“Sorry I’m late.”
Six eyes, or three pairs thereof, followed the large, powerfully built stallion as he trotted into the room.
“Only nearly late,” came a sharp reply. It was not an icy tone that spoke. The strict manner in which it conveyed authority did not conjure images of deathly glaciers or slow, nameless deaths in the cold tundra. Rather, there was a metallic strength to it. A voice not of iron, that was prone to corrosion, but steel, stainless and functional; only barely yielding to the forces exerted upon it.
It was the voice of Flurry Heart’s head teacher, readied and braced for a parent-teacher meeting that promised… difficulty.
The atmosphere in the schoolroom was cold; it was a simple space that relied heavily on there being anywhere between twenty and thirty bodies in it, giving off heat to help out the failing magical fire crystals that pumped warmth throughout the Imperial Crystal School for Young Fillies and Colts. The chairs were appropriately sized for young ponies, and as adults the entire buildings seemed much smaller than they remembered it being when they were young.
Miss Hardcase, the head teacher of class Sapphire 2, was sat opposite a tall, broad stallion, well known to the educational body and the wider populace of the Crystal Empire. The Prince of the Crystal Empire, husband to Princess Mi Amore de Cadenza, Shining Armor. Or, as Hardcase knew him, ‘the father’. Titles were not a matter of concern to her. Education was the right of all, from pauper to princess… literally, in this instance.
Miss Hardcase was a mare in her fifties, or her early one-thousand and fifties, if you counted the millennium in stasis under Sombra’s tyrannical hold (Hardcase did count them; technically correct was, in her opinion, the only and most important form of correct), and wore well the physique of an ageing mare whose flesh seemed to constrict back onto its skeleton, giving her a wiry, rigid appearance. Standing behind her and to the side were two other ponies; one mare with half-moon spectacles and with a rotund aspect, and a modest stallion with a receding mane.
Despite the vast disparity in rank, it was not Shining Armor who projected the air of greatest authority. Miss Hardcase’s strength of character was sufficient to cow the most devious and uncontrollable demographic of all; toddler equines. It was said that, before his rise to power, she had been King Sombra’s kindergarten teacher and ranked among one of the few ponies whom the dread king feared; a club so select that one could count its members on one hoof. For most, Sombra would arrive himself to eliminate dissidents. For Miss Hardcase, he sent delegates.
“Has, uh, my daughter been doing well at school?” Shining Armor asked, breaking the silence.
Miss Hardcase, despite her reputation, was not an unkind of unforgiving mare. A teacher who was simply cruel could not command the respect she did. She simply had expectations.
“An exemplary filly,” Hardcase said. “Though prone to bouts of lethargy that manifest as indolence.”
Shining Armor nodded in a manner that seemed to bridge the gap between hesitantly and apprehensively.
The round mare behind her generously chimed in with an “Understandable, at her age.” The mare in question was Mrs. Crayonne, well loved by the student body.
“And dare I say,” added Mr. Integral, the stallion, “well counterbalanced by her keen intellect.”
Prince Armor breathed out a bit. “Well, that’s good.”
“Were it not for her splendid marks across the board, it would not be so outstanding that her diligence at home trails,” Hardcase pointed out. “We have noticed… discrepancies with her homework.”
Shining Armor swallowed nervously. There was something about Hardcase’s gaze that reminded him uncomfortably of a drill sergeant he had known in the Unicorn Officer’s Academy at Sandhorse. Except Hardcase was quieter, like the silence before the spellsniper shot.
Hardcase tapped her hoof against the small table, and Mrs. Crayonne stepped forward and put before her a small pile of semi-crumpled papers. Each was signed with Flurry Heart’s name. A crude yet charming signature that a young filly would use, with a little love-heart replacing the ‘U’.
“What, Mr. Armor, is wrong with these?” Hardcase asked, the sibilance cutting through the title ‘Mr.’ like a razor and highlighting the apparent refusal to refer to Shining by his title of Prince. In this place, Hardcase was princess.
“Um… They’re…” Shining Armor began to sweat beneath his pristine white coat.
“It is not proper,” Hardcase continued, “for a filly to sign something that was not done by her.”
Shining Armor sighed. “Okay! Okay. You got me. I helped her out with her homework.”
The raised eyebrow above Hardcase’s left eye reached an acute angle. “Helped?” Hardcase asked.
“I can’t help it,” Shining said, running his hoof through his mane. “When I was a young stallion, I’d help my little sis with her homework too.” He smiled wistfully. “Of course, she always thought she knew best… even when she was only forelock high.” He gave a wry chuckle. “So headstrong.”
“We do not take issue with assistance and guidance…” Mr. Integral pointed out.
“...which this goes beyond,” Hardcase finished with the finality of a guillotine.
“Well, more like, ‘did all of it’, I guess.” Shining held his hooves up. “But it was because she wanted to spend time with Cadence! I was just trying to help. She shouldn’t be punished for that!” He flashed Mrs. Crayonne pleading eyes… instinctively identifying the weakest of the trio of teachers. “You can’t give her detention because I helped her! That’d be, uh… I don’t know, bad for her development and give her something like a lesson that helping ponies is a bad thing!”
There was a beat of silence.
Mrs. Crayonne glanced over at Mr. Integral.
“We’re not upset that Flurry’s father did her homework a few times,” Crayonne elaborated.
“Hardly unusual! And it shows a strong parent-child bond, which we like to encourage.” Integral offered Shining a warm smile.
“Assistance in academia should come from all fronts, even if in this case it is perhaps excessive; we view ourselves as but guides and specialists,” Hardcase went on. “However. That is not what causes this academic body the most distress.”
Shining Armor hesitated. “Um… What does, then?”
Hardcase tapped her hoof against the table again. Mrs. Crayonne gave Hardcase a small basket, which appeared filled with fruit, and a small whiteboard. From it, Hardcase retrieved several small tangerines.
With saintly patience, she put them on the table. Her voice slowing to a tepid crawl, she began.
“If you have two oranges,” she said, “And then I give you two more oranges, how many oranges do you have?”
Shining paused.
“You have permission to answer the question,” Hardcase pressed.
“A very unbalanced salad.”
Mr. Integral wept, then collapsed. Hardcase gave him no thought; she had no time for weakness amongst her colleagues. She would finish this fight alone if she had to.
“It’s as bad as we thought,” Crayonne muttered, her willpower clearly stronger than Integral’s. She was an art teacher first and foremost, after all. She had been suitably conditioned through years of preventing toddlers from eating paints.
“If you plant the oranges, you could get a whole other orange tree,” Shining continued, sensing his initial answer was sub-correct.
Hardcase flipped over the homework. It was covered in red markings. No question answered had been spared the red pen of doom.
"We are not upset you have done your daughter's homework," Hardcase explained. "We are deeply concerned that you have done it badly. Now, spell the word ‘apple’.” Hardcase stared Shining Armor down like a huntress would eye a target. She was assessing him. Probing the depths of the challenge ahead of her.
“Apple isn’t a spell. I’m a unicorn, I should know.”
“Dear Celestia,” muttered Mrs. Crayonne.
Miss Hardcase breathed in. “Mr. Armor. Recite the alphabet.”
“Cadence says I’m more of a Sigma actually.”
“Mrs. Cadence is wrong.” Hardcase’s eye twitched; the first crack in her invincible armour of unflappability. “I’m not aware of a manner in which she could be more wrong, actually, on so many levels.” She leaned in, eyes piercing through Shining like a needle pierced fabric. “Mr. Armor…” She pushed a small book towards the Prince of the Crystal Empire. It was a little, colourful book, veering on the side of booklet, titled ‘The Yummy Scrummy Baker Pony’. It displayed multiple awards across its front cover, such as ‘Little Learner’s Award’ and ‘Parent’s choice’ like medals of honour. This was a book that had traversed the battlefields of bedside stories and returned to tell the tale. Equal parts educational and entertaining for the under sixes.
Hardcase opened the book to the first page. There was a colourful stylised depiction of a smiling pegasus pony in a chef’s hat, surrounded by dancing tarts.
“Read.” It was not a request, but an instruction.
“I’d rather just look at the pictures, if that’s okay.”
Crayonne fainted.
Hardcase sucked air in through her teeth.
“I, uh, won’t do my daughter’s homework again,” Shining said. “Can I go home now?”
Hardcase’s hoof trembled. Out of fear? No. Rage? Also no. She was an educator. To her, Shining was not an obstacle or a problem. He was a challenge. A mountain to climb. Steeper and more daunting than any other perhaps, including Sombra himself. Sombra was, after all, just evil. He had been vicious, but brilliant. Shining Armor was a different beast. A charming, cheerful pony that, it seemed, was introducing the intellectual quotient system to the concept of negative numbers.
By Celestia’s luminescent mane… this stallion, Hardcase realised, was a himbo.
Hardcase stood up, stepped over the unconscious form of Crayonne and gently pushed the still bawling body of Integral to the side as she moved towards her temple of truth, her window to wisdom… the blackboard.
“You are not dismissed, Mr. Armor.” She began writing. “We start with the numbers, one to nine. Then, basic addition. Then we will see about dismissing the class.”
What happened next over the subsequent eight hours would be told amongst the academic staff of the School until well into Princess Twilight’s rule. The head teacher of Ruby 2 class heroically braved the clash of educator and educatee to drag the comatose body of Mrs. Crayonne from the room… possibly well saving her life.
Mr. Integral, however, had no such saviour. After the deadly bout, he was left forever changed… broken. He quit teaching not long after, and none blamed him.
As for Hardcase, were any other teacher qualified to look upon the exchange that went down that night without their minds buckling under the torment, she was beyond words. The grandest thesaurus in all the land would be bled dry before a term or descriptor could be found that aptly described a genius educator performing their greatest chef-d’oeuvre.
At first, for the initial half-hour, she probed the edges of Shining Armor’s psychology, assessing him. This was still her warm-up phase… even though she had successfully acknowledged the depth and gravity of the challenge this mere parent presented, there was still a part of her that hadn’t truly woken up to the danger. For a moment, she felt herself slip… the numbers she taught and the letters she knew made less sense as the circular questioning Shining retorted with ground her down.
Then, it was as if a light shone on her… a part of her spirit that she had forgotten about woke up. A twenty-one year old mare, new to teaching, watching her first pupil make it all the way to E on the alphabet. A wholesome memory she had once never imagined forgetting, only now remembered.
This was why she had three letters for a cutie-mark… A, B, and C. A legendary mark… few ponies had cutie-marks that displayed recognised symbols on them, and instantly it had set her apart from the others.
This was who she was.
She was a teacher. Perhaps the best. And now, she was resurrected; the challenge, the thrill of teaching had unlocked heights that she had never been forced to discover she could reach... but reach them, she could.
She locked in, and the circular logic turned into a dance, then a waltz. She could go as many times as she needed. She was older now, yes, but no less vigorous for it. If Shining was a mountain of mindlessness, then Miss Hardcase, the Miss Hardcase, straight out of the legends of kindergarten and middle-school education from history, had the patience of the tides to wear him down.
That said, it was after the second hour, when Shining seemingly forgot that numbers existed that caused the first smidgeon of doubt to creep into her impenetrable soul. The circular reasoning and interminable questioning punctuated with what could only be described as apocalyptic amnesia for sentences spoken three full stops ago had morphed into a stonewall of stupid.
Willingly or not, Shining had shut her out. The dance had ended. Hardcase's continuous tap-tap-scratching of Horsegoromo chalk on blackboard met only with the vacant stare of the detached pupil.
Was this possible after all? Were there some depths of stupidity that simply couldn’t be overcome?
No, thought Hardcase. There was no such thing as a stupid pupil. How dare Hardcase forget that, even in the heat of such a draining session?! There was only a failure of the educator to understand the necessities of the student, and Miss Hardcase did not fail.
Think… think! What could capture the attention of this difficult pupil?
For Flurry Heart, she had to figure it out. The filly deserved a father who knew how to count to ten. Any student of Hardcase deserved that much! This was why part-time teachers spoke of Miss Hardcase for centuries after the Fall of the Crystal Empire. It wasn't the stern gaze, the strict attitude, the expectations... it was the results, driven by a pure ideal, an exhortation to better all through elevation of the intellect.
The doorframe rattled; the windows shook. Hardcase used props, puppets, posters and presentations.
Every angle was explored to secure the interest of Shining; coercion through promise of sweets, assuming the role of a parental figure, rewarding the student via access to their interests… which in this instance was working out, apparently. Good thing Miss Hardcase still hit the gym regularly otherwise she’d have been in trouble. Being a teacher meant being a role model, and to Hardcase, that meant maintaining exemplary physical standards and, when required, monumental gains.
A glint in Shining's eye. She had her angle. At last!
Small success was felt after the intense work-out regime following the successful graduation to numbers beyond 3, but after that things stalled. There simply were no more muscles to train. Hardcase had done them all; the gastrocnemius, biceps femoris, and even the extensor carpi radialis… neither Hardcase nor Armor had any more bulk to biggen.
There was a lull in learning. Hardcase, missing an alternative angle, retreated to the reliable strategy of rote repetition... one that she knew keener than any other had already failed her.
Things were dire. And they had only made it to the number 7, six hours in. A trickle of blood dripped from Hardcase's nose... she was feeling the effects of the strain.
The situation seemed hopeless.
“Look, I won’t do Flurry’s homework again,” Shining said, the glint of defeat visible in his eyes. Hardcase’s heart jumped in her chest. His spirit was broken. He was resigned to being the sort of stallion who thought throwing his wife at an evil unicorn cloud was a good idea.
Hardcase’s heart broke, then mended itself all the stronger in the span of a nanosecond.
Yes… there was one remaining angle. The forbidden technique…
With a start, Hardcase realised that her restraints had been removed. She had been teaching Shining like he was a young stallion… but no.
Shining was an adult.
Could she? At the age of one-thousand-and-fifty-three, did she still have what it took...
...to seduce?
For education… by Celestia, she did.
“Flurry, your father’s not allowed to do your homework any more.”
“Aw! But he said he got this!”
Cadence sighed. “No, Flurry. It seems your dad did not, in fact, got this. And he’s not allowed to parent-teacher meetings any more either."
Author's Note
You get to die when I say you can die, Thesaurus-chan.
Written on a train the day before the deadline. Old habits die hard.
