“Shit!”
The young kirin leapt out of bed, tossing the blankets off onto the floor. He craned his neck down onto the bedside table, confirming his greatest fear.
Aquichen was late for school.
He dashed into the bathroom, seizing the toothbrush with his magic. He slammed the faucet to the side and doused the toothbrush bristles with water. Extracting a copious amount of toothpaste onto the bristles, he threw the toothbrush into his mouth and sawed his teeth with it. He nearly choked.
No time for breakfast. He had to leave now.
After rinsing his mouth, he grabbed his saddlebags by the side of his study table. His eyes chanced upon the clock once again—ten minutes to assembly.
He whipped open a chest of drawers, finding ten gold bits laying idly by. His mind raced to deposit them into his wallet, before he galloped out of the house, making sure to lock the door as his parents told him before they had gone for their trip.
He skidded to halt by the sidewalk, extending his forehoof out towards the road and waved it frantically. He could only hope that a taxi would save him now. The last thing he wanted was his parents discovering that he was late. And that only meant more excruciating—
“Ahem ahem.”
Aquichen’s head spun, finding a taxi right before his eyes, driven by another kirin—an aged kirin—one that almost reminded him of his father. The driver stared at him with his judgemental eyes, incredulous at how ridiculous he must have looked. The young kirin struggled to hide his embarrassment as he clambered onto the seat.
“Where you going?” the driver asked in a gruff voice.
“...School of Friendship, please!” Aquichen hoisted his saddlebags off onto the seat, trying to make himself more comfortable.
“School of Friendship?!” The driver turned his neck back towards the young kirin. “What you doing here? Can’t you just walk there?”
The young kirin blinked. “I’m late, please just—”
“When I was 9 years old, I had to actually walk to school for twenty miles!” The driver gave a long, heavy sigh. “Uphill, both ways, twenty-seven hours a day…on one hoof!”
Aquichen slapped himself, hoping that this was not some kind of bad dream he was having.
“My other hoof was carving pencils from the tree bark! Then the trunk of the tree I used to make a spear to—”
“Then you fought two manticores, right?” Aquichen interjected, his soul slowly seeping out of him.
“Yes. Everyday—the same two manticores!” the driver regaled, his eyes reeking of disappointment. “And—”
“Please, mister, I’m paying!” Aquichen tried. “Just…go!”
“Aiya…” The kirin turned back to face the direction of the road. “Why didn’t you say earlier?”
Aquichen was immediately tossed backwards as the driver took off with a bolt of speed. He lifted himself up onto the seat and wiped the sweat off his brow. He reclined his head back, trying to relax as the wind gushed down past him.
His stomach growled.
He held a hoof to his rumbling belly, as if it could somehow hide his hunger.
“Hungry on your way to school?” the driver’s voice rang once again. “Back in my days, after I made that day’s pencils and spear, I eat the tree leaf. Super economical way to survive.”
Aquichen ignored the idiotic kirin, checking his saddlebags. Okay, at least he brought his water bottle. At least he won’t die of thirst or something. Pencil case, check. Textbooks, check. Homework—
Aquichen cursed. The worksheet was utterly pristine. Mathematical operations and symbols stared back at him, taunting him and his intellect.
Clutching onto the side of the seat, he wiped out his foolscap paper that was as blank as his face. Fishing out a pencil with his magic, he started to stare at the first questi—
The driver leaned towards the rear view mirror. “The answer is sixty-nine, you stoo-pid.”
“W-What?!” Aquichen’s head shot up in disbelief. “B-But—”
“Colts nowadays…” The driver rolled his eyes. “Obviously you just have to integrate from negative infinity to pi to the power of sine theta, so rearranging…the answer is sixty-nine. So easy.”
Aquichen balked. “I never learnt that in school!”
“Of course not,” the driver faced away, “this is my secret technique. I had to go to the ninja school of mathe-ma-ti-cans at Mount Everhoof to train and learn among mathe-ma-ti-cal ninjas.”
Aquichen rolled his eyes.
“Instead of throwing the shuriken, we throw the math problems instead. Without a calculator, unlike you children so lucky,” the driver scoffed. “I had to invent mathe-ma-tical indiction myself.”
“Wait…then why are you a taxi driver?” Aquichen frowned, clearly not buying any of this bullshit. After all, this was not the first time he was hearing all of these.
“Let me tell you a story,” the driver sighed, “when I was in the ninja temple. All was good. I was about to become the COE of mathematical-jitsu until—the fire nation attacked!”
Aquichen was aghast. “WHAT?!”
“I fought at Mount Aris when Tirek was attacking the Storm King in three-dimensional vector space!” the driver exclaimed. “I had to invent the four-dimensional matrix multiplication to defeat them.”
“Yes, it’s true, I was there,” Discord stated, taking the form of Aquichen’s saddlebags, before disappearing in a flash.
“AHH!” Aquichen jolted in surprise.
“Yes, I know,” the driver waved it off, turning the corner to approach the School of Friendship, “anyways my victory is now forever immortalized, so when you go to Canterlot castle, you will see my victory statues. Princess Twilight carved them herself. You go ask her later in class if you don’t believe me.” He sighed. “It’s just that the Storm King statue is a bit broken now.”
Aquichen shook his head vigorously. “Okay okay okay, I just need to finish my homework before we arrive—”
“Too late, we’re here. Ten bits, pay up please,” the driver skidded to a halt in front of the grand entranceway with the sprouting water foundations and all, “I give you the student discount, waive the flag down fare for you off, okay.”
Aquichen blinked, staring at his seemingly empty purse. “But…”
“Bit, not but.” The driver beckoned him over. “Or else I tell Princess Twilight, you know the Element of Generosity? I ask her to give you the B for not doing your homework.”
“No no no!” Aquichen tossed the entire pouch of ten bits to the driver.
“Okay, Aquichen, all the best for your school.” The driver waved. “See you at the reunion dinner three moons later, okay?”
