Dead Week

Totality and Gamma Burst met in her favorite, most secluded spot in the library. She'd yanked a hooffull of books from the shelves to help give them a direction for their research report.

The assignment was to detail the origin and impact of magic within a specific culture. It would be best if they could get the topic done as soon as possible so they could get it approved by Moondancer and dive into the research at their leisure. Unfortunately Gamma, to no pony's surprise, was difficult to keep on task.

The stallion leaned in close over the table, adopting a theatrically spooky voice. "Did you know that under this very academy are catacombs with thousands of bodies?"

Totality rolled her eyes. “As much as I want that to be true, that’s just an urban legend.”

Gamma shook his head. “Nuh-uh. I saw the designs in the archives. The academy used to be a courthouse with a huge dungeon underneath. During the plague, the courthouse got converted into a sanitorium where they stuck all the unclean together. Then the dungeon got turned into catacombs and that’s where they put all the dead bodies from the plague.”

“They burned the dead bodies," corrected Totality, twirling her quil in the air. "There’s even a historical plaque at the spot.”

“Yeah, they burned them after they ran out of space in the catacombs. I know where the door is,” he smirked.

Totality gestated on the admittedly very interesting tale. "We need to do work," she sighed.

"You don't wanna know where the door is?" spat Gamma in disbelief.

"What I want is to get a good grade on this assignment," she snapped.

Gamma thudded back in his seat. "Yeah, so, okay… Hippogriffs or Kirin?” shrugged Gamma.

Totality sighed. "I don't want to do Hippogriffs. Kirin are interesting, but I don't know if we can find enough information to do a good report on them.”

“Hippogriffs can fly, run and swim. Are they too OP? Now that’s a research topic.”

Totality ran a hoof down her face in frustration. “How exactly did you get into this academy?” she tried to ask as inoffensively as possible. Gamma had ‘slacker with rich parents’ written all over him. He had to have bought his way in somehow. Totality was having a hard time envisioning him even making it through high school without significant hoofholding.

“Oh, my test scores I guess," replied Gamma. "I did get perfect on potions. They said nopony had ever done that.”

Bullshit, thought Totality. “Perfect? How? Even if you can do them all correctly, there’s not enough time to answer all the questions in that section.”

Gamma raised a hoof. “There is if you memorized all the substitution conversions.”

Her eye twitched. “Mem- memorized all of them? You can’t. There has to be, I don’t know, at least two thousand easily just for basic.”

“Well I did,” shrugged Gamma. “Wanna see me balance a book on my horn?” He held up his history of magic book and smiled.

Totality frowned and pulled out her potions textbook. She cracked it open, determined to prove he was full of shit. “Okay," she began, squinting back at him. "What’s the subcon for mandragora to pearl dust?”

“Point eighty-one," he replied, one eye looking out through the curtain of his mane at the book now wobbling on the tip of his horn.

He was right. Well, most students have a few memorized, she reasoned. And that was a common one. She scanned over the giant foldout chart for another. “Dragon egg yolk to gold.”

“Point twenty-two.”

Again he was right.

“Amethyst to snail slime.”

“Point twelve.”

“Sweet root to willow bark.”

“Point ninety-one. This is fun. I like this.” He clopped his hooves together in gleeful anticipation. The book fell from his horn, but he caught it with magic.

Totality kept picking out pairs of the more esoteric ingredients, but Gamma didn’t miss a single number. It seemed as though he really had memorized all of them.

Totality clenched her teeth. Quit falling into this stupid trap, she thought. We have to get work done. She slammed the book shut in frustration and shoved it back in her bag.

"Aw, are we done? asked Gamma disappointedly.

"No. We're not done," fumed Totality. "Can we just finalize a topic today, please?"

"Yeah, of course." Gamma opened a book, hoping to find a good section on Kirin magic. Then he noticed the very bottom of the page and smiled. "Hey, somepony made a little cartoon." He began flipping the pages with his magic. "I used to make these back in-"

“Ugh, just shut up Gamma," Totality blurted angrily. "You never shut up, you won’t focus and you’re better than me at the thing I’m supposed to excel at. And no, I didn’t ask you to be my partner. Everything about you is annoying!”

Gamma’s ears drooped and he looked away. “I-I know,” he sighed sadly. “Sorry. Um… well, I do have a hard time focusing in a group so you’d probably do a lot better on this without me.” Lips sagging, he stood up and floated his saddle bag onto his back. “I can ask Professor Moondancer if we can just be in groups of one,” he promised forlornly.

Totality bit her lip. “Gamma, wait. I’m sorry,” she pleaded. “I don’t hate you. I’m just in a really bad mood right now.” Tears began to well in her eyes. “I’m not usually like this… Actually that’s kind of not true, but please don’t leave.”

“Are you just saying that so you don’t have to do the project alone?” he sighed.

She shook her head. “Of course not. We’ve been here thirty minutes and haven't accomplished jack shit. Why would-” She covered her face in frustration at herself. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. Listen, if I’m being completely honest, I... thought you were funny in class yesterday, and I do want to know where the door is but that’s for another time.”

Gamma smiled weakly, took his saddlebag off and sat back down slowly. “I promise I’ll try to do better. I have a tendency to overshare when I meet somepony new. I just want to tell them everything and I have a hard time stopping myself… And you don’t have to worry because I’m not better than you in potions or chemistry. I never even learned how to calculate substitutions. It was too hard for me. But I do have an abnormally good memory, so that’s how I got around it. I’m probably the only pony in the academy that can’t do it.”

“I bet you could do it if you tried again now,” argued Totality.

“I don’t know," he exhaled. "But does it even matter now?”

Totality shrugged. “I guess half the shit you learn in school doesn’t matter specifically. It’s more like a garnish than an ingredient.”

“For your delicious brain?” he offered.

Totality's eyes shifted side to side. “Yes… Exactly. Who needs subcons anyway? You should be counting cards in Las Pegasus.”

Gamma laughed. "Maybe someday I'll give that a shot." He scratched the back of his neck, trying desperately to get his thoughts in order but instead took another detour. “I read your thesis last night.”

Totality blinked in surprise. “Why?”

“Well, ‘cuz you told me to, and I wanted to know why your cutie mark was upside down.”

Totality replayed in her head the snarky exchange they’d had in class the day before. “That was just supposed to be… Why am I such an asshole?” she muttered to herself.

“I liked it,” he continued. “That kind of stuff really interests me.”

“Thanks.” Totality glanced at the clock. “Fuck… We’re out of time and we don’t have a topic. Let’s just try to do Kirin. I’ll check and see if there’s enough literature to work with first though, okay?”

“Yeah,” nodded Gamma in agreement.