Chapter One - Cats and Dogs
Expelled. She had been expelled. A familiar feeling of rage filled Ember as she thought.
Of course, she had had plenty of time to think about it in the holidays. But now she was starting at her new school, she was having to go over it all in her head again.
So Ember was a little mean to Dreamy Daze. Big deal! Who cared if she had made her feel uncomfortable and miserable and...
Ok. She was more than a little mean. And going over it in her head, she saw that now. So Ember had already decided to turn over a new leaf and stop bullying. And now was the perfect time to start.
Looking up at the huge building that was now her new school, the light blue unicorn felt irritated. She moved her spiky light orange mane from her eyes and glared at the doors. She felt her mothers hoof in her shoulder. She turned around and saw her pegasus mother's eyes filled with a mixture of concern and sharpness.
"I'll be fine Mum," Ember answered her unspoken question.
"Good," Flaming Wings nodded, then looked quite stern. "And I don't want my daughter upsetting anyone else, you hear me? Because there will be consequences."
She paused for a moment and then sighed. "Yes Mum."
Her mother's voice softened for a minute. "Ok then. Have fun at school, ok?"
Ember nodded as her mother took flight. Being a unicorn born into a family of pegasai meant that she often found herself grounded. In more ways than one.
The little blue unicorn looked up to reguard her new teacher. She was a simple grey earth pony with a light pink and white mane.
Upon noticing her, the teacher gave Ember a cheery smile and she found she could not help liking her.
"I'm Miss Honeysuckle," the teacher told her. "I'll just introduce you to the class. Wait out here."
Great! Here came the awkward bit. Ember stood just outside the classroom door as Miss Honeysuckle walked inside the classroom. At least this gives me a chance to see the rest of the class before they notice me, Ember thought dully as she watched the classroom antics.
It wasn't that different to Canterlot actually. The fillies and colts just sat and talked quietly amongst themselves, barely noticing the teacher standing in front of the class.
The most noticeable ponies were two unicorn fillies, who were both roaring with laughter at something. The pink filly with the purple mane had a laugh that the girls Ember used to hang out with would have called a 'cute' laugh. The blue one's laugh sounded somewhat maniacal.
It was obvious that Miss Honeysuckle had noticed them too as she was glaring at them quite crossly. The rest of the class had pretty much gone silent by now.
"Lovestruck! Aqua Drops! Have you got something that you would like to share with the class?" It was the type of rhetorical question that most teachers asked the trouble makers.
They both turned around with looks of utmost surprise on their faces. "No Miss Honeysuckle," they both answered innocently.
The earth pony in front of the giggling girls turned around and snickered loudly in their faces.
Ember felt slightly sick. That was what she would have done back in her old school.
What she wasn't expecting was for both Lovestruck and Aqua Drops to lean over their desks and snigger just as loudly back in the earth pony's face. Clearly, neither was the earth pony as she turned back to the front looking highly affronted.
"Ok," said Miss Honeysuckle, after looking over the rest of the classmates completely oblivious to what was going on in front of her. "Now, we have a new student coming to our school..."
It was like she had told them all she was giving out free candy. All of the students were suddenly craning their necks to get a good look out of the door.
"And I want you to give her the utmost of welcomes!" Miss Honeysuckle shouted over the outbreak of whispering that had broken the silence of the classroom before. She nodded at Ember to come in.
Feeling slightly stupid, Ember stood in front of the class and tried to smile.
"Ok, tell them a bit about yourself!" Now Miss Honeysuckle was smiling awkwardly as well, as if she'd been through this before.
"Uhhh... My name is Ember Sparks...?"
"Great! Why don't you find a seat then," Miss Honeysuckle interrupted, sounding relieved. "There's an empty one there. Next to Flimsy."
Ember felt more relieved than Miss Honeysuckle as she sat down in the seat that she had pointed to. It wasn't until she sat down that she noticed that the seat was next to the earth pony who had sniggered at the two laughing ponies before. So this was Flimsy.
"And now class, we will be learning about bees again so you can hand in that essay tomorrow on the bee's digestive system..."
As their teacher droned on about bees (pun very much intended), Ember took the time to look around at the class. She had already learnt all about bees in Canterlot so she couldn't be bothered to listen to the lesson.
Flimsy, who was sitting next to her was bright orange with white freckles. Her mane was a darker orange and white, with a whole bunch of pink bows in it. She was whispering to a filly on her right who looked absolutely terrified at being spoken to.
The unicorn filly directly behind her had a light pink coat and a lavender mane. Her eyes were a bright turquoise. She was passing notes to a pegusus colt on the desk next to her. This was Lovestruck, one of the two Miss Honeysuckle had spoken to. The colt on the other desk had a yellow coat and a red mane. His mane was spiky and had flecks of orange in it. His eyes were also a shade of turquoise. Both of them were snickering with their hooves over their mouths, reading each other's notes.
Ember moved her gaze onto Aqua Drops, the blue unicorn. She actually remembered the name! Her coat was a light shade of dark blue, and her mane was short and very dark blue. Her eyes were... dark blue. What a surprise. Ember normally would have expected a pony with this many shades of blue to be well, blue, but Aqua Drops seemed as happy as could be. She was sitting up attentively, her eyes bright as she took in every word the teacher spoke.
Ember tried hard not to yawn as she inspected every other pony in the class judgementally. The bell finally rang and she escaped from the stuffy room, managing to blend in with the rest of the students rushing out.
It wasn't long before Ember spotted the orange earth pony she had been sitting next to in class before. Flimsy was trotting over to the two fillies Ember remembered as Lovestruck and Aqua Drops. Something about the way she was waking reminded Ember of herself, when she was a bully in her last school.
That can't be good.
Lovestruck scowled at Flimsy, while Aqua Drops beamed. "Hi, Flimsy! It's good to see you!"
"Not," Lovestruck muttered loudly. "What do you want?"
"Why are you all alone, huh?" Flimsy smirked at them. "Is it because you don't have any friends? You two are pathetic. You will always be alone it here because no one likes you."
Aqua Drops and Lovestruck seemed quite unfazed by these comments. Ember scowled and walked over to where they were. "That isn't very nice."
Flimsy smiled a sickly sweet smile. "It isn't? Oh, dear me. You wouldn't want to be sticking up for them now. You would rather be sticking with me, newbie. I know things about ponies, you know. I know things about you."
Ember swallowed and glared at her hard. What could this pony possibly know about her?
"I know all about how you were expelled for bullying. Come with me, Ember. Maybe you might stop that secret from getting out... ooh dear, nopony would like you then, would they?"
How could Flimsy possible know that? Ember did want ponies to like her. And if that secret got out, that would be impossible. But Lovestruck stood up and stepped towards Flimsy before Ember could make a decision. The pink unicorn whispered some harsh, well chosen words to the bully and Flimsy rushed off.
Lovestruck turned back to Ember with a smile while Aqua Drops hooted with laughter in the background. "Hi, I'm Lovestruck. And that there is Aqua Drops, who you can just call Aqua. Stick with us and we can be actual friends."
Ember learned a lot about these two fillies as they sat and talked. Lovestruck was also a unicorn born into a family of pegasai, which was quite rare! Her cutie mark was a simple purple heart with waving lines of turquoise smoke around it. Her talent was persuasion, also known as charm speaking. She was quite polite, though sometimes sarcastic, which Ember liked about her.
Aqua Drops was not only very happy, but ridiculously hyper. The blue unicorn clearly didn't care about how she looked, thrashing around and rolling on the floor while laughing loudly as Lovestruck recounted stories. Her cutie mark was a dark blue butterfly. Her talent was playing with light in order to project images into the air. Ember had no idea what that had to do with a butterfly, but Aqua did make a lot of them.
Maybe she had some friends after all.
Author's Note
This is the first story with my OCs in it! I hope you all enjoy. Yes, I will get to the actual plot soon after I'm finished introducing characters. Yes this is based on the spirit animals book series.