Monday morning dawned bright and early for me. I rolled out of bed, barely managing to get my hooves beneath me in time to catch myself. I stumbled my way to the bathroom, looking myself in the mirror. My mane was a total mess, sticking out in all directions while my tail mirrored it. I turned on my shower, got in and stood beneath the cold water before it had heated up. Despite my hopes it didn’t wake me up much. Too many times had I used a similar tactic to shock myself awake, leaving my body seemingly immune to the trick. Still, it felt good once the water turned hot. Either way, I washed my hair and tail in silence. My thoughts weren’t on the day ahead, but the weekend behind me. The peaceful solace of a book and the quiet of my home called to me even as the water ran down my back. I wanted to just stay home and cancel class. Alas, nobody could replace me if I did, leaving me with no choice.

I rinsed and got out, drying myself with a towel before tossing it into the hamper. A quick brush later my mane and tail looked as they normally did, and I walked downstairs. After breakfast I took the file of the colt in my hooves and looked at it once again, reading over the exact details again in case I missed anything. I would hate to have him share lunch with one of the others, then have him sent to the hospital because he was allergic to something. Seeing that I hadn’t missed anything since a few nights ago, I set the file down and went to the door. Putting on my coat, I looked at my living room once again. I had taken the liberty of adding a mirror in the room, as well as dusting everything off. It still looked barren and boring, but there was something to look at. I adjusted my coat in the mirror, using a hoof to correct my mane before taking a deep breath.

“Here we go again.” I sighed, gathering my patience for the day ahead.

The wind hit me like a wall the moment that I opened my front door. The humidity of Friday had been blasted away by what felt like a constant breeze over the weekend. Today the weather had decided to dial things up further. I leaned slightly into the wind as it completely ruined the work I’d put into my mane. Thinking it was probably going to get me a comment from the students, I grumbled my discontent to the wind. As if to respond, it only intensified, and I bowed my head as I walked to keep it from drying my eyes out. Eventually I got onto the path to the schoolhouse, mulling over whether I should assign anything on Monday. I wanted to see if the foals had actually studied like I had told them to, but I didn’t want to be the one to ruin their Monday evening with homework right off the bat. The middle ground would be to have a two or three problem quiz and only have it count for a few points. I settled on that as I walked into the classroom, looking around.

I set up for the day by taking my my papers out, unlocking my desk drawers and setting everything neatly across the surface of my desk. I walked around and handed the papers out to the correct desks, passing back everyone’s work from last week. It took me about ten minutes to do that. By then a few students were coming in, most approaching from town while a few came from other directions. Apple Bloom often had to be reminded by her friends to wipe off her hooves at the door, since the path from her farm would oftentimes stick with her all the way through the woods to the schoolhouse. I sat and watched them all trickle in, looking for Diamond Tiara in particular. I didn’t want her anywhere near the new student in case she got any ideas. If anything I wanted him to stick around the more responsible ones. A young pony’s friends oftentimes molded their behaviour.

All of the others had nearly arrived when I saw a rather lost looking unicorn colt walk into the schoolhouse. I stood up, waving him over so the newcomer didn’t wander too far into the crowd of curious students that currently made up the rest of the classroom. Most of them were staring from their desks while others were a bit more subtle, giving the occassional glance as they whispered with their friends. I reached a hoof out ot him with a smile, wanting to make his first day there bearable even if my day wasn’t exactly going to be the greatest. He was a thin unicorn, being a bit taller than the other foals. His head reached up to my neck, with a thin torso and a a set of small hips that framed his ash gray tail. His face had a soft slope to it, not as sharply defined as most colts. His gray mane was lightly curled at the end, and his powder white coat lended him a neat, handsome visage. Adorning his flanks was a peculiar looking Cutie Mark, one I hadn’t seen the likes of before. The shape looked like a simple, two-dimensional circle. However, a pattern of red hearts was tesselated across the circle, with the pattern getting smaller and fading towards the sides of the circle, making it look more like a sphere than a flat shape. It was a bit hard to look at for more than a few seconds without going cross-eyed.

He looked up at me with ruby red eyes, then glanced back at the class, looking nervous. I understood, and decided to talk to him up there instead of pushing him to introduce himself to the class.

“Hello Circle Limit. I’m Cheerilee, I’m going to be your teacher here from now on. For now, why don’t you have a seat beside Sweetie Belle? She’s the unicorn filly sitting there one row back. You don’t have to take the pop quiz today, and I’ll let you borrow some books so you can catch up. You have to start doing assignments with us on Thursday, but for now just sit down and try to soak everything in.”

He smiled, seeming to have expected much worse from me on his first day. I returned the gesture and turned back to my desk, getting ready to start the day. I looked at the clock on the wall, seeing that it was nearly eight. I straightened out the papers on my desk and took a deep breath.

“Good morning class, I hope you all had a great weekend…” I began.

I let the foals out early that day, having managed to burn through the lessons rather fast. The fact that I couldn’t go too fast because of a new student also contributed. The quiz had gone over as well as I expected it to, with the usual students doing as well as I figured they would. I sat at my desk as they began to file out, the sky looking like it was ripe for another storm. I graded their quizzes, going along the pile. To my slight suprise, I heard a small knock from the other side of my desk. I looked up to see Circle Limit looking up at me, blinking. I looked to the side, then back at him, wondering what he wanted at such a time. I hadn’t really given him anything to do, no assignments for him to turn in. Why was he there?

“Excuse me Miss Cheerilee, but you never showed me where those books were.” He said, seeing my confused expression.

I sighed and silently scolded myself for being so forgetful. I got up, walking over to the cabinet that I stored all of the textbooks in. I took out the book on beginner’s algebra and the novel ‘Of Mice and Ponies’ before shutting the cabinet. I got him a saddlebag from the lost and found, putting the books inside of it so he could carry them home. After that he nodded to me, putting it over his back with a hoof. He looked like he was about to trot out the door, but stopped halfway there, looking back at me with a curious expression. He reversed directions again, walking behind my desk to stand beside my chair.

I had a secret rule that I never told the students; they were never allowed behind my desk for any reason unless it was a dire emergency. I gave him a critical look and then glanced back at my papers, tempted to ask him what he was doing. Circle Limit seemed to mean no disrespect by it, as he asked me a question a moment later.

“Miss Cheerilee, may I please take that quiz from earlier? I just want to give it a shot.”

I blinked, a bit confused by his words. I figured the was no harm in him trying it, though I wondered why. For all I knew his classes back in Canterlot were a fair bit slower than our own, and he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. It would be unfair to not let him try though, so I decided that I may as well give him the chance to show it and give him the quiz. I took out a spare copy and gave it to him before returning my attention back to my grading. He walked back around and sat at his desk, lighting his horn. A rosy aura surrounded the pencil he pulled out, writing his name at the top of the sheet of paper. He seemed to have a decent amount of control over his magic, and his handwriting was neat enough to read. It was a tad scratchy, with no real curves to any of the strokes of the pencil. I watched him from my desk, setting my pencil down as I observed the colt.

He slowly worked his way through the three math questions. The unicorn seemed to not have too much trouble even though I had neglected to give him a calculator. To my suprise he could even do long division manually. I had a hard time believing that he would be made to learn something like that, coming from primary school in Canterlot. He probably had been tutored somewhat during his education. That would explain him knowing such archaic means of solving a problem. He stumbled a bit at the second question, not knowing what to do once one variable was introduced. The rest of the class was only at a pre-algebra level, so it was to be expected that this was a stumbling block. He did his best to work through it, but I could tell that he had gotten it wrong since I could see him writing a fraction from where I was sitting. The third question was a comprehension check that had a graph and a simple equation next to it. To my suprise he seemed to understand the third better than the second, quickly filling in the missing points along the line.

Considering his Cutie Mark it made sense that he dealt best with visualizations instead of just shuffling equations around to get answers. I made a mental note to help him that way if he ever came to me with questions. He’d have an easy enough time next week when we got to graphing simple, single-variable linear equations. He got up and walked back to my desk, turning his quiz in to me. As I had witnessed he had gotten question one and three correct, while missing question two. I gave him a two out of three on the quiz and a warm smile.

“You did alright, all things considered. You’re about where we are, but I think you need to work on solving equations without the help of a graph.”

Circle Limit nodded and returned my smile, looking happy that he could at least hold his own in the subject. I set his paper aside so that I knew not to mark it into the gradebook. He was eager to learn, I could at least award him that. His cute smile didn’t hurt either. I continued to grade the quizzes, the colt still not leaving. I would have sent him away, but he seemed to be looking closely at the other quizzes as I graded them. It wasn’t cheating by any stretch of the imagination, since he would never receive a grade for this assignment, however it still was enough to interest me. I looked at the stack of tests beside me, then back at him, and had an idea. He needed the extra practice, and I wanted to see how quickly he could pick something up.

“Circle Limit could you come around the desk for a moment? If you’re going to be here, I’d like you to help me.”

He gave me a curious look, but did as I’d asked him, coming around to stand beside my chair. I walked him through how to properly solve question two and then gave him a calculator, as well as the rest of the tests I had yet to grade. He went to one of the desks and began to grade them. I had made four different versions of the quiz, so he’d have to solve plenty of problems to grade them all properly. I stood up and went over, looking over his shoulder at the scrap piece of paper he worked on. He kept looking at the ones he had done, double-checking them over and over. He kept looking nervously back at me, like he was afraid of messing up. I stifled a smile behind my hoof. His dedication to trying to impress me was actually rather amusing. First taking the quiz despite being unprepared, now this. I found it cute, but also a bit foolhardy.

I stood behind him and made sure he didn’t grade anything incorrectly. He eventually calmed down, finishing the last dozen quizzes within about fifteen minutes. I picked them up, setting them back on my desk before turning back to him. He had an eager smile on his face, his tail swishing slightly. The colt seemed like he just wanted to impress me. Maybe he wanted something out of it. I decided to wait for a second, to see if he would stick around. He did, staring up at me with large, alert eyes. I sighed; as much as I wanted to keep him around, I couldn’t think of anything else to do with the colt. I’d tried my best to occupy his time when he asked, but I was at a loss. Despite that I felt like I was letting him down slightly by just telling him to get out. He wanted to make himself useful, something that I couldn’t manage to find fault in.

After a few seconds of thinking about my options, I decided that the best course of action for the time being would be to give him something else to do. With that in mind I looked down, gave him my best smile and put my plan forward.

“Circle Limit, did you talk with anyone during recess today, or lunch?” I asked, trying to gauge what general group of students he could make friends with.

He thought for a moment, tapping his chin with a hoof. Eventually he looked up at me and replied with. “Well, there were a few ponies. There was a earth pony filly with an accent, and a really nice filly with a tiara and her friend. They were both nice to me, but not to each other.”

I tried not to let my smile falter, but it was hard not to lose a bit of face at that news. That meant he was probably in the limbo caused by being a new student. Both Apple Bloom and her friends, as well as Diamond Tiara and by near default, Silver Spoon, wanted to have him be part of their group, or at least aquaintences. It was typical, I found, for the Crusaders to accept others as part of their group of friends, but not actually incorperate them into the core trio. There was no harm in it, but it meant that they were friends he had at school, at best. The only one I knew that talked to anyone outside their group was Sweetie Belle, and she burned most of her time with friends she already had like Button Mash. Apple Bloom was busy on her farm, and Scootaloo seemed to always be off doing Celestia knows what.

Diamond Tiara and her friend were a different story. Whereas I was hesitant to suggest that he be friends with the Crusaders because they would mostly ignore him, I didn’t want him around either of them even if they showered him with attention. It wasn’t the kind of attention that anypony like this young, impressionable new student needed. I didn’t want to tell him not to talk with them; telling one of my students not to do something was a surefire way to get them to do exactly what you had told them not to do. I would just not mention it, but it seemed that the duo already had their eyes on the newcomer. Whether because he was a shiny new toy for them, or they actually saw some value in Circle Limit, I couldn’t know for sure. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had to be nuetral as a teacher, but I also didn’t want to lead him down a path that might dissapoint him at best. By the time he started to pursue a friendship with anyone else, the sinister bullies would already have their proverbial talons in him.

With a sigh, I decided to ignore my nuetrality as a teacher for once and said. “Please don’t talk to Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon. They are both rotten fillies that have caused a lot of trouble, on many occassions.”

He blinked, seeming unsure. I could see that the two bullies had done their best to put on their best innocent act for him. If he knew how they actually acted on a regular basis he wouldn’t have even brought them up to me. The unicorn nodded after a few seconds, mulling over my words. I breathed a small sigh of relief, then looked at the clock. It was well past his time to be home, and my time to be reading in a warm bath. As much as I liked this new student, I turned my attention back to him and made it clear that it was time to call it a day.

“I have to go home now, Circle. You should get going, too.”

He seemed dissapointed, but gave a nod. He bowed his head a bit, then walked towards the door. He stopped and waved back to me, then left. I began my typical ritual of putting everything away, cleaning up the schoolhouse and making sure everything was in order before I locked my desk for the night. While I worked I thought about my new student, mulling over his words and his behavior. I had originally labeled him as an easy read. He had appeared as a normal colt on his record, and at first, he had acted like one. The moment he was alone with me he had changed. He had gone from wanting to be out of the way and away from the center of attention to as helpful as he could be. I figured that it was just a side effect of it being his first day, and cleaned up the rest of the schoolhouse in peace.

Still, the thought of his behaviour and attitude intrigued me. He acted like he trusted me, quite a bit to be actually talking with me. I had seen him during recess, and even though he hadn’t been outwardly wanting to be alone, he didn’t socially mesh well with most of the other students. Others had come up and talked to him about his Cutie Mark, as well as one other unicorn colt that skip pebbles down a hill with him, but for the most part he had been content to be alone if nobody was paying attention. I thought back to him being the far younger of two siblings, figuring that was probably the source of him not seeking out friends with his fellow students. He was probably used to that. Content with that rationalization, I put my coat on, grabbed my keys and walked out the door, locking the school behind me.

Author's Note

I really didn't expect this fic to get as much attention as it did! In order to ~~not dissapoint~~ adjust for this many readers, I humbly ask that you leave a comment below so that I know what you all think of the fic so far.