In Our Loving Memory

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Chapter 1

Bells rang over his groggy head. A pillow covering the ears, he tried to snuff it out for ten more seconds of peace and the fading memories of a dream.

But he changed his mind. He had to: today was the day. First day of the CHS school year and, therefore, his first day of teaching.

He threw the pillow down and slammed the stupid ringing alarm clock shut.

The pony got himself out of his blanket and landed on the floor. His yellow coat shone under the window-piercing sunlight, revealing his cutie mark: an old chair on his flank.

Speaking of sunlight: he could see the morning sun and the pink horizon heralding its dawn. Glimmers flared on top of the turned-off streetlights, twinkled on the hard asphalt, and shimmered on the neighbors' newly-painted roofs.

Then he smelled his own breath and retched at the stink in his mouth.

“Eyugh!”

Off he cantered to the bathroom, trotting on the wooden floor. He lent his ears to the clippity-clop of his hooves, listening closely. It still had the comic charm of a Saturday morning cartoon.

In the bathroom, his stirring mind thought, Why just brush your teeth? This is the big day! You have to look your best for everyone. That meant taking a shower, and it ended with him coming out in one towel and two manenets; one for the mane, one for the tail.

Delicious was the minty sensation of toothpaste rolling on his teeth and tongue. His parents scolding him to never eat the sacred substance—he snickered at the memory. “But it's so good!” his colt self had protested, but they'd always say no. It's bad for him, they'd said.

The unicorn gazed upon his own face in the mirror. Looking good, but with a brush here and a wash there on the blue mane, a squirted dab of gel then a brush combing it through—looked and felt much better now. Sassy and professional. Hopefully cool and relatable for the students, especially for a youngblood teacher. The teens always got along with the teaching circle’s twenty-somethings.

Something caught his eye.

Standing still and silent, stopped mid-toothbrush, he turned to the picture hung beside the mirror. There, three ponies smiled for the camera as they sat on the couch. It was right before sunset, he recalled.

Written in marker at the corner, where it could do no harm to their faces, were the words, Best of luck to you, Keepie! Love from the bottom of our hearts, Mom & Dad.

The minty foam in his mouth bubbled, fizzling all over his tongue. The photo remained in focus, stringing a yarn of memories back into the pony’s mind.

Keepsake's tenth birthday was fifteen years ago when everyone was still human. It was a simple celebration at home. Fruitcake was being prepared in the kitchen with ten candles placed so delicately that they made a perfect straight line. A stickler for details was Mom that way, which made Dad's suggestion to “just put them in a bundle” a death sentence to her ears.

In the living room, all furniture had been put aside for the kids and their game of musical chairs. Keepsake—little bundle of joy he was—controlled everyone else, switching the stereo on and off to his heart's content, and his friends were rushing around to the chairs like a horde of zombies. There was some weird pleasure found in it—a morbid pleasure—but he was only a child. It was his birthday, so in his mind, it was time for all to have fun his way.

“Come on!” called Mom from the kitchen. “Time for cake!”

Everyone stopped. The still-playing pop song was no match for the promise of sweet fruitcake.

“Cake?!” yelled Keep in excitement as he held on to his stereo.

“Cake it is, sonny!” That was his Dad, busy sprinkling the finished cake in the kitchen.

The game didn’t matter now. Everyone scampered away from the chairs. One fell, but it was just a chair compared to scrumptious fruitcake. Keep didn’t mind unplugging the stereo and returning the chairs to their proper places all by himself. The enticing smell of Mom's one-and-only fruitcake kept him going until he came running into the kitchen, playing catch up with everybody else.

Everyone gathered around the cake. Mom and Dad were there, Dad lighting the candles up one by one. All the other kids stared open-mouthed at the dessert, but with a gesture from Mom, they turned to the real reason for the celebration: Keepsake.

Mom smiled at him with her bubbly grin. “Happy birthday, Keepie!” she sweetly said for the fifth time today. It never got old though.

With all the work done, everyone gathered around the birthday boy and sang the usual happy birthday songs. Afterwards, they put a colorful birthday hat on him and cheered him on for getting this far in life. Keep himself couldn't hold it in. The sheer joy of everyone celebrating his special occasion, the sheer delight of everyone celebrating him.

When they put the hat on him, he could only muster, “Um... ah, thank you, guys! Yeah, it’s v-very fun with all of you... and I'm sure the cake's great too!”

“Of course it’s all great and you… are great!” That was blonde-haired Thistle who chimed in. He was one of Keep’s best friends, the friend who’d watered his lips just by being in the same room as the cake was. “And your Mom’s the best chef too!” he added.

The usual birthday celebration continued. Candles were blown, wishes were said, and cake was eaten on flimsy paper plates. Mom was left to do all the cutting as Dad had to leave; some business work, the children thought. They still had each other to talk to about anything and everything under the sun.

“So, whatcha' gonna do tonight?” asked Spring Bud. His father was semi-famous for being in as many marathons as possible, so the sporty headband on Bud’s head said a lot about his athletic dreams.

Keep slowly chewed on his slice before answering, “Um, I dunno'! I heard my uncle's bringing the whole family to some fancy five-star restaurant out of town!”

“Hah! I knew it!” shouted Bud, pointing a finger at him. “You got a rich uncle! I won!”

The slice raced down Keep’s throat before he replied. “You... won?”

“It's a bet I made with Dovetail!” Bud explained coolly. “That's what they do in casinos, right? Betting on random stuff and horse races and then getting all the money?”

Keep slowly wiped his mouth with a sleeve. “Um, Buddy… how come you know they bet at casinos? Isn't that a bad thing?”

Bud shot a weird face at him. “Oh, but how come you know they bet at casinos?”

“Well, there was this movie Dad liked a lot. Some guy wanted to steal money from a casino, so—“

Hard footsteps rocked the floor.

Everyone turned to Dad. He’d just returned, sweaty and out of breath, eyes darting. He held his phone in a death grip.

“Honey, what's wrong?” Mom asked. Her earlier cheeriness had vanished.

“It's...” He tried to say it, but he waved his arm around instead. “Just close all the windows and lock the front door!”

The kids stared at him dumbfounded, but they wasted no time helping close down everything. The happy birthday spirit disappeared as they bolted to all possible points of entry, Mom and Keepsake leading them along. Clicks and bangs filled the home as windows and doors were shut one by one.

“What's going on?” Keep asked his Dad, afraid of what was coming. Maybe it was one of those burglars Dad had warned about. If it was a burglar, though, it wouldn’t explain why his brave and courageous father was trembling like a coward as he closed another window.

“Some kind of world emergency!” Dad burst out, head moving around like a rabid chicken’s. “We’ve got… I-I don’t know how it’s possible, but...”

“Wh-what is it?!” Mom yelled, freaked out of her mind. “Are there robbers outside?!”

“Or maybe the world’s ending?” suggested Burnt Alloy, another of Keep’s friends. In class, she was the smart girl with the orange curls in her hair, and she liked tending to her flowers at home. They made everyone smile, she’d said.

Now, however, everyone was horrified with what she’d suggested. No one wanted to think the end of the world was happening.

No one but Dad, sweating like a too cold glass of iced water. “You’re not that far off, missy.”

Heads turned his way. They then turned to the windows when distant sirens blared outside and faraway screams shot through the sky.

“It’s magic,” he muttered, looking to the floor as if he was losing his mind, capturing their attention. That word, magic, hooked them in, left them speechless. Sounded too crazy for a serious man like Dad to wheeze about, and yet...

“Magic,” he panted. “All of it’s magic. The news says it’s spreading like wildfire. N-not even those spunky teens could stop—“

Glass shattered as a figure crashed into the kitchen. It broke a window and flattened the cake because it didn’t care, all before landing and smashing onto the counter head-on.

Everyone else screamed and yelped as they retreated from the unknown. Mom and Keep’s friends ran to hide behind the walls, while Dad and Keep himself took only a few steps back, a safe distance from the figure. Probably safe enough.

The intruder was a mystery. It surely didn’t look human. It looked more like an animal. Looked a lot like a horse. Was exactly a horse but smaller, thicker, and with something extra: wings.

It twitched.

Keep held his breath amid a few more screams. He fled a few steps back and hid behind Dad who wasn’t looking too sure as well.

The horse-like thing stood up. It showed its face for a moment then gasped and flew out of the house, wings flapping heavy. Worse still, the horse spoke. It spoke words, and it spoke and screamed too much like a human to be an ordinary horse.

“W-was that a unicorn?!” shouted Alloy from behind the wall.

“Nah, silly!” Bud replied confidently despite the shaking in his shoes. “Unicorns have horns, and—“

“And if we don’t do something,” cut in Dad from the front of him, “we’re going to become just like that flying horse! That’s what magic is doing, turning everyone into weird magic creatures!”

All gasped at what they’d heard. Deadly silence followed suit. Magic, flying horses, people turning into magic flying horses—it sounded like the beginning of the end.

Keep ground his teeth. He just wanted to have fun on his birthday, not survive some world-ending crisis like this. However, Dad’s frightened tone gave him new priorities. Tightly gripping the wall beside him, he looked at Dad survey the broken window before the man closed the curtains.

“That's why we're locking down,” Dad yelled, panic snowballing in his words. “I... I don't know when it’s going to be safe out there, but we’re going to hold out here until then to keep everyone magic-free. Phones will be our only way to communicate with the outside world, and—“

“But what if magic can go through the Internet?” asked Alloy; nosy kid she was.

“I don't know!”

But at that moment, Dad’s breathing slowed as he regained his calm. He saw the children’s horrified expressions, terrified of him like he was an ogre. His aghast wife bounced a menacing scowl at him, and that finally doused his fiery attitude.

He shook his head, recovered himself with a long sigh. Looking around and seeing everyone looking back at him for answers he didn’t have, he continued: “Let’s just get this over with… form a plan so everyone’s taken care of. Keepsake, follow me. You have to...”

Dad’s face fell.

That wasn’t any good.

“What's wrong, Dad?” Keep asked.

But they kept looking at him. Not just Dad, but all his friends kept looking at him like he was caught with the cookie jar red-handed. They were whispering scared words to each other, slowly backing away from the birthday boy as their eyes glazed over him.

He felt a gentle pull from Mom. A look at her and she was just like them, terrified for no real reason.

“Mom?” His voice weakened, her startled eyes scaring him too. “Wh-why are they all looking at me like that?”

But Dad pulled him away, dragging him to the hallway where no one could see him. He could hear Mom trying to calm everyone down. Commotion was about to hit. He just knew it.

Safe in the corridor, Dad’s hard expression softened to something pathetic, something frightened. “No, no, no... not like this, son!...”

“Dad, wh-what’s wrong?” asked Keep, his volume dropping in his own fright.

He could only feel helpless seeing Dad like that, not mad or angry but scared at him like his own son was a monster.

”What’s g-going on. D-Dad? Why’d you do that to me?”

Dad gripped Keep’s shoulders. Or would’ve. He stopped his arms in mid-air, inches away from his child. No hug, no frown, no reassuring pat to make everything right like they always did.

“You… you haven’t noticed?” said Dad, his voice shaken. “I-it’s infected you already!”

Silence came upon him and his world briefly blinked out.

Infected. Couldn’t be the cold or high fever. He felt completely fine. Didn’t feel sick or anything. It surely wasn’t the cake, was it?

Magic. It was the magic.

When Dad touched the top of Keep’s head, Keep felt something else.

Instead of feeling a tap on the skull, he felt something floppy, something standing on it. A bit of muffled sound too like he cleaned his ears with a swab.

Then Dad tugged at the thing. It didn’t come out. It was stuck to his head, a part of him just like his ear.

Keep’s heart beat faster. There wasn’t supposed to be anything there; not even a hat, much less a flesh-and-blood part of him.

He felt a lack on his heads' sides. Hands felt for it and found nothing but skin and hair. His ears had vanished. His hands then felt around his head, and there was that something—two somethings now—

Ears.

That weird horse with wings had ears on top of his head, not on the sides like a human. Keep’s ears were now on the top too just like that horse’s.

Not like a human.

Magic had infected him.

“He’s turning into a unicorn, aah!”

That was Bud taking a peek out of the kitchen, and now it was too late to calm anyone down.

All of Keep’s friends screamed and ran away from him. Meanwhile, Mom chased after them, demanding they sit down, behave, and not treat her son like that as she whinnied like a horse.

Dad looked away too, sweat pouring down his face. “No... no, no, no!” He repeated those incessant no’s as he ran after everyone else, trying to round them up.

As everything fell into noisy chaos, Keepsake slid down to the floor, watching it all fall. Animal features were appearing on his friends, magic turning them into something else with each new part flashing in. His parents were not spared for horse ears sparked into form as well. Soon, they’d all become weird magical creatures like his Dad had said.

This was supposed to be a great birthday where he could enjoy everything to the max with his family and friends. Instead, the world was ending, and it was throwing his whole life upside down. Turning into a magic horse was the last thing he wanted, but now—

Tears broke through his eyes and started streaming down his cheeks.

In his affliction, he didn’t notice the unicorn horn appearing on his head.

~ ~ ~

He’d wanted to be just like the knights in the stories, riding their priceless unicorns to battle. He hadn’t asked to be one of those priceless unicorns themselves.

But he was one of those unicorns anyway, and here he was, sitting on his bed. He’d stared at the floor for the past thirty minutes, and he was still staring at it. The moon’s light shone on the floor, casting ghostly patterns on the surface.

Wrong. All of it. All of him felt weird, strange, unfamiliar, wrong. Back to crawling on all fours like a toddler—worse than a toddler. At least the baby had hands. Now, everything was a hassle. Picking things up with his teeth, pushing and pulling with a hoof. Magic? He didn't know how to use that too though they said he could.

Maybe his parents would've saved the day, or at least someone. They should’ve. Too bad the magic was too strong. After that, he’d hoped it was all a bad dream, and if it wasn't, the problem would go away in a few days or a few weeks just like all bad things.

It'd never went.

Mom had hugged him, brought her son under her literal wings, when word went around that no one could fix it. Nobody could, not even the one person who had come from the other side—Equestria, they called it. Meanwhile, Dad had shaken his head and groaned at everything, scorning his new Earth pony body but otherwise getting by if with grudges.

His friends had turned into odd creatures just like him, some of them unrecognizable except for the voices—the voices always remained the same. Thistle turned into a druid-like deer, Bud became a stampeding buffalo calf, and Burnt Alloy became just like the one that’d crashed into the kitchen: a horse with wings, a pegasus. It was wrong, it was wrong, it was all wrong.

Mom and Dad walked into his dim room. Slowly, they trotted in; their hoofsteps were the only noise he heard. It was way past bedtime, but now wasn’t the time to talk about sleep.

His throat tightened. Mom and Dad noticed. Their ears bent and showed more of their sorrow.

“I...”

The tears were almost there. Could just feel it, could just taste it as if they came over to his lips. No amount of screaming or pinching had woken him up from this nightmare reality. He hated it. Hated being forced on all fours like a baby. Hated having his humanity snatched away. Hated being this magic horse because he didn’t ask for it.

He just wanted everything back to normal.

They didn’t need to hear any more from their son. They came over and hugged him on his bed.

Keepsake cried in their embrace.

At present, Keep trotted down the stairs to his kitchen. It was a bit dark, but all it took was magically opening the curtains for warm sunlight to flood the whole house. Gone was the night’s chill.

It was, as usual, a good morning with the sun hanging out in its usual spot in the sky. He couldn’t help but think about the principal he was working for, his boss moving the sun every day. The interview with Principal Celestia had gone well enough that he’d gotten the job, but it was still weird having applied for a job with the sun’s manager.

Keep picked up the remote and turned on the TV. The news came on as background noise for preparing his hearty breakfast: a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of cereal with a bowl of salad on the side along with tons of orange juice and one cup of coffee. The variety of mouth-watering smells wafted to his snout, and the pony wasn’t afraid to let out an equine snort in greedy anticipation. His meal was coming along nicely, and with waking up this early, he’d have plenty of time to fully enjoy his food.

There wasn't much happening at home, at least that's what the news would tell him. It was all about the international stuff: the breezies and the buffalo had struck on a trade agreement and now planned to officially celebrate each other's culture in spite of—or because of—their ridiculous size differences. The buffalos dwarfed the breezie delegation, the camera angles doing the latter no justice as they almost shrunk into specks beside their colossal counterparts.

A pony reporter then interviewed a breezie on the street, hoping not to knock the poor thing away with the microphone. Keep had to admit, it was fun to watch breezies try to fit in as much as they could with creatures several magnitudes larger than them. Though, he had to admit too that it was mean-spirited humor.

The doorbell rang, its sweet song a serenade to his ears. He got up and turned off the TV on the way to the front. Must be the mailmare.

Wasn't much of a surprise when he opened the door and a purple pegasus stood there. She was wearing her mailmare cap and a saddle bag of newspapers just over her wings.

“Morning, Keep!” greeted Press Run. She was upbeat as always, eyes closed in joy. A green wing reached into the bag, rummaging for a broadsheet. “The usual, no?”

“The usual, yes,” he replied as he took the newspaper in with his blue-tinted magic.

Her work here done, Press turned away to the next house. But, about to glide with her wings outstretched, she turned back to Keep. “Oh, wait! Aren't you supposed to do something big today?”

“Yup!” Keep jerked a hoof to the far left. “I’m starting my teaching career today at Canterlot High. Remember?”

Press looped in the air, laughing in delight while somehow having nothing fall from her bags. “Finally, huh? That’s great! You made it to the top!”

Keep rolled his eyes at the over-excited mare across him. “I wouldn't say that. 'Making it' is nice, but it's just what I want to do in life, you know.”

“It's your passion and all that jazz, huh?” she playfully replied.

“Eh...” Keep let slip a tiny smirk. “At least I take it seriously.”

Press quickly wing-brushed her cap clean. “Okay, then! Can't stay put; gotta go—bye!”

After farewells were exchanged, Press took off to the next house and Keep trotted back inside. He traveled to the table, floating the newspaper beside him until he sat down. It dropped beside his glass of orange juice.

The papers were a lot more local and a lot closer to home than TV news; such was The Canterlot Daily. Today's front page demonstrated how proud the average Canterlot citizen was of their heroes: Professor Twilight Sparkle being cried over and wished well by her friends in a move to world-renowned Marevard University, Vice Principal Luna delegating more of her nighttime duties to another freshly-minted batch of dream guards, and Apple Cookie—daughter of Big Mac and Sugar Belle—winning the Canterlot juniors' rodeo and carrying home a haul of blue ribbons.

The paper told of other news and other stories, but they were all talk of home. They were all talk of here.

Keep always had a soft spot for his hometown of Canterlot, a soft spot for here. As he flipped through the paper, he paid more attention to familiar names and familiar places, away from the capitals of the world and their governments. Let Earth’s leaders handle all the big stuff.

An errant page got skipped. Too bad, but it was a trivial mistake. No need to worry. He floated the paper back to the overlooked page.

There, front and center in the lifestyle section, was a picture of a small red-brick building. Clean and pristine twinkled the dewy grass grounds, at least judging from the photo’s quality. Arrayed under the windows stood rows of colorful flowers, sparking nostalgia into Keep's memories. Roaming around outside were plenty of young creatures, spanning all species. They played and ran and sat and relished the day while their parents and guardians watched them over from afar.

Underneath was the piece's title: Canterlot Elementary Academy Set to Open Today.

Funny that Keep’s breakfast was cereal and oatmeal just now, with that article right before him. And on today of all days.

Chapter 2

"Hurry up, Keepie! You don't want to be late for the first day of school, do you?”

“Numph, Mrom’!”

It was hard to chow down the massive breakfast Mom had made: a bowl of cereal and a bowl of oatmeal along with enough orange juice to fill a car. He'd rather have coffee, but Dad had said it was an adult drink that wouldn’t be kind to his colt body—and, no, Dad wasn’t going to change his mind just because they're ponies. “But we have different stomachs now!” was an argument that hadn’t worked on Dad.

He did his best to finish everything though. It was two minutes until 6:50, and he didn't want to be late for the bus, especially on the first day. The early sunshine urged him on while Mom washed Dad’s dishes with her wings.

“Honey, I'm going!”

That was Dad, the gray Earth pony trotting down the stairs while wrapping a tie around his neck with a free hoof. A bit of a struggle but he managed. Dad had to look presentable for that fancy Filthy Rich from Ponyville. It’d been good to hear about a stallion from the other side wishing to help Earth recover with his business money.

The parents exchanged a hug and kiss, and after wishing his son well for the day, Dad was out of here. At least the couple were still adorable when they did lovey-dovey things as ponies. Too bad Keep himself couldn't say goodbye back; his mouth was full.

Seconds ticked by on the clock. Seeing that both of his huge bowls were only half empty, Keep stood up and abandoned his new favorite foods; he had to thank grain-loving pony tastes for his new love for cereal and oatmeal.

“Mom, I gotta go!” Keep yelled. “Sorry for the leftovers!”

Whatever she said back, he didn’t hear her response. His eyes were locked in on the school bag lying by the front door.

He picked them up with his horn, still getting the hang of unicorn magic. Pony Vlogs With Sunset on TackTube was a helping hoof over the extended vacation. It was good that she wasn’t just a unicorn but also born a unicorn over in the magic world. Constantly asking for tips on “how to pony” and “how to magic” from unicorns older than him helped too even when his parents kept apologizing to the strangers about their curious colt and his too many questions.

The bags were slung around his barrel. The native ponies called them saddle bags. It felt weird having lumped on his back like that, but this was no time to mull over item names.

A screeching honk blared outside.

“Yagh!” Keep scampered to the door, bag only half-zipped. “He’s too early!”

The colt the door and almost went out, but one thought stopped him: Mom. He galloped back over to her in the kitchen, bag bobbing about, and he jumped into her loving embrace.

“Love you, Ma’!” he chirped.

“Love you too, son!” she chirped back before sneaking a peck on the cheek. “Have a nice day in school, okay?”

“Okay, gotcha’, bye!”

Keep bolted through the door and into the outside, letting the morning breeze flow through his mane. The bus had parked on the road, noisy and rumbling with its clattering engine. Its doors slid open for the foal and he cantered inside, walking up the steps.

“There you go, kiddo!” bellowed the cat creature on the chair—an Abyssinian, if he remembered correctly. The voice told him it was Mister Munchkin. Keep had known the driver ever since first grade, and, apparently, the change hadn’t fazed the cat-loving busman—or, rather, buscat.

“And that’s the last one!” Munchkin hollered to all the children at the back. “We’re off to school, everybody!”

The bus got moving again, and Keep turned to the rest of the bus. Amid the roar of chatter, clatter, and the driver telling everyone for the hundredth time to stay on their seats, he saw all-new faces for busmates old and new.

Young creatures of all kinds sat on their seats. Over there at the back, a pair of griffon twins boasted to each other on who flew better. Closer to the middle, a yak calf played with some building blocks, making sure they wouldn’t fall apart with every road bump. Right behind Munchkin, a Crystal foal was literally shining with the sunlight outside, dazzling onlookers with his glassy gemstone coat.

“Hey, Keep! Over here!”

He whirled around to see Burnt Alloy waving at him. Embarrassing for poor Keep; she was right beside him the whole time. Maybe she’d been trying to catch his attention for the past ten seconds and he’d played deaf without knowing it.

The embarrassment disappeared, however, when he saw all his closest friends seated together. Thistle the deer that was blonde, Spring Bud the buffalo that still wore his sport headband, and Burnt Alloy the pegasus with her orange curls intact in her mane—all of them scooted themselves and their bags aside to give Keep space.

“How’s things, Keeps?” Thistle asked as the colt sat down beside him. “We missed you at Zoom’s house last night!”

“Forgot to tell you about Mom dragging me to the bookstore,” Keep replied with a cross of his hooves. “Buying school supplies at the last minute? Ugh.”

“Yeah, go tell your mother to do better than that!” chimed in Bud before checking his own bag in case he’d missed anything. “Anywho, ready for today?”

Keep chuckled nervously before gazing upon the floor.

“I… don’t know.”

It had only been a few months since The Change happened, but checking the neighborhood out to people watch—or, now, creature watch—had never tired him. Now, it was exciting too since the world was new again. He saw pegasi pushing and pulling clouds around in the sky like cargo. Earth ponies were tending to their flowery lawns or busying themselves in opening their businesses for the morning. Unicorns just like him, with their glowing horns, using their magic to levitate stuff or to cast spells on things. There was the sun and the uncanny knowledge that the high school on the other side of town housed the sun-mover herself.

“I guess I’m more ready than not,” finished Keep, brandishing a smile for the new day.

Talk carried on to other stuff as he caught up with his friends and their lives after the Change. After she got over her strange new form, Alloy had turned to excitement over her ability to fly. She’d flown around with her fresh pair of wings too many times to count despite her parents being afraid she might fall and hurt herself. Now, she was planning to ask around what her anvil cutie mark meant. The filly still hadn’t figured it out after a few months, but so did a lot of other foals like her and like him.

Bud, unsure about what being a buffalo meant to him, kept alive his dream to be an athlete, preferably a long-distance runner. He also had another, cooler, option: he could be a professional parkour artist. Checking up awesome parkour videos online had goaded him there.

As for Thistle, he was also unsure like Bud, pondering about what to do as some kind of nature-magic deer. He said his aunt and uncle were going to accompany him to Equestria. There, he would meet the native deer in the forest and discover what his deer potential could be.

A couple minutes later, school was in view. Many gawked out the window to see the place sparkling under the morning light. A couple workponies were putting the finishing touches on the gloss-over, giving the place a shiny new look for a shiny new school year. Students and teachers alike would be coming here in shiny new forms complete with shiny new magic running amok.

Everyone filed out of the bus, rushing out on their hooves and feet and paws and wings and other new appendages to the front yard. The playground teemed with kids testing out the Equestrian-friendly equipment. Already, pegasi and other flying creatures were testing how fast a merry-go-round can go with wingpower on their side.

Others entered the school immediately, and Keep and company decided to join them.

The halls were still the same as before, so it was the students and teachers crowding the corridors that lulled Keep and gave him fuzzy wonder. Most of them were ponies, with other species popping in and out of sight every few seconds. Unicorn teachers were floating their notes around and comparing them with each other’s, and a pegasus guard stood by in the corner, entertaining foals with his speech about what his armor was made of—that got Alloy’s attention for sure. Several students also gathered around another unicorn teacher, this one exuding a different sort of aura with her young white mane. Keep couldn’t exactly tell what made her just feel different, but he shrugged it off.

“You guys got the same homeroom?” Bud asked. “Still got old Miss Petunia from the past four years.”

“Got her too,” said Thistle.

The two exchanged hoofbumps, knowing they’d be in the same classes for most of the day. Thistle then turned to Keep and Alloy beside him. “And I guess both of you too, right?”

“Yeah.” Keep nodded to Alloy, heading the conversation to her. “Makes the four of us, right?”

“Yup!” cheeped Alloy, bouncing with a flap of her wings. “I want it to stay that way forever!”

As if on cue, the bell rang. Everyone scrambled to their schedule-described starting places. The four friends kept close through the pony crowds clogging the hallways, snaking through whatever openings they found in the herd.

A few minutes' trot landed them in their designated homeroom. It was a typical classroom with the standard fare of student desks, teacher's table, and chalkboard. But, while they could've been bored with just the same boring classroom, they instead joined the gatherings of friends and new arrivals, They were conducted by ponies and other creatures; they recognized their friends’ voices and names, impressed with what their peers had turned into, and caught up with each other’s lives since the Change, getting to know their new classmates and hoping to become friends with them too. Keep laughed with Cherry Cake who he learned had a pony cherry farmer come over from the other side and offered her family free cherry pastries, and he warmed up to Doldina, a changeling transfer from Manehattan who'd been scared to death at her shapeshifting abilities at first but now was quite comfortable with it. The changeling even showed her transforming powers off by turning herself into Alloy, much to the filly's surprise.

As always, the teacher came in just as the bell rang again. Holding her books on her head and ambling to the desk, rose-maned Miss Tulip had a calm presence that many respected. Everyone had gone quiet upon her arrival; only a few stubborn foals in the back continuing their noise in low whispers.

Tulip put her stuff down and huffed a sigh. It usually didn’t take this long for her to get things started in the morning. She shut her eyes too and kept them closed for good while, taking extra breaths.

Then she put on a good smile and declared, “Good morning class!” Her voice had the same cheerfulness it'd had since kindergarten; at least that hadn’t changed too. “How was your vacation over the summer?” she went on.

What she got was silence. There was an elephant in the room and no one wanted to talk about it.

Or almost everyone. A flighty pegasus shot his hoof to the air and his wings flared in glee. “All the fairy tales are true now!”

The teacher managed a smile, warding off the strange stares the excited pegasus got. “Yes, Nimble, there’s that!”

She cleared her throat and leaned her head to the side, looking down on him cutely. “However, even though those fairy tales are now true and what not, it’s still important to continue learning the wonderful things that this world has to offer.”

Nimble's grin faltered as his classmates giggled.

Miss Tulip stepped forward, getting closer to the class she was going to be with for the next nine months.

“So, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m Cottage Tulip—you can call me Miss Tulip—and I’ll be your homeroom teacher for you dear fourth-graders! I’ll talk a little about myself, and then we can have everyone introduce themselves to the whole class one by one. And in song, no less!...”

Everyone groaned at that. They didn’t feel up to singing this morning.

~ ~ ~

Plenty were disappointed that school was the same old same old. Classes like math and physics were old stallions that refused to die even though there’s literal magic everywhere. Who cared about how the sun orbited the Earth these days? That Celestia pony is doing it all by herself with magic. None of those fancy-schmancy equations, please!

The morning subjects came and went. There was geometry, physics, and fun home economics where everyone learned how to bake pies, cakes, and other pastries. At least that one was fun.

By recess, Keep was recovering from the hard work by eating with his friends in the cafeteria. Thistle was still griping from having a bowl of wet cookie dough spilled on his antlers, and Bud was still laughing at the deer's misfortunes. Alloy was sloppily slurping her bowl of salad like it was the leaves and dressing of legends.

“It’s your fault anyway!” Thistle growled, pointing hooves at the buffalo.

“Nah, that was all on you!” Bud barked back. “You deserve it for pranking Rain Check like that!”

“Nuh-uh! It's your fault for distracting me!”

“No, it’s your fault for thinking I was distracting you!”

With everyone on the table occupied, Keep turned his attention elsewhere. Most of the tables here were full of schoolmates eating their snacks and lunches. The food station had a short line with servers levitating food from display to tray. The portions were mostly vegetables; a few servings of meat were set aside for the carnivores among the kids. Keep didn’t care for meat, however, as the heavenly scent of freshly grilled hay filled the air. Although he gobbled up two hayburgers already, the irresistible hay scent drove him to wanting more.

It still felt weird though, the thought of eating hay straight from the plate, even more so eating without a fork or a knife or even a spoon. Just bend and eat with your mouth. No one was going to mind. This was how things were now.

“Hey! Get back here!”

Heads turned to the shouting teacher. It was Missis Step, galloping after a few foals flying away from her. She almost tripped on the floor in the chase, but caught herself right beside Keep, her figure looming over him while catching her breath. She muttered something—Keep didn't know what—and glanced at her own wings with a groan. The teacher then took off to the air, flying clumsily after the runaway fliers and shouting after them.

After recess were the special Equestrian classes tailored and suited for each species. Thistle and Bud went to their deer and buffalo classes, while Alloy's pegasus classes happened right beside Keep's classroom for unicorns.

Inside his designated room, Keep saw the teacher he was assigned to. It was that same mystical mare with the young white mane from before: Silver Lining, a native Equestrian just like Sunset, with more than ten years of teaching native-born colts and fillies from the other side of the portals. Just like from before the first bell, several students huddled around her in the classroom, listening to her speak about her home world.

“Good day to you, class!” Silver said when everyone was called for. Her voice sounded like shiny silver too.

It was fun to be under her tutelage. She was one of the cool teachers, the ones that can fit in with the foals and be their celebrity. Once the lecture was done, she started magic exercises and practice for the students, and that only made them pester her more with questions about herself and her home. They asked questions like, “What it's like to be a pony all your life?” or “How did you live in a world full of magic and legends?” She entertained them in between exercises, regaling them with tales of her life in Equestria: growing up and being taught how to use magic from her parents and her teachers, discovering her own cutie mark on her own fateful day, being fascinated in her professional study of magic, and also now training to become a mage on the side. Needless to say, she captivated everypony in class.

It was fun to think about becoming a unicorn wizard. Just a dozen weeks ago, neither of those two words made any real-life sense. Strange to imagine a wizard bringing a briefcase to work like a nine-to-five businesspony, but still.

Sadly, unicorn class had to end and give way to history.

Keep hesitated at that one. It wasn’t really the hardest class, but it was certainly the most boring. At least math sometimes felt like puzzle-solving, felt like extremely difficult and heart-breaking puzzle-solving. This? He was no stranger to drooling in history more than a hoofful of times last year and the year before that and all the years before that.

In came Mister Yore. He was ancient history himself thanks to his many wrinkles, his almost-gone gray strands of mane, and his dull round glasses. That big stack of books on his back was enough to kill somepony out of boredom. Overall, his appearance oozed yawn. Some already moaned in doom at his appearance.

Keep came prepared with heavy eyes, muddled brain, and light-headed feelings. It was going to be another hour of memorizing meaningless dates and years and places and names and other random things. Welcome to Dullsville.

True enough, when the lecture got going, it felt as bland and useless as expected. Keep and all the other poor students underwent the torture of tantalizing speech as Mister Yore gabbed on about the beginnings of human civilization with humans moving away from hunting and gathering, humans forming farms by the riversides and planting crops, humans interacting and gathering to form communities that would father nations and empires like that of Alexenophon the Great of Fleece...

Keep didn’t know it, but his ears stood up.

Sure, Yore sounded as fascinating as an empty cardboard box or a serving of nachos without the salsa. Mister sure sounded less excited to be a pony than to talk about what dead nameless humans did thousands of years away from now.

But maybe humans themselves were the rub. The illustrations and pictures on his textbook, grayscaled to save on costs, weren't unrelatable faces and names this time. They were exotic creatures, aliens even… and Keep used to be one of them.

Ditch the dates and the names to cram into the head. What did go on back then for this extinct species?

Out the window he looked, and with the sky as his mental backdrop, he let his thoughts piece together a picture of ancient life, ancient human life, in his mind’s eye. In that painting, humans planted seeds and harvested the fruit of the fields. Square homes made of clay or mortar or something else rose in the distance, housing a tiny town or a considerable city. Big loud crowds assembled around the watering well, catching up with everybody else’s lives as they drew up water by the bucket. Marketplaces crawling with long-clothed citizens because it’s the ancient times and the ancient times liked their long robes. Kids gathered by the village elder to listen to nuggets and stories of wisdom. Wars between tribes and their alliances raged on as their leaders schemed behind the scenes with their spears and arrows.

Maybe just a bit of all that. A bit of reading ahead to satisfy his curiosity, make his mind pictures and paintings a bit more correct. Maybe pay attention a bit more to whatever piece of trivia he’d get. Maybe share it all to his friends—

Keep shuddered.

No.

It shouldn’t be that way. History shouldn’t be doing a 180 on him and suddenly become amazing. Yore was still the same stale teacher from last year and the year before and the year before that. It’s not like he was teaching anything completely different; just a few more big words because it’s the next grade. What did Yore do to earn his respect anyway?

What Keep had just imagined wasn’t all that bad, yet it was supposed to be boring.

The colt would trouble himself like that for the rest of the class.

~ ~ ~

The final bell rung and the first day of school ended by four o’ clock. Ponies and other creatures walked or flew their way out the front doors, itching to chat or frolic in the local playground. There, griffons walked on top of monkey bars, ponies dropped down the slides, and yaks and buffalo played on the sturdiest seesaws Canterlot had to offer.

After waving goodbye to his friends, Keep ran off to the sidewalk and, sure enough, Mom arrived just as he left school. From the sky too, having just landed and folded her wings.

“Huh, right on time!” Mom cried out before waving at him with her wings.

She opened a wing to take her son under—her cream-colored feathers shielding him—and so they traveled home. They trotted on the sidewalk and across the streets, drinking in the sights and sounds of an equine Canterlot City as it entered nightlife hours and the big lights turned out for the evening ahead.

They chatted about how school went. It was great, he said, meeting old friends and making new ones. Of course, Miss Silver Lining being from Equestria was pretty cool too, so he told Mom about that as well. She said she’d like to hear more about the new teacher over supper.

They were home half an hour later, sunset tinting all things orange. It turned out Dad was home early also, surprising Mom with his own dinner: canned beans. Lots and lots of canned beans. Mom, being the great cook she was, must’ve done her best not to smack him over the head about it.

Thus, they had heaps of steaming hot beans for supper as Keep related the events of his first school day as a pony. It’d been awesome, actually. Thistle and Bud and Alloy were back in action and doing fine with their new bodies and abilities, having Doldina as the cool changeling classmate was something great to look forward to, and sampling the amazing cafeteria food only made the beans he was eating tastier.

“We did have fun with classes too. We cooked a lot in HE and I made my own tarts! Then, we had unicorn classes with somepony from the other side—Miss Lining—and she’s awesome too! Thanks to her, I could levitate even bigger stuff now! Watch!”

The whole table glowed and floated at once, plates and glasses rattling in his wobbly grip. His parents yelped at the surprise magic, thankful the tableware didn’t fall off.

Keep gently put the table back down as quickly as he put it up, putting up a shamefaced smile for Mom and Dad. “Um... uh, whoops!”

While Mom told him to be more careful next time, Dad just shrugged it off. “So what else did you do there?” he asked, going on like nothing had happened.

The colt began, “Well... actually, I... um...”

Dad nudged him on the shoulder, an eager grin on his face. “What? Gotta spit it out sometime, sonny!”

A wave of embarrassment hit Keep, but he charged onward anyway. “Um... I was... you won't believe it but in history—”

Mentally slapped himself. If only he could take that word back. He’d said it, and those eyes were drilling into him. They begged for the truth about his history class, and they were going to have it whether he liked it or not.

“Uh… I… somehow—“

He gulped, stretched the hair on the neck, breathed a little slower. Anything to stall for time, but those expectant stares pressured him.

So he blurted out in a tiny whisper, lips puckered in pure distilled awkwardness, “I… I-I like history now.”

Keep ended it with a sheepish smile and a pair of eyes shut tight, afraid of what his parents might say. He didn’t like breaking the status quo. He shouldn’t be liking history, but now he trapped himself between Mom and Dad. They’d probably be happy about it, but that would only make things even more awkward.

As for the parents themselves, they took a while to process that.

“So... that's a start,” muttered Mom, leaning back in thought. “At least you won't be getting an F with that attitude. What made you interested in it all of a sudden?”

He couldn’t believe he was sweating about history, but here he was, shivering after a confession like this. “Y-yeah... I'm not really sure. Maybe it's because we start history with... y-you know… the species that we, um—“

“Humans?” she suggested.

There it was. It left him a moment to contemplate, to look down on his plate half-full and let his mind brew over that vague, mysterious why which he didn’t know. His cheeks blushed; it was embarrassing to not know the why. Did Yore brainwash him? Wasn’t impossible. Yore was a unicorn, so it didn’t seem too far-fetched.

Later on, Mom and Dad would watch the news and invite him to join in and witness more developments about this strange new world. There’d be no mention of history class at all. He would be free from history’s clutches and things would go back to normal.

For now, though, it was just Keep, his food, and his self-pondering self, wondering where it’d all gone wrong.

In the present, soap and water coursed through the sink’s dishes when Keep heard his phone ring from across the living room. The ringtone was the boisterous tolling of an alarm clock waking up a million ponies.

He strode to the other side to pick it up, never looking at the caller’s name. “'Yello?”

“Morning, Keeps!”

He blushed. The heart fluttered and his ears straightened up.

“Same to you, Alloy!” Keep replied as lively as he could be. “Why’re you calling me so early? Oh, let me guess: you want to wish me good luck for the big day today, no?”

“Hey! Give this mare a chance to surprise you!”

”Ha! Not today, Alloy!”

“Oh, come on!… he-he.” Had to admit, her chuckle never got old.

“Alright, enough with trying to one-up me,” Keep said, leaning on the wall. “How’s the farrier business going?”

It’d turned out that a part of her talent was fashioning durable, sturdy horseshoes for all shapes, sizes, and ages. Those horseshoes were forged and hammered with only the best of metals and with only the best of blacksmith talent: hers. The job fit her cutie mark after some time in her fillyhood trying to find out what it meant.

“I’m expecting tons of foals to get shoed for the first time,” Alloy replied, her tone undeniably blithe. “It’s always like that around this time of the year, but I never get tired of seeing foals get the hoof care they need.”

And it was true. Keep could repeat the story in his head: During a lazy weekend, young Alloy tried making a horseshoe because it was a horse thing. However, after buying a horseshoe kit for cheap and tinkering with it, she discovered that she can help others like her get used to their newfound hooves by crafting more horseshoes and being a junior farrier over weekends. The rest was history.

“Yeah… it won’t hold back our Sweet Snacks dinner date though, right?” Keep then asked, already imagining him and her in the café like it was already sundown.

“Doesn’t look like it, so see you soon!… Oh, and show ‘em up out there, okay?”

“You already wished me good luck, but I’ll take it!”

“Wait, wha—oh, right! He-he-he!”

The call ended before he could say goodbye, but her chuckle reminded him again of elementary days. Fortunately, they’d stayed classmates up through high school, remained good neighbors and friends since then, and, with romance in the air, budding lovers too. It showed with the pony that adorned his phone’s home screen: Burnt Alloy, a beautiful mare laughing with him by a lake.

Keep looked at his phone’s clock. It was a few minutes until seven. Assembly proper would begin at ten to eight, so he still had lots of time to get everything else ready: finish the dishes, brush his teeth, lock up the house.

When the rest of his chores were done, he left home and breathed the fresh air outside, ready to take on the world.

Chapter 3

Trotting at his own pace gave Keep ample opportunity to creature watch.

It was a habit hard to break, coming close to second nature. Waking up early and fighting the I-wanna-get-back-to-sleep monster was worth it for this small joy. He got to see the little things everyone else ignored: street-sweeping pegasi cleaning the streets and dumping the trash in their garbage wagons, elderly Steeplechase getting a sun tan while dozing off on his front lawn’s rocking chair, and an ice cream pony selling his treats to foals and other youngsters. He still remembered sallying out for ice cream as a foal, and from the same pony too.

It was also fun to guess and theorize why they did what they were doing, what they were doing before, and what they would do after. He would be wrong eight times out of ten, but that was okay. The made-up stories were amusing to think of, like whether that mare he just passed by was actually a celebrity in disguise desiring a normal life away from Applewood’s glitz and glamour.

The daily trot brought him to Canterlot’s downtown. On the outside, it hadn’t grown much aside from one or two new skyscrapers, but he did see many more creatures speeding around. A portrait of downtowners was in order: The businesscreatures had their suits and ties and were hurrying to get to work early. The tourists were taking pictures here and there with their army of cameras, and most of them wore light clothing or none at all. The unemployed or the vacationers hung out close to the more popular parts of town like the city parks or the Canterlot Mall. Being the Change’s ground zero certainly helped the city’s fame and standing in the world.

Keep turned to a less-traveled road and ambled into a convenience store sandwiched between two high-rises. Small thing it was, cute and puny with its architectural peers overshadowing it. Compared to the hustle and bustle found in the rest of the metro, this store called City N’ County was quiet with the few customers present this morning.

The strong smell of coffee welcomed Keep again as he entered, although it was freezing cold inside thanks to the air conditioning no one had bothered to adjust since time immemorial. Past the first few meters were the standard aisles of everyday goods like chips and sodas and toothpaste, but, currently, no one was shopping there. The hoofful of customers sat at the tables, all of them ponies taking up their breakfasts while chatting idly. One or two noted his entrance but did no more.

“Good morning, Keepsake!” greeted the Earth pony cashier with an all-smiles wave.

“Morning!” Keep greeted back, trotting to the counter.

“So, I guess you want your usual, no?” Without hearing the answer, she was punching buttons on the cash register.

“I’d rather start my day with my tried and true,” he replied with a knowing smirk.

With that, he gave her the money and went off to get his usual: a cup of store-brewed coffee and three plain cookies. No chocolate chips or raisins or nuts or butter or any of those impurities; just plain cookies. Keep brought his purchases to a vacant windowside table—he always liked windowside seats with the great views they offered—and sat down, ready to calm himself with a post-breakfast pick-me-up.

Creature watching came up again, especially with the wide vantage point he had through the window. With all this open space to himself, it was easier to see what could only be seen when one stopped and smelled the roses.

For instance, the roads were thinner on traffic than usual. They’d developed Equestrian-ready cars, and even then, with flying as an option and running becoming much more accessible for everyone else, there hadn’t been much left for automobiles as an industry. What took its place was everycreature migrating to buses, trains, taxis, and other forms of public transportation which could fit almost everybody.

More pegasi sailed in the sky, lugging more clouds and making way for clearer skies, probably for a sunny day as scheduled in the papers. He noted that many clouds were being transferred toward the nearest weather factory, the one a mere stone’s throw away from the historic Camp Everfree. A stormy day or two was in the works for next week.

Jogging on the far side of the road was Spring Bud. He’d grown into a full-fledged bison, a strapping massive hunk of a bovine. Bud had tried to participate in the national parkour championship, and he’d done surprisingly well for a creature of his size, topping as a finalist by the end of it. However, parkour had changed a lot in the wake of four-legged creatures attempting to vault over fences and rolling miserably on the ground instead. So, while waiting for parkour organizations worldwide to get things sorted, he had returned to long-distance running just like his father. When all was said and done, Bud was an inspiration to many in the running scene, not letting his bigger body inhibit his athletic dreams.

Also, there was a griffon just taking in the sights. Brown in feathers and eyes, beige in fur and wings. He was probably part of the tourist demographic; likely journeyed all the way from Griffonstone. Floating just a couple inches above ground, he seemed to be half-searching for something, or maybe he was lost.

And then he was looking at the pony himself. Eyes wide and all, face in surprise mode. Come to think of it, the griffon looked awfully familiar. Was it deja vu?

The tourist griffon flew straight to the store and entered with flair, landing on the floor and flapping his wings under the sun’s rays. Keep felt his heartbeat rise. He didn’t like strangers suddenly looking at him, asking him questions out of the blue. It wasn’t like he could just say no, though, and that just made it worse.

“Um… sorry, heh,” the griffon started, pointing finger guns at him, or talon guns as they said now, “but you remind me of a good friend I had in high school. Canterlot Charter High... ring any bells?”

The stallion scratched his chin, pondering on who this familiar face might be. He got the school right, that’s for sure. “Well, I’m Keepsake, and—“

“Wait, wait, wait—what?!” The griffon’s whole face lit up, talons slapped on his cheeks. “Keeps?! Is that you?!”

For good measure, the griffon flew over to his table and checked his cutie mark.

“Yup! I recognize that chair anywhere! It really is you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s me, but…” Keep knitted his brows, scrutinizing the lion-eagle right in front of him. Phantom pain spread over a hoof—or, more likely, phantom slipperiness. “Um, are you Greely?”

“One and only, yeah!”

Greely flared his wings up and gave Keep a show, only to topple another pony’s drink to the floor.

“Ah! Hold on! Ma’am, I’m so sorry!—here, let me help clean that mess…”

Keep couldn’t resist chuckling as Greely wiped the mare’s table clean. “Still the clumsy chicken I remember, huh?”

“Hey!” The griffon puffed his chest up, gazing at him with a prideful glare. “I’ve improved a lot as a creature since we last met!”

As Greely flew back to his table, a warm feeling fell upon Keep. The voice, the looks, the cavalier attitude. Yes, this was certainly no one else but the one and only Greely from Charter High.

“So, what are you doing here?” Greely asked as he sat down. He noticed Keep looking at his empty side of the table and dismissively waved a claw. “Nah, I can take care of my own food. I already had steak this morning anyway.”

The mention of meat wasn’t well appreciated nor appropriate but a reunion was no time to bring that up.

“Actually, I’ve stayed here ever since,” Keep said. “Aside from dorming in college, I’ve lived in this city all my life.”

“Makes a lot of sense for you, huh?” Greely asked, resting an elbow on the table. “You’ve always avoided talking about your own big futures, haven’t you?”

A blush appeared on the pony’s cheeks. Greely had sometimes babbled about huge ambitions back in the day. Nabbing an awesome mansion, rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful, living the high life.

“So, where did you go after graduation?” Keep asked. “I haven’t heard word of you since.”

The griffon crossed his feathery clawed arms and furrowed his bushy brows. “I went back home with my family and set up my own steakhouse. Greely’s Famous Meats, you know.” He flashed a self-satisfied grin. “Though I can see why you may not have heard of it.”

Keep could not afford anything else but a queasy smile. Meat hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms with him ever since he first tried it as a pony and puked to the ground. Such a gruesome experience led him away from even tofu and other meatless meats. Hay tasted better anyway.

“How’s that been going for you?” asked the pony.

Greely leaned back, setting a paw on the table and gaining the silent ire of the cashier way behind him for violating in-store table policy.

“Handsomely, if I do say so myself,” he said. “We’ve got cookouts every weekend and a grilling contest every two months. Gets the place fired up, if you will.”

The griffon went back to sitting straight, now rapping his talons on the table. “Now, what have you been doing since college? Haven’t heard much of you after graduation too.”

Internally, Keep sighed, grateful that steaks were no longer the hot topic of the day. He took in a deep breath, partly expecting Greely to make a witty comment seconds later.

“For starters, I’m a teacher.”

Astonishment was plastered on Greely’s bulging-eyes face.

“Really now?” Greely cracked before settling down. “Heh… to be honest, you don’t sound out of place as a teacher.”

He leaned forward. A good sign that he was taking this in stride. “What exactly do you teach anyway?” the griffon added.

A grin of his own crept up Keep’s lips. “I teach history… or will start teaching history. Took me a while to actually get there. I got cold hooves about going all in even after college, so I handled some other history jobs for both the confidence and the work experience.”

Greely ooh’d as he listened, knocking his feathery head in interest. “Let me guess: you’re teaching at Canterlot High, aren’t you?”

The pony almost fell out of his seat. “Huh?! How do you know?”

“Lucky guess—hah!” Greely his talon guns at him again, pleased with himself. “Plus, knowing you, you’d like to teach with the most powerful principal on the planet, especially since you’re practically neighbors.”

“What? No!” answered Keep as he traced nervous circles on the table. “It’s deeper than that, really.”

Greely crossed his forelegs again and raised a skeptical brow. “Really?”

“Yeah. I chose Canterlot High… mostly out of historical sentiment. For teaching under the legacy it’s given the whole world. You know, the seven magical girls who pioneered magic here, had connections with the other side... things like that. Teaching history there feels like the best fit for me, like everything is coming together in full circle.”

The griffon sat back up in full attention. “Good for you! I’m glad you got what you wanted. Cutie marks and destiny, am I right?”

The pony did all he could to not roll his eyes.

“Say, Keep,” Greely said as he checked the watch on his foreleg. “When are you going?”

Keep levitated the phone out of his bag and checked the time. “Twenty minutes before I really have to go. They’ll have assembly at seven-fifty so—”

“Good!”

Greely pulled out his phone. The device was utterly old, specks of rust developing on its edges.

“We’ll spend as much time as we can drinking to a dozen good memories then?” he offered, holding an imaginary mug of beer with his talon.

Keep gave him a flat look. “Greely, it’s seven in the morning, and this isn’t a bar.”

“I mean, heh, just the act of drinking liquids, Keeps!” the griffon replied nervously. “By liquids, I mean some cola, eh?”

As he stood up to get bottles of soda from the back, he muttered with a smirk, “Still a wowser, aren’t you?”

Keep gave in and rolled his eyes, sipping his coffee to wait his friend out.

The griffon of the hour came flying back with a bunch of soda to keep them company. His huge wings brushed against the tables, bothering the other diners here as they tried to eat in peace.

“So—“ he sipped through the straw as he sat back down, also turning on his phone again and then scrolling through the gallery app “—what was the first thing you remembered when you realized who I was?"

“Getting cooking oil on my hoof,” Keep said without skipping a beat.

“Good to know I made a great first impression!” Greely replied with a thumbs-up.

It reminded the pony of his first day at Charter High, when his hoof got so slippery with oil from the bathroom sink, he couldn’t walk twenty steps without tripping. That was how he met Greely in the first place, as the culprit behind the joke and surprising him from behind some random door.

“Also when we tried bungee jumping by that tower from the field trip”—Keep’s ears dipped down as he wracked his brain, memories streaming back to mind—“past official hours, right?”

It had been a hair-raising night. The buzz of living on the edge by bungee jumping way beyond midnight was bar none, and that was after getting to the top of the tower with the help of Greely carrying him past security guards and cameras. The pony had never loved flying, but he’d sure loved the adrenaline from falling so fast with nothing but a cord keeping him alive. It’d been a miracle they’d gotten out of it without getting caught.

“What about the time we replaced all the school’s ketchup with hot sauce?” Greely suggested, still scrolling his phone for high school-era photos.

Another chuckle left Keep’s mouth, rocking his head back as he relived the escapade. “Yeah, that I definitely remember. Worth it to get Miss Derby literally breathing fire out of her mouth!”

“Don’t forget the fireponies spraying fire extinguishers straight to her mouth!”

Keep rolled on his seat in laughter as he played the memory in his head, of sending the poor teacher to the clinic after it’d all settled down. Greely had chosen the spiciest hot sauce he could find from the store, and sneaking into school at night with him and Bud to empty out all the ketchup bottles and refill them with Spicyheads’ Spiciest Spicy Chili in the Spiciest World of Spice! Just remembering it gave him both the chills and the thrills of a high-stakes stealth mission.

“Ah, here!” and Greely shoved the phone to Keep’s hoof and flew to his seat, landing on the side and nudging closer to him. That was the same nudge he’d given Keep dozens of times before when a devious plan hatched in his brain.

Though the phone felt a bit stuffy to operate—ancient model and all, and it was designed for claws, not hooves—Keep managed to see the photos. He saw them all, images of a bygone era, excitedly talked over by a narrating Greely as he wrenched into memory the teenagers’ glory years.

Over here was a photo of Keep posing with a snoring teacher in the adult’s own bedroom, holding in his laughter as he applied clown-make up on Sir What’s-His-Name. Over there in another photo, Greely was preparing the most outrageous slumber party set right outside school grounds, ready to greet every teacher the next morning with nothing but sleeping students—at least none of them would be late for class! In still another, Bud and Keep were carefully towing a sleeping Thistle onto the street while Greely parked a car inches before his face. It was a prank exhibit where Thistle was the “roadkill”, meant for everybody to see and behold.

Greely, Bud, and Keep had formed an accomplished pranking trio. Greely was the mastermind, Bud was the muscle, and Keep was the pony who made sure they would not get suspended, somehow got dragged into their shenanigans, and ended up asking for more. Embodying hectic and dangerous living, it was a cool break from following stupid authorities all the time. This was on top of arguing with Mom and Dad, staying way past curfew hours, and attempting illegal activities like underage drinking. Those were the days.

But despite that—or because of that; he didn’t know—Greely had been Keep’s best friend even if the griffon’s gold heart was buried underneath his bratty arrogant self. When the pressures of hard studies, overbearing teachers, and misunderstanding parents left him drained for the day, Greely lent an ear to the pony’s woes and Greedy was ready to offer him tons of opportunities to wind down, play video games, and party whenever they could.

And, just when Keep expected him to slack and laze around all the time, he didn’t. Greely always listened whenever Keep taught him the lessons he didn’t understand or just flat-out missed. Keep sometimes stopped a Greely-approved prank when he thought it went too far and would end up hurting everybody. Even the pranks themselves softened far into their friendship; by their last year, Greely only pulled practical jokes once a week, and his graduation stunt, the griffon’s swan song, was surprisingly harmless: flooding the teachers’ rooms with heart-shaped balloons and thank-you notes. A sweet memory to cap off his time at Charter High.

Though, one picture stole Keep’s attention.

He remembered seeing it for the first time on Greely’s MyStable page the morning after. It showed him and Bud making funny faces at Couch Potato’s house. They’d been having a party there for all the “cool kids,” and Greely had strung Keep along for the ride.

For two reasons, Keep hadn’t been part of the photo. His parents would’ve chewed him out on it for being an irresponsible son partying on a Thursday night. No patience to wait for Friday, even.

Keep also knew the other reason why he was not there.

The house party was aglow with rowdy chaos which Greely had to wade through. Weaving around creatures dancing to electro music blaring over loudspeakers, hovering past dozens of geeks playing Ogres & Oubliettes, and ignoring fellow griffon classmates downing beverages not exactly legal for them.

He glided up the stairs onto the second floor which the party had not dared touch this whole time. Potato wouldn’t mind him trespassing. Greely was good friends with the fat pony, being everybody’s go-to guy for their nighttime shindigs. Two weeks to go until graduation anyway. Just the final day of exams tomorrow, just don’t fail one last time, and then school would officially be over.

Dark and empty were the halls, showing no signs of the pony in sight. Greely tried each door he came across; they were all locked. Hopefully, the pony didn’t accidentally lock himself in a bedroom.

At the end of the corridor, the last door was open if barely. A glimmer of moonlight slivered through, illuminating the floor like clean iron.

Greely stopped. Keep had to be in there. He wasn’t the kind to ditch his friends without telling him.

The griffon waited for a few moments, then he spoke. “Keeps? You there?”

Nothing. Only the smothered downstairs music and sound of anarchy.

Greely didn’t bother asking twice. He slowly pushed the door open.

It was a decent bedroom for visitors and friends. Moonlight scattered upon the huge rug on the floor, stretched upon the clock and the bookshelves and on the wall, and cast itself across a painting of rolling hills and their delicious grass.

Sitting on the bed, spotlighted by the moon and the stars, was Keepsake soberly staring out the window. The silver rays shining on his chair cutie mark cleared any doubt.

Greely pushed the door a little wider. Took a few quiet steps forward on both claws and paws. “Keeps? Is… is that you?”

No response. Only window-staring.

A breeze came by, and everything cooled. Greely felt the freeze falling on his feathers, but it did not faze his walk forward as he closed the door behind him.

That breeze carried to his beak the stench of alcohol. It was the stink of beer. No doubt it was Keep then, yet, in some way, he was just sitting there. The stories of pre-Change guzzlers diving further into the bottle when they’d become grain-hungry horses had creeped Greely out, so he breathed a sigh of relief that Keep behaved. At least it looked like he was behaving.

Greely flew over to the bed, making Keep bounce on the mattress before nudging closer, sharing the moonlight with him.

“So… um, why are you here?” the griffon asked, hesitating for a second. “Me and Bud’ve been looking for you.” Greely had told Bud minutes ago to search Keep out in the backyard where a pool party was going on.

The pony bit his lip and held on to the window. It was open, and the view proved amazing; the skyline of downtown Canterlot burned bright, high-rises lighting up the sky they scraped.

“What would they think of me?”

Keep’s question came out of left field. It was enough for Greely to whip his head around and strangely stare at his friend.

“Huh, what? What?... Who’s they?” Greely clasped his talons like the mastermind he was. “It’s your parents, isn’t it?”

Only silence left the pony’s mouth. Keep crossed his forelegs and dragged his head on the window sill, feeling the chill of nighttime metal.

“Come on, Keeps, you gotta get back down there!” Greely then bro-nudged him on the shoulder. “Even your Dad says you gotta wind down from homework sooner or later, especially since it’s the final final exam tomorrow. Can’t stress too much on that, am I right?”

Keep groaned, turning away from his friend and yanking himself toward the window.

The short silence between friends was deafening.

“That’s the thing though,” the pony replied several long seconds later, morose in his tone. “The final exam is coming up tomorrow.”

“Pssh!” Greely rolled spat out the window. “So what?! You’re a smart guy… okay, halfway smart, but you pass every time, so what’s the big deal? Your parents should be proud you can party and graduate! I mean, you partied before the finals each year and you haven’t dropped out at all!”

But what the griffon got back was more staring out the window. Keep’s attention was with the stars up above, twinkling miles overhead. They drew his mind away from the tempter beside him.

“You don’t understand,” Keep said. The moonlight revealed creased bags under his eyes. “How many times did we do something like this before a big quiz or some other big school thing? Partying, video game nights, sleepovers, more tricks and pranks—”

“All the time!” Greely chimed in, grabbing him by the shoulder. “And like I said all the times before, it’s all about loosening up! Can’t have algebra in your head 24/7, or else you’re gonna go insane!”

A hoof brushed over Keep’s flurried mane. More than a couple strands stood out from his mane and coat. Alcohol’s stench was coming back in full force, trickling in his breath.

“Yeah, that’s true,” said Keep, “ but… I don’t know… I just don’t know but—“

“Ugh, but what?!” yelled Greely, balling up his talons into rough fists. “Can you just spit it out?”

But nothing was spat out. Keep shut his mouth and zipped it tight. He could feel the tension thick enough for a knife to cut—Greely’s impatient eagle-eye gaze stabbing him. Yet, he could sense also the concern, the caring claw on his shoulder which spoke worry, not anger.

Keep looked down to the bed, silver light stretching across the sheets in clarity as aching dizziness seeped into his eyes and head.

“What… wh-what would future creatures think of me?” he sputtered, holding his hooves into view as if blood was on his hooves.

Surprise stirred on Greely’s features, but the griffon remained silent.

“Yeah, Greel… what are they gonna think of me... if they heard of me… doing things like this and that, pranking and joking and—yugh!—“ he planted his head on the window sill, tasting disgusting dirty metal “—drinking my education away?”

“Hey!” Greely unfurled his fluffed wings. “You’re not wasting your life on—“

He was shut up with a hoof shoved into his beak. The dazed look on the pony’s face only deepened.

“Hear…”

But Keep sighed and took the hoof out of Greely’s beak. “Just hear me out, buddy.”

Greely opened his beak, ready to assert something to get this crazy pony back on track, but stopped and lowered his head instead. He didn’t like being shushed by anyone, not even his best friend, but if it had to be like this…

“What are they going to tell?...” Keep asked.

The pony turned to the window once more, his comfort found in the sky as the ache built up though fear gripped his throat.

“What’ll they say about me ten years from now? They’ll remember me here. The day before exams could make or break me until I die. Me playing beer pong, almost lost a bet—almost got myself dunked on a toilet—chugged on fish water… hic… and all that beer, d-dude!...”

Greely gulped, eyes darting everywhere. No one should be seeing poor Keep drunk. Time was running out, time until all the beer—all six bottles of the stuff, he suddenly remembered—would finally kick in.

“And… and you know what they’re gonna say, right? ‘Heh… stupid drunkard party-goer… wasting your life away right before the big test of your life!’” The pony’s pose slackened; his hooves wobbled with his head as he slurred. “I’ll get an F, you know! I-isn’t my first time because—“

“Keeps!”

Greely slapped his friend on the cheek. He knew that wouldn’t do anything, but he tried. It could work this time.

“You gotta stay afloat, buddy!” the griffon exclaimed, shaking his friend’s head in a shoddy bid to keep him sober. “It’s bad—worse than bad seeing you like this! How can I sneak you into your bedroom if you’re wrecked?!”

But Keep kept on going, weak hoof pointed high: “They’re all gonna throw… throw me out! It’s a… y-yeah, a conspiracy, but they’re all right because I… no, why did I say yes to this stupid party in the first place? Mom’s… Mommy’s gonna kill me—ugh...”

The pony dropped dizzy, knocked out with one final hic! of a true boozehound. The alcohol had overtaken him and turned him into a beer-smelling corpse sprawling on the bed.

Nothing better than going unconscious to get away from it all.

It took a while for Keep to snap out of the memory. He found himself still staring at the noteworthy photo on the griffon’s phone.

A small smile popped up on the pony’s face. “Yeah… if it weren’t for you bringing me home and brushing my teeth while I was dead drunk, I’d be toast.”

Greely slapped him on the shoulder, showing off his teeth which shone by the ceiling lights. “Buddy, that’s what friends are for!”

The buddy moment lasted a little while more, with Keep cozy in the griffon’s grip.

However, Greely’s cheerful smile gave way to a more somber expression as he set aside his soda. “Honestly, though… you were always that kind of guy, weren’t you?”

That prompted some raised eyebrows on Keep’s face. “What do you mean?”

Greely sighed and rested his chin on a callous claw. Scratched his tufted chin, analyzing his long-time-no-see friend from across the table.

“You were… very thoughtful, even for a rebel prankster,” Greely admitted as he then tipped his half-empty drink around with a lonely talon, looking at the table in his own thoughtful moment. “Never in the present. Always looking either back or forward. Always kept asking questions. Yeah, you know that ruffled everybody’s feathers. Worst with me, always nagging me about it with the dragon and the water bucket. You always sounded like a bummer downer with our stunts, making things less cool… but, nah, I know you were just trying to protect me and Bud.”

Keep resisted the urge to smile. Past grievances were in the past. No need to rub it in the face with I told you so.

“Still… you always had a hoof in the future, you know?” Greely added, tapping on his soda bottle. “Maybe too much sometimes, like what would creatures thousands of years from now think about your milkshake.”

Keep had a hard time trying not to snicker. The debacle had ended up with the pony being chased a dozen blocks by the angry kirin who’d worked at the milkshake stand.

Greely snickered back, but he continued: “You tried to tell us you didn’t want to tarnish your image for our descendants long after we’re dead, when they dig up our graves, scour the museums for your milkshake selfies—“

Keep playfully hit him in the head, barely holding his own laughter in. “Okay, you gotta stop that!”

“Uh, no, I’ll say what I want!”

Greely finished with a fluffed-up chest again, perched on his seat like a bird perched on an electric line. The haughty griffon acted proud as usual, and that elicited loud laughter from Keep along with another fellow diner or two.

It all had to stop though, and after the laughter faded, Greely coughed, trying to find the right words to say. He let out a relieved sigh, giving himself some time to think out his message for the pony.

“I guess what I mean is… you were the most mature of the bunch by the end.” He was serious. The stern, no-nonsense look on his eyes said it all. “I’m sure you know my way—having lots of fun once in a while and all the time—but I respect how you saw everything back then. Heh… makes even more sense, you being a history teacher and all...”

Once again, a claw was on Keep’s shoulder, again with its firm hold on him. Griffon claws and talons always felt rough and scraggy for him. Awkward too since he couldn’t grip the claw back with a hoof.

But it mellowed out with a smile, knowing it was Greely’s friendly claw.

“… and I’m glad that I was your friend, Keep.”

It was the perfect moment to say something cute like Aww! Such was the mood at the table.

Instead, the pony just asked, “Why stay that way? We can still keep in touch, you know!”

“Ah!” Greely also didn’t notice himself gobbling in surprise like a turkey. “Honestly, I forgot about you for years now. Didn’t think of searching you up on MyStable. Wanna chat online after this?”

Keep had already brought out his phone. “Sure! I’d like that.”

~ ~ ~

Keep and Greely ended up becoming online friends on MyStable. It led to a winding conversation about how their lives had been after Charter High.

For Greely, he’d married a beautiful hen, and the griffon couple was already expecting with an egg in the nest. She cooked well too, making them the perfect grilling duo for his steakhouse. Keep shared his own history of love interests, ending up with his one and only Burnt Alloy

“You’re still friends?!” shouted the clearly astonished griffon.

Unfortunately, after a few more minutes, Greely had to go. He still had an errand to do. Had a meet-up with some old griffon classmates from high school; off to watch and bet on the afternoon pony race in Equus Stadium which was just a quick flight from here.

Goodbyes were had, and he was gone flying.

Keep proceeded to finish off his cookie-coffee pair. As he sipped and ate, he enjoyed things at his own pace and watching other creatures pass by outside, doing their own thing at their own pace.

He slipped in a casual glance at his phone.

It was seven forty-five.

One loud yelp rang through the store, and everyone else was looking at him. Keep slung his bags back on and raced out. No time to say thanks to the cashier or clean the table.

Chapter 4

Galloping out of downtown, Keep didn’t miss a beat. He swiftly dodged creatures on the sidewalk and crossed the street with lucky green lights all the way, narrowly avoiding a fast-coming carriage too. The insults the puller threw his way went in one ear, went out the other.

Entering the suburbs of Canterlot, Keep had his muscles on fire and his mind ablaze. This was no time to slack off, certainly not on the first day to boot. First impressions mattered, and he so wanted to get his passion out to his classes today.

Barreling past houses and trees and other fine Amareican suburbia, he saw the school rising in the distance. Keep was running out of breath, but rest would have to wait. Only one more push, forcing his hooves to run despite his not-so-fit self moaning back at him, and he could rest. Just one block across the street now and he’d be home free.

Many still roamed around on school grounds as the rest of the place came to view. That was good. Assembly hadn’t happened yet. Keep took the opportunity to slow his pace and join the scene like nothing happened.

Right after, the bell rang.

Keep almost yelped again but kept his cool as he trotted to the front of the school. A big crowd was forming, made up of students and teachers and other staff on the grass. Good thing he trotted with some technically-not-late students. They wouldn’t notice how unearly he was over the din of a hundred creatures.

A few moments to catch his breath in the confusion. Adjusting to everyone going by around him, Keep took in the little things happening in the anarchy.

High school students meandered wherever, many conversing with each other while fewer dozens looked around in shy awkwardness. They were all mostly ponies, but there was a smattering of every kind present on the grounds: A unicorn traded spells with another and tried them out. An Earth pony towed along a wagon of bonsai trees and having others admire the tiny evergreens. Pegasi and other flying creatures swooped onto school property and happily high-five’d—or high-winged—each other. A yak made her grand entrance with a stack of saddle blankets on her back, trotting alongside her buffalo best friend still coming down from the bus.

The students here weren’t that much younger than him. Meeting Greely just minutes ago felt like a pleasant coincidence, his one last preparation before meeting today’s next generation.

Too bad he didn’t know where the teachers would be during the assembly. He’d forgotten it, so might as well go with the flow.

While waiting and observing, his eyes landed on something magnanimous: the horse statue, Canterlot High’s very own. No matter how many times he’d seen it from nearby or afar, it always commanded his attention. Standing where the portal used to be, the very thing that started this whole crazy reality-altering magic thing in the first place—it never ceased to turn him thoughtful.

A couple antlers showed up from behind the statue.

They belonged to none other than Thistle himself, a strong and stable stag pulling out a couple weeds from the grass. Keep didn’t expect him here, but it wasn’t surprising. Over the years, Thistle had become fascinated with all things nature and, became set for a life in gardening, furnished with greenhouses he made by himself. However, outside of ordinary freelance horticulture, Thistle had also become an activist through plants, protesting an ill corporate action or two every month or so by making flowers grow in their lawn in the shape of the simple phrase, You’re evil and spelling out their crimes for all to see.

Perhaps visiting him before Alloy’s date would be nice, but he was too busy right now, concentrating with his glowing antlers in the middle of a crowd.

The glass doors swung open. With the sun’s brilliance shining down on them, there stepped out the alicorn principals of Canterlot High: Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna, tall and regal as ever in their modest uniforms.

All went silent at their appearance. Keep couldn’t shake off the awe their attendance, the presence of the sun’s and the moon’s very movers.

Celestia levitated a microphone into view. She tapped a hoof on it to test the speakers out, the loud knocks echoing throughout the premises. Then, she brought it up to her mouth.

“Good morning, our dear students!” she began, her voice as smooth as silk. The principal took a pause as she surveyed the mighty crowd before her. “It is an honor to welcome you to a new school year at Canterlot High!”

The place was shaken by applause, mostly from ponies stomping the ground in cheer. In the celebration also was a way to tell the freshmen and the transfers apart—they were the ones who stomped a second late, not knowing the principal’s cues beforehoof. Keep couldn’t fault them. The average pony would just lock up upon meeting the sun mover herself. Her humility and modesty might be obvious to all, but imposing power still imposed.

When the applause died down, Celestia continued, “I know that many of you are itching to start this first day, so I shall keep this short…”

The principal carried on in her speech, addressing the hundreds of students and their diverse ways of life, challenging them to be responsible and to have a sincere love of education for education’s sake. She wrapped everything up with a piece on friendship: how it built up the school over a century ago, how it impacted the lives of those who walked in its halls, and how it continued to do so today. Too standard and bland? On paper, yes, but Keep felt the principal’s sincerity throughout the entire speech, though that didn’t stop a few at the back from almost sleeping in boredom.

Luna tapped Celestia on the shoulder, whispering something to her sister.

Celestia gasped, then quickly turned back to the microphone. “Oh, well!… to cap things off, a school year—and a life—filled with friendship is one overflowing with much good, and I promise that you’ll grow as a better creature through it! And thus, let us have a wonderful start to the year!”

And thus, everybody cheered whether because the speech was good or because the speech was over. That was not all: more than a few saw Luna and Celestia lightly bickering a little as they trotted back inside, likely going on about overtime.

Many started their way inside the school, and Keep found himself swept up with the crowd, fired up by the positive energy everybody had this morning and by just being here. It was only half an hour until his first real teaching class.

He stepped through the row of glass doors into the lobby, and his anticipation built up from there. True, it was the typical scene of students milling about, passing time before classes would officially begin. However, a familiar old feeling washed over the pony, evoking in him that first day of school from ages ago. Just like before, friends here reunited and chatted about what’d gone on over the summer, new transfers ogled their new academy and wondered who exactly to meet, and staff ensured that everything was running smoothly—and that included the guards. Unlike before, the guards weren’t being mobbed by curious students grilling them about their armor.

As for his fellow teachers, none of them were out here. At least he couldn’t see them in the stifling herd about him. If he were to find one, the lounge would be his answer.

Keep pushed his way through the throng of students. Being so young as a teacher made him the mistaken face of a classmate more than once. He could feel himself blushing as he tried to leave behind a freshman insisting the teacher was his lifelong best friend from nursery.

One minute of frantic walking later, Keep reached the teachers’ lounge and opened the door with his magic.

It was rather calm inside compared to the ruckus in the halls. Instructors like him did their unwinding here, secure inside yellow walls as they lazed about on chairs or chatted about random stuff like Monday Night Buckball happening later tonight. Few were the frantic ones doing last-minute preparations for their classes, and they too participated in the lively discussions drifting around.

Math teacher Wing Lime was whipping up a couple bowls of fruit salad in the kitchen for his co-workers, befitting his lean figure and his healthy diet. Sitting on the only couch in the room was the teachers’ rotund clown, Quantum Quark from Physics, with the third time he’d made the same lame pun about muons and moons. Last but not least, there was Strotton Break, teaching art for the past ten years, coolly waiting for his dripping beverage from the coffee maker.

“Morning to you, Keepsake,” Strotton said, turning around to properly greet him with a hoofshake. Strotton looked much like a typical teacher, somewhere in his forties and wearing a tie but no blazer or some other matching suit. “Had a good night’s sleep?”

Keep nervously scratched his head, waiting in line as coffee dripped into Strotton’s cup in delectable drops.

“Erm, not really,” said Keep.

“Figures.”

Strotton leaned in to check his cup.

“I don’t blame you,” he went on. “I still get nervous about days like this. First day jitters get everypony, even the ‘experts’ like me.”

The older stallion then took the cup from the machine and put it warmly on his hoof.

Only now, when Keep’s mind was rested from the chaos outside, did he register that eye-popping scent of coffee again. This one smelled more refined and more roasted than what he’d had in the convenience store. Though, nothing was like what his own coffee back home. Nothing like coffee beans he ground himself with tender love and care.

“Take it from me,” Strotton said to Keep before taking a loud sip. “Relax. Don’t worry about it. No one’s had a perfect first day on the job.”

He laughed a little, shaking his head at what he’d just said.

Just do what the youngsters used to say, Keep: ‘you do you.’”

The younger teacher merely nodded his head at the sage advice. “I’ll remember that, sir. Thank you—“

“—‘cause the hippogriff went to the other side, that’s why!” Quark announced.

His post-joke laugh shot through the whole lounge. Everyone else laughed, though it could be out of simple politeness.

Peace thus returned to the lounge, Keep sat on a free chair. It was a chair without a table attached to it. He stayed there and gazed, specifically, at nowhere.

Blood rushed in his veins, mixed with a helping of adrenaline and a dash of nervousness. Less than thirty minutes until homeroom sessions would end and his teaching stint would take off. Despite his crowd- and coffee-jumbled mind, he remembered the instructions he’d repeated to himself so many times: ninth grade, room B-1, last room to the right before the entrance lobby.

As he sipped his own coffee, he found it amusing that this was his third cup of coffee in this newborn morning. He was a coffee-holic, after all. The last few weeks of his college years didn’t help with his addiction.

“Come on, four cups of black coffee and you’re still not done? This is worse than I thought!”

Keep didn’t exactly feel great in the college cafeteria, especially since “summer heat” was a joke up here. It was bitingly cold, and the heaters hadn’t prevented the shivers. Perhaps he could’ve gone for something much hotter like spiced coffee, but any sensible tongue would lash out against torture.

It didn’t help that he had four more cups of coffee, all empty, next to his carbo-loaded plate of pasta, bread, rice, cereal, and potatoes, which were all the go foods the cafeteria offered.

“Look, Keep,” said Lacuna, a pegasus classmate who wrapped a wing on his shoulder. “We’re your friends, and we don’t want you to stay miserable like this. Tell us, what’s going on?”

Keep lifted his gaze from the plate. There, he saw the only four classmates he had in his history course. They were the four closest friends he had here on campus.

All Duck was a unicorn just like him; she was very studious but was hampered with an addiction to fishing, out of all things. Beside her was Earth pony Four Kicks, the closest thing this college had to a class clown as a self-proclaimed comedian with her funny memes on social media. Farthest from Keep was the breezie Sirocco, a constant traveler in the weekends, never staying put in one place and always returning with a story and a souvenir from wherever. And, last but not the least, there was Lacuna, the one sitting right beside Keep; she was a young Wonderbolt reject, taking up her back-up path in life as a historian-in-training.

They sat at his table and they were all ready to help Keep. If he could only just cooperate.

“Ah, I just don’t know!...” He smacked a hoof on his head’s side, dismay writing itself on his face. “I don’t know… I don’t know if this is what I really want.”

“What, you mean history?” Duck said, inching her head closer to listen clearer.

“But you can’t just shift out now!” yelped Kicks, flailing her forehooves around in the air like a headless cockroach.

Everyone else shushed her, but it didn’t faze Kicks one bit. “Excuse me, but this is his last week here. Not counting the prep to the graduation ceremony, but—“

“Cut it, Kicks,” interrupted Lacuna with a death glare that silenced the Earth mare. “Not the best time for that.”

So Kicks backed out a little, still hanging on in the conversation.

Lacuna sighed, turning to face Keep with a solemn expression. “But, really, are you sure you’re… not sure about this? It could just be a passing funk, you know. Maybe give it a day or two?”

Keep moaned, hooves grabbing his head and mane. The caffeine crash was already falling upon him.

“I don’t know,” Keep managed, slumping a foreleg on the table. “I just want to be sure about it for life. I mean… what if this history thing isn’t right for me?”

He gestured to his plate as if his life-long dream laid there. “Like, I was so hyped about it back in the old days. I loved it a lot then, but maybe… maybe it’s just a foalhood or teenager thing… a thing I’m growing out of...”

“That you’ve stuck by it for almost four years,” added Sirocco as his tiny form landed on Keep’s shoulder, “not to mention the years prior—it means it’s not a phase.”

“Yeah, but still… it’s a clutch revelation.” Keep scratched his jagged mane, undone by pent-up stress, and unintentionally shooed his breezie friend away back to the rest of his friends. “Last night, I thought about my cutie mark... it’s just a chair. It’s just a stupid chair! It could mean anything… agh, why do they have to be so mysterious?!”

He downed half of his coffee and slammed the cup back down. Scared his friends but not enough to scare them away.

“What if...” Keep stopped, held up a hoof, tried to catch his breath. “Wh-what if my destiny is literally making chairs, and I’ve been missing out on it my whole life?”

Lacuna’s hoof grabbed his foreleg. He felt her smothering grip and everything froze.

“Keep, you know cutie marks don’t work like that,” she said, focused on his quivering eyes.

“Answer me,” Lacuna went on: “do you love chairs?”

That was an eye-opener. Keep surely didn’t expect that childish question.

“Um...” He looked at the chair he was sitting on right now. An old, ordinary chair. Might as well be any other old, ordinary chair. “No…?”

“Then it’s not really about chairs,” concluded Lacuna with a comforting smile. The smile spread to the rest of her friends who looked expectantly at him. “It’s the uncovering of the past that drives your life, isn’t it?”

She placed a ginger hoof on his shoulder.

“Not helping.”

And Keep pushed the useless hoof away just to rub his aching head, disturbed by the million doubts lurking in his nerves.

“You’ve heard the stories in the news,” he added, the misery rising. “Ponies rediscovering the meaning of their cutie marks long after they got it, always misunderstanding it until years later, decades even!”

“Worrying about it isn’t going to solve anything,” Duck said, half-anxious. “You can’t just worry yourself away like this!”

“I have the right to worry,” Keep declared with a raised voice, “because I might’ve just wasted four years of my life and undone my future!”

Everyone stopped.

Beyond, other students looked his way, seeing the mad pony standing up from his chair. The clatter of cutlery and the chatter of creatures fell silent.

Breathed heavy, breathed scared. Fear tingled in his hooves.

Keep sighed and returned to his coffee-swamped lunch, ignoring his friends who were sticking with him. If they weren’t going to go away after a stunt like that, he was just going to not talk at all and let them endure his silence.

They stayed until the end of lunch. They silently stayed with him and endured their friend until he left.

~ ~ ~

First Corners College dwelled far from Canterlot, farther up the western coast. It resided in the county of Stirrup City where bridges, roses, and pine trees were aplenty—no beaches here unlike in Canterlot. It was a lot cooler here too, which made poor Keep shiver half the time he ventured outside.

The college’s humongous size still amazed him from time to time. Traveling from his dorm to his classroom might as well be a trek to the other side of the world. At least the place was adorned with resplendent greenery, garnished with its trees, its shrubs, and its never-ending supply of flowers, especially with their lush roses, with so many delicious blossoms ripe for the picking. Since a pony might be temped to get some for a snack, the college had posted signs reminding everyone that the flowers were for display only—no picking and no eating allowed.

Passing by the timeworn red-brick buildings which littered the campus, Keep let his mindless hooves drag him closer to the library. He would apply the final touches to his thesis there and get this final assignment finished. He didn’t know how long he’d stay there for today or tonight. Just long enough to finish everything, long enough to hopefully drown the worries away.

Yet, the worries remained. His mind traced back through his time here in First Corners. Aside from his journey through the history classes here, he also found himself intrigued by the local woodsheds and woodshops which proliferated the college and the rest of town. He’d snapped a couple photos of his creations during his stays there; all of them were chairs of various types. Onlookers said they weren’t that bad—but if they weren’t that bad, they were good, and if he was good at chairs with his chair cutie mark… what was he doing with history?

Still more meaning could be found in chairs. They were usually reliable things. No one approached a normal chair wondering if it could hold their weight or not. They always assumed it would and that it would never let them down.

Keep could be that, then, a reliable pony. It was so general, however, just about any pony of good character and occupation would fit the bill. However, his own chairs betrayed his chair skills, and so...

Bad futures haunted the mind. He hadn’t lied when he talked about the cutie mark horror stories. Somepony going crazy because he wasn’t allowed to perform his cutie mark’s passion, robbed of his dreams before they were realized. Somepony descending into depression over always improving his cutie mark’s craft but never actually getting to the top, never satisfied with where he was because there was always room for more. Somepony looking back in his final years, regretting how he misread his cutie mark and tearing up at all the wasted years and at all the multiplying what-if’s plaguing his dying imagination.

Somepony like Keep going through all three.

He’d wished this whole change thing hadn’t happened. He’d wished that the Change itself had never happened, if only to stop this madness. Surely some of those problems would go away if he’d never become a talking unicorn.

But he knew he couldn’t do that. No one could. He couldn’t ask for things to just return to normal in a flash. Real life did not work that way.

Something rang and quaked in his bag.

He unzipped it open with his magic, keeping his trot going, and levitated his brand-new phone onto his ear. Didn’t even bother to check the name. Just went straight to saying, “’Yello?”

“Um… Keep?”

Burnt Alloy. A bad call already. She was probably catching a break in her own college nearby, wherever it was. Couldn’t remember in this state of mind. Judging by her tone, she would ask him what’s wrong, and she wouldn’t stop until she got a good-enough answer. Stubborn, the mare was.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Keep answered, floating the phone beside his ear as he trotted on. “Why’re you calling?”

“Well,” Alloy started, “Lacuna told me you have a big problem.”

Lacuna should’ve just shut up, was what he was tempted to say.

After hiding a grumble out of earshot, Keep replied, “Yeah, he-he! She’s exaggerating because I’m doing fine. Not perfect, because I do have a problem, but I’m fine; nothing too serious. I can handle it pretty fine, you know, since I—”

“You’re bluffing, Keep.”

That shut him up.

A sigh carried from the other end. “Look, you can’t just bluff your way out of this. These sorts of things can spiral out of control… but I can help. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Keep rubbed his eyes, breathing hard. Alloy was a good friend, that much was true. Too much for her own good though. Too good for him now, that much was also true. Always asking questions, then roping her friend in just to complicate matters.

His hooves stomped on the brick pathway, dust picking up behind him. “I can handle it on my own, alright? I just need some time to myself, that’s all. No need to get worked up about it.”

“Are you…?”

A suppressed choke, he heard. Was she about to cry? She only just heard about it, after all.

“… are you sure about that?”

“I’m sure, Alloy.”

Silence was her reply. The wind blew and his hooves stomped more on the hard brick road. Birds tweeted among the branches above, their peaceful melodies bothering him. He was in the college forest now; the library was just around the corner.

“Okay,” her voice cracked through the speakers. “If… if that’s what you want, okay. I… I hope you get better soon.”

Keep let out his own sigh. Glad it was over, but she’d sounded so downtrodden.

“Alright, Alloy. Thanks for understanding. Sorry about—”

The phone clicked. The call was over. It promised nothing good. It wouldn’t be hard to envision Alloy halfway to tears in her dorm.

No need to think about her now. He raised his head to check where he was.

He almost jumped back at what rose before him: the library, towering over his figure with its imperial height, yet the mounds of bricks that comprised the structure bestowed on it the intimate atmosphere of home, unlike the brutal concrete and steel found in dozens of buildings in the rest of Stirrup.

Coming and going through the doors were dozens of students with a couple teachers sprinkled in. His fellow collegians were stressing out about their upcoming theses and final projects. Such was the typical college student around finals week. Hassle right before the deadline.

Keep put on a brave smile and cantered in.

~ ~ ~

Just him, his trusty laptop, and his bag of borrowed library books.

Keep mashed on his keyboard which consisted of two big controller-like buttons and one spacebar. His final paper was being polished up with a multitude of last-minute corrections and additions his late research could squeeze out. The first sentence or so of his scholarly argument went like this: “The Change brought about a marked division between pony psyches and non-pony psyches due to the emergence of cutie marks among the pony populace. This division is evidenced in three ways...” Expounding on it had been difficult because it was thesis work; it was supposed to be difficult. Now, however, despite having almost everything in place, Keep encountered another difficulty.

Doubt.

The same doubt from lunch, shared with his friends but never really understood by them or him. The same doubt from a week ago when he shared his latest chair on MyStable and dozens claiming he could be a good carpenter if he put in the time and effort. The same difficulty from a month ago, of what his cutie mark actually meant, and his history obsession fading off like the phase it might’ve been. That passion, gone, and so was its first love.

Not blood but coffee ran in his veins, carrying him through hours of doing the same menial work physical and mental, staving off the doubt as his hooves tapped to refine, refine, refine—doing it better, an incremental increase in grades, making everyone including himself a bit prouder.

But, it didn’t do anything to fully solve or silence the issue of why, why, why. Why history? Why still chase after it when his cutie mark could say otherwise? He had one shot at this, only one college course to go and pay for. A second one was possible but would most certainly tax his parents severely. If he was wrong—

“Um, hello?”

“Yagh!”

He stumbled over, knocking his pile of books to the cold floor and spilling them on his laptop. It was a big bang in the library, and others already glared at him for disturbing their peace. An embarrassing display on top of doubt and possibly missing the deadline.

“Oops! Sorry about that, Keepsake!” the stranger quietly exclaimed. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Need a hoof?”

Keep winced as he mindlessly took the hoof, his rump aching from the fall. However, the embarrassment lifted when he saw her face.

Big round glasses, freckles on her cheeks, and mane cut like she’d been part of the legendary Beetles band from the sixties. It was none other than Miss Fonds, his history professor this year, smiling at him.

After Keep got up and dusted himself off, he turned to his professor eyeing the literary mess he’d made. She bent over to pick up the books and put them back together.

“I-it’s alright, ma’am!” he cried out before gagging himself. This was a library; he wondered where his quiet manners had gone. “I shouldn’t have gotten in your way or stayed between the shelves here.”

Fonds hummed at that, glancing at the tiled ceiling. Those glasses really made her look the nerdy type.

“It’s good you got in my way.” Fonds said, “or maybe it was me getting in your way. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen you—” she gestured a hoof at him “—like this.”

A lump snaked down his throat. Fonds was getting closer to it too, getting closer to this problem that shouldn’t be talked about. It could wait until after the thesis, couldn’t it? Tried to form an excuse in his head, but he remained silent to see what her next move would be.

“You didn’t look too happy with your work,” she said, inspecting the laptop from afar as it lay on the floor. “Let’s be honest, that’s happening to everyone here today. Still—“ her gaze leveled with his, dead serious with those eyes behind the spectacles “—this isn’t normal for you.”

His eyes shifted here and there, avoiding hers.

“Keepsake, is there something going on with your thesis?” Fonds inquired, fixing her glasses with a hoof. “Second-thinking your argument on the last day perhaps?”

Keep bit his tongue. He looked to his sides but found nothing but heartless bookshelves that couldn’t comfort him. The student could try arguing his way out, justifying his behavior somehow, but Fonds was air-tight with her arguments like she was the best lawyer in the world. He would only be digging his hole deeper and deeper; all the harder to get back up from. Perhaps he could buy some time, save it for later though all was due the next morning.

“I’m fine,” he blurted out. “Just taking a bit of a break, that’s all.”

Fonds’ eyes widened like saucers. “You mean staring at your laptop screen, dazed and drooling and doing nothing else for the past minute or more, is how you take a break?”

Another gulp dug the hole even deeper.

“And let’s add muttering to yourself about how you might not be really for history after all, rambling about your cutie mark...”

She slowly nodded, closing her eyes for dramatic effect. The cheery smile that started this had long left her features.

“Yes, I overheard all of it, Keep.”

Falling apart. Discovered, outed by himself. He didn’t know what would follow. At the very least, it’d have something to do with Miss Fonds and serious talk. There’d be a meeting full of serious talk with her. That would be punishment enough; precious minutes would be taken away, minutes that could’ve been spent on that thesis which, in hindsight, should’ve been done by now. Add poor time management too to his list of sins.

“For one, you do need a break, that’s for sure,” Fonds said, already turning her head toward the doors. “But instead of dinner, we’ll—“

Keep’s ears rose in curiosity. “Dinner? What time is it?“

“Seven in the evening, and as is, you’re clearly not suited to keep working like this. Hold on, I’ll take this...”

While Fonds checked her phone, fishing for a text, Keep took a glance out the library’s wall-tall windows. To his surprise, the sun had already disappeared; only a shade of its rays lingered in the darkening twilight, offset by the myriad of city lights peppering the sky. Glimmers floated in the air, probably pegasi flying in the night. After four years, he still wasn’t accustomed to such early sundowns this up north.

“Pack your stuff and come with me,” Fonds said as she returned her phone to her saddle bag. “I’ll show you something in my office.”

Keep had no choice. There was no room for refusal.

The laptop was shut tight, and the books were stashed away on a nearby table for some librarian to put them back.

So, with Miss Fonds, he began his trot to the history department.

~ ~ ~

The trip didn’t take long; the history department was near the library. For what it was worth, though, the trot provided him solace by presenting a peaceful nighttime campus. The cool breeze scraped his hair, the owls hooted in the trees, the several lights illuminated vast grounds, the few who still walked here.

Fonds was an eccentric history teacher. Instead of a living antique with a lifespan’s worth of history in the reins, she was young, no older than thirty. In addition to that, he might hear her chattering away with Duck and Kicks after classes, geeking about the latest show or comic she’d picked up. She was a sucker for cartoons and comic books, not to mention that she also collected figurines of said cartoons and comics. It approached hoarder levels if her personal stories of bursting shelves at home were to be believed.

In class, however, she operated as normal. She walked her students through the day’s lesson and finished the session with a relevant moral too.

Once back inside a building and after scaling a couple flights of stairs, they reached the history department. It was packed with professors, among other faculty, working round the clock to get everything ready for the thesis onslaught starting tomorrow. Paper stacks were printed and re-printed, read and re-read. Despite the frenetic pace, it was mostly quiet, with only the scratching of pens and the tapping of keyboards sticking out. The life-sized portraits of the college’s own history graduates only heightened the department’s calm.

Fonds led Keep past a sea of cubicles. Others in their little square office spaces glanced at him oddly but paid him no further mind. It then struck him that he hadn’t known where her cubicle was in his whole time at First Corners.

After navigating through the jungle of office squares, they reached their destination.

Various cartoon figurines and statuettes adorned Fonds’ cubicle, joined by a display of several rare limited edition comic issues and posters from series such as Justice Herd and the Power Ponies. Speaking of the Power Ponies, rare figurines of each of the main cast was there, made and sold from across the portal as their labels on the back testified. On the side hung, too, a couple more posters, depicting her favorite characters in tons of detail and in an assortment of styles. Of course, there was the usual class schedule and stack of papers plus the usual history books on her desk, but they were afterthoughts in this geeked-out spot.

Distinguishing herself from her peers even further, she had an old wooden chair, likely old enough to qualify as an objet d’art. The surrounding air was regal and ancient while its flowery grooves had carving of the utmost quality and care. Compared to the mass-produced plastic chairs everyone else had in the department, this was a masterpiece. Naturally, Keep’s eyes were drawn to the enduring piece of furniture, thoughts of his cutie mark coming back to occupy his mind.

“You see this?” Fonds said, gesturing to the chair and then sitting down on it. She looked at Keep with anticipation in her cheeks, pride in her chair unmatched. “What do you think?”

At first, Keep found himself with no words. Only after a while of fruitless brainwork did he manage, “Um… it’s a nice chair. Unique, certainly.”

“Mm-hmm! And what else can you say about it?”

Keep looked at it then back at his cutie mark. “It… kind of looks like mine.”

“Well, that’s nice,” she answered kindly, “but, honestly, that’s just a coincidence.”

She stood up. The chair was left empty, giving Keep a second good look at it.

“So, no questions about where it came from?” Fonds prodded, sounding a little baffled as her ears flattened against her head. “Nothing about who made it or why? No good questions a promising historian would ask?”

The professor chuckled in delight, letting the student pay full attention to her as she patted the chair’s backrest.

“This was created way back in the eighteenth century, over in the Saddle Arabian peninsula,” Fonds began. “It was specifically ordered as a gift by an aspiring and ambitious shahzadeh to his princess wife. It was one of ten chairs crafted for her as lovely thrones, created to decorate their home.

“Now, if things were simple, I would’ve stopped at that.”

Keep silently nodded. The royal couple wouldn’t get their happy ending so easily, what with Fonds being so coy.

He noticed the back-up chair behind him. It was a regular plastic chair that all the other cubicles here had. Fonds silently nodded, and so he took a seat, his ears lent to the professor.

Fonds cleared her throat before moving on: “The shahzadeh was part of the revolutionary party against the corrupt sultan who wasted no time cracking down on his opposition. Eventually, he ordered the imprisonment of all the party’s members. The shahzadeh and his family had to leave before the sultan’s forces could arrest them. In their haste, they left behind almost everything and brought, out of ten, only this one chair. After that, they lived in exile in another kingdom where they were allowed to live safely and raise their children in peace.

“However, financial troubles and famines long after the original royal couple died drove their great-grandchildren to pawn the chair to a Grittish businessman. He was also a collector of rare and expensive artifacts. Years passed, sitting in his family home where he lived—partially as a talking piece whenever visitors came by to his house—before the Royal Museum of Trottingham took interest. The museum purchased it from the businessman for its historical significance to Saddle Arabia. So, it stayed there through the turn of the twentieth century.

“Decades or so later, another businessman, this time an Amareican tycoon, would purchase the chair from the museum in exchange for a few paintings. At first, he thought he was just going to live with it and have a happy ending, but it turns out that the chair would tear him apart. His wife fought with him because he sold all his expensive paintings for ‘an old chair.’ Long story short, it evolved into a saga that was covered in the national news when she filed for divorce and got more than three-fourths of his estate in the process for her kids… and as one final stroke of revenge, she took the chair with her.

“She remained quite the respectable woman thanks to the wealth she had, rubbing shoulders with famous names and celebrities, letting them have big parties in her villa, and so on. However, because of huge family business woes thanks to her short-sighted son, she had to pay off her debt. Since she didn’t really appreciate the chair’s true value, it was the first thing sold away, and it flew off to some small-town furniture store… right here in Stirrup. It’s called, ‘Chairs and Tables For You!’ It’s right by Sideburn Road, near Willamare River in case you want to visit.

“Back to the chair, it was priced so expensively, it didn’t get sold for forty years. On the bright side, it was witness to this city’s booming history. It saw the death of a mob-connected restaurant across the street and its replacement by a hippie apartment before that got turned into a center for lots of counter-political activity—especially with environmentalist rallies about cutting down too many of our trees—and after that, that same apartment got renovated into a Lineighx tech office with the rise of the Internet. As far as I know, though, it’s since devolved into a mishmash of retail stores and a laundromat. Tragic for such a radically-changing site.

“Anyway, ten years into the new millennium, someone was studying right here for a bachelor’s degree in history. While reading up on the Royal Museum of Trottingham, he read about an odd chair in their records. That’s when it hit him: it was the same fancy chair over at the store! He was so excited to own literal history, he suffered another student loan just to snatch it. It stayed with him in his dorm as a conversation starter and a sign of ego too. Later on, after he graduated and became a professional historian, he would use it as his office chair. Wouldn’t use anything else, even if they had cushions and wheels.

“Years later—after the Change happened and he started a family—he overheard his teenage daughter in her room saying she wanted to be a historian just like her father. The next day, which was her birthday, he gifted the chair to her. He told her the crazy history of this chair and then passed it on to that lucky mare.”

She indulged herself in an elegant laugh. “It’s a no-brainer who his daughter was.”

Keep pawed a little on the floor, still nervous about his no-brainer guess. “She’s you, right?”

Fonds plastered a fun smile on her face, tilting her head towards her father’s gift.

“If only it could talk about the millions of things it’s seen over the centuries,” she said, then a sigh escaped her lips. ”It’d be a far greater treasure than it is now.”

Under the white ceiling lights, surrounded by a deluge of nerdy memorabilia, the chair glittered. It was easy to imagine a crazy old alicorn sitting on it, delighting her listeners with the complete history of the chair. The talks it’d overheard in its private rooms, the sights it’d seen in all its travels, the acts of kindness and cruelty it’d witnessed. At least that was one perk those thousand-year Equestrian creatures had going for them.

Something still nagged at the back of his mind.

“But why tell me all about it?” Keep asked, filled with curious concern. “I mean, the chair is very cool and all, but what does it have to do with me—” he sneaked a glance at his flank “—other than my cutie mark?”

Fonds’ hoof caressed the chair’s post, eyes cherishing the heirloom. “A lot. For one, we’re quite the special generation, aren’t we?”

“Huh?”

The professor covered her mouth in more polite and elegant laughter.

Calming down, she continued: “Keep, I don’t think something like the Change is going to happen again anytime soon. All of us who’s lived through it, who’ve been alive through the Change, are unique treasures. Everyone after us will live as a new set of creatures; they’ve never changed to begin with, already born as magic species.”

Keep shifted his eyes toward the figurines. It’s as if they were looking at him. They were Fonds’ silent testimony as the professor lifted her gaze upon the student.

“You…” she muttered, “you’ve lived through the Change. Studying to be a historian here is no coincidence. Certainly no passing fad on your part either. You know what I think? I think it’s borne out of a genuine desire.”

“A desire for what?” Keep asked right back, doubt clouding all. If it sounded too good to be true, it must be false. Can’t be anything else, but... “It could still be a fad, right?”

A shrug was what he got, but Fonds’ smile stuck around. “Think a little more, Keepsake. That desire can’t be just because of now. Earth’s magic era has lasted, what, twelve years? As jam-packed as that is, it can’t be all there is, can it?”

That was his cue to say no, but Keep uttered nothing. Traced in his mind, backtracked for an answer, trying to find out for the thousandth time that all-important why. The figurines and posters he whirled around at only gave him assuring smiles, no definite answers.

Rest. Yes, thinking about the Power Ponies fighting against some hair-obsessed maniac would give him a second’s rest from this tiring talk of serious real-world personal stuff. What about conjuring up whatever was the backstory behind that weird grayscale Shadow Spade poster? Or wondering what the price of that shiny human-and-pony Daring Do crossover poster was?

Human-and-pony?

Human.

Thousands of years of human history. Thousands of years of history about a species extinct.

That taste of before. He used to be human. Wasn’t human for very long, really. Lived longer as a pony by now, and if he had an average lifespan, then he’d have that a couple times over. Yet, perhaps that only heightened the hunger, spurred the curiosity in him for who he—and who everyone else—used to be.

He’d yearned for more humanity when he no longer had it. For more humanity when he could never get it.

“Humans…”

The word pulled on his tongue, rolling off of it for as long as it could, to let him dwell on that word and the history underneath it.

“It was humans th-that brought me here, wasn’t it?”

The dimples on Fonds’ smile shone under the lights. Her breathing slowed as she took in a student who was catching on.

“That was my bet,” she said as she paced around the chair, drawn to its age-old mystique. “You and figuring out who used to be here before all the magic happened. I could tell from the answers and questions you’ve made throughout the year, and I could tell from the rest of your classmates too. This drive of digging up humanity’s past, seeing its highs and lows, then enjoying the ups while learning from the downs, to understanding how we got here, and what to do to journey on a better path… as well as the fun stuff you’d find in history like with this chair.”

Fonds couldn’t help but bring out a youthful giggle. “And speaking of chairs… you’re just like a chair, Keep.”

He didn’t know whether that was a compliment or an insult. Probably the former. Probably more like Fonds’ special chair.

“What does a chair mean?” she asked as if she was talking to the chair. “Well, we know a lot about chairs. They’re familiar. They bring us comfort in good times, in bad times, even in no times. They’re just there for us when we’re tired of standing up. They’re something to turn to, something reliable, just like what you muttered to yourself back in the library.”

That still brought an embarrassing blush on his cheeks. A sign of madness, talking to himself without even noticing. It’d been convenient that everyone else there had been too focused on their own theses to listen to his mad mumblings.

“But, an old chair like this,” Fonds went on, commanding her student’s attention, “one that’s seen so much? It’s so reliable, they’re an anchor to the past. It’s endured a lot, gotten through tons of circumstances and struggles, but here they are! Still here, living history. If it was personified, I’d think it’d be one of the sages of legends, character built up over the centuries, bursting with stories to tell and what lessons it can impart to us now.

“Of course,” she said with a wink, “a chair cannot speak.”

Why wink at him like that? Maybe it was a joke he didn’t get, or some kind of—

Keep gasped. Recognition opened his eyes.

“But I can!” he yelled, jumping for joy and letting out a merry whinny.

“What’s a historian without a people to tell a history to?” Fonds remarked, her smile ever growing at the sight of a pupil just “getting it”.

“More importantly,” she added, “what’s a people without a history?”

Fonds raised a hoof to her face. She turned it around near her eyes, inspecting it closely.

“You may have been just a child when it all happened, Keep, but it’s clear you saw what we had and how far we’ve come as people. It’s something to be proud of as former humans, banding together through thick and thin to achieve wonderful things. Maybe… maybe I’m afraid that, after creatures like you, we’d start forgetting our human past, our human spirit. Giving it no honor.”

She flicked a smile back on her face, casting it toward Keep. "At least historians like you still come along."

Processing it all. That’s what he did as he stared at the tiled floor as his thoughts churned.

Keep was a pony, a chair, a former human. An anchor to the past, having had lived through it all before. There was weight to it, and it lay on his shoulders.

Yet, one more doubt insisted it was too good to be true.

“What if it’s just a feeling?” Keep asked one more time. Assurance wasn’t earned easily, that much he could feel, although joy was bubbling under the surface. He just knew she would say a wise answer to comfort him for good.

He got Fonds’ posh laugh instead. It had that fancy trans-Cantleantic laugh some actress from the fifties would use to sound high-class. It confused him. She seemed so sincere and serious just moments ago.

Once the laughter died down and her associates stopped rubbernecking her way, Fonds wiped her nigh-teary eyes.

“Really, Keep?” she asked. Her voice, however, betrayed nothing but good faith.

“If you truly love something,” Fonds kept on, “then you’ll push through with it, no matter what your feelings say. I’d say you don’t have a passing fad in your heart; otherwise, it would’ve been gone years ago! The thing is, you pushed through with it, whether you feel like it or not, because you believed this is your destiny.”

The doubts crumbled, crashing down and crumbling into debris. This was the tipping point. Washing over him was peace instead, soothing his once-troubled mind.

Keep sat down on the chair for relief, for repose as his eyes closed. Didn’t have to overthink it through. It was a reliable chair, just like all the other chairs he’d sat on through life. They’d never failed him.

He opened his eyes. For a second, all he could see was light. Glorious light. Basked in truth.

“Better?” Fonds asked, head popping into view.

He beamed back, blinking away the spots in his vision. “Um… yeah!”

“Good! Glad to help out a pony in need. Now—” she pat him on the back, a sign to hop out of her regal chair, “—off you go to your thesis again! It’s due tomorrow morning class hours, remember?”

Thus, the good feelings were shattered just as quickly as they formed. He still had a mountain of work to climb for tonight. A caffeinated evening and a drowsy morning weren’t fun things to look forward to.

But as he thanked his professor and left the history department, assuring peace remained with him into the night.

Keep trotted back to his dorm. Though he did not know when he finally slept, his sleep was the best he had in a long time.

Chapter 5

Coming back to now: It was peaceful for history teacher Keep, watching time and life go by in the Canterlot High staffroom. Quark still pulled out jokes nobody really asked for. Lime served several bowls of his signature salad. Strotton busied himself chatting idly with a fellow art teacher about some exhibit in the local museum.

Three minutes to eight-twenty—so said the clock—the knob glowed yellow and the door opened to resounding silence.

Principal Celestia stood at the door.

All hushed as she closed the door behind her. She wasn’t here to just say hi.

“I apologize for intruding on your time out of the blue,” Celestia said.

A pause while she cleared her throat and tugged at her blazer coat.

“But, I just want to wish all of you the best of luck for the new school year,” she declared. “Each year has its own sets of surprises and challenges to overcome, and this is just shaping up to be just that. However, I know we can do it only together with the magic of friendship.”

She bowed her head and took a step back out into the hallway. “So, once again, good luck and have a great day! I’ll be looking forward to it myself.”

Her little piece done, Celestia was off, heading out as everyone applauded her. She was most likely returning to her office, going back to overseeing the school itself.

Silence hung for a few more seconds before things resumed their normal way. Casual chatter fired back up though Quark’s audience still did not get what nuclear fission had to do with bait and tackle.

“Don’t be surprised,” Strotton said as he passed by the sitting Keep who’d seen it all from the comfort of his chair. “Celestia always does her best to encourage us. Good thing she doesn’t do it too much.”

A cautious snort left his lips. The art teacher still harbored much adoration for the principal, Keep could tell that. “We’re grown-ups. We don’t need a whole motivational speech every single day.”

Keep merely nodded, trying to not let the wonder get to him. She was just a normal person, anyway, suddenly thrust into so much power and responsibility long ago.

Seconds later, it was just him and his coffee again.

~ ~ ~

When eight-twenty hit, Keep got up and left the lounge. Better early than late. He’d rather do last-minute preparations just outside the room than way back in the lounge where he still had distance to cover.

As he trotted to his designated class, the halls echoed empty. Most of the students and teachers were currently occupied with classes in their own rooms. He saw little glimpses of their lessons as he passed through the doors’ windows. A bout of laughter erupted from one of them. Maybe a jokester tutor was there. His students must had been glad to have him lighten up their dreary Monday morning.

The lobby inched closer, and so did the room for his eight-thirty class.

Mostly barren was the lobby itself. The only ones there were guards, and they only dropped their stoic expressions to briefly smile at the incoming teacher. There used to be none of them back in the day, according to one of the veteran lecturers here. As time went on, however, they upped security in case anyone attempted to harm the day-night movers themselves. Sure, they were powerful alicorns who could stomp their way through any battle, but, as the saying went, prevention was better than the cure.

Room B-1 was up next.

He peeked through the window. For that, he was grateful there’d been a worldwide movement to update international door standards; now, any door would accommodate almost any creature big or small.

Inside sat a bunch of ninth-graders listening to Spin Out, their class’s homeroom teacher. He’d checked through his own class’s list and photos just to familiarize himself with his students, to put faces to their names beforehoof. Of course, it wouldn’t be wrong to ask if he did forget during the first week or so. Yet another reason to have fun icebreakers.

He sat down by the door, turning his bags onto his hoof and looking up at the ceiling. A light tinge of green to ease his eyes and mind. Keep could go over the history material one last time—with stuff like the beginnings of human civilization and agriculture's rise for lesson one—but, instead, he just thought of now.

Now.

He had waited and worked for a long time to get to here, to get to now. Now, it was so close, he could taste it. He crossed his hooves over in excited anxiety. His now as a history teacher, ready to share and give youngsters a why for and a beauty in history, from that fateful first day in school to now.

In fact, getting here into Canterlot High was the home stretch, and it started with a job interview months ago.

Keep was nervous. Very nervous. Uncomfortable and very nervous.

Sitting in the principal’s reception hall with nothing but his bags, his tie, and himself was a recipe for disaster. Add in a dash of having to talk to Principal Celestia herself—she might as well be Princess with how the sun wouldn’t shine without her—and he was close to a blubbering mess on the inside.

But he talked himself down, kept telling himself that Celestia was just a normal person who had to get used to raising and lowering the sun every day. From all accounts, she remained the same caring person she’d always been after turning into a sun alicorn. It’d all become mundane by now: wake up, take shower, brush teeth, raise sun, cook breakfast. There was no need to grovel in fear.

The clock ticked a minute before nine. The door opened on cue, revealing the previous interviewee: an Earth pony named Curve Sketch. She had interviewed for a shot as a math teacher.

Sketch and Keep had chatted lots in the few minutes they were able to meet before her interview. She was one optimistic pony, to put it mildly, wanting to prove all the math haters wrong by showing them it could be more than just doing formulas, that it’s beautiful and aesthetic too. It showed; she’d uncovered works of mathematical art such as a diagram of Pascolt’s triangle and photos of fractal sculptures from her global travels. The two wannabe-teachers had bonded over their similar passions.

“Go knock ‘em dead, Keepsake!” Sketch now quipped before leaving, slinging the bags on her back.

After the farewells, now was the moment of truth, that critical point. Make it or not make it, hired or not hired. Sweat poured down his face.

Breathed in. Breathed out. Breathed in. Breathed out. Hoof on chest. Breathed in. Breathed out. Shook head, readied the mind. Breathed in. Breathed out.

Keep trotted into the room.

The principal’s office was altogether modest. No royal heraldry or anything like that, not like what her princess counterpart had. The walls spoke of yellow and white, colors known for inspiration and positive productivity. On the back lay a bookshelf with a globe sitting on the top. A calendar and bulletin board clung to the wall, crammed with organized sticky notes. On the sun-symboled desk stood the microphone for the school’s PA system and, of course, a fresh apple stood there as was standard for teaching authorities.

Which led to Celestia herself.

He’d seen her before from afar on two or three occasions by passing by the school once in a while. He’d also seen her before as a typical fixture on international news during the first few years after the Change. Former acting president of the country for a while, assisted by the other Celestia who’d lived over a thousand years and had lots of experience and wisdom with nation-ruling. When Amareica was finally running smoothly without her constant wrangling, she didn’t hesitate to return the presidency to a more traditional politician. She’d been itching to return to full principal duties.

Up-close, he hadn’t expected her sheer presence to dominate the whole room like it did now. She was almost a full pony taller than him, but that wasn’t all. Her ethereal mane and tail flowed in the non-existent breeze, sparkling and dancing in the daylight gleaming through the window. Her casual bargain-bought blazer was regalia on her stately figure, complementing her royal-enough appearance.

She was coolly sipping hot tea. It smelled like the green sort. All teas smelled the same to him. He was more of a coffee pony anyway.

“Good morning, Keepsake!” Celestia said, warmness radiating in her words. “I believe you’ve had a good start to your day, judging by how early you arrived.”

“Yes, Miss Celestia. I’ve had a good day so far,” Keep replied. It wasn’t easy not to bow an inch before her. “The early morning shone beautifully, by the way,” he added with a sincere smirk.

It was obvious she was seeking out opinions on her sun job. Let her be, he thought. It’d probably be a long day for her. He was only second among the many applicants slated until sunset today.

She giggled, levitating the tea and its dinky little saucer back onto the table. “You’re welcome, and thank you for the compliment, although it was the pegasi who cleared the skies and made it possible. Still, controlling the sun everyday takes unparalleled dedication and consistency not everyone truly appreciates. Now, please have a seat.”

Keep was already in her good graces. If all went well, she wouldn’t see it as a kowtow trick.

The resume he’d submitted floated in Celestia’s magic glow, scanned over by her prying eyes. Time to get on the offensive and show initiative.

“Do you expect a lot of applicants because of your and your sister’s stature?” asked Keep, half-knowing the answer already. It might not be his best hoof forward, but better his hoof than hers—that sounded wrong now that he thought it through.

“Yes, I do expect swarms of would-be teachers storming in here because of me and Luna,” she replied, circling the rim of her teacup. “Still, it won’t be as bad as my first year back here as a full-time principal.”

She tipped the cup a tiny bit. The tea inside glided an inch to the edge.

“Even so,” she continued, “most of them are quite manageable. In fact, I bring in one or two of them if their passion for friendship-filled education outweighs their personal ambitions.”

Keep’s ears folded in politeness. “I see.”

It wouldn’t be easy to come clean here, but it had to be done as a show of honesty. So, he added, “I must admit, I still am a little starstruck by the prospect of working under cosmos-movers such as you and Vice-Principal Luna, but I’m also quite interested in the unique situation this school’s had in recent times.”

Celestia magically floated the cup down. “Yes. It is quite unique, all things considered.”

The resume floated down to the table too, that yellow glow of hers dissipating. Her eyes locked with his. Time to rein it in and let the interviewer do her job.

“So, Keepsake, tell me a bit about yourself.”

Keep had practiced for this, so he opened his mouth wide and confident. “I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history from First Corners College. Since then, I’ve worked my way up the ladder, starting with being the event planner for various historical societies both in Amareica and abroad—such as the Historical Coalition of Amareica and the International Archives Association for the Convocation of Countries—as well as assisting in preservation efforts worldwide, most especially the Multinational Digital History Servers Backup.

“However, what I really want to do with my history expertise is to instill an appreciation of the past—our society’s foundation—in the next generation. That’s the crux of why I want to be a history teacher.“

Celestia nodded, glancing at the resume again. Not much of a spectacle in her face for now, though it did shine brighter now. “So… as the principal of Canterlot High, I assume that you know what this school means to those who walk through its doors.”

She heeded the silence. Keep’s silence meant yes, he knew.

“Why are you interested in teaching at this school in particular?”

Keep scratched his mane. Totally not nervous. This was a display of yet more confidence, which was what the suave expression on his self-satisfied face was for.

“Well, I must admit I am quite honored to be considered for the role in such a storied institution, to teach at the very school where the world’s new magical age awakened. But, beyond that, I also think of how this school’s ethics play into every facet of school life. The emphasis on values such as friendship certainly instills confidence that this school isn’t a factory spitting out job- or college-ready individuals but that it is interested in building up its students into becoming the best both in character and in academics—both mental and physical, of course. In addition to that, upon canvassing various teachers—both current and former—from several schools in the city, I heard them speak of Canterlot High’s working culture as unrivaled thanks to the emphasis on friendship. That’s also without mentioning the caliber of teachers that are attracted here thanks to its rich history.”

Another sip of tea for the principal. “That shows you have dutifully prepared for this, Keep. A good quality to have.”

She put the cup down again, a couple inches away from the resume. Would be terrible if she soiled the document by spilling hot tea.

“Now, why would you want to teach history in particular to young creatures?” she asked. Keep couldn’t help but notice her moving mane once in a while as it shimmered in the sunshine. “I see that it’s your passion to teach, but why teach history instead of, say, mathematics or philosophy?”

He rubbed his hooves to let prevent the shivers from overtaking him. Things were looking good so far.

“I do believe it’s important to give them a proper perspective on past events,” Keep began, “to give them a solid foundation on how we got here and why things are the way they are now in the world. However, just citing facts and numbers won’t do. Instead, I—”

Wavered.

He wavered. Something was coming on, breaking the script in his head. Rolled his tongue in one cheek, then rolled it in the other. Tried to shoo that pesky something out.

“It’s… it’s like trying to teach a foal how to do calculus,” he carried out, regaining himself. “It’d be terrible if I just show them integrals from the get-go. They’ll be turned off by it and will hate math forever. But, any sensible teacher would start with the basics first: simple counting, then addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, algebra… only after all of that can they teach calculus.”

A cough went to the side, his mouth covered. He had to persevere and get his thoughts in order.

“So it is with history,” he continued. “I-I can’t just say names and dates. They don’t mean a thing to them. But what do foals like?”

He flashed a smile that meant only eureka!, like he finally solved the most difficult item on a math test.

“Stories. History is made up of stories. So I tell them those stories… and then… only then do they get to appreciate the power and meaning of the names and dates, the stories behind them all.

“Finally, it’s also because...”

Keep gulped. That would be fine. Just a little hiccup. Things would get back to normal.

The mouth opened but the words didn’t form.

This was dangerous. He shouldn’t be having this pause. What’s worse, butterflies fluttered in his stomach, traveling to his skull to freeze his brain.

Just a momentary pause, an unexpected break in the script. He could still recover as long as he said a couple words and finished a coherent sentence.

But all he did was lose focus, look at nowhere, and stutter, “Because… b-because...”

Celestia’s look turned into confusion.

Something was coming on, but he couldn’t just blast it out in anger and say gibberish to get it out. At the tip of his tongue, mind delving through memory clutters in search of the missing words—

Because I was there.

“Haven’t you heard? It’s over! It can’t be fixed! I was there when the purple princess pony said it!”

Ten-year-old Keep sat in the corner of his living room, still frightened at the strange creature he’d become. Almost everyone was gone; either Dad had brought them home or their parents had rushed to fetch them. That’d left Thistle, Bud, and Alloy by his side, comforting the shuddering colt.

He wanted it to be just a nightmare. He wanted it to be over. To mute the bad news outside. To cover his ears and make it stop.

“Are you sure?!” Dad shouted to their neighbor past the door.

“She’s the princess, so she oughta’ know!”

The conversation was over. Dad closed the door and locked it tight.

Keep's heart pounded, beating too fast for him to keep up. The neighbor had said nothing good, said nothing human. He could only feel the worst news about to explode and destroy what was left of reality.

Dad looked at him and his friends square in the eyes. It was just them and Mom in this house. Mom turned away, and Keep could feel she was close to crying.

“A-are we…” said Keep before he coughed through his new mouth, unable to shake the shuddering off. “C-can we turn back?”

Dad let out a silent sigh, staring at the floor.

“Can we t-turn back to normal? L-like soon?”

Dad shook his head, bit his lip. He never looked at his son.

“But are you—“

“You heard him,” Dad blurted out, sounded worn-out. “He has no reason to lie to us like that.”

Keep opened his mouth to ask again. Asking another time might get him a maybe.

But the colt said nothing. The neighbor had no reason to lie. Dad had no reason to lie. No one would lie about the end of the world if it was happening right in front of them.

So, no.

It would be no humanity forever. A harrowing word: forever. Stuck as a stupid magic unicorn forever. No way to turn back into a human again forever. All of it, thrown out the window forever as tears welled up in his eyes.

“I...”

He choked. Tears choked.

Keep curled up on the floor, leaning against the cold wall.

Dad and Mom hugged him. His friends hugged him too. They hugged him, stayed with him as the world died.

Keep cried.

~ * ~

Eyes red and dry, and they were scary too, but that didn’t stop his friends from eating with him at the table.

It was evening. They said it’s some vice principal who was moving the moon now. Horrible; science was breaking down as well as eating manners too—they were all getting used to eating straight from the plate. Muzzle out, food in. Just like an animal.

“Come on, Keep, it’s not so bad,” Alloy chirped after munching on a lettuce sandwich, her snout so close to the plate like a horse. “I mean, I dream of flying and being a magic pony a lot, so I was like, ‘Huh? Cool!’”

“You were screaming when your dreams came true,” Keep reminded her. It didn’t help that his strained throat made his voice growl.

“Only because no one expected it,” Thistle said. He inspected his antlers as they glowed, vibrating his plate a little. “If it’s up to me, I’d become a dragon instead of a deer because dragons are way cooler.” He looked at his antlers again and knocked on them with his hoof. “But, heh, deer’s the second best.”

“You thought turning into a deer was super lame ‘cause they couldn’t fly!” accused Bud, shooting a cloven hoof at his deer friend. “Admit it!”

“Ugh… fine, it’s lame.” Thistle stuck his tongue out and made a sour face. “But I can’t choose so I can’t complain. Plus—“ he pointed at his glowing antlers “—magic. Can’t deny magic’s cool.”

Keep smiled, but only for a brief bit. He looked to Bud to see what the calf had to say.

Bud noticed his searching look. “What? Yeah, I wanna turn back, but it’s nifty to be a buffalo. Strong, fierce, running free… sounds like a good package to me.”

Keep just went back to eating. He ignored how his friends happily talked about their new selves like it wasn’t so bad.

~ * ~

Keep was outside for the first time. It was dreadful and horrible, seeing no humans in sight but, instead, all these weird animals straight from his bedtime stories. Magic ponies like him, flying creatures like griffons and hippogriffs, others like buffalo and yaks and changelings, even the most human of them like the diamond dogs and the Abyssinians—every one of them, real. Every one of them, no longer human.

Mom had brought him over to Canterlot High, the high school that started this whole mess with its horse statue portal. She had badgered him out of bed and made him come with her, saying that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life hiding under the sheets. Now, he had to help Mom help the ponies here distribute “recivilization goods” or Equestrian care packages or Equestrian boxes or whatever they were called. It was stuff to help society get back on its hooves, she said.

If they were lucky, she’d said, there’d be unicorns from the other side willing to help him out with his magic powers. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to dive further into this magic nonsense. It would be terrible to become less human and more unicorn. Sadly, he couldn’t say no to Mom literally dragging her whiny son by the ear out into the open.

Once there, he saw the swirling portal floating in front of the school, big enough to fit a truck or two. There were tons of boxes shooting out of the thing, caught by agile ponies and sorted into sections: food, tools, manuals, building materials, so on. By the side stood a tall-looking purple alicorn supervising everything, talking with Celestia—not sure which one—about other portals for other places around the world. Maybe she’s the princess pony they’d talked about yesterday. Keep didn’t care for it though. He was forced here, he wasn’t going to like it.

All day, it was catching and sorting boxes for the wagon drivers to distribute through town. Boring, boring, hard boring work.

~ * ~

“Stupid phone, go to the video already!“

He pressed it with his hoof. Must’ve been the tenth time.

TackTube was horrendous with hooves. Apps were horrendous with hooves. Phones were horrendous with hooves even with glove mode on. Nonetheless, it’d be worth it to get the help he so needed. It was Dad’s recommendation too.

After the thirtieth excruciating time, he finally selected the video and it started loading.

“Hello!” said the yellow unicorn on the video. “I’m Sunset Shimmer and I’ll teach you the basics of unicorn magic, starting with tips on levitation!”

The next hour, Keep did his best, lighting his horn and lifting his phone, his blanket, and other random stuff in the room. The goal was to get them up and stay in the air for ten seconds, and then it was for twenty seconds, and then it was for thirty seconds. Forty seconds, fifty seconds, sixty seconds, more seconds.

It felt alien, this magic thing. It was weird energy flowing through his body like electricity—not the bad type that electrocuted him though. It was a warm buzz that built up to his horn, and, somehow, he was able to use that to feel and hold stuff without touching them at all.

It felt out of this world to make things float with his magic.

By the end, he could levitate stuff for ten minutes straight, but he was drained. He lied down on the floor and slept.

~ * ~

The news used to be dull, but now, he wanted to see if there’s any hope for a second chance, a second shot at humanity.

In the evening, just winding down with Mom. Dad was away somewhere in Equestria, asking around to see how he could help Earth more.

“In the meantime,” said the pony reporter on the screen, “Equestria is almost done setting up portals in over two hundred major cities across the world. This is thanks to the help of Princess Twilight Sparkle and accomplished wizards Sunburst and Starswirl the Bearded who’ve spearheaded the project.”

Cut to Princess Twilight, standing in another city somewhere in this unknown world he knew and loved. The Eiffet Tower was there, so it must be Mareis, Prance.

“I wish things would’ve turned out much better,” the princess said. She sounded like she was swimming in thought. Maybe drowning it in too. “We could’ve had peaceful cultural exchanges between humans and Equestrians. Sadly, that’s not what happened.

“The only thing we can do now is to help Earth adapt to its new status quo. Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be sending even more volunteers so everyone gets up to speed with Equestrian magic and their new bodies.”

The news marched on, leaving Twilight in its wake. A montage of videos over many reports, from various cities and towns all over Earth, showed no human in sight. They were other-worldly creatures trying to get by.

~ * ~

Laid on the bed, faced the ceiling.

Cuddled by a gentle pillow and his soft blanket, Keep remembered the bedtime stories. The Hours of the Finest Knight: tales of Knight Road who traveled the land of Licorne, saving damsels in distress from evil dragons in their haunted castles, battling against wicked mages to free a town under their spell, and, best of all, having a trusty unicorn steed as his best friend. His Dad never failed to tuck him to sleep with a story beforehand, especially when he mimicked all the characters’ voices. Those nights were fun and never dull.

Keep remembered saying something one night after Dad finished a story. It was a night long before they’d become magic talking ponies.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, sonny?”

“What if… what if it’s all true?”

“What’s all true?”

“Th-the adventures? The magic. Come on, magic would be fun! How awesome would it be to have my own unicorn friend? I wanna get one!”

“Heh-heh! Of course, they’re not true. None of the adventures or the magic’s real. But... yeah, won't it be great if they are real?”

Now it was true. The magic, the fantastic creatures, all of it.

It wasn’t great.

~ * ~

More box chores over at the high school today, hauling them over and sorting them with his Mom. Friendly neighbors were his co-workers but so were a lot of unfamiliar ponies who’d come from the other side, Equestria. There were even a couple pairs that look like twins. Really, they were the same pony but different versions, alter egos from both sides. Maybe he had one over there too with the same name, same voice, and same cutie mark. Super creepy.

“Hey, Keep!”

The pony turned around.

From the sidewalk scampered a few familiar silhouettes.

A bit closer, and they turned out to be his friends again. The deer, the buffalo, and the pegasus, all excited and galloping up to the colt.

“Huh?” was all he could ask when they came to a screeching halt right in front of him. “What’re you doing here?”

Alloy was the first to speak. “We decided that seeing you work here all alone just isn’t good.”

Thistle rolled his eyes and groaned. “I just wanted to stay home, but—“

“Cut it out, Thistle!” Alloy said as he pulled his ear.

“Ow!” He recoiled from the demanding filly, his ear already throbbing red. “Alright, fine, Mom!”

Alloy turned to Keep but not without groaning back at Thistle.

“Okay, Keep, I know you still feel pretty bad about, well, this—” she flared her wings, pointing at the silliness magic had given the world. “But I guess, since we’re all in this together... might as well help a friend in need, right?”

She stretched her hoof out. A welcome, open invitation to something better. No fingers—well, no hooves crossed.

Keep bit his lip. Things shouldn’t have to stay this way, to remain as whimsical and magical as they were. A former human like him would always bounce back from this and regain humanity somehow. The stories always ended like that.

But friends willing to help him just to get used to magic life? It wouldn’t hurt.

“Alright,” Keep replied before shaking her hoof.

So they helped him catch, carry, and sort the boxes around. That once boring job turned into a fountain of laughter and joy, a burden happily shared with friends as they shared what had happened to them over the past few days.

~ * ~

In the middle of downtown, in a big city park, Keep and his friends were hiding in a bush.

No one had noticed them yet, but if they did, they would see the kids busily watching native Equestrians help Earthen creatures out. Unicorns taught others how to cast spells with their horn, and there was excitement whenever they managed to make an apple glow or something else simple like that. Pegasi hovered over the grass, telling their pupils how to fine-tune their wings mid-flight and correcting their wing form every thirty seconds or so. Earth ponies shared to their students about their magic connection to plants and animals, wowing their audience by a demonstration of seeds sprouting right on top of their hooves. That’s not to mention the other creatures present there too like hippogriffs and griffons.

What everyone had in common here was the Equestrians conveying their way of life to the Earthens. This way, life would go on like nothing happened.

Keep and his friends stowed away in that bush for hours. But, those hours were filled with good talk and lighthearted storytelling about what it was like being a buffalo, a deer, or a pony.

For a while, Keep forgot he was a unicorn. Or, really, Keep forgot to worry about it.

~ * ~

The young quartet were at Sweet Snacks for a little weekend dinner. It was Bud’s Dad treating them out for helping him fix all the holes the buffalo family had created in their house. Fries and hayburgers were their greasy feast which they washed down with soda and milkshakes.

While laughing at a joke Bud had cracked, Keep noticed a stranger sitting next to him. It was a pegasus colt occupied with a book on the counter.

The stranger noticed Keep. The book closed shut between his hooves.

“Oh, um… d-don’t mind me… just, uh, busy.” He shifted his eyes here and there. Must be a lot more nervous than Keep was with meeting new kids. “I’m just waiting for my Mom to get something. After that, we’re going back to Ponyville.”

That got Keep’s attention and eyebrows up. “Wait... you’re not from here?”

The pegasus nodded. “Yup. I’m from Equestria. Guess you’re from here, though, right?”

“Yeah.”

Keep passed the awkward silence by circling his hoof on the counter.

“Oh.” The pegasus glanced at his own book. “Bet you probably saw my book, huh?”

He showed the front to Keep. It wasn’t much. Just a paperback with a globe on it and the title in plain letters.

A Quick History of Earth: For Equestrians’ General Knowledge

“Mom says it’s kinda’ weird I read this on Earth,” the pegasus continued, “but I only heard about humans and Earth after the Change just like everypony else. So, it’s like, what do they call it… archaeology or something?...”

Keep didn’t hear the rest. The title alone was too much.

~ * ~

At home late at night, alone with Mom again, watching TV. Dad was super busy on an Equestrian business trip, she’d said; boss wanted to help speed up Earth’s recovery and needed Dad’s help.

“… as both Earthers and Equestrians unite to form the inter-dimensional historical preservation society.” the reporter droned on. “It is dedicated to preserving as much of human history as possible by safeguarding it from decay, destruction, and deception.”

On screen showed live footage of various creatures on stage, cameras revealing their flashy big smiles. They stood in front of an oversized Manehattan museum.

That sure was a big crowd for a museum.

~ * ~

Keep couldn’t say no to Alloy’s invitation. Just some time together in her house, hanging out as familiar friends in this crazy world. Mom said it was for the best. It was certainly better than brooding too much in bed and doing absolutely nothing.

It was okay. They had a nice snack, had a game of chess where Keep got the hang of levitating small chess pieces—he still lost, but it was the experience that mattered—and had fun watering the frontyard flowers Alloy took care of.

By sunset, however, something was off. The frown on her face as she put down the watering can and sat down on the grass said it all.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, trotting up to the filly and sitting beside her.

Alloy swayed back and forth on the grass, twiddling her hooves in worry. “I…”

She looked at her own cutie mark. An anvil. Keep had seen it before and it fit Alloy’s name—alloys were metals, and metals on anvils looked like they were burning. That should be a good thing, but she wasn’t taking it well.

“D-does it mean—“ she drew in lots of breath, enough to puff her cheeks out “—d-does it mean I’m going to be a b-blacksmith?”

Keep trembled. He didn’t ask for this. This was one of those serious moments, being asked for advice and having to give a serious answer or else. Worse, it was cutie mark advice. The stupid chair on his cutie mark meant nothing to him. It surely didn’t mean he was good at sitting on chairs. That would be a dumb talent.

But he had to speak. Keep sucked in a lot of air like Alloy did, hoping that would be enough for good words to come out of his mouth.

“Um… they said cutie marks can have different meanings,” he started. “Like in Equish class last year with the similes and metaphors. Maybe… maybe your cutie mark is a metaphor for… uh, being metal?”

Alloy spat on the grass. She put on a foul face. “Yeah, right. I’d have gotten a gold bar instead, but, no, I get an anvil, and who use anvils a lot? Blacksmiths. Guys who make tools and weapons like swords.” She trembled and her face scrunched up. “I don’t like swords. I don’t like the hot sweaty work they do. It’s an oven there, and—“ she gazed upon the flowers glowing orange by the sunset sky “—I thought I l-like flowers...”

She dragged a hoof down her face, irises shrunk in horror. “What if I end up a blacksmith? I don’t wanna be a sweaty blacksmith working with hot metal all day, making swords I don’t like!”

That was a toughie. Tough enough to warrant scratching his chin like the heroes did in the movies when they were thinking up a plan.

“So what do you wanna be?” asked Keep.

The filly scratched her chin in turn. “I wanna be… um… well, not really a florist or a gardener. I-I like it as a hobby, b-but not as a job. I j-just like my own flowers… and, Mom said I should try out o-other things while growing up too, but I don’t know...” It ended with her looking at her cutie mark again, terrified at her potential destiny.

Keep scooted closer to her, hoping that first question was the right one. “Honestly, I don’t care about my cutie mark, ‘least for now. They say you’re not supposed to force a meaning out of it. You’ll know the meaning when it gets to you. That’s what… what Sunset said in her video, and—“

Keep was knocked on the head by a horseshoe. That hurt, like a train had sped straight to his face with the pain of a million punches.

“Ouch! Hey! What was that for?!”

He whirled around and saw blue-maned Hard Knocks, a classmate passing by on the sidewalk. The pegasus colt wasn’t the friendly type. He was one of the cool kids like Thistle and Bud. Unlike Thistle and Bud, however, Knocks was a lot meaner, asserting his strength with every chance he got.

“Whoops! Sorry about that!” Knocks brandished a hoof at Keep, taunting his victim with a roaring cackle. “That’s for the horseshoe contest in Equestria tonight, which I’ll win! Yeah, have you been there? Oh, I will be and you won’t!”

With a couple groans and grunts, Keep got back up on his four hooves, pain raging in his head. “If you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll—

“Oh, yeah?” Alloy shouted at Knocks.

The colts gasped as Alloy stood up and took Knocks’ horseshoe to her hoof. She tossed it up and caught it with her mouth. Teeth gripped hard on the iron.

“Take this, you dummy!”

Off it flew from her swinging head. The horseshoe hurtled straight at him and struck his face.

Knocks staggered and almost fell down, screaming in pain. The damage was more than done, however—a couple of his teeth tumbled onto the ground.

“Wha?! Nah!” Knock’s frantic hooves were on his head. The bully was totally mortified. “I wath thuuppoth toh haff gooh teef phor muh tentifh thomorroh!“

“What you get, jerk!” Alloy yelled back, carrying a mad grin. “Now, skedaddle! Or do you want to try out my Dad’s horseshoes? You want all four of ‘em?”

But the colt was galloping out of there, screaming away from the dangerous filly.

Keep looked on at the fleeing pony in awe. He also looked on in the pain that still throbbed in his head, but the awe felt a billion times better.

Knocks’ horseshoe still lay on the sidewalk. The bully had forgotten about it in his retreat. Alloy trotted up to it to take a closer look with Keep following close behind.

She turned it around, letting it glitter in the waning sunshine. “Huh. I haven’t read much about horseshoes, but that felt good. If only he had a better horseshoe though. The guide said this type looks cheap.”

Keep did a double take. “Um… wow. I know you’re a genius but, not a horseshoe genius.”

She beamed with a mix of joy and indifference. “Eh, I had nothing to do. I took the horseshoe guide my uncle got from an Equestrian care package. Who knew horseshoes are completely unlike regular shoes?”

Alloy made a silly smile that uncovered her horseshoe fascination, and then she gestured at her hoof. “Like, you don’t just slip horseshoes on. You need a farrier to put them on for you, and it takes like half an hour or more. There are some modern easy horseshoe kits—that’s what they call it—that you just put on yourself and it takes like five to ten minutes. But, sometimes, you need a whole tool kit to do it perfectly... they trim your hooves with a rasp, a hoof knife, and more. Most of the time, they nail the horseshoes on your hoof—really, they use a hammer to nail it on your hoof so the horseshoe won’t go away easily. It’s kind of like going to the barber; you can’t just cut your own mane. Well, you can be your own farrier, but that’s extra difficult...”

An idea turned up in Keep’s head. It was hard to hide the giddy smile he had. Alloy had just given the answer she needed without knowing it.

“What if you’re… um, a horseshoe blacksmith that makes horseshoes… with anvils?” asked Keep.

“You mean a farrier?” Alloy asked back, glancing back at her cutie mark. “That’s what a farrier is. A farrier makes horseshoes and puts them on horses’ hooves.”

Keep nodded his head so fast, he felt dizzy but that was okay. This could be what Alloy was looking for.

“Yeah, like that!” he answered excitedly. “I mean, you like horseshoes, so why not give that horseshoe thing a try?”

She hummed in deep thought. Keep guessed that bringing it back to cutie marks like this might turn her off. Still, it was worth a shot.

After half a minute of waiting for her to do anything other than thoughtful humming, Alloy’s pensive frown faded. In its place was a smirk that spoke of an open mind.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I think I’ll try. I don’t see how it could go horribly wrong just trying it out.”

Keep pumped a hoof to the air. “Uh-huh! That’s the spirit!”

~ * ~

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Not really, no. Um, yes. Uh-huh. Okay. Thank you. Bye.”

Mom closed the telephone and turned to Keep who sat at the dining table. He was busy eating his midnight snack of apples.

The colt stopped, putting the apple aside to pay attention.

“That was Alloy’s mother,” Mom said, eyes avoiding her son at first. “I… I didn’t know you just...”

Fear snuck in his veins. Of course, it’d gone wrong, hadn’t it? He’d taken a shot, but he didn’t really know how it’d gone. For all he knew, Alloy was crying in bed because she’d broken her hoof or got scared at all the dirty blacksmith-farrier work she might be forced to do by her cutie mark’s destiny for the rest of her life.

“Did she hurt herself?” he asked.

“No. She’s… agh, how do I say this?”

Mom put her hoof on her mane. Hand on her hair, hoof on her mane—some nervous tics translated well into ponyhood. It didn’t ease Keep one bit.

“Ah… her Mom said that after she bought a farrier’s kit at the market tonight by herself, Alloy realized one of the sample horseshoes would fit her perfectly if she changed it a bit,” Mom said matter-of-factly. “Once she did and put it on, her cutie mark just… glowed.”

Keep shuddered. That was unexpected. Sunset had never talked about glowing cutie marks in her videos yet. “I-is that bad?”

Mom’s face lightened up at that. “I don’t think so. They talked about it with an Equestrian pony, and they said it’s a good thing. It means that she’s discovered a big part of what her cutie mark means.”

She scratched her mane, something Keep saw as a sign of I-don’t-know-what-to-say. “Alloy… she says that it feels better walking with horseshoes like that than going bare-hoofed. Her Mom then told me that the filly wants to see how she can help foals like her, and she already has a plan: buying and selling horseshoes she’ll try adjusting and working on. And you know who she had to thank for that, Keep?”

Keep just stood there, dumbfounded with his mouth open. He already knew the answer: him.

He was so dumbstruck, he didn’t see Mom flying in to embrace him.

~ * ~

Keep was back outside for more volunteer duty. This time, he was to pull a wagon of Equestrian care packages assigned with more than enough food and, oddly enough, horseshoes for the homes he was visiting. He’d asked for it, much to the surprise of his Equestrian supervisors who saw a small colt so enthusiastic to pull a big and heavy wagon.

As he trotted, stopping by each house, he saw the little things, saw the little details one would only get if they just paid attention and looked closely. An Earth pony got a horse-friendly set of seeds and gardening tools. A pegasus family said they’d had too much meat in their stocks and were later thankful for the appetizing bales of hay he’d brought. A unicorn couple had been expecting the horseshoes because they were marathon runners and needed their feet—no, their hooves to stay healthy.

That wasn’t all, it wasn’t just him, and it wasn’t just ponies too. All around him, former humans were helping each other out through these strange times. Colorful changelings were having a blast with one of their friends dressing up as and shapeshifting into a clown. A couple griffons escorted their tiny breezie friend through the city, making sure he wouldn’t accidentally drift into danger. A seapony was teaching other seaponies how to swim underwater in the community pool. Yaks and buffalo worked together to fix up holes and replacing broken stuff in their homes, also expanding their doors to fit their new sizes. An angry-on-purpose kirin-turned-nirik experimented with being a campfire for her kirin companions to enjoy their roasted s’mores on. Finally, it was a bright and clear day partially thanks to the pegasi above pushing the clouds away, doing their weather duties.

They were hopeful. They might be sad about not being human anymore, but they were hopeful and ready to push through the tragedy and recover. They were hopeful that things would get better, that they’d be better with each other. That they’d be better helping each other.

Helping Alloy. Helping the rest of his friends. From there on, the world.

Keep trotted forward, moving on to help the next home with his own hearty smile.

Chapter 6

“Keep?”

“Y-yes, Mom?”

In lieu of Mom, it was Celestia across the table. The interview was still ongoing.

He blushed. Calling his interviewer Mom was a huge blow to his chances here. It was already bad enough that he’d called his teachers Mom back in grade school, but humiliation on this scale took the cake.

Instead of laughing at him like he expected, though, Celestia kept herself to that same calm smile, revealing nothing but vague interest.

“You’ve been like this for—“ she checked the clock on her desk “—the past five minutes or so. I’ve tried nudging you, but you wouldn’t budge, so I decided to wait it out. I would rather have you get back to your senses on your own than jolt you unprepared.”

At least she was being nice and considerate. Despite that, Keep still shuddered and had been looking around while she spoke. Still the same familiar office, and—five minutes? That was too long. Down the drain went a big chunk of interview time, her time which she set aside specifically for him.

“Well… well… argh, sorry, Miss Celestia, but where was I?”

“You were saying something about foals loving stories,” Celestia prompted, “and how you’d use stories to help them appreciate history, right?”

“Right, right...”

Keep wiped his perspired forehead with a hankerchief. This was utter embarrassment. He could never get the job done like this.

Celestia did answer his question though. There was still a chance. A long shot, but a worthy shot nonetheless.

With a rub of his eyes and a heavy sigh, he charged on: “Okay… w-well, foals do love stories... so they should… they should understand history starting with stories.”

Slowly but surely, he was getting his groove back. The focus was on nothing but the words in his head, the scripted things he had prepared in his mind for a long time.

“The basic elements of history are stories that really happened.” Already, he was moving his hooves about, gesturing them around like the planner in a heist movie. “Once we get that down, we string them together into a bigger story where all the little stories are connected.

“On top of that, however… I think I can tell history a lot better if it was up to me.” He proudly pumped his chest with a hoofthump. “I’ve had so many experiences through the Change which was a monumental moment in history. It played a huge part in my childhood, my teenage years, and me just growing up and maturing into the pony I am today.”

Keep felt the fuzzies in his heart, but no time to rest on incomplete laurels. “This mentality of telling these young minds that history is a lot like their lives but in a different time and place—like the bedtime stories they listen to or read but are real instead—would set me apart from the rest. It’s because I know how history impacted me, and it wasn’t a list of names and places and statistics. It’s the little stories and experiences I’ve lived through myself. I can bring students to honor the history we have not because I know we strove together in the past but because I lived through it—I joined everyone in suffering the same disaster, and I was there when we to turned disaster around into… this.”

He gestured to the whole room. It wasn’t in flames nor in ruins, but it was a stable, tidy room. Fear and death wouldn’t have kept it this way, but something better, something greater.

“We could’ve fallen apart, panicked for months on end. But, instead, we adapted. No, we helped each other adapt. We didn’t want to die off. We wanted to live on, and all the little stories I’ve lived through are more than enough to testify to that… and I believe I have the ability to impart that honor, that appreciation, and that love of who we used to be, who we are, and who we can be to the next generation.”

And so, he took one big breath and leaned back on his chair. He was tired and sweaty, but he was content. The hardest part was over.

Celestia nodded for what must’ve been the thirtieth time, jotting a line down on her notepad and showing nothing more than intrigue—perfect for poker. More tea was sipped all ladylike, eyes still on the paper. She jotted something down again, quill levitating in her yellow glow as furious scribbling went quietly.

All the while, Keep kept quivering. He didn’t show it, but behind the calm facial facade, anxiety lurked. His chances were slim. It wasn't the end of the world if he didn’t get in here, sure. There were plenty other schools in the city, and the prestigious Crystal Prep Academy was his second choice; it possessed just as much experience in magic for a high school as Canterlot High. However, messing up in front of the sun-mover wouldn’t do him any favors.

And he just wanted Celestia to say something. Do something, comment on something, anything other than just drinking tea and writing notes. Maybe she was silently judging him, grading him just like a teacher. Either way, the wait was killing him.

At long last, Celestia looked up. Her disposition, sunny as always.

“That is a good mentality, Keepsake. Thank you. Entering with such a creative perspective would certainly help a lot your way.”

She took a sip of tea, or would have had it not been empty. Celestia put it back down.

“Speaking of mentalities, you said you’d planned for events before. Let’s talk about your organization skills...”

~ ~ ~

Waiting for a week felt like waiting for a disaster to happen. He’d already contacted Crystal Prep and nearby Everton as well as Charter High. As for that last one, he’d be willing to go for the serve-your-alma-mater option. There was much comfort and sentiment in giving back to the hoof that taught him.

One early Sunday, in the pre-morning twilight, as he was eating a bowl of fresh cereal and watching syndicated cartoons from earlier times—from human times—the doorbell rang.

Keep got up, leaving the TV to run, and magically opened the door with a glowing turn of the knob.

It was Press Run once again. She wasn’t from here originally. She’d moved from a small town in the middle of Neighbraska long after she’d become a pony. A change of scenery was her answer when Keep first met the fresh newspony, but later on, she admitted to getting closer to the action, and living right where the magic began had been her best option yet.

“Oh, hi!” Press exclaimed, waving hyperactively with both hoof and wing. “Here’s your news!”

Keep brought the broadsheets into his magic glow, and had small talk with the mailmare. The weather, their breakfasts, and that Sirens concert over at Maredison Square Garden last night. The band had barely fit in the venue but it’d worked out anyway and everyone had a good time, she said.

However, as he turned back to his house, Press flapped her wings in panic. “Wait! You almost forgot your mail!”

He stopped mid-step. “Mail? But it’s a Sunday. I usually don’t get Sunday mail.”

“Yeah, but it’s only one letter and it’s from Canterlot High!”

The stallion froze in place. A cold wind, real or not, blew by him and sent chills down his back.

Press took out the envelope from her bag. “Here it is! I think it’s about that application you talked about last week. Timing sounds spot on, so...”

Keep just stood there. Without moving any other muscle, with eyes lasered on his mail, he levitated the envelope closer.

Floating in the magic field before his eyes was a brown, plain Manenila envelope. A stamp sealed it shut. That was all what separated him from the truth inside: hired or fired.

No time to wait. He ripped the stamp off, took the letter to his eyes, and read.

A smile flickered onto his face

“Uh, why are you staring at blank paper?”

“Wuh?!”

His mind jolted into the present and Keep looked up, seeing Spin outside the room. Her long red mane falling around her neck, she was looking down at him like she’d just seen a dog eat homework.

He looked at what laid on his hooves: a clean notepad. The stallion brought it back inside the bag, sporting an awkward smile for Spin Out. “Just doing the absolute last thing I have to do before this class!”

Her answer was an understanding sigh and an offer to pull him up.

In the quiet halls, it was just them. Just him, Spin Out, the door, and less than a minute to go. For all he knew, it was already time.

A pat on his shoulders from Spin gave him one last moment of encouragement.

“Have a good one, Keep!” she said in a passionate whisper. “You can do this!”

“He-he! Thanks for the motivation, Spinnie.”

“Don’t mention it!”

Just like that, she was off prancing to her next class. She taught biology, he remembered. After so many years, he still couldn’t wrap his head around how that subject would work. There were so many different anatomies to study compared to a human class’s single one.

No matter. It was showtime.

The jitters climbed up his withers. Butterflies raged in his stomach and itched to deny him peace. They fought to deny him this special moment where he would start truly shining as he was meant to be, as his cutie mark and his destiny meant him to be.

Under his breath, he muttered finally, “Let’s get this thing started.”

Keep opened the door and strode into the classroom with all the bravado he could muster.

Inside, rows of students sat on their student desks, eyes following their first real teacher of the day. The teacher set his saddle bags down on the table and unpacked a couple books. Chalk and eraser left his bag as well though the classroom already had those by the board.

Keep did a split-second survey of the whole class. The faces he’d seen on his papers came to life in these flesh-and-blood creatures, all wearing expectant expressions. He knew they wouldn’t want a boring class. Maybe, since it was their first year in high school, they believed history would be taught differently, more excitingly, here. Maybe they were wondering why their teacher’s cutie mark was just an old chair. Maybe they already liked him because he was young and, therefore, potentially cool.

Without further ado, he took in one more breath and opened the session.

“Good morning class!” declared the teacher, kicking off with jolliness this morning. “I’m Keepsake, but you can call me Keep, and I’m going to be your history teacher for the school year.”

None of his students groaned at the mention of history. That was a good sign.

Keep then sat not on the teacher’s chair but on the table, hind legs casually dangling off the edge, and he was far from stopping. “Let’s get straight to it and get to know each other, shall we? We can start by telling stories about what happened over the summer. Could be about your vacation trip or a new thing you found out or maybe something embarrassing—“

A blue mare raised her hoof and stood up. “Oh, I got one embarrassing story for you, Mister Keep!”

A few gasps sounded in the room, mostly from her friends seated next to her. Something along the lines of “Don’t you dare!” could be heard whispered at the daring speaker. It looked like Spinnie had melted some of the ice here already.

Keep leaned his head back. “Oh-ho-ho! And your name is…?”

“Paper Trail, mister.”

The smug look on her face sold it. That only made Keep more curious about this juicy story up her sleeves. “So, what’s that embarrassing tale you were going to tell? It’s not about you, is it?”

Trail shook her head and gestured at the stallion beside her; straight-up embarrassed he looked. “Smoky Cream here was eating cream pie for breakfast, but guess what? He got some of it squirted up his nose!”

Fast like lightning, that got the class rolling in laughter mixed in with gasps and what?!’s. The room shook in the rowdy noise.

“Oh, come on!” Smoky yelled as he banged on his chair. “You weren’t supposed to say… ah, ah, ah-choo!”

Cream-mixed snot splattered on his desk.

Keep recoiled at the mess and so did everyone else, everyone spitting out their Eww!’s and Yuck!’s.

“Okay… let’s, um, move on to someone else!” Keep said sheepishly, directing all attention back to himself and saving Smoky from more embarrassment. “Who else wants to share a story? Something more, uh, tasteful?“

“Ooh!” Another hoof shot up, this one from a black unicorn. “We went to Rainbow Falls yesterday!”

That sent more eyes to the stallion of the hour. Doubtless, he was one of the class’s cool kids with his dapper cap and dapper vest. “In case you didn’t know, sir, my name’s Good Clip!”

Keep rubbed his forehooves and leaned in from his able. This was going to be one very interesting class.

Clip turned to the rest of the students who were now all ears. “Yeah, so it was a surprise trip my aunt put up. We don’t get to see each other a lot, so she wanted to have this last hurrah before school starts and she returns to her home in Seaddle. She also likes shopping so instead of a mall, of course, she goes to Equestria for the best shopping trip of her life.”

Murmurs filled the room. Meanwhile, no one noticed how much Keep was about to burst laughing. His plan was working splendidly.

“And would you know it?” Clip went on, looking at all the eager heads heeding him. “We weren’t some commuters or average tourists going to the everypony’s cheap average places. Yeah; as I said, we went to Rainbow Falls.

“The trip had tons of mountains, it’s like you were flying while sitting down! Then, the millions of rainbows told us we were near. When we got there, we saw cottages and houses you won’t see anywhere else in that dimension—and it was so tall with so many mountains again, it’s like traveling in Swhickerland!”

As he spoke his chronicle, he moved his hooves about, depicting wonderful marvels by swinging them around. “We saw all the sights like Mount Zenith and the Hover Cliffs, hiked all the canyons and high places, and—yes, here we go!—we went to the Traders Exchange and we got lots of stuff, like...“

Clip pulled out dozens of knickknacks from his saddle bag, including figurines, sculptures, shirts, jams, caps, jewelry, comic books, and a packaged deep-fried microwaveable chocolate bar. He rattled on about each part of his haul and how cool they were, galvanizing them with overdone descriptions of every item. As he prattled away, his audience ooh’d and ahh’d at his souvenir loot.

“Oh, and I got this one too!”

For the grand finale, Clip pulled out a jar and everyone hung their mouths open in awe. It was a jar of pure, crisp, pristine liquid rainbow. It sparkled under the sunlight, sloshing like a thick milkshake as he slowly tipped it this way and that.

“Pure Rainbow Falls rainbow, raw and unprocessed!” Clip proclaimed, raising it high for all to see. “It’s fresh from the falls themselves!”

It was enough to inspire marvel in Keep. He’d never been to Rainbow Falls before, but the friends who’d been there always talked it up as a dream destination. Perhaps, one day, he would go there with Alloy, but now’s not the time to think about her. Better save it later.

Back to reality. Everyone assailed Clip with questions galore, half of them politely asking if they can hold the jar of natural rainbow for a few seconds.

“Alright, alright!” bellowed Keep. He had to make sure at least one more student got a chance at storytelling before the actual history course was introduced. “What about another one, someone else to tell a story?” he asked as the commotion died down, holding his hooves out.

“Oh... um—“

Every eye aimed at the lone hippogriff seated at the front row.

She gulped. All the attention weighed on her as she rubbed her curled beak and fixed her pearly necklace. “F-first off, my name is Thin Air. I moved here from Aris… the Aris here, not the other Aris.”

“Really?” Keep asked, shifting towards her. Transfer students always had fun stories and unheard-of episodes to tell. He’d had that experience already with those like Doldina back in grade school. “So, what made you move here?”

She scratched her head, gulping a second time in less than half a minute. “Me and my Ma’ wanted to move to greener pastures, have a new leave in life after Pa’ died.”

All went silent at that. Keep wasn’t sure how to keep going, but he had to keep up a positive face. Got to make her and everyone else smile.

“Oh, d-don’t worry!” she let out while crossing her forelegs in the air a couple times. “It was a long time ago, but we only moved now because of legal stuff. Coming here, though, was a big surprise for me—moving in to the city where it all happened, you know? And coming into this school, the same one that had ponies like Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash… I feel honored to be here… and the friendship too!” At that, she fluttered her wings.

For Keep, this was good. It was a great way to pause the icebreaker on a high note.

“Well, I hope that you have a good time here too, Air,” Keep said as he scooted to the other side of the table… “but, before we have the rest of the class share some more, I’d like to share a story of my own.”

“Tell me it’s as embarrassing as getting cream in your nose,” Smoky half-pleaded. The pony student was still busy wiping his desk clean from the yucky mess fastened to it.

“Well, not really,” Keep replied with a shake of his head. “However, it’s a lot more personal than that.”

That got everybody’s attention. Heads drew closer, ears bent forward, some chairs in the back were dragged forth to make sure not a single word would go unheard.

“Because, you see,” Keep continued, swaying his hind legs off the edge, “well, you all know what the Change is, don’t you?”

Everyone nodded, some saying their yes’s. Not one of them looked away; he still had all of their attention.

“That’s when the whole world turned topsy-turvy and everyone became the magic creatures we are now, right?” cheeped Thin Air, happy to answer.

Keep pointed at her. “Yes, that’s the one!”

A moment of silence, then, as he collected his thoughts. Butterflies swelled once more in his stomach, much more so in his heart, but he soldiered on.

“Judging from the average age in this class, most of you weren’t born yet when the Change happened, though I’m sure some of you were like a month old or two at the time. Show of hands for any pre-Changers in the room?”

A few limbs shot up from among the class. Most of them were hooves, but a claw and a wing joined them.

“Good!” Keep exclaimed. “You’re quite lucky with your special human experience even if you were just a baby.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember any of it at all,” snarked a griffon chilling in the back row, claws crossed over his feathery chest.

It seemed that there was one sarcastic killjoy hanging out here. All being well, Keep would turn that smug frown upside-down.

“True,“ the teacher said as he crossed his hindlegs, getting more comfortable and more relatable to the class,“almost no one remembers what happened when they were month-old babies. But for me? I sure do remember going through the Change. In fact, I remember it a lot, a lot more than the average creature if I dare say so myself, and not just because I wasn’t a baby back then…”

He chuckled, unwound his legs and hopped off the table, landing on the floor. Now level with everyone else in the room, it was time for the best part to begin.

“It’s because the Change happened on my tenth birthday!”

Several surprised what’s went through the class. Others snapped their eyes open wide and fully turned their ears toward the teacher. Now, he’s got their attention.

“Yeah! It’s true!” His voice rung with anticipation, quelling his internal butterflies and leaving him assured for the rest of the session. “So, how’d I go through it? How did I survive? Well, it all started with me, my family, and my friends celebrating at home...”

~ ~ ~

The lounge’s door creaked open and Keep entered again.

The welcome scent of coffee still filled the air and tickled his nostrils. Some old faces were here again, having returned from their previous classes, while some new ones appeared for their first break. Quark was unfortunately still here as well, cracking unfunny jokes, so that was a minus, but the physics jester was still better than a dull old staffroom with nothing fun going on.

Faces looked up at Keep trotting by. They had a brighter glow, a brighter aura, around them. Everyone was getting back to the swing of teaching once again. The thrilling kick of early work had fired them up; it was a welcome rest from endless summer vacation trips

“Oh, Keep!” Spin Out greeted, waving at him from the dining table while eating a couple snacks. Open boxes of donuts sat on the table with a variety of drinks on the side including, yes, coffee.

For a change, however, he took a cold soda bottle instead.

“Yeah, hi, Spinnie!” Keep chirped as he took the empty seat beside her, putting the bags down on the floor.

Sugary scents wafted from those doughy rings to his snout. For sharing! said the neat sticky note on one of the boxes.

“So, how did it go?” Spinnie asked, sipping something cool. Milkshake, milk tea, buttermilk—he wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked refreshing anyway.

Exhilaration leaped in his heart. It wouldn’t be a picnic to wipe the smile off his face.

“Much better than I expected,” he replied. “We’re behind schedule now ‘cause we’re nowhere near the first lesson, but I think we can take it.”

She chuckled, although a little confused. “What makes you say that?”

Keep took a donut, this one frosted chocolate. “You know how I was planning to start the first day, don’t you?”

“With everyone telling stories, uh-huh.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “So that means you succeeded and everyone wants to learn history now, no?”

“At least they got the right attitude,” Keep answered before taking a nibble. “They’ve been pelting me with questions about what it’s like back then, then they ended up sharing what their parents told them about the human era and how they saw it. I only opened my mouth to fact-check; otherwise, I took the backseat and just listened to what they had to say.”

He put the donut down on the plate. “For example, Tourmaline’s cousin became a donkey, but he wasn’t scared when it happened. In fact, he went straight to Equestria to learn how to be a donkey right away, just so he could continue working in the office as soon as possible.”

Spinnie held up a hoof. “Wait. You mean Tourmaline as in the unicorn with the topaz cutie mark?”

“Yup. That’s her.” Keep ended it with another donut bite. It was quite sweet. “I learned that her donkey cousin’s a workaholic!”

That left Spinnie tapping her forehooves on the table. “Huh. That is something.”

They both shared a few seconds taking another bite of their donuts.

“Your next class starts in thirty minutes,” Spinnie reminded, nudging her head toward the clock behind her. “Anything else you want to do here?”

“Nah. I’ll just rest up and chow down!”

While Spinnie giggled at how easygoing he was, Keep leaned on his chair and looked out the window. The feeling of being a certified, bona fide, and for real a history teacher in Canterlot High came over him not in an enchanting whirlwind of awesomeness but in one calm flow. A silent revelation was this: he’d made it.

The day wasn’t done yet. There were five more classes to start and introduce himself to just like that. For now, though, there was the reality that he had done it, and he was going to do it again five more times today, and many times more over the years. The cherry on top was the sweet taste of donuts and a nice bottle of sugary soda streaming down his throat. It might as well have been a celebration’s champagne.

“You know what, Spin?” he then asked.

“What?”

Keep looked out the window again, ears aright.

A couple pegasi flew in the sky—hopefully, he wouldn’t be late for Alloy’s date later tonight. Thistle worked with a bush over there, pruning it clean and neat. Over on the sidewalk, Bud was jogging, headband over his head as his massive self trotted on the sidewalk, prepping up for that marathon at the end of the month, now that Keep remembered. Back to the sky, the sun—a reminder of their dear principal—hung over them, its early warmth tender to the touch.

It was a good day today, and things were just getting started.

Keep’s smile only grew. “I think I’m gonna love it here.”