. “So, A Safe Space is a place where anyone can relax and be able to fully express, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe on account of– Huh. That’s quite a lot of things.”
“What?” Luna raised her eyebrows. “I’m not sure how one’d feel uncomfortable in Canterlot High. It’s not Crystal Prep, where you can’t even touch the wall without police coming to check your fingerprints.”
“Well, I’m not surprised by that,” Celestia said. “They put a bunch of insane kids in a building with crystal walls. I’ve heard their last two janitors ended up in a nuthouse.”
“Insane kids?” Luna asked. “I always thought you were saying that kids are the future of the world.”
“They are, but I also say that future is scary, destructive, and uncertain,” Celestia replied. “Though I must admit that Crystal Prep students are more cultured than ours.”
“It’s the ties,” Luna said. “A student in a tie doesn’t make as much fuss.”
“Yeah.” Celestia looked at the petition. “So, we can say that our students are comfortable, right?”
“I asked a few of them if they feel comfortable,” Luna replied. “They generally are. Two guys and three girls asked if I was trying to seduce them.” She shuddered. “That’s when I felt uncomfortable.”
“Charming.” Celestia shook her head. “A propos: do you treat our students differently because of their sexual orientation? The internet mentions it.”
“I don’t even know what is their orientation!” Luna exclaimed. “It’s not like it’s written on their foreheads or something. Should I start asking?”
Celestia sat straight in her chair and imagined that. Then she imagined the consequences and smirked. “Better not,” she replied. “Unless you want more of them thinking that you want to seduce them.”
“No way.” Luna shuddered. “One of those guys was Snails. Anyway, I guess we can research deeper into the matter of comfort, but generally it’s not a problem. How about being unwelcome?”
“Not a problem either,” Celestia replied. “We welcome everyone. Even Abacus is still welcome in Canterlot High, though, I must admit, hardly tolerated. And we let both Twilight Sparkles in. Even though one was a pony from another dimension and the other–”
“Well, she could use a safe space, I think,” Luna said. “I thought Fluttershy was troubled, but she… I want to hug her anytime I see her.”
“Don’t.” Celestia looked into her sister’s eyes. “Her issues are a matter of an entirely different space. The personal one. Not to mention that I’d have to give you a very long vacation. Up to twenty years.”
“Okay,” Luna said. “So, she may not feel comfortable after all. Maybe even she and other students feel unwelcome. But how about safety?”
Celestia furrowed her eyebrows and sighed, resting her hand against her chin. “Just when I thought we’d get through this conversation without addressing the elephant in the room, you just had to go and, pardon my French, kick it in the nuts.”
“What?” Luna asked.
“Magic, students flying, students getting pony ears when they play musical instruments, a portal to another world in the pedestal, students turning into demons, tearing holes in the fabric of time, students being sirens, sirens being students, magical plants trying to eat the students, and the overall quality of meat in the cafeteria being the constant fight between budget constraints and the wrath of health inspectors,” Celestia spat out. “How can we create a safe environment in such conditions?”
“Maybe Sunset Shimmer would help us stop the magic?” Luna asked.
“Yeah, because it totally worked last time she tried.” Celestia groaned.
“Well, students turning into demons is not a common occurrence,” Luna said. “We are overreacting to it.”
“Not common?” Celestia sighed. “We had, like… Sunset Shimmer!”
“She promised she’d never do that again,” Luna replied.
“Twilight Sparkle!”
“It was an accident with a highly unstable magical device,” Luna said. “The device in question had been deactivated and is no longer a threat.”
“Diamond Tiara!”
Luna shook her head. “Our investigation revealed that it was, in fact, a really bad PMS.”
“Flash Sentry?”
Luna raised her eyebrows and looked at Celestia, resting her hands against the desk. “What?” she eventually asked.
“I mean that one time when he thought himself to be a sex demon.” Celestia let out a nervous chuckle.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Luna said. “So, two cases. And two dubious ones. Not really a problem.”
“Indeed.” Celestia nodded. “But to think about it… If anyone is able to fully express themselves in a safe space, then what if someone fully expresses by turning into a demon? Then it won’t be a safe space anymore.”
“You keep using that rare event as an argument,” Luna muttered. “And I guess the students will have to know the limits of freedom in that safe space.”
“But then it’s not freedom if there are limits,” Celestia said. “If they want to turn into demons, or do whatever they want, then let them have it.”
“Yeah, but there are always limits, right?” Luna asked. Seeing Celestia’s expression, she continued, “Like, you can say you’re free to rule this school however you want, right?”
“Yes,” Celestia replied. “But then, there’s you, our budget, those annoying parents, rules, our retar– I mean, beloved students… But other than that, yeah, I’m free.”
“See?” Luna walked to Celestia and looked at her computer. “And this site even lists things you can’t do in a safe space. Hmm, there’s a lot of it for a place where people can fully express themselves. And I don’t even know half of these words… What is ace erasure?”
“It’s when a student aces an exam, but you erase their result because you feel they cheated,” Celestia replied.
“Okay. It’s not allowed then.” Luna shrugged. “Also, if we have a safe space, how about the rest of the school? Is it unsafe?”
“Well, the cafeteria is,” Celestia muttered. “But what about the people who won’t want to get out of the safe space to face the danger?”
“We’ll have to make it bigger,” Luna replied.
“Until it covers the entire school?” Celestia asked. “And, after that, the whole world? We can’t keep our students in an ivory tower, I think. If only because hunting elephants is illegal.”
“Well, it now occurs to me, that for some reason I’m not aware of, we have motocross as a part of the curriculum,” Luna said. “I guess it’s not that safe.”
“It’s a tradition,” Celestia replied. “I mean, the school founders preferred horses, but their children decided that motocross was cooler. And no, we’re not getting rid of it. After all, Crystal Prep gives bows to mentally unstable students.”
“Yeah.” Luna nodded. “Gotta be prepared when the ties are not enough.”
“Indeed,” Celestia said. “And I think I have an idea how to prepare our students for that. You can think of that as a compromise.”
Luna smirked. “I think I know what you want to do…”
When the students of Canterlot High walked into the school in the morning, they were greeted by a large announcement hanging from the wall. When reading it, some of them tilted their heads quizzically, while the others just raised their eyebrows and moved on.
Sunset Shimmer pushed herself through the small crowd gathered around the announcement and looked at it. “Huh,” she muttered. “They’re surely not beating around the bush…”
“What does it say?” Twilight asked, approaching her.
“Just look for yourself.” Sunset pointed at the poster.
In accordance with the decision 214/A/16 of Principal Celestia
Canterlot High School is from now on declared
Unsafe Space
Don’t worry – it has always been this way. Now you just know and you can be prepared for that. Remain calm and don’t worry. It’s not that bad, we swear.
Students are also reminded that turning into demons and sending Farmville requests to your teachers is strictly forbidden and may result in getting suspended or, in case of a repeated offense, expelled.
Constant Vigilance
Principal Celestia
Twilight shuddered, tears welling in her face.
“I mean, who even plays Far–” Sunset turned to Twilight. “What’s wrong? Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
“It’s not that,” Twilight replied. She grabbed Sunset’s arm and whispered into her ear, “I sent a Farmville request to Principal Celestia yesterday!”
Author's Note
And then Sci-Twi got expelled.
