Servant of the Queen

It had been a relatively normal and quick weekend for the young changeling, but almost like a blink of an eye, it was Monday again and Silver Rose found herself sitting in homeroom again, watching as Mr Fowl wrote some words on the board.

While school wasn’t all too bad, she already found herself wishing it was the weekend, just so she could have some more time with Home Run. On Saturday, they had gone out for dinner at the mall, deciding on a Prench place to eat at. The waiter had a ridiculously fake accent, but at least it entertained both of them. After that, they had found a quiet spot to make out a bit before her aunt picked her up. All in all, it was a nice date, and it left her wanting more.

For history, Mr Fowl taught them about the rise and fall of kings and queens after the time of her cousin, Morn Dread’s time. There had even been an uprising at one point, where a man called Rosebuck the Bull eventually led the land of Glascow into separating from Canterlot’s kingdom.

Her teacher went on to talk about how they had left because of the oppression received from the monarchy then, by King Dark Ward, a king who took over after Silver’s mother had “passed”.

It was always weird listening to Canterlot’s history, seeing as her mother had lived through most of it, telling her the tales, whether they were exaggerated or not. Some of it was plain wrong, like the Battle of Canterlann. That hadn’t been the spectacle taught in class at all.

Silver was just done taking a page of notes when she smelled something… off. It was an unusual smell, like musty blankets with smoke. She looked up to the front, where Indigo quickly looked away once she made eye contact with her.

Great… What is it now…

She continued to watch Indigo in between pen strokes. The sporty girl had some kind of sachet of something in her hands, and as Silver watched, she ripped it open and sprinkled some behind herself.

“Indigo Zap, what are you doing?” Mr Fowl looked at her over his glasses. “Clean that up before you leave. I won’t stand for ants coming into my classroom for a sugary snack, is that clear?”

Indigo looked at the packet in her hands and smacked her forehead. “Shoot, I thought this was salt.”

“That doesn’t make it any better. Clean it up.”

“Right, sorry, Mr Fowl. I’ll get on it when the bell rings.”

Why would she be playing with salt? Silver wondered with mild amusement. It wasn’t as though she could have been trying to season the floor. The only other thing that salt was used for was preserving food, like that chef on television, Goredon Rampage sometimes did, or…

She recalled something her aunt had told her when using her mother’s lab.

“Salt was sometimes used as a reagent to ward off evil spirits or dark magic. A circle of salt around someone’s house often meant that they were protected against malefic powers. So goes the story anyway. In reality, salt does nothing except stop snails and slugs.”

“So she’s trying to protect herself from me?” Silver couldn’t help but laugh.

“Something to say, Silver Rose?” Mr Fowl called from the front.

“Oh, um, no-nothing, Mr Fowl…”

“So, yew-kay-tahs, huh?” Canvas Splash asked as she slipped a spoonful of peas into her mouth. “I don’t know much about Eastern culture, to be honest, but I don’t mind wearing a robe, I suppose.”

Silver cringed at Canvas’ butchering of Eastern language, but chose not to say anything about it. “Yeah, Mr Fowl’s put my homeroom in charge of getting the yukatas and other props for everyone. Some of them want outfits like the ones they wear in Eastern cartoons. Like ninjas and stuff.”

“Sounds neat.” Canvas shoved another spoonful into her mouth. “You know what I have to do? We’re creating decor. Perfect for someone like me, eh?”

Silver smiled. “Speaking of art, mother said to ask you about which of your pieces you wanted to display at the exhibition and where you’d like them placed. She said something about calling all her art lover friends to see them.”

“Ooh, goodie. I do hope they like them. I’ve never shown my art to anyone before. Well, mainly because they think I’m a looney. Hey the fair is on the twentieth next month, right? Do you think CHS will be able to get all their stands up by then? It’s not that long.”

“CHS hasn’t let us down before,” Silver shrugged. “Besides, they have magic. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Won’t it be cool? You know, to have magic. Imagine if I could like, shapeshift!” Canvas wiggled her fingers over herself. “Or like, cast lightning bolts. Or breathe fire! Or like, even just being immune to fire! I burnt my pinkie last night on the stove.”

“Why were you messing about with the stove?” Silver asked, bemused.

Canvas rubbed her finger, which had a bandage around it. “I was trying to melt some crayons for my next art piece. I thought maybe it would be easier to use them like paints. It didn’t really work out.”

“That’s a shame.”

Canvas shrugged. "Sometimes art works like I want and sometimes it doesn't. It's all part of the experience."

“Yep. Hey, do you ever wish you had magic, Silver? Or like, superpowers?”

“I, uh, never gave it much thought,” Silver lied. “Just didn’t think about it till now.”

“Oh.” Canvas sat back and went back to her meal. “Well, I think it would be so cool if you did. You’re always looking out for me, Silver. If you had powers, maybe you could do a whole lot of good. Like those CHS girls.”

“Don’t you find magic weird, Canvas?” Silver decided to ask. “It seems everyone’s just taking magic as a norm now, since the Friendship Games incident.” That reminded Silver about what Sunny had said, about them not being here to play nice. Along with her rhombus mistake. It made Silver smile thinking about that.

“Magic? I mean, nah, not really. It’s cool and all, but why would we find it weird.”

Silver shrugged. She really didn’t know how to answer that. As Canvas finished up her lunch, she went back to plotting out her acquisition of props and costumes. She figured they’d have to make most of them by hand, but that would be an interesting experience. She’d never done anything like sewing or costume design before, but after seeing her aunt do it, how hard could it be?

The twentieth, hmm?

Silver looked at the calendar on her phone. They had about a month to get everything in order. She didn’t know how long the outfits would take, but if her homeroom were to just work together, they should be able to get it all done in no time.

Speaking of homeroom, Silver had yet to make any new friends this school year. Almost all the faces in homeroom were new to her, and she didn’t like to approach people for no reason. But in the end, perhaps she didn’t really need any new friends. The last thing she needed was more of them turning out like the Shadowbolts after her own slip ups. Slip ups that she still didn’t know how to recover from.

Since their date the other day, Silver had yet to receive even one text from Sunny Flare. On a normal basis, Sunny would text her a whole lot, sometimes even with something obscene. Even though this blunder had gotten quite out of hand, at least Sunny had stopped trying to get some action from her, though Silver hoped the friendship wasn’t lost. Her goal here was to gain love, be it from friends or lovers, and losing some of that would surely count against her.

Trying to take her mind of her complicated relationships, Silver thought back to her duties for the Eastern Fair. CHS and Crystal Prep were actually gearing to work together for something to help their students bond after the Friendship Games. She didn’t know if it was going to work, seeing as their schools had a history of competition, but she had seen how both schools could work together for a greater goal. Perhaps with events like these, a proper bond could be forged. That would also mean more chances to see Home Run, though she was in the wrong persona.

Silver thought back to her aunt. Ivory Wings had agreed to teach her more about the East. She had lived there for a long time, and had been quite important while living there. Since part of this Eastern Fair was to learn about the East, a few lessons from her aunt would not go amiss. She actually had the advantage here. While other students would have to go research on their own, she had her aunt to help her with what she needed to know.

As for her own yukata, she could just use that during the fair and she could also use it as inspiration for the other ones she had to put together. Or perhaps buying them all online would be much easier. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it anyway. Hay, all the students at Crystal Prep could probably afford it.

“Hey, Silver, do you think a yew-kay-tah would make me look fat?” Canvas squeezed at her belly.

The rest of the week passed mostly uneventfully, except for some weird looks and smells Silver was getting from the Shadowbolts. It made her nose itch but nothing bad seemed to come of it, so she decided to let them be for now. She didn’t want to go waste time snooping around anyway.

Literature class had been quite the drag, with them going over the book they had read over the break: One Thousand Years of Companionship. It had been a dreadful experience to read, and much worse to discuss it in class. Ms Post Script said it was one of the best pieces of literature ever written, which Silver could just not comprehend why. She had been so lost as to who was who and with Ms Script referring to all of them just like the book did, her confusion had carried over to the classroom.

Other than that, the rest of her classes were enjoyable enough. Algebra was so much easier than calculus, though she still had a little difficulty in grasping number-related subjects for some reason. But it didn’t matter. Home Run would always be able to help her out and she loved that.

Physics was easy enough and filled with common sense. If she were to fail this, her mother would probably kill her.

Art started off difficult, but after watching enough of her classmates paint, Silver managed to mimic their movements and produce some quality art. At least, she thought they were good. Mrs Artsy Fartsy said she needed to work on her symbolism, but Silver was just glad she could paint decently.

On Thursday, Silver had her first fencing practice of the new school year, which she had been looking forward to. Fleur had replaced Quillion as the new captain, as the boy had graduated, and she deserved it. She was really skilled. And that had been proven twice as Silver lost to her both rounds they sparred. But she didn’t mind losing to Fleur. It gave her time to analyze and mimic her movements, which in due time, would help her one day stand victorious. Hopefully.

Throughout the week, she had secretly gotten her aunt to help her prep a bunch of generic yukatas to bring to school. Her classmates had congratulated her on getting them done so quickly, which Silver didn’t really like, though it tasted somewhat decent at least. With just decorating and personalizing the yukatas left, the class’ focus had gone to designing the Eastern cartoon costumes.

Trenderhoof had shown her some of the most popular outfits for guys and girls. The guy ones were mostly ninjas, but the girl ones, which Trenderhoof also said were ninjas, were basically underwear. Just looking at the pictures made Silver’s face turn bright red. There was no way she was going to even leave the house in just underwear, but some of the girls seemed to express interest in wearing those outfits. Principal Cinch and Dean Cadance would never allow it, but she didn’t know if this would be a special circumstance, seeing as it was donning some Eastern culture.

“Did you see your mother in the swimsuit edition?” Trenderhoof had asked her. “She really knows how to cover just enough, but at the same time, reveal everything.”

“Unmm, right…”

Silver didn’t know how to react to statements like these, plus, it was weird that her schoolmates had seen her mother’s naked body before, or at least most of it. She still remembered that one movie where her mother had dropped the towel she was wearing before changing in front of the male protagonist. Silver had covered her eyes, though her mother had said there was nothing wrong with that.

“My nipples were out of sight,” she had said. “What’s wrong with you?”

All conversations always led back to her mother somehow, and that was starting to be tiresome too. Since school started, no one had asked her how she was or how she was doing. It was always about her classes, her mother, or… yeah, mostly about her mother.

Perhaps that was why she loved Home Run so much. He would always make her feel special, like she was wanted, like she was needed.

But now, she wasn’t Moonglade. She was Silver Rose, and she had to remember that.

But not for long. As she got into the shower, Silver quickly washed away her dyes and added the other ones, emerging a while later as Moonglade. Besides the tutors she had to see tomorrow, she also had a hot date with Home Run, and she wasn’t going to miss that for the world.