Midnight. A stallion sat in his study, forehooves steepled in front of his nose as he focused intently on a scroll held up in front of him by a pinch of magic.
The numbers didn't add up, and no matter which way he looked at it, they'd refused to make sense in the past ten minutes. He sighed and laid the scroll flat on his desk, excess paper spilling down over the back edge. He put his hooves to his temples, frowning down at the scroll and re-reading it for what must have been the tenth time. This time, his magic plucked a pencil from a holder on his desk and tugged a spare sheet of clean paper from a drawer. He did the math, mouth moving occasionally as he ran one hoof down the scroll to keep himself on track.
There was no denying it. Sitting back, he reluctantly came to the conclusion that somepony had been fudging the numbers.
Chancellor Neighsay heaved a deep sigh and leaned back in his chair, folding his front hooves over each other and staring up at the ceiling as if the detailed cornices of his EEA office might offer up a more convenient answer.
He was going to have to write a letter. It would not be a positive one.
Neighsay caught himself, quite suddenly, wondering what the Princesses would think. His brows scrunched together in irritation and he tried to dismiss the thought - he had the authority in this situation and all of the EEA behind him, and for all intents and purposes it didn't matter what they thought of him. It only mattered that the paperwork was in order.
Except, no, that wasn’t really true, was it?
His eyes traced the math on the page again, double- and triple-checking. If he was right (he knew he was right) then this Appleloosian school was down fifty bits on their budget report. A little here, a little there… He’d highlighted all of the relevant data in yellow. Somepony was skimming. An investigation had to be called.
...Fifty, though. It would be easier to make a decision if it were a thousand. Fifty, within that particular budget, was peanuts. What would Princess Celestia think of him picking up on this? Would she agree that he should call the school to a temporary close over fifty bits? (Of course he should, this was what the EEA was for.)
He flipped back to the cover sheet for the documents he’d been looking at. He’d been avoiding looking at it for almost an hour, but now he stared blankly at the title.
First Appleloosian School Of Agriculture: Proposal for NPSP (Non-Pony Student Placements, 7051).
A hoof found its way to his temple and rested there as he intently studied the page. Non-Pony Student Placements had been proposed to the EEA several times since the re-opening of Princess Twilight’s school, and Neighsay had no doubt there would be many more to come. Equestria was a changing place.
Equestria also heard his speeches before Princess Twilight’s school re-opened. Would they think he was acting with prejudice now?
He inked out a note, rolled it up, and tapped his medallion to send it straight to the desk of his second in command.
Within minutes, the medallion flashed, and a new note teleported itself onto his desk.
Chancellor,
With all the respect due to you as Head of the Equestrian Education Association and with no ill will, intended or otherwise:
I was sleeping. Now I am going home. Please continue to manage issues posited to you as you did before. I am quite certain you do not need my help to fill out an investigative closure notice.
The line of his mouth thinned, a grim expression shadowing his face as he realised that even his colleagues were unimpressed with his lack of initiative. Was his work really suffering so badly just because of one crisis?
Perhaps he ought to step back from this little issue, and return to it later with a clear head…
Yes. What he needed was distance.
Neighsay’s eyes fixed on an envelope sitting in a gold noteholder at the corner of his desk. A letter-opener had been run along the top edge of the envelope already, and its corners were slightly worn where he'd read, re-read, and re-re-read the letter inside. It had sat on his desk for two days now, and still the Chancellor could not bring himself to file it away nor dispose of it. His magic slipped the offending letter out of the envelope and flicked it open irritably.
Dear Chansalor Naysay, written in loopy, glittery, pink novelty ink, had been hastily scribbled out. The rest of the letter was messily chicken-scratched in standard black, but the writing was inconsistent.
To Chancellor Neighsay,
We are sorry we made you mad before. We hope you understand now why it is so important for all creatures that we have to stick together like friends do because it is important to us as well as ponies but we are not all ponies. We are learning a lot about Friendship from Headmare Twilight and the other teachers Friendship means standing by each other we wanted to say we arnt angry but we want to tell you Headmare Sparkle left her door open and I saw she was reading your big book thing yesterday and she looked like Ocellus when she forgot her homework one time
Briefly, the writing changed to a neat but hasty fine print.
but please don't think all Changelings forget their homework because it was only one time and she said sorry a lot and she did extra credit to make up for it and Rarity said it was okay! :)
The writing changed back. There was a nick in the page where somecreature's claws had pulled at it.
please think of coming to visit our school again and we will be on our BEST BEHAVIOUR! and maybe you will want to a credit the School of Friendship again? If you dont reply its rude dragons always reply to letters so really youre just being a pony about it.
signed
ITS A MYSTERY!!!
He turned the letter over. He'd lost track of the number of times he'd read it since he received it, and he knew the messages on the back practically by heart, but each time he felt compelled to read them again like they might reveal some hidden meaning.
P.S. It Ok If Chansler Neigh Say Not Come YONA And Friends Not Mad But Nice To See Chansler Again Thank You ! ! !
P.P.S. Well Yona just gave us away, so yeah, it's from us. Nocreature made us do it, it was our idea, blah blah. -Gallus
Below was a collection of five more signatures, badly planned for the space, with some names trailing off on a diagonal and some squashed up against the edge of the page. Yona, Sandbar, Smoulder, Ocellus, and Silverstream.
Of course, he'd known the authors from the moment he'd opened the envelope and glimpsed the glittery, crossed-out letters. That didn't make things any clearer.
Was this a prank? One of those trip-wire, bucket-of-water practical jokes the students of Magic School enjoyed so much? If so, why in Equestria would they tag the letter with their names?
The envelope had been sitting in plain view on his desk for months. Waiting and thinking about it wasn't going to force a decision out of him.
With a soft hm of indignation, Neighsay flattened the letter against the surface of his desk. Tilting his head, he aimed his magic towards a filing cabinet and rifled through one of the drawers. He retrieved another envelope and floated it through the air towards himself.
This one had been stamped with a familiar wax seal - a six-pointed star - and arrived months earlier than the children's. He'd only read it once, and decided once was enough.
Right now Neighsay was reconsidering, and frustratingly he could come up with no real excuse as to why. He unfolded the letter.
EEA Chancellor Neighsay,
I hope this letter finds you well. After our previous meetings went so poorly, I was hoping you might see fit to pay the School of Friendship another visit.
Please understand I am no longer looking for approval from the Equestrian Education Association, and I write this letter with the full understanding that you have no wish to accredit my School, provisionally or otherwise. The School of Friendship has its own rulebook, which I know you’re aware of.
However, I do have a proposal.
Perhaps you might feel more comfortable with our inclusive policies if you had a chance to get to know the students properly. As such, I’d like to invite you as an education official to lead a field trip for six of our pupils.
Infuriating. But not half as infuriating as what she'd written next.
Chancellor, I reach out to you not as Princess of Friendship, but as Friendship Headmare. Clause 53b of the Canterlot Royal Etiquette Enchiridion need not apply.
Thank you for your attention, and I hope you consider leading the trip. Despite our differences, I hope you realise how much I and the ponies and diverse creatures of Equestria appreciate your hard work.
In friendship,
Headmare Twilight Sparkle
Clause 53b. He'd looked it up. "An invitation from a Royal Figure is to be treated as an imperative, and requires a timely response."
By dismissing that clause she had, in one casual hoof-wave, put the ball squarely in his court, leaving no room for this to look like a demand or a threat. It was simply up to him.
And in his court the ball had remained for several months, because Chancellor Neighsay had no intention whatsoever of playing this game with the Princess of Friendship. He had, of course, drafted a few letters. All of them had made it only as far as the wastepaper basket beside his desk. If the Princess didn't require a "timely response", he’d decided, then it was entirely within his purview to simply give no response at all.
Not for the first time in his long career, Neighsay felt positively tangled in red tape. Hooves kneaded at his temples.
His eyes drifted down to the smudged, glitter-dusted letter lying on his desk, and Chancellor Neighsay found himself zeroing in on one line in particular.
dragons always reply to letters so really youre just being a pony about it
All the red tape Princess Twilight Sparkle could invoke or wave away apparently had nothing on a scathing little aside from a teenager.
Chancellor Neighsay sighed deeply and rested his chin on his steepled forehooves. He lifted an absence request form from a previously-untouched stack of blanks, and resignedly took up a quill.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! A mystery field trip! I'm so excited I'm gonna explode!"
"Explode later," Gallus suggested dryly. "We don't even know what it is. It could be another surprise outdoor math class with Headmare Twilight."
"But it could be something really fun," insisted the hippogriff, flapping her wings animatedly and stirring up book pages and sheets of paper. "What if it's a geology field trip into the Crystal Mine like last time?"
Ocellus scrambled to pin down the errant papers. "Not so loud! The library pony keeps looking at us…"
They had retreated into the school library to finish their latest assignment together, but keeping Silverstream focused was a task in and of itself. The excitable hippogriff had managed to get them kicked out before, and Ocellus was not about to lose her chance now that she'd found the perfect reference books for Fluttershy's quiz on Monstrous Creatures And How To Befriend Them.
"I don't think they're gonna give us the same field trip twice in a row." Smoulder caught a warning tap on the shoulder from the librarian, and reluctantly swung her feet down off the table. "That wouldn't be much of a mystery."
"Does anycreature know who's running the trip?"
"That's what's bugging me, Sandbar. Normally they tell us, like, a week beforehand. Did anyone else find it weird Headmare Twilight already had our permission slips signed for us? I didn't even get to see mine."
In quick succession, everyone nodded. Gallus folded his arms, frowning.
"Well I think it's going to be a really, really good one!" Silverstream lilted, thankfully remembering to lower her voice this time. "What if Miss Pie is running it? She's a surprise expert!" A beat. "...I've seen her license. It has edible sprinkles on it."
“Yona not think there a long wait to find out about field trip.”
The yak gestured pointedly. Over on the far side of the library, a door swung shut behind the Headmare herself. Wings folded neatly at her sides, Twilight Sparkle muttered a few words to the librarian and then paced calmly through the centre of the library - headed, it seemed, directly for their table.
Gallus sank low in his seat, cupping his claws around his face and pretending to be closely invested in the book that rested upside-down in front of him. “Great. Somecreature keep her talking ‘til she goes away…? I still owe her that essay from when I switched out Miss Rarity’s office mirror with a funhouse one.”
The soft hoofbeats against the long centre-aisle carpet came to a halt behind the griffon, and his eyes slid up to meet pleadingly with Ocellus’.
“Good afternoon, you six!”
“Afternoon, Headmare Sparkle.” Smoulder rocked back on her chair casually, swizzling a pencil between her claws. “Got some news for us?”
A flicker of purplish magic took hold of Smoulder’s chair and steadily tilted it forward so that all four legs were on the floor. The young dragon rolled her eyes.
“Actually, I do!” Twilight replied cheerfully. “I’d like to re-introduce somepony to all of you. But I’d like to talk to you first, and there’s something I have to ask you to do.”
After a series of glances to one another, the unlikely group gave some vague noises of agreement.
“Of course you remember the problems we had with Cozy Glow,” Twilight continued, holding up a hoof. “It was a tough time, and all of you pulled through. I’m so, so proud of you all for trying so hard.” She leaned forward candidly. “You six have proven that you’re bright, quick-thinking, and most importantly… your bonds of friendship are as strong as all of you are. That’s why I decided you were the perfect group to send on this trip. There’s a pony I’d like to reintroduce you to, and I have to ask you all something very important before I do.”
Yona, Silverstream, and Sandbar cheerfully nodded.
Ocellus, Gallus, and Smoulder glanced at each other. Then they nodded as well.
Headmare Twilight smiled approvingly, and she stepped closer to the table, putting herself among them as comfortably as she could. She rested one forehoof on the table’s surface, the soft clik of her hoof drawing their attention, and spoke softly. “Can you treat this pony with kindness? Can you show them how loyal you are? Your generosity? Can you try to laugh with them?” She pressed a hoof to her chest. “Can you be honest with them, and with yourselves?”
The mood shifted. The students looked at each other, uncertain. Oblivious, Yona nodded and crossed her heart.
“Yona promise!”
Sandbar rallied next, encouraged by his friend. “Whoever it is, if they’re important to you, Headmare, we’ll back ‘em all the way.”
“Sounds like you’re giving us a challenge. And hey, if it keeps me out of Griffonstone for a few more days, count me in.”
Ocellus smiled meekly at her Headmare, and fought down the instinct to shapeshift into her chosen pony-template. “...If we can change, ponies can too. I think I already know who you’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah!” Silverstream exclaimed, her feathered tail snapping back and forth. “Tell Mr. Neighsay we’re totally on board!”
A silence fell across the six trip-bound students of the School of Friendship.
“Wait,” said Gallus, his head pressing indignantly down into the fluff of his neck-feathers, giving him a comical ruff. “You two knew the field trip leader this whole time?”
Ocellus gave her best meek smile, trying to come up with a good excuse. Luckily for her, Silverstream was more than ready to take the fall.
“Of course!” the hippogriff cheered, slinging her forelimbs around Gallus and Smoulder and tugging them affectionately close. “Didn’t you pay attention in Miss Dash’s Apologies and Reconciliation class? When somecreature re-introduces you without giving their name and asks you to play nice, it’s always somecreature you fell out with big time!” She patted them both exuberantly on the cheek without letting go, much to their dismay. "Who else do we know who hates us that much?"
Twilight smiled gently and reshuffled her wings, setting them more primly at her sides. “I know Chancellor Neighsay hasn’t been entirely kind to you or your families in the past. But that’s why I’m asking you six to do this for me. I know of no other group of students who are as ready as you are to show the Chancellor why he was right to stand with us against Cozy Glow."
"You picked us because he hates us?" Gallus deadpanned, fixing a claw around Silverstream's forelimb and lifting it away from him.
Twilight laughed. "He doesn't hate you. The Chancellor and I have our differences, as well, but I have faith that we can work together to make this school better than ever. I just need your help to show him what we're made of. Can you all promise to put your best hoof, claw, or fin forwards?"
"Headmare Twilight, my best claw is my right, but my best fin is my left. Should I just walk backwards?"
Smoulder gently pinched Silverstream's beak shut. "We're on it, Headmare."
The silence that followed stretched on just a little too long. Smoulder glanced around the table and realised all eyes were on her.
She huffed. "What? Like we're gonna say no to Headmare Sparkle?"
Ocellus was the first to relent. "Maybe a field trip with Neighsay might not be too bad? He probably has a lot to teach us."
"Do you even listen to yourself?" grumbled Gallus, but he sighed and held out a claw palm-down. "Roll call. Who's in?"
"Yona want to show nasty pony why yaks best! Yona in."
"I'm in, too. I've been wanting a chance like this since the old fart apologised," admitted Smoulder, joining Yona in placing her claw over Gallus'. "He thinks dragons are fierce, and he's right, but… The Dragonlord wants me to set a good example. I wanna show him we can be chill, too."
The Headmare smiled. "That's very mature of you, Smoulder."
There was a flicker of magic as Silverstream touched her necklace and switched forms, slapping her left fin on top of Smoulder's claw and grinning.
Ocellus joined with a timid nod.
"Sandbar?" Twilight gave him an expectant look.
He smiled, tossing his mane. "I'm in, too. I was just waiting to see that everycreature else is. Neighsay was way meaner to them than he was to me." His hoof was the last to join the pile.
"Woo! Go, team!"
The librarian shushed Silverstream sharply from across the room.
Twilight smiled proudly. "I had a feeling I could count on all of you." Her horn lit up, and with a spark and the soft whoosh of some displaced air, six scrolls materialised and lay themselves one by one in front of the students. "As you all know, it's going to be a three-day trip, so I've prepared a packing list for each of you. If you have any trouble finding what you need, see me in my office. Chancellor Neighsay will be in charge of the trip, so I hope you'll all show him the same respect you would for any of your regular teachers."
"Where are we going?" Ocellus asked, glancing up from her list.
"The Chancellor asked me to keep that part a secret." She winked candidly. "But I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Trust him to guide you.” She raised her wings a little, keeping their attention. “Remember: meet at eight o'clock outside by the school pond. Don't be late." With that, the alicorn turned to leave, giving one last approving smile over her shoulder at the group. “Oh, and Gallus - I expect that paper on my desk by tonight.”
Gallus gave a petulant groan.
A short silence lingered as the six studied their packing lists. The sound of the library door being opened and shut echoed through the quiet room.
“...Do you think it was our letter?” Sandbar suggested uneasily.
“There’s no telling. Maybe he didn’t even get it. But even if it was, none of us wanted this, right?”
Smoulder rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Gallus, we all thought inviting that jerk to come see the school for Headmare Twilight meant inviting him on a field trip with us.” She sighed and leaned back, letting her claws dangle over the back of her chair. “This is gonna be weird. Is he even… like... a teacher?”
Ocellus spoke from behind her list. “You have to have a degree in education to be in the EEA. I looked it up.”
“Sheesh. Can you imagine that guy teaching in a classroom?”
“Yikes. Don’t even say that. It’d be torture.”
“This trip is gonna be torture.”
Ocellus set down her list, looking cheerful for reasons neither Smoulder nor Gallus could fathom. “Well, I think it might be fun. We just have to show him how nice we are. None of us know him that well… He could be really friendly once you get to know him!”
“Yeah, or not.” Gallus cleared his throat, rolling up his packing list with his pinkie claws stuck daintily out. "Well, my fellow diplomats," he began, "how are we going to welcome the Chancellor to our school? Anycreature thinking what I’m thinking?"
“Maybe.” Sandbar gave a dry smile, tapping his hoof to his chin. "I think there’s a bucket in that storage closet near the dining hall."
Author's Note
Keeping my chapters short in the hopes I don't burn out early. I also wasn't brave enough for a proofreader so you get what you're given until further notice. (If you see anywhere I made a mistake, let me know and I'll fix as best I can on the fly!)
Hope someone out there enjoys! ;^)
Chancellor Neighsay lifted his hooves elegantly over the thin line of string as he exited the EEA portal, and didn't even look up as his magic took hold of the bucket poised in the tree above.
"Greetings, students," he said, his voice a flat monotone. "I can already see this is going to be a very enlightening trip, so I'll skip the niceties." The bucket emptied itself into the pond with a resounding splash, and this was met with a round of disappointed groans from the six students gathered by the pond. The portal snapped shut behind him with a soft whoosh of displaced air.
The Chancellor wore his usual EEA official’s robe and medallion, but a pair of saddlebags were slung over his back, looking weighty. One of them sported a circular patch with the EEA’s laurels-and-horseshoe logo.
"I trust you all have everything on Headmare Sparkle's list?"
Gallus gave Sandbar a pointed nudge. Good prank. Worked great. Sandbar gave him a sheepish sidelong glance.
"Uh, I don't have my waterproofs!" chimed Silverstream, one flipper raised.
Chancellor Neighsay opened his mouth. He glanced down, saw that Silverstream was speaking to him from the pond, and closed his mouth again, raising an eyebrow.
Seeing that Neighsay had no intention of humouring her, she offered an explanation. "Because I'm already waterproof!" She flapped her forefins in the water a little to illustrate her point. “Duh.”
Neighsay’s magic pulled a scroll and pencil from one of his saddlebags, holding it in front of his face so that he didn’t have to retain eye contact. "Can somecreature please confirm for me that the seapony will be waterproof in her hippogriff form as well,” he droned, “so that we may move on?"
Gallus rolled his eyes. "Yeah, she’s good. Waterproof feathers or whatever."
Neighsay marked something with a check. "Has everycreature eaten breakfast." Somehow he managed to make it sound like anything but a question, but their replies came easier this time and he drew another checkmark. "I have your permission slips… I’m hoping you’ve all been to the bathroom…?" Check, and check. "Does anyp- anycreature have allergies?”
The students glanced at each other in amusement at the Chancellor’s near-mistake. Oh, he was not ready for this trip.
The Chancellor narrowed his eyes. He had a sneaking suspicion the students were about to be difficult.
“Yeah, I’m actually allergic to carrying bags,” Sandbar answered, and promptly kicked with his hind leg to send the saddlebags he’d left on the floor sliding towards Gallus.
The griffon smirked. “I’m more allergic. Ocellus is actually the only creature here not allergic to bags,” he elaborated, and slid both his and Sandbar’s bags across to the changeling. “She’s gotta carry them all.”
She lifted a foreleg and pressed it to her mouth, stifling a giggle. “Mr. Neighsay, should I turn into a bigger creature so I can carry all these?”
“Yeah,” suggested Smoulder, “like a really big bug monster?”
They all watched for the Chancellor’s reaction.
Chancellor Neighsay stared blankly into space. Unflinching, he checked another box.
“...If you’ll all follow me,” he said finally, tucking the pencil and scroll away. He turned back towards the bridge.
As he started walking, the students glanced at each other uneasily, then scrambled to grab their things and followed. Neighsay simply wasn’t reacting to their teasing, and that was sucking all their enjoyment out of it - which meant this trip had a high chance of being terrible.
Smoulder grimaced as she jogged to catch up with Sandbar at the back of the group, shouldering her backpack. “Yeesh. It’s like he’s allergic to fun.”
The young pony gave a reluctant nod in agreement. “He definitely doesn’t wanna be here. Never mind our letter. I bet the Headmare had to beg him for weeks to come and do this with us.”
Ocellus glanced uneasily over her shoulder at the two friends. With a click of her wingcases, she flitted into the air and joined the older unicorn at the front of the group, gathering up the courage to speak as she hugged her bag to her chest.
“Um… sir?” she tried meekly. “Mr. Neighsay?”
“Chancellor,” he corrected automatically, and didn’t bother looking at her. “What is it?”
“Where are you taking us? Headmare Twilight said it was a surprise.”
That got his attention. He finally made eye contact, but his face remained a blank mask. “Excellent question. I was hoping all of you might be able to figure it out along the way. That,” he declared, raising his voice a little so that the other creatures behind him could hear, “is your first assignment on this trip-”
“Is it Sugarcube Corner?” called the hippogriff, her voice echoing from under the bridge.
“No. Would you care to join the rest of us on dry land, by the way?”
At the Chancellor’s sharp tone, there was a short silence - and then a splash, a chime of magic, and the sound of wingbeats as Silverstream obediently appeared over the stone wall and landed clumsily beside Yona. “...I was only going to stay in the water until the end of the bridge,” she mumbled.
Neighsay cleared his throat loudly. “As I was saying, I expect you all to use your compasses, environmental clues, and educated guesswork to discover where we’re headed. If anycreature guesses our destination before we arrive, they will be excused from their homework assignment related to the trip. Any questions?”
“Yona have question,” the yak piped up. “Where pony taking us?”
“...Does anycreature else have any questions?”
There was a ripple of stifled giggles from the students, and Neighsay fought to keep his ears from pinning back. This was going to be a long trip. Not for the first time since he’d signed his reply to Headmare Sparkle’s letter, he wondered if he’d made a grave mistake.
But he’d signed the forms, and so had their parents, and so had Headmare Sparkle. There was no going back on this now. Not without it reflecting very badly on him.
Neighsay made himself raise his head, walking with as much purpose as he could muster, and pulled a scroll from one of his saddlebags. He unrolled it without much flourish and levitated it over his head for everycreature to see.
“This is a map of Equestria,” he declared, addressing them over his shoulder. “I want you all to use this map to work out where we are.”
The scroll drifted behind him and landed in Smoulder’s claws. She glanced down at it, and her expression instantly shifted into a bewildered stare.
“Yona know where we are! Yona still see school! Pony ask trick question!”
“Mr. Neighsay, we walk this path almost every day,” Gallus droned.
“Then it ought to be no problem for you to locate our whereabouts on that map,” Neighsay replied smugly.
“Hold on, guys.” Smoulder turned the map sideways, then back again. She frowned. “This isn’t Equestria... Is it?”
Sandbar trotted close to her and peered at the scroll. “...Whoa. That’s not like any map I’ve seen. Is - is that supposed to be the sea?” He pointed with the tip of his hoof to what looked like a squiggly line, and tilted his head quizzically. “Or mountains?”
“It looks like a fledgeling drew it!” Gallus exclaimed, hovering close to Smoulder so that he could peek past her spines at the unlabelled, barely-legible pictograms. “Are you serious?”
Unfazed, Neighsay just smiled confidently to himself. “Long before Equestrian cartography was standardised with rules of scale and orthodox key symbols, ponies of long ago would draw their own maps of the region. They were rough, approximate, and entirely serviceable… given some deciphering. This is a copy of one such map I borrowed from your Headmare. I expect you all to make good use of it.”
As the students murmured confusedly between themselves, Chancellor Neighsay slowed his pace a little, drifting to one side just slightly so that he might keep an eye on the group without having to crane his neck.
To his relief, it seemed like the students were willing to play along with this little game of his - at least for the moment. Honestly, he had been expecting a lot more resistance. Aside from the prank they’d failed to execute (foal’s play, did they really think he wouldn’t be expecting that one?) and a little bit of backtalk, they were being surprisingly complacent.
Yes, it seemed a little too good to be true.
Neighsay trudged through the mud, his normally poker-straight mane turned slightly frizzy by the wet weather despite the umbrella-shaped canopy of magic he was conjuring overhead. Currently, his chances of making it through the trip without outside intervention were looking slim.
Outside intervention meant Princess-Headmare Twilight Sparkle or one of her lackeys showing up to save the day. Neighsay could not afford to come under scrutiny for this. Not now.
“Question,” he declared, daring to hope that keeping them engaged might lift the mood. “Who can explain why our shadows disappear in overcast weather?”
The dragon raised her claw, promisingly.
“Smoulder, was it? Speak.”
“The weather ponies steal ‘em to make those big black rainclouds.”
Neighsay ground his teeth as there was the sound of a clawed high-five behind him.
“Not a fan of pop quizzes, are we,” he stated flatly. There was no response, and the students went back to chattering amongst themselves.
They’d made their way north from Ponyville, following a path out from Saddle Lake that led them through the hills. He’d dismissed guesses from the students that they were headed for Canterlot, but they were correct in that they’d be passing beneath it. Their disappointment had been voiced in complaints about the view they would be missing, but he’d quelled those with the promise that their actual destination would be worth it.
When the rain had started, however, the mood had dropped for everycreature except the hippogriff, who - much to the Chancellor’s chagrin - was now splashing merrily in every puddle they passed.
“Mo-o-orning in Ponyville shimmers,” she sang, and it was a credit to the strength of her voice that Neighsay couldn’t fathom whether or not she was belting it wildly off-key on purpose. She projected like she’d had vocal training, and yet: “Morning in Ponyville-” she hesitated, taking a deep breath, “-shi-i-i-ines!”
Chancellor Neighsay was no Ponytone, but he was fairly sure that this song was not meant to have so much warbling in it.
“We aren’t in Ponyville,” Ocellus pointed out. “Maybe we can make up our own song?”
“Morning on the road outside Ponyville on the way to somewhere we don’t know shiiiines!” Silverstream corrected, taking a flying leap from one puddle to another and sending a wave of water splashing up towards Neighsay.
He flung up a shield just in time. The water deflected harmlessly, and Neighsay swore he could see a flicker of disappointment on the hippogriff’s face, just for a second. The changeling was giggling.
“Hey, I have a question.” Sandbar piped up, his voice muffled by a yellow raincoat that was shuffling as he walked. “Why are we walking all the way to this mystery place when you have that magic medal thingy? Couldn’t you just take us there?”
“The EEA medallion is for emergencies and EEA business only,” he answered plainly, adjusting the umbrella-shaped shimmer of magical shielding over his head. “This trip is neither. Besides: this field trip is intended to be a learning experience. I posit you would learn very little if I were to simply warp us to our destination, and then we would have three days to spend twiddling our hooves."
“Yona not know what pony teaching us about walking. Yona walk everywhere.” There was a thoughtful pause. “Except when Yona run,” she added. “Can Yona run ahead?”
“No,” he said quickly, seeing that she was about to charge. “We stay as a group. That especially applies to those of us with wings,” Neighsay emphasised, glancing pointedly up to his left where the blue griffon was flapping idly in the air.
Gallus rolled his eyes obstinately. “Relax, I’m not going anywhere - I’m staying with the group! I just wanna stretch my wings. Griffons have to fly a lot or our wings fall off.”
“I am well aware that isn’t true.”
“Is too,” Smoulder chimed in helpfully. “The feathers fall out, they shrivel up like twigs, and then they drop right off. Saw it happen. It’s really sad.”
“It’s true. Happened to Grampa Gruff.”
“I have seen him at Friends and Family day. His wings are perfectly intact.”
“They grew back,” Gallus retorted, to a ripple of snickering.
At least - at the very least - he was not in his office, struggling with red tape.
The road was beginning to steepen, leading them up towards the looming, jagged shape of Mount Canterlot. As the weather worsened, it would be easy for anypony to miss the entrance to the tunnel that lay ahead, partly obscured by sheets of rain. Silverstream was no pony.
"Are we going in there!?" screeched a bubbly voice directly beside Neighsay's ear.
He jerked his head away and flashed her an indignant look before answering. "We are. It will be a boon to get out of the rain, but I would also like to remind everycreature to stay together. Nearly all forks in the underground path have been cordoned off by rope, or blocked by controlled cave-ins - but should anycreature wander off, you may not emerge in the same place as the rest of the group."
There was a rustle of paper as Smoulder unfolded the map, and she and Sandbar scrutinised it curiously.
"Okay," Sandbar began, "that pointy thing has to be Canterlot."
Smoulder made a doubtful noise. "I thought that was Neighagara Falls. Where does that put Ponyville if that's Canterlot?"
Neighsay didn't bother turning around. As promising as it seemed that they were taking an interest in the challenge he'd set, he doubted very much that they'd get anywhere with it.
That was until a rough voice spoke up from behind the two.
"That Canterlot. This Ponyville." The sound of Yona jabbing the map twice got everyone's attention, and Neighsay ventured a glance over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Yona continued. "Saddle Lake - Neighagara Falls - old pony town - other old pony town."
"Wait - Yona, you can read this?"
"Old pony map just like yak map," she declared, and gave a smug smile. "Yak maps best… but Yona know mouth-drawing of a house when Yona sees one."
The students glanced at each other, clearly just as shocked as Neighsay felt - and then they all drew close. Even Gallus alighted on the muddy ground and peered at the map with the others.
"So… where are we on this thing, Yona?" he asked, tilting his head owlishly.
Yona looked thoughtful. "Yona think here," she announced, and pointed.
Neighsay blinked. He knew perfectly well that she was correct, and he failed to mask his surprise. Swiftly, he came to the realisation that for several paces Sandbar’s eyes had been locked on him.
“You’re gonna make good on that thing about the homework, right?” he asked, and there was a smug note to his voice that the Chancellor did not appreciate one bit.
“We shall see,” he offered unhelpfully. “Working out how to read a map is very different to predicting where one will end up. See that you all pay attention.”
Luckily for Neighsay, Sandbar’s attention was quickly diverted - as the entrance to the Cantering Mountain Thoroughfare loomed ahead. The younger pony stopped in his tracks, staring up in awe at the chiselled whorls of the old artisanal stonework, and one by one the others either bumped into each other or skidded to a halt or splashed to a stop to admire it too.
The entrance was tall and looming, like the mountain itself, and the tunnels under the mountain had first been hollowed through long ago. Ponies had needed respite from the Windigos back then, and eventually most of their more sheltered routes and byways had been lost to time. With its proximity to Canterlot, however, this one had been worn smooth by the hooves and cart wheels of thousands of travellers either on their way to the capital or just passing from the north of Equestria to the south.
Chancellor Neighsay said none of this. He merely stopped, turned, and addressed the students dully.
“Move as a group. Do not stray from the lit tunnels. If we do find ourselves in the dark, follow the light of my horn.”
There was a pause as the students seemed stalled by the imposing stonework of the old entryway.
Then, with a rustle of raincoats, they darted ahead.
“Last one out of the rain’s a wet puckwudgie!”
Neighsay glared down at the splatters of mud now covering most of his legs from their charge, and stepped gratefully into the dry air of the tunnel as the magic that formed his makeshift umbrella dissipated. He pulled an embroidered kerchief from inside his robe and began to dab down his hooves without a word. Just behind him, one last set of footsteps followed them all in from the rain.
He glanced up. Gallus stood uneasily in the entrance, dripping rainwater and looking dubious.
Ahead of them, the other unruly students had thankfully come to a halt in the open space that signified the beginning of the tunnels, and were now peeling off their raincoats and shaking themselves dry as they chattered amongst themselves and argued over who’d been the puckwudgie.
“It looks like you may have lost your friends’ little game,” Neighsay pointed out.
Gallus made a dismissive noise and shrugged off his raincoat, wrung it out, and then shook himself like a dog. His wings splattered water across Neighsay’s robe and earned him a pointed glare, which he ignored.
“Hey, uh, just wondering. This tunnel thing doesn’t get any smaller, right?”
Neighsay raised an eyebrow, dabbing at his clothing with the hoofkerchief. “The tunnel was carved to very specific standards, and has since been shored up by more modern architects.”
“Yeah,” Gallus said, “what.”
Neighsay cleared his throat and tried a different tack. “I mean it will remain the same size throughout. Though there are other tunnels which branch off the main route that may be smaller or less-travelled, we will be staying as a group.”
He paused, studying the griffon carefully. Gallus had his wings pinned firmly to his sides, and seemed to be reluctant to move forward.
“Think of it as nothing more than a road, the same as the one we just travelled.” he suggested carefully.
“Yeah, it’s no big deal,” Gallus snapped, and urged himself to trot away from the Chancellor to join his friends. Without turning around, he could tell the unicorn was still watching him as he pretended to laugh at one of Smoulder’s jokes.
The long, straight tunnel of the Cantering Thoroughfare was well-trodden and carefully maintained by the earth ponies who primarily used it, but it was evidently overdue for a unicorn patrol. Not all of the bracketed crystals that lined the walls were fully charged, and some had gone out completely.
Still, things were going well. Below each lamp, a way marker plaque was indented into the wall, and the students had opted to play a game with these, which made it a little easier to ignore the occasional stretches of darkness between fully-functioning lamps.
"Rocks?" Sandbar suggested.
"No," said Smoulder. "Yona already said that one."
"Road?"
"Silverstream, that was yours last round. No."
"Plaque's coming up."
Ocellus' wings buzzed anxiously. "Oh, no! Um - rafter?"
"Too late," Smoulder declared victoriously as they passed a plaque marking the quarter-mile mark. "The word was 'rope'. Saw some blocking off a side tunnel back there."
"Yona's turn! Yona spy with Yona's eye something beginning wiiiith… Y!"
Smoulder folded her arms. "Is it Yona?"
"Nope!"
"Yak," came a dull, monotone voice from just ahead of the group.
Yona smugly opened her mouth to retort. She blinked. The smug look deflated only a little, and she snorted indignantly. "...Yes."
"Wait," Sandbar said with a sharp look, "is Neighsay playing?"
"News to me," Smoulder growled out of the side of her mouth.
Neighsay's voice echoed sharply in the long tunnel. "I wasn't aware there was a rule to this game that prohibited answers from a setten petrafum."
"Bless you!" chirped Silverstream.
Neighsay shot her a look. "It is an Old Ponish term for a temporary legal guardian."
"Then why not say that?" Gallus ground out, trying not to think about how low the ceiling felt in the dark stint between the lamps.
Abruptly, Neighsay slowed his pace in order to drop back and join the gaggle of students, falling into step beside Gallus and looking down at him with an expression that, for once, contained not an ounce of disdain.
"Using the wrong term in an official EEA document could mean the difference between a school gaining permission for a field trip and a school being closed down for an administration error," he explained. The griffon was watching him closely, and Neighsay broke eye contact. "The rules are very specific. Learning to use the right words by default reduces the risk of mistakes. I hope I’ve made myself clear."
The other students had gone silent, and for a while the only sounds were the soft echo of their assorted footsteps. The griffon was frowning up at him, scrutinising him - Neighsay risked another glance and this time held his stare evenly.
"...As crystal," said Gallus dismissively, and looked away.
The quiet stretched on.
Neighsay counted down until the gleam of another way marker passed them by.
"S," he said loudly.
"Silverstream!" replied Silverstream, all too eager to break the awkward silence. "Smoulder? Sandbar? I need a hint!"
Neighsay quirked a brow and relented. "It is an object, not a creature."
While the hippogriff hummed in consideration, it was Smoulder who spoke up next.
"Saddlebags." It was delivered in a snarky, deadpan sort of way. Okay, we’re playing. And we’re gonna win.
Neighsay read the challenging smirk on the dragon's face and, for the first time, cracked a dry smile. "No."
"Is it… Shadow?"
"Students?"
“Stuffy unicorn?”
Neighsay dismissed the barrage of answers with a smug smirk. The game was on, if only for a moment.
And then he counted heads.
Neighsay stopped in his tracks, to a resounding oof as the hippogriff bumped squarely into him. “Everycreature stop.” Heads turned. “Where is Yona?”
Panic, though a wonderful motivator, was not what Chancellor Neighsay had come on this trip to feel. He was good at keeping a calm head in a meeting, or in the sterile, authoritative atmosphere of the EEA evaluation hall.
However, moving at a brisk pace across uneven ground in a narrow tunnel while his horn light reflected off every glowing surface of the unidentified crystals around him, and a gaggle of flighty, agitated students followed virtually close enough to suffocate each other -
This was not going to look good to Headmare Twilight.
“Are you certain she came this way?” he demanded, his voice echoing eerily down the passageway and sounding much more anxious than he’d intended it to.
Just ahead, Sandbar gestured with one hoof over his shoulder, prompting Neighsay to lift his head a little. The light of his horn glinted ominously across the crystalline walls as they headed deeper. They shouldn’t be here. This, he was fairly certain, would eventually lead into the Canterlot catacombs.
“It was the only lit tunnel since the last time we saw her,” Sandbar explained confidently. “She has to be down here.”
“I think I’m gonna hurl,” mumbled Gallus, his breath a little too fast and his claws scrabbling unevenly against the shiny floor.
“You should have waited at the fork, as I suggested!” snapped Neighsay.
“Well, I can’t just leave my friends!”
“Yeah! We don’t do that!”
“Besides! You told us we had to stick together!” Silverstream yelled. “Make up your mind - and stop picking on my friends!”
Neighsay willed his horn to shine a little brighter, focusing intently on the shape of Sandbar picking his way down a steep slope ahead of them, and barely managed not to rise to their bait. “Watch your step!” he forced out instead of the snippy retort he’d wanted to give them, and began a careful descent, momentarily unaware of the fact that at the back of the group, Gallus had his eyes tightly closed.
A juvenile griffon colliding with one’s back at full tilt did not make for an easy halt at the top of a smooth-floored slope. Smoulder dug in her heels a moment too late, and smacked into Silverstream. Silverstream gave a piercing whoop of shock, and felt Ocellus’ hard wing casings make acquaintance with her face.
For a moment, Ocellus teetered on the edge. She saw Neighsay look back up at her almost as if in slow-motion, and the dawning look of horror on his face would in any other situation be kind of hilarious.
“No, no, no, no-!” she squeaked out, to no avail.
Her feet slipped on the smooth crystal floor, and with that the assorted cluster of students careened down over the edge.
Everything was upside-down and sideways for all of three seconds. She heard Sandbar cry out. Somecreature’s feathers were in her mouth. A spaded tail whipped through the air dangerously close to her face.
And then, quite suddenly, gravity ceased to work.
A soft orange aura surrounded the group, and carefully split them apart. Each student was carefully and deliberately turned the right way up, and found themselves set down on their feet at the bottom of the slope.
Neighsay, his hoof still resting on his EEA badge, lowered himself to the ground and finally let go. His hoof switched places, from his badge to his right eye, and with the one not covered he fixed the group with a furious glare.
He opened his mouth to speak.
Somecreature beat him to it.
“Whoa,” said Yona. “That nearly a nasty fall.”
“Yona!”
Sandbar, Ocellus, and Silverstream darted forwards to pile on their friend in a relieved huddle.
“Yona sorry! Y-Yona see a spider - get distracted - see shiny tunnel, everything else dark, Yona think follow the light and find friends!” She enveloped them in a bone-crushing hug, her long fur smothering them just a little. “So sorry! Yona got so lost!”
Neighsay took a deep breath in through his nose.
He looked back at Gallus and Smoulder, who were staring at him in what he could only describe as deep apprehension.
“Uh,” ventured Smoulder. “Found her.”
“I can’t,” breathed Gallus, “go back,” he continued, “up there...”
Neighsay exhaled slowly.
He paced over to one of the flat, smooth facets of the wide crystal cave they were now in, peered at his reflection, and gingerly lifted his hoof from his eye.
“Easy, Gallus. We’ll be out of here in no time.” The dragon patted her friend comfortingly on the wing, and plonked herself down on the ground beside him. Her eyes flicked from Yona and the others to Chancellor Neighsay, and she winced.
“...That looks pretty bad. Got you with my tail, huh.”
“Mm,” a beat, “hm.”
“Dude. I am so sorry. Somecreature had my wings pinned.” She watched uneasily as the unicorn examined the rapidly-forming bruise over his eye. “...Are you okay?”
In silence, Neighsay retrieved his saddlebags from a snag halfway up the slope, straightened his robe, and peered up the way they came at the narrow, uneven walls and ceiling. His hoof lifted, pressed against the smooth crystal of the slope, and tested the grip. There was none. He glanced over his shoulder to take stock of the yak and the earth pony, then down at the griffon curled up in shock with his belly to the ground. He didn’t need to do a calculation.
As he made his way past them all and into the centre of the large cavern, the chatter died down.
“Up,” he snapped tersely, “all of you!” As they scrambled to their feet, he didn’t bother wondering if it was the EEA Officiator’s Voice, the hoof-stomp, or the black eye that had really caught their attention. “Everycreature stand still.”
Neighsay peered around at the strange, iridescent crystals that made up the walls of this new cave offshoot, and sighed at the realisation there were multiple identical exits and no signs to tell which one led where. He closed his eyes and focused, and his horn sparked to life. The light was faint, but the spell was a subtle one, and he stepped forwards blindly, turning his head and tilting his horn this way and that until the faintest whisper of a breeze murmured past. He opened his eyes and peered suspiciously down the tunnel he found himself facing.
“Single file behind me.Yona, up front!” He glared at her fiercely as her ears drooped and she hurried to do as she was told. “I would like a word.”
Five minutes later, in the silence that hung around them like a thundercloud as they made their way up through a crystal-lined tunnel, Neighsay tried to reassure himself that making a student cry was not, and had never been, grounds for reprimand.
It did not make him feel any better.
Author's Note
Well, it's been slow going - I'm rustier than I thought. But here's another part!
Unrelated to the story, to everyone who's feeling sad about the FiM finale... It just means that what happens next is in our hands now. They gave us all this grounding for free, and left so much ambiguous, and it's all for us to play with from here on out! Go write, draw, make music, and theorise! It's been a wonderful nine years, and I'm not going anywhere. ;^)
