An Earthling Earth Pony at Celestia's School of Magic: Year One

“How'd detention go?” Hannah asked as I approached my friends in the auditorium.

I flicked my tail. “Long and boring. Prim and I had to stare at one another silently for an hour.”

“Oooohhh, staring into one another's eyes for an hour, how romantic,” Hannah snickered. “Should I be ready to hear about your upcoming date?”

I gave her a dry look. “Not even close.” I looked around. The room was packed with students, except for the center area, which had several tables with displays. “What are we waiting on? Shouldn't we be signing up for clubs?”

“Professor Inkwell has to show up and introduce all the clubs, and I think a few club heads are still missing,” Summer explained.

Professor Inkwell was indeed missing, as was Professor Newman, who I knew would now be heading the chess club. It was odd that Equestrians had a chess club. It seemed unlikely that both Earth and Equestria would develop that game independently of one another. It also didn't seem like the type of game that would get popular quickly moving from Earth to elsewhere. It made me curious. I'd been putting my curiosity about things on hold for days, but the way the two professors had been speaking to one another got it going again, and now I was seriously considering joining the chess club so that I could better watch Professor Newman. She and Professor Inkwell had something secret going on, and if something was secret, I wanted to find out what it was.

“Ah think a few students are goin' to be disappointed,” Bright said. “The number of clubs looks a lot smaller than mah sis described. Some must have been cut.”

“Well, there are fewer students than before and also less faculty. Headmaster didn't just purge the student body when he took control. He purged the teachers—although I'm sure some of them quit on their own,” Hannah replied.

“Third and fourth-year students can head clubs. I heard a professor say so,” I interjected.

“Still fewer third and fourth-year students than before,” Hannah said. “I heard there were whole other buildings for housing students nearby. Now all the student body is housed in the buildings that used to be meant for fourth-year students. I wonder what they did with the rest of the dorms.”

“They got rid of a whole school building, too,” Bright added in. “Less class space now.”

Hannah snorted. “It looks like they've still got buckball. I wonder how it works. A buckball team only needs three players—six if you keep alternates. I'm sure there are a lot more than six who want to be on the team, and the upperclassponies have a leg up on those spots.”

Bright grinned broadly. “Ah know the answer to that. We form multiple teams that play against one another. We have a school championship, and the winner gets to play against other schools. If ya are the best, it don't matter if ya are from the younger class.”

Hannah grinned eagerly back. “That means we can get a team of six together and become the champions. You, me, Rocky, Onyx, Turnip, and one more.”

I shook my head. “I'm not into sports. I'll be skipping out on it.”

Hannah pouted. “But this is our chance to be the only team that actually has an earth pony. I heard the other first-year class has a pegasus.”

Summer's ears perked. “They do? There's another student at school who isn't a unicorn?”

I was as surprised as Summer. “I sure didn't see any pegasis during orientation.”

“I think he might have been late arriving. He isn't the same colt that pulled off the rainboom if you were wondering,” Hannah quickly explained. “I heard he's really into ice magic and has Professor Glitter Drops as an advisor.”

I looked around the crowd, hoping to spot this pegasus colt. He had to be on the same weird type of class schedule as I was and was almost certainly getting private artifact classes with Neighsay so he could use an artifact next semester going forward. It would seem easier to have us both in class at once instead of two different private sessions, but maybe there was some scheduling conflict. Ice magic made some sense for a pegasus. They could cool and condense water vapor so they could make ice. This might typically take a very powerful pegasus to do on their own or a group of pegasi, but a pegasus with a special talent for it was always possible. I was actually relieved at the thought of him not being interested in alchemy, as I would assume most non-unicorns studying magic would try. It meant I didn't have him as a rival.

I finally spotted him. He was over in a corner, posing in front of several fillies. His fur was light blue with a darker blue mane with white streaks. He had a pretty impressive wingspan for a colt our age, as big as most adult pegasi, and that might translate into a colossal wingspan when fully grown. From what I could tell from a distance, it looked like his cutie mark was a bunch of ice cubes. The colt certainly thought he was a stud, but the fillies didn't seem that impressed with his displays of his wings. He might have impressed pegasus fillies he was used to spending time with using those wings, but I doubted most unicorn fillies found them as appealing. I didn't think that kind of thing appealed to earth pony fillies, either. I knew for sure I wasn't attracted to pegasus fillies’ wingspans and couldn't understand the appeal.

Twilight Glow came over beside us. “I know him. His name's Hail Storm. He's the son of one of my family's trading ship captains, Captain Awesome.”

The four of us turned to look at Twilight with befuddled looks.

“Captain Awesome, seriously? Who the heck gets named Captain Awesome?” I asked. “I know some pegasi have big egos, but calling themselves Captain Awesome has to be up there with the biggest egos ever.”

“Captain Awesome is an earth pony, but his mom, Sea Squall, is a pegasus. She's Captain Awesome's first mate,” Twilight explained. “All of them are pretty impressed with themselves. Sea Squall is a Wonderbolt reserve who rarely gets called up to do anything but still touts herself as a Wonderbolt. Captain Awesome gets in trouble for pushing the ship through conditions he shouldn't, but he hasn't wrecked any ship…yet. Hail Storm is nice enough, but he has a big head. Both his parents are super supportive…maybe a little too supportive, because they cheer him on even when he does something boneheaded, but given who they are, I suppose that isn't a big shock.”

“A showboater,” Hannah decreed. “Well, glad he isn't in our class, even if he is in our year.”

“He really is a nice enough guy,” Twilight reiterated.

“We haft ta talk to him,” Bright said eagerly. “We can have the only team with a unicorn, earth pony, and pegasus.”

“I'm not signing up for buckball,” I repeated for the umpteenth time.

While Hail Storm had distracted us, Professor Inkwell and the missing club heads entered and took center stage. There was Professor Newman, Coach Scootaloo, Professor Sweetie Belle, that night pony that had set up the cameraphone during the gym class, and four other unicorns I assumed were third or fourth-year students. Professor Sweetie Belle looked ready to cry. Maybe the two professors had confronted her about her disgusting office.

“Hello, students, and welcome to this year's club signups!” Professor Inkwell announced loudly. “I'm sure these clubs will be a fun and character-building experience for you all!”

There were plenty of hoofstomps in response to this, including mine.

Professor Inkwell's smile slipped. “Unfortunately, due to various limitations, some clubs will not be available this year, including the very popular drama club.”

Professor Sweetie Belle broke down crying.

“Which means there will be no attempts to make a low-budget Bridleway musical this year,” Professor Inkwell continued.

“This is the worst possible thing!” Sweetie Belle wept.

The older professor raised an eyebrow at Pinkie. “Really? What if it was the chorus getting cut instead?”

“This is the second worst possible thing!” Sweetie Belle corrected.

“Would you like me to list other things that could happen that could be worse?” Professor Newman asked the distressed mare.

“No…” Sweetie Belle whined.

“Consider it more time to do great things with chorus now that your time isn't going to be split,” Scootaloo said in a comforting voice.

“I suppose so,” Sweetie Belle said, wiping her eyes with one of her legs.

Professor Inkwell gave Sweetie Belle a pat on the back and then looked back at the students.

“Here is our updated listing for clubs. There will be buckball, which Headmaster thinks encourages physical fitness and camaraderie. We have chorus, which Professor Sweetie Belle begged Headmaster with her face to the ground to be spared, so be sure to thank her for doing all she could to save that. We have a new club called the AV club…which deals with those Earthling electronic gizmos. Chess, which is a tradition that we won't be getting rid of anytime soon. Debate team, which I will be heading myself. Cooking, for it is a useful skill for everypony to know. Writing, which will cover writing short stories and poetry. Art, which will broadly cover painting, drawing, and ceramics. Finally, the nature lovers club, which is exactly what you think it is—you learn about plants and animals.”

No fishing club. That was what I had initially wanted to try, but with it unavailable, chess now seemed the most appealing option by far. However, the nature lovers club might complement my alchemy. However, it might be a lot of work. I didn't want to add a lot of work to my existing classwork. Chess seemed the least work, so that's what I would do.

“Drama is dead?” Red gasped. “Oh! What cruel fate?!”

Prim walked up to him and smirked. “Oh, don't worry, dear brother. Drama is never dead while you are still around, and that sadly seems to be the case.”

He smiled back at her. “This play has yet to begin in earnest, dear sister, but once the climax has run its course, there will be but one of us here. I intend to be the hero of this production.”

I rolled my eyes. Those two were tiring with how much they went at each other. I was rooting for Red, but when he got into it with Prim, I didn't care much for him either

“There's an AV club?” Hannah asked in surprise.

“Wavering about buckball?” I asked.

Hannah grunted. “Maybe, I don't know. My parents and I always found lots of old electronics, and we'd fix up some things like TVs and old computers with my parents sometimes, and I always enjoyed it.”

“Fixing TVs is kinda tough to do,” I said. “It's all little chips and processors and stuff.”

She shook her head. “You have to cannibalize a lot of them to get enough parts to make one work, and it takes a lot of patience, but you can do it. I'm not sure it was worth it, financially speaking. It's a lot of work for something you'd have to sell at a discount. Still…I liked it.”

“But ya were supposed to do buckball with meh,” Bright protested. “Where's all that tough filly stuff?”

“Well, I didn't know there'd be an AV club,” Hannah replied.

“What about spendin' time close to Onyx?” Bright tried.

Hannah blushed. “I can cheer from the sidelines."

Bright looked at Summer. “What ‘bout you?”

Summer blinked. “I'm going to do art. Mom might be disappointed I'm not doing nature lovers, but-”

“Ah meant, are ya interested in doin' buckball?” Bright asked.

Summer blinked again. “Um, I don't even know how to play buckball…so no.”

I realized what was going on and patted him on the back. “Hey, we don't have to do everything together, and you can form a solid team with Rocky and Onyx. We can all do our own things.”

He sighed. “So what ya doin' instead? Ya were talkin' ’bout fishin' before, but that seems to be canceled.”

“Chess,” I answered.

“Chess?” he repeated.

“Chess,” I confirmed.

He flicked his tail. “Alright, we do our own things.”

We made our way down to the center, which took some time, considering the throngs of students. The number of students might be down from last year, but it was still a lot of students. The buckball signup was predictably packed with ponies trying to sign up, but most of the other tables were busy as well. The chess table, with Professor Newman sitting dourly behind it, had barely any action.

I waited for another student to finish signing up, a colt who looked too stiff and high-nosed to be anything but a noble. He didn't even glance in my direction after he finished signing up and walkied away. So much for forming lifelong friendships. Just what I needed: another Prim.

Professor Newman sat, arms crossed in front of her, as I sat up on the table and signed the registration with a quill in my mouth.

“I'd have figured you be signing up for a different club, Mister Jones,” Professor Newman said as I put the quill down.

“This seemed like less work,” I answered, deciding to be totally honest.

She snorted and seemed like she was trying to choke back a laugh. It took her a few seconds to recover.

“Perhaps we aren't as similar as I originally thought,” Professor Newman said as she finally recovered. “I need to keep busy, so I actively seek out work to do. I'm surprised you told me that so directly.”

“No point in lying, and you seem hard to lie to,” I answered, deciding to keep with the direct honesty.

She smirked. “My dear colt, a pearl of wisdom for you is that truth is the best lie anyone can use if they use it effectively. As for the chess club, I think you might find it more challenging than you think. Don't believe that I'll make it easy for you all just because Professor Inkwell pressured me into taking this position. If I'm going to do something, I will put real effort into it.” She looked past me. “Speaking of it being challenging, I think you may wish to let the next student in line sign up.”

I looked behind me, and my ears fell. Prim was standing right there.

“Out and of the way. You are blocking my way,” Prim practically growled.

“This would be a flick-knife opening, a rare opening, but an intriguing one. Using it either throws your opponent off guard or lulls them into believing they are superior,” Professor Newman said, sounding amused. “Let's see how the game progresses. I hope you don't chicken out.”

Maybe I should have signed up for buckball instead.