Bumbling through my Education

Bumbling through my Education

Chapter 1: News, and Circumstances.

“I’m so proud of you!” Derpy said as she hugged him.

Bumble grinned as he hugged his mom back. His sister, Dinky, rolled her eyes. He knew she was only kidding, but would it really hurt her to at least show a little support? After a few moments she finally backed off and looked at him.

“You’re going to accept and go on to that college right?”

He nodded. Being accepted into the Canterlot College for Magical Studies was beyond amazing. Only a handful of students ever really got the chance.

“I am, I’ll have to head back on Monday, get my dorm room everything settled but I’m home for the weekend at least,” he said.

He stretched and walked toward the table, his hooves clicking on the tile floor. That was a change since last summer. He supposed that his mom had updated a few things, and if she wanted a tile floor more power to her. She deserved it. She worked very hard for what she had, and she had been nothing if not supportive of him while he attended college.

“Oh, Berry and Pina were asking about you,” Dinky said as she walked into room.

“They did? Really?”

“Yeah, seriously, chill. They asked about you. So, how has the nerd school been?” she asked.

He rolled his eyes at her, “Sis, there’s some serious complex magic studying going on up there. I’m working on making emergency medical Golems. Think about that, if there’s an emergency at any time, day or night, these Golems could be sent to work. They’d scan the pony in question, see what was wrong, and then set to helping them.

“That’s… actually that’s pretty cool. So you’d be using some serious animation, reaction, come to life, and check-up spells wouldn’t you? How would you overlay them without corroding or corrupting the spells? Enchanted stones or jewels?”

“Jewels, but in order to make them work correctly I’d be placing them into a single core. Then I’d give the golems a helpful personality. Something that wanted to serve and heal ponies.”

“And they’re going to let you do that at the nerd school?”

He nodded, “Yep, they’re going to let me make it there, and they’ll be letting me use the school’s materials to make it. I can present it at the end of the semester as my final project, and when I do, if it’s good enough, I’ll be allowed to focus my studies directly on making the Golems better.”

Dinky grinned at her older brother. He was the definition of nerd, the very prospect of geek, and undoubtedly the last virgin of his class. She wasn’t going to fault him for it. Bumble just wasn’t articulate around mares. He was sweet, adorkable, and cute, but when it came to trying to talk to a mare he was hopeless. It was surprising that Pina and Berry wanted anything to do with him, but then again her two friends had grown up around Bumble, and both of them knew him as the goofy, nerdy, and geeky stallion he was.

She watched as he lifted his fork into the air with his magic. Using hands was just as easy, honestly, but when your hands were busy having magic do the holding did make things easier. She’d seen their sister Amethyst do something similar when she was home on break. Of course Amethyst has revealed that there was so much more one could do with their magic, including giving a nice magic job.

She just shook her head. She watched as Bumble began to shovel hashbrowns, eggs, and fruit into his mouth without much care of the order they went in there. She shook her head, not wanting to watch her brother eat like one of Applebloom’s pigs out at Sweet Apple Acres, and walked toward the kitchen counter where her mom was working with something in a mixing bowl. She saw her sniffing, her mom, one of the strongest mares she knew, was on the verge of crying. She touched her mom’s arm, watching as her looked at her and smiled.

“Mom, you okay?”

She nodded, “I am, I’m just very proud of your brother.”

Dinky grinned, “Yeah, it’s kind of cool how he managed to get into the program. I knew that his getting to take some courses there early was kind of a big deal, but I didn’t it was this big of a deal.”

Derpy put the bowl down, grabbed Dinky and pulled her into a tight hug. Years of growing up in this house, with her mom, had taught her that one did not just break a hug from a huggie Pegasus. She accepted the hugging, hugged her mother back, and heard hooves clicking on the floor and a plate going into the sink.

“Thanks for breakfast mom.”

She felt her mother loosen her grip for just a moment, and then she was squeezed in with her brother. There are a thousand things that a sister might think about a brother. Thinking that he’s a huge geek or a nerd would be normal, that he’s a good colt is also normal, but feeling his normally baggy cargo pants and robes pressed up against her back side which made her suddenly think, ‘Damn, he’s hung!’ wasn’t normal. Dinky squirmed slightly, not sure how to process what she was feeling against her ass, but she knew that for all of his uncertainty, awkwardness, and lack of confidence around fillies and mares, Bumble was certainly given a huge gift.

“Mom, mom I gotta go!”

“Okay, okay, let me know as soon as you get there!”

He nodded, kissed her on the cheek, kissed his flustered looking sister on her cheek, and then ran upstairs to get his bag. Running and Bumble had always been love/hate relationship. Bumble liked the idea of running. He liked the idea of being able to get something fast, of ‘galloping’ toward his goal. Running however seemed to dislike any association with him, and so he often found himself on the floor, winded, banged up, and often sporting a new cut or bruise for his troubles.

Why he thought this time would be different he had no clue. Running seemed to let him make it to the top stair, and then his misstep ended with him taking a tumble across the floor, into the wall, and somehow on his back. Secretly, he thanked Celestia that he wasn’t born a Pegasus. He just wasn’t sure there was anyway that he would have survived this long.

He hobbled to his room, grabbed his bag, his joyboy, a gift from Button Mash, the book on artificial reanimating spells, the expert edition, and hurried, as cautiously as possible, back down the stairs. Once he was outside of their house he could hear the train’s whistle. He had a couple of minutes to make it to the station. It meant running again, something he knew was stacked against him, but, with no other choice, he took the chance, ran, and rushed through traffic.

Ponyville wasn’t a huge metro like Canterlot, or Manehattan, but it did have certain peak times that the roads were almost impassable. Right now was one of those times. He was trying to bob and weave through traffic, and found it nearly impossible. Every step he took forward he ended up having to take two back.

He could hear the train’s whistle gain, the all aboard whistle, and he was still too far from the platform. Trying to be polite he moved as best as he could, trying to desperately get to the platform before the train left. Finally, after the constant shuffling of morning traffic, he walked up to the platform only to see the train was leaving. There was no catching it, no last minute wait, it was moving, the caboose was pulling away from the platform, and he still needed a ticket.

He chalked another one up to fate poking its fickle finger at him, but of course he had no way of knowing that instead of simply being fingered by fate, he was instead being given an opportunity. No, all that Bumble knew was that he was going to be late getting to his first official day as a college student. Every day before had been taking the correspondence classes offered here in Ponyville while he was in highschool.

It was strange the was worried about getting into college. His grades were good enough, his project, which he had learned had been shipped to the main school already, was certainly ambitious enough. Maybe it was because it was easier to just expect things to go wrong. He walked up to the window, and he saw the ticket teller sitting behind it.

“Ummm… I need a ticket for the next train to Canterlot please?”

The Teller looked up at him, her deep green eyes taking him in for a moment before nodding. She yawned, pressed a red button which caused a blank ticket to pop up, and she stamped one side of it.

“Twelve bits,” she said.

He looked her over again. A light yellow pegasus, white mane, and green eyes, and she was stuck working inside.

“Thanks,” he said as he pushed the bits toward her, “Sorry that you’re stuck inside.”

She grinned, and actually blushed a little, “T..thanks. Most ponies think that I’m being a drama princess when I complain about it. But my wings get so cramped in here.”

“I can imagine. I mean, I know that my mom has to deliver the mail, and she’s not super happy about dealing with the mailroom at all.”

The mare nodded, “Those mail ponies got it the worst. It’s just cramped enough to feel it, but open enough to make you think you can fly,” she said as she stamped a ticket, “here you go. Say, what are you going to Canterlot for?”

He looked at the empty platform, “College. I’m supposed to start today, but since I missed the train…”

She shook her head, and a moment later he heard the door open. She walked out, and he could see the way her wings seemed cramped. His own mother had experienced this more than once. Her right wing had the twitches already, and he knew that meant that sitting in that confined booth must have been killing her. He had at least half an hour before the next train arrived, and he could see that she was trying to stretch her wings on her own.

“Why don’t you come over here, sit down, and I’ll help you stretch them out.”

She looked at him, “Ummm…”

He grinned, “I’m not asking to preen your wings. I know what that means, my mother is a Pegasus, but I’m willing to help you stretch them out, maybe even work the muscles a bit before my train gets here so that you can have some feeling back in them. I mean if you don’t want to, that’s fine, but I’d be more than happy.”

She nodded, sat on a bench, and he slowly began to work on her wings like he had done for his mother a few times. He felt how stiff they were, how much they were refusing to move and bend, and he knew that they had to be hurting like Tartarus. Slowly the left one began to stretch out fully, then the right did. She let out a soft sigh of relief and he watched as she stood. She seemed like a completely different pony, and she lifted into the air just slightly before landing and grabbing him up in a hug.

He grew up around his mother, he knew knew what Pegasi were like, and he accepted the hug for what it was. It was a thank you, you’re nice, and wanna be friends all rolled up into one embrace. How hard, and how long, the hug was tended to tell the meaning behind it. A normal thank you hug was firm, lasted for a couple of minutes, and was pleasant. He’d seen other variations of the hug, but this was a nice thank you hug, or it was until he felt her leg brush him.

He tried not to make any part of himself stand out. He’d made that mistake, just once, with Silver Spoon. It wasn’t that he really liked her that much, but when it happened it didn’t take much to make any part of himself stand out. Silver Spoon happened to be wearing a cheerleading outfit, she fell back, and he heard a gasp from her.

He felt so bad that he helped her up, lowered his head, and left. Ever since then when he saw her, and Diamond Tiara, sitting together the two of them would get to talking, he could tell that she was looking at him, saying something, but he didn’t dare try to find out what it was. No, Diamond Tiara might have changed for the better, but he didn’t want to give her a chance to fall back into her old ways by giving her a chance to pick on him.

So when this hug changed, it changed drastically. She moved closer, her leg rubbed him just the right way, and he felt her wings engulf him as well. She looked up at him with the kind of half glazed eyes that he’d seen a couple of fillies have for other colts.

“Umm… Yeah, I… I think that I gotta go. Got that train to catch.”

He didn’t feel her let go, but instead she held on, her wings covering them, his entire self pressed against her. She was soft, softer than he really expected, and he did wonder what was going on. It wasn’t that he didn’t speak Pegasus. Growing up with his mom, and with the flock, he certainly spoke it well enough. But he didn’t do anything other than…

He’d helped her, made her feel better, and he wasn’t sure what else. It wasn’t like he was trying to do anything, but being hugged, even in a nice thank you kind of way, by a pretty mare did make certain parts of his body just decide to stand out. That was the only thing that he could think of that would have caused her to act like this. It didn’t make sense though. He wasn’t somepony like Rumble.

He wasn’t overly cool, or confident, Tartarus he got all kinds of nervous when he talked to a mare. After a moment he felt her wings relax, the look in her eyes was something he didn’t really understand. He felt her lean forward, her mouth touching his own, and then came the trip. A loose board, something that most ponies stepped over a thousand times a day. The kind of thing that needed to be fixed, but was often overlooked simply because it wasn’t something that actually got stepped on.

They fell, and he felt her on top of him. A light pink blush crossed her muzzle and she got up.

“Sorry, sorry…”

He grinned, “No... no problem.”

“Ummm, my name is Cumulus Heart.”

“Bumble Hooves, maybe we’ll see each other again?”

The sound of the whistle caught their attention and both of them noticed that the next train was pulling into the station. She grinned, dug into a pocket in her skirt, and pulled out a small card.

“Ummm, my address is on there, and maybe, if you don’t mind, you can write, or come see me, or something?”

He nodded, and he watched as she walked toward the ticket booth. He didn’t understand mares. He didn’t think that he ever really would, but at least she seemed pretty nice. He boarded the train and took a seat. It didn’t take long for it to get to moving, and his mind began to wander past Cumulus Heart. He felt the train lurching forward, its pull moving them toward Canterlot. He leaned back in the seat, fully realized that he wasn’t going to make it for the introduction to the campus.

He opened his schedule, something he’d put together over the last two days, and began to look at the first three things on his check list. He wasn’t going to get the introduction, getting to the student mixer breakfast was most likely going to be out, and he was fairly sure that tour of the campus grounds was going to be started. Well, started didn’t mean unable to take it. He could still tour, go to the class signup, and then he could even make it to the Alumni luncheon.

While he wasn’t a member of the Alumni, he was interested in hearing some of the stories of how the school prepared them for life outside of college. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to create his health care golems, help by being able to send the golems into places where it would difficult, or impossible, for a doctor or nurse to get to. Still, he did realize that in order to make the golems, and get them into use across Equestria, he was going to have to be able to learn the steps in getting them noticed, and then sell them, or the idea of them, to the health care systems the Royal Government had in place.

He’d heard that Princess Luna was the one over the health care systems. The college itself was officially headed by both of the royal sisters, so it was possible that Luna had already seen his golems. He knew that in order to be accepted into the college to begin with one of the two headmasters must have seen, and hopefully liked, his project. If that was the case then maybe getting a start on putting his golems all across Equestria would be a bit easier than he’d hoped.

“Next stop, Canterlot,” the voice of the conductor said as she passed by him.

He looked out of the window at the station coming up. There was so much history here. The Unicorns that first decided to settle on the Canterberry Mountains had carved out the section of Canterlot by pure magic. It was a city that was in defiance of all nature. Designed to be a strong hold, designed to be the pinnacle of magical ability, the city was originally formed by taking the carved rock of the mountain, melting it down to magma, and then forming it into the layered stone of the first design of the city.

He looked at the train station itself, the main building still a testament of the original city. The train’s wheels squealed as it stopped, and he waited for the conductor to pass by him once again.

“Current Stop, Canterlot, all off for Canterlot!”

He grabbed his bags from above him, moved out of the train car, and looked at the train station. The University wasn’t far off, and he for one was more than happy to head toward it. He looked at the map provided by the city itself, and he saw that it was a mere six blocks toward the east, or inner city, until he reached the main part of the campus. Holding his bags he headed toward the university, using the most direct route.

As he walked he noticed that the stores, while still clean and nicer than some of the places he’d heard about before, they looked a little more run down than the stores that had been near the train station. There was something refreshing about the state of the stores. It felt more real, and it didn’t feel like the tourist version that was closer to the station itself. It felt like this was part of the actual city.

He continued further down, seeing an antique store, another store that sold vegetable soup, and finally a massage parlor.

“Ooo, hello Mr. College Student, care for a full body massage? Nothing better to make your first day go well. Maybe we can tell you some of the special offers we have,” a pale blue Pegasus mare said from the doorway.

She had a cotton candy pink colored mane and tail, her eyes were an old gold, and he could tell that she was wearing far too much makeup.

“I… I’m running late, thanks though!”

She giggled as he ran past their business. At least he wasn’t one of those brain dead noble sons that treated them like meat. He was nice, and if what she saw when he moved was any indication he was certainly a stallion worth getting to know. She turned around, taking a chance and flicking her tail just right as to lift the back of her skirt just enough to give him a proper view if he happened to look.

Bumble blushed as he looked back to get a view of that Pegasus mare’s panty covered backside. It shouldn’t have flustered him like it did. He grew up in a house with two sisters, and a mother. At some point everypony was just expected to get over their modesty and learn that different ponies had different stuff. Of course it got a little more difficult as he got older.

He’d wait to take his showers until everypony else was done, close and lock his door when he was getting dressed, and just try to keep from seeing his sisters, or his mom, in any other way besides dressed. Part of him knew why he was doing this. His body was getting older, there was a biological need to breed, to make foals, but he didn’t know the first thing about talking to mares.

He was, well, he was Bumble. He was a guy more concerned with his studies, with going to the University, and well with completing his project. That was what was important to him. It wasn’t to say that he didn’t think a pretty mare wasn’t pretty. No, he certainly knew when a mare was pretty, or beautiful, but he didn’t have a clue about how to really talk to them.

He looked up ahead of him and saw a large courtyard with a white stone building behind it. He moved forward, feeling the freshly cut grass under his hooves, and he moved toward the building. He felt the magic thrumming off of the doors as he neared them. They looked like they were made from solid pieces of swirled marble. He reached out to touch one, barely placing a finger on it, and the door swung inwardly. He stepped inside to see a large group standing there.

“And that concludes the campus tour! Students that are interested in the free luncheon please, go toward the left. Inside you’ll be able to meet and speak with some of the Alumni from our fine institution. After the Luncheon we’re going to be separating you up into your dorms.”

He sighed realizing that he missed the tour as well. It wasn’t that he didn’t have at least some idea of what the school looked like. Princess Twilight Sparkle had been kind enough to lend him a map of the campus, but seeing the campus in real life was different from seeing the pictures scribbled on a piece of parchment.

He followed the others into the dining hall, and he began to look around. There was dozens of ponies, of various ages, gathered together talking, and he felt very out of place. He was an introvert. He needed quiet, peace, tranquility, and he needed far more than most other ponies realized. Feeling a little crowded he moved toward a section of the room that wasn’t as crowded. As he did he turned around and caught sight of a slightly older unicorn mare.

She was beautiful. Her soft caramel colored coat was a stark contrast to the soft blue eyes. Her raven mane was in a simple Prench Braid, but it looked wonderful on her. Her dress was something from the Smart and Chic line from Rarity's Canterlot Boutique.

Those that knew here knew that Flagrante Delicto was the kind of mare that you admired, but never crossed. Stories rolled around about her business, how she supported the idea of self love. Of course Bumble didn’t know this in the slightest. All he knew was that this was a beautiful mare, who was wearing a stunning dress, and she seemed to be heading toward him.

Flagrante Delicto smiled as she neared the younger Unicorn. He was, different. The nobility here in Canterlot typically had a sense of entitlement that only made one desperately want to stay away from them for anything else other than removing their over abundance of bits from their bit bags.

But him, no, he seemed meek, uncertain, and she was certain he was somepony from a smaller town. Her eyes moved over him, studying him as a teenage filly might study a tasty hayburger, and then her eyes landed on an outline that made her stop and really take notice. Smiling sweetly, or as sweetly as she could, Flagrante Delicto neared the younger Unicorn.

“Welcome to Canterlot College for Magical Studies, or as we like to call it, Canterlot University,” she said before she hugged him.

Her leg moved between his, for just a moment, and she felt it. Easily as thick as a twenty ounce bottle of apple soda, the length had to be at least ten inches, she shuttered as a vision of him bending her over, cramming that monster up into her, and making her declare that she was his mare ran through her head.

“You are going to be very popular, I just know it.”