Of Students and Featherless Bipeds...
Luster Dawn was not having a good day.
As she looked at the stack of papers she was levitating, she couldn’t help but quiver with fear as she saw the letter that might as well have been branded at the top of them… a letter she did not want to see again. “Average” is what most ponies would have called it. “Failure” was the only word that could escape her lips.
As she shut the door to her Ponyville residence, she tried in vain to fight back the tears rapidly welling in her eyes. She had failed her parents, her friends, her teacher… but worst of all… she had failed herself. She slammed the papers down onto her desk with anger, feeling a mixture of emotions begin to overtake her as she berated herself horribly for what had happened. The words “unintelligent” and “lazy” and “stupid” clouded her thoughts as her vision began to swirl from the water that had pooled in her eyes, creating a haze of hatred, pain, and suffering that threatened to turn this once kind and studious unicorn into a raging monster.
She let forth a primal scream as she slammed her head down into the nearest pillow, letting a waterfall of tears loose as she pondered what her new life as a nopony would be like. She wondered how her parents would choose to disown her, how her friends would mock and scorn her, and how her teacher… how her teacher would cast her away. And how could she not? She had never failed something like this… she had never once disappointed Princess Celestia!
Pomf.
Did something… no… did someone just sit next to her?!
“You know… the last time I saw a pony this distressed, she had just banished her sister to the moon!”
Luster Dawn practically jumped out of her skin as she heard a masculine-sounding voice speak. When she had gathered herself enough to look, she saw perhaps the strangest-looking creature in her entire life seated upon her couch… and just mere inches from where she had been!
“Stay back!” She warned, a combination of tear-streaks and make-up covering her face. “I’ll have you know I am the Princess’ student, and if you do anything to harm me… you’ll be in for it!”
The odd-looking creature only smiled. “Well… aside from scaring the daylights out of you, I can’t think of anything I could possibly do to harm you! Maybe if you drink this tea I prepared too quickly…”
Luster froze at the mention of her favorite beverage. “D-Did you say… you had prepared… tea?”
“I did! Well, as best I could, anyway. Ponies still seem to insist on brewing tea with most unusual tools…” the creature said as he looked to the two mugs that were now set upon the coffee table. “Do you like chamomile?”
“Chamomile… is my favorite,” Luster spoke carefully, not sure whether to be glad that she had tea or utterly perturbed that this strange, bipedal, almost hairless creature was in her house and sitting on her couch. For a moment, she could not decide what to do. Did she call the Royal Guard? Did she call for help? Did she call for her teacher? Or… did she do the unthinkable option, and drink tea that a stranger prepared for her, presumably in her own home?
Unfortunately for Luster Dawn, logic was not with her that day. She had just had one of the worst days of her life, had just cried harder than she ever had before, and was now being offered one of her favorite things.
The pink mare carefully trotted back to the couch, seating herself politely, but guardedly, next to the featherless biped. She watched him grab one of the two mugs with a series of small appendages all connected to a singular base, and outstretch the oddly shaped arm it was attached to to her. She took it with cautious eyes, looking into the cup as if to check and see if she could find anything wrong with it.
“I haven’t poisoned it, if that’s what you’re wondering,” the creature chuckled before taking a sip from his own mug. “See? Completely safe.”
“...How do I know you didn’t poison mine, while leaving yours untouched?” Luster asked apprehensively, wanting to take a sip from her tea, but still having the most acute of reservations.
“C’mon, Luster!” the biped sighed exasperatedly. “It’s tea! I spent a while making it for you! Could you please just have a little blind faith?”
“Well… here goes nothing…” she gulped as she brought the cup to her lips, still eyeing the creature suspiciously. She took a sip. She expected to feel immense pain shortly thereafter--to feel her body wracked with intense suffering as whatever poison this hairless beast slowly did its work…
...But as she waited for it… she found it never came. She adopted a look of surprise as she relaxed her muscles, looking incredulously into the tea-cup before taking another sip. This time, however, she allowed herself to taste it… and she almost did a double take as she realized that this was the most delicious tea she had ever drank in her life.
“How is it?” the biped asked.
“It’s… really good, actually…” Luster spoke slowly. “Better than any tea I’ve ever had… well, maybe not any tea I’ve ever had, but…”
The hairless creature grinned. “Chamomile is one of my favorites, too. I know how to brew a good cup of it, if I do say so myself!”
Luster Dawn could not help but roll her eyes at that statement, but also could not seem to stop from chuckling. “Oh, I’d like to see you try to beat out Princess Twilight…”
“Bring her on,” the creature smiled, puffing out his chest comically. “I am… the master brewer!”
Luster was about to laugh, but immediately stopped herself as she remembered that this was a stranger--a stranger of a different species no less--inside her home! She could not at all afford to let her guard down!
“So…” the biped spoke in between sips. “When you came in, you seemed more grief-stricken than some ponies I’ve seen who have lost loved ones! If I might ask… what happened?”
Luster gave the hairless monkey a glare. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I was brought here by Princess Twilight to talk to you, and I’m never brought places by the Princesses unless there’s a really important reason,” the creature answered straightly, setting his tea-cup down upon a nearby coaster.
Luster Dawn’s eyebrows shot up. “You… you were sent here by my teacher?”
“I was,” the biped affirmed. “Did you really think a human was just going to show up at your house and make you tea because he felt like it?”
“Hyoo… what?” Luster cocked an eyebrow as fear once again began to grip at her heart. “N-Never mind. Y-You… w-why did P-Princess Twilight send y-you here?”
The creature, now identified as a “hyoo-man,” nodded towards the stack of papers at the other end of the room.
Luster Dawn could feel her heart twist and wrench inside her chest. So this was it… she really was getting rid of her… “You… you… you don’t have to say anything… I know you’re here to tell me that I’m being expelled as her student…” She choked as tears once again came to her eyes.
“Whoever told you that?” It was the hyoo-man’s turn to cock an eyebrow.
Just as Luster was about to begin crying again… she froze. “Wh-What…?”
“I said, whoever told you that I was coming here to tell you that you were being removed by Princess Twilight as her student?”
Luster narrowed her eyes in thought, wiping some of the ruined make-up off of her face. “You mean… I’m not being… removed?”
The hyoo-man tittered as he shimmied closer to the pink unicorn. “Oh, Luster…”
Luster tensed as she felt herself being lifted up off the couch, and placed onto the lap of the hyoo-man. She felt his long, oddly shaped arms wrap around her torso as she was pulled back into his muscular, but still weirdly clothed chest. She could feel the hyoo-man’s heartbeat as he sighed, completing the hug with a nuzzle. It felt… nice… safe… such to the point that she didn’t even mind that this odd creature knew her name without being told.
“Princess Twilight would never remove you as her student in a thousand years for even a failed test, let alone for one you got a passing grade on!” The hyoo-man spoke softly into Luster Dawn’s ear, holding her tightly.
“But… but I’ve never gotten a… a C…” she shuddered at the mention of the letter. “That’s not a grade that the student of the Princess herself should ever be getting!”
The hyoo-man began to run his oddly shaped appendages through the fur of the pink pony’s barrel. “Luster… tell me. Do you expect yourself to be perfect?”
“Well… Princess Twilight was perfect, so shouldn’t I be, too?” Luster sniffled.
The hyoo-man laughed a little louder than he had before. “Luster… first of all, Twilight Sparkle was a mare who once thought it was a good idea to lie to her teacher about what she had learned in terms of friendship lessons. Lie, to Princess Celestia. Your teacher was never--and will never be perfect.”
Luster felt her heart lighten a bit (however wrong it may have been) to hear of a way her own teacher had messed up as well. “But… Princess Twilight is like, the embodiment of perfection! She’s a practical goddess, can control the sun and moon, and has enough magical power to probably single-handedly defeat any threat in the entire universe! I’m… I’m just a unicorn who can’t even get an A on a magic exam…”
“Luster,” the hyoo-man began. “Perfection is a horizon to chase--not a prize to hold out in front of you. It’s something that is impossible to reach, but with every step you take, you get closer. Those who live their lives constantly waiting for the day when they will achieve perfection will ultimately find that they lived those lives in vanity, and wasted their days. Because, life is not about what you’ll have when you reach the end… it’s about the journey. It’s about the memories you make as you go on this grand adventure. You will make mistakes, and not everypony will like you. But every experience has within it an opportunity to make you grow--and it’s the growth that ultimately matters. There will come a day when Princess Twilight will step down from the throne, and pass unto you the torch of leadership. She’ll probably make her way to join her old teacher and her sister, and you will assume the same mantle that she did--and also probably take a student, like she did. Everything will come full circle, and you will very likely look back to this day… and wonder why you were ever worried at all.”
New tears began to well in Luster Dawn’s eyes… except this time, they were not tears of sorrow. They began to flow freely down her cheeks as a smile overtook her lips. She nuzzled into the hyoo-man’s chest, her heart feeling significantly lighter than when she had first returned home. “Thank you…”
“Take heart, Luster. One day, you’ll be ordering me around like Twilight does now…” the hyoo-man chuckled.
A few moments passed before the biped checked his watch. “Well… I am afraid I must be going now. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Luster Dawn!”
Luster’s head shot up as she saw the hyoo-man no longer sitting underneath her, but instead standing next to her front door. “W-Wait! Will I ever see you again?”
“Oh, certainly! I am not at liberty to tell you when, though!” the hyoo-man gave a sly wink.
“Can I… at least know your name?” Luster asked, desperate to have at least one memento by which she could remember him.
But the hyoo-man was already gone. It was as if she had blinked, and he had simply… disappeared. She ran to the open door and frantically checked around, but there was not a trace of the large bipedal creature anywhere. With a dejected sigh, she closed the door, savoring the memory as best she could of what his words had been… what his touch had felt like.
As she turned, however, her eye once again caught the stack of papers upon her desk. She felt her heart sink a little bit as she looked back at them, and she was tempted to simply throw the offending sheets away. As she looked at them more closely, however… something new seemed to be present.
Approaching the desk, she dared to look at the front page that had sent her into such a fit of sadness and rage before. She saw the marks, she saw the ink, and once again… she saw the large, bolded C that made a lump form in her throat again. But in the corner of the paper, in blue ink, was scribbled something that she was certain had not been there before… and as she looked more closely at it, her heart was warmed by what she saw:
“Perfection is a horizon to chase…”
