Canterlot High

Canterlot High

Ch. 2: Making friends

Vinyl looked at the new mare who would be her roommate for the next year. Sure, room changes were possible, but they took way too long and were tons of unnecessary paperwork. It was easier to just get along with the pony you shared a room with. After checking her out, up and down, she decided she could probably live with this beauty of a mare for a year.

Wait, where did that come from?

Not wanting to think about it, she extended a hoof to her. “Hi. The name’s Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch.” She said as cool as possible. Inwardly she let out a “Yeeeah! Almost like James Colt! Celestia that was awesome.”

The gray mare with the shining pink eyes took her hoof and shook it. “Octavia. Pleased to make your acquaintance miss Scratch.”

“Woah there. Vinyl’s just fine. I’m too young to be a “miss”.” She said with a wide smile.

“Well then Tavi’ Nice to meet-“ “Tavi’?” Octavia asked confused, interrupting Vinyl.

“Well yeah. I call all of my friends nicknames. You don’t like it?” Vinyl frowned. Somehow she really hoped she hadn’t made the gray mare angry.

“Friends?” Octavia asked. She tried hard to suppress the tears that came to her eyes. ‘Was it really that easy?’ she asked herself.

“Ah sorry…”Vinyl said sadly, turning away sadly. “of course I understand if you don’t want to be friends with a low class mare like me…” “What?! NO!” Octavia exclaimed, shocked and fearing she  had just blown her chance of Vinyl liking her. “That’s not what I meant! It’s just…I… I actually never had friends before…” She ended and turned away ashamed. “My parents we’re always touring around with the orchestra, and between learning and traveling I just never found an opportunity to make friends…”

Vinyl tried to comfort her. “Hey, no biggie! I’m sure you will make lots of friends here. The colts will queue up to be friends with a beautiful mare like you.” ‘Did I just say that aloud?’ Vinyl asked herself.

Octavia blushed heavily. “Thank you.” She said, looking back up into the DJ’s glasses. She couldn’t see through them, but she thought she ‘felt’ Vinyl staring back into her eyes.

They stood there for several seconds, until a knock from the door shook them out of their trance. The door opened, and a bright yellow earth pony mare with a mane almost as spiky as Vinyl’s, but green, entered the room without looking. “Hey Vinyl, did you hear? You’re roommate is supposed to be here. I think Tony is just showing her around.”

Then she finally noticed Octavia. “Oh. Nevermind.”

She came over to Octavia, and startled the latter quite a bit by hugging her. “Welcome to the nuthouse! Hope you can cleanse it from its name.” She said grinning.

Octavia, shocked by the hug only brought out incoherent words. The yellow mare quickly pulled back. “Oh sorry, sorry. Not used to such closeness I guess. Sorry again. I’m Pine Apple. No jokes about my name or my cutie mark and we can be the best of friends.” At these words Octavia’s gaze naturally shifted to the other mares flank. Her cutie mark was, who would have guessed, a pineapple.

“You can watch it as much as you want, but I’m taken.” Pine said with a mischievous grin.

The other earth pony blushed furiously, and Vinyl behind her, who had taken the opportunity to ogle Octavia’s backside, and her tremble clef cutie mark in the color of her eyes, blushed even harder. Or at least more obviously, since her coat was white.

Pine giggled at the embarrassed chaos she had created, as both other mares tried to explain and defend themselves.

From the balcony came the call “Hey, Octavia, Vinyl, has anyone of you seen Pi-“ Blue stopped himself midsentence, when he saw his girlfriend standing in front of the other two flushed mares.

Pine’s deep green eyes started to shine “Blue!” she called out and trotted over to her coltfriend on the balcony, pulling him in a deep kiss.

The gray and the white mare blushed even deeper at the open display of feelings. Luckily they were quickly distracted by the already familiar flash of white light and the just as familiar grumpy tone of a unicorn complaining about his friend disappearing on him. “Dude! You should really learn how to use a door… what if the ladies were just changing?”

“We don't normally wear clothes." Blue said deadpan. "And at least they see me coming. It’s you who startles everyone all the time by just randomly teleporting all over the place.” Blue shot back with a smug smile on his face. His friend looked rather annoyed, but as hard as he searched; he didn't find any argument against that. “Besides, I told you: just find a spell that grows you wings, then you would have no problems following me.”

“Yeah, as if that were so easy…Who do you think I am? Twilight Sparkle?” If any unicorn would ever manage to create a 'grow wings' spell or turning herself into an alicorn, it would surely be Celestia's personal student. Not Two Tone.

"Yeah, you're just one weak ass magician." Blue teased. The usually very mature colt stuck out his tongue at his friend.

"Shut up!" the other replied lamely. "You fly like a rock."

The three mares in the room had followed the argument with interest. Until Pine looked at the alarm clock next to Vinyl’s bed. “Oh no! Aren’t we supposed to be downstairs in the dinner hall at 12 sharp?”

Four pairs of eyes looked first at her, and then at the clock. It showed 11:58 with menacingly glowing, green electric numbers.

“Ah shit. Don’t worry girls. I got this.” Two Tone said while his horn flared up bright flash like burning magnesium. The room around the girls disappeared and the young ponies now stood in the luxurious dining hall of the villa. Two looked a bit exhausted. Teleporting many ponies was never an easy feat.

Most of the room had turned their heads at the bright flash in the entrance of the hall. Most second years seemed unimpressed, for they were already used to the quirks of the dorm’s inhabitants, but most of the new students stared wide eyed at the four new arrivals.

“Four?” Octavia thought.

She wasn’t the only one to notice. “Where’s Blue?” Pine asked and looked at the unicorn colt. He just grinned and walked to the nearest empty table.

Most other residents of the dorm had already taken seats at one of the dining hall’s four tables.

The tables were all placed with one of the short sides of their rectangular form to the wall, two on each side. The longer sides of the tables gave room for eight ponies to sit comfortably next to each other, but no more than six spaces were taken at each table.

Octavia counted 18 students, her included, and 3 teachers sitting at all tables. At that moment, Carry entered the room saw their still half empty table, smiled and sat next to Octavia. “And? I see you met your new roommate. I hope you will get along nicely.” Her enthusiasm was contagious.

“I hope so too.” Vinyl said. “But I think Octavia is nice, I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun.” She smiled brightly at her roommate. Octavia couldn’t see her eyes, for they were still covered by her shades (“Does she ever take them off?” went through her mind) but she was sure Vinyl meant it nonetheless.

The pink unicorn teacher looked around the table and asked “Where’s Blue? Did he go home?” “Home?” Octavia asked curiously. “Doesn’t he live in the dorm?” “Ah, Blue is an exception. We call it an extern student. He has a house nearby. He lives there during school term, and doesn’t have to pay the full school fee in return. But he hangs around this dorm almost all the time, since Tony and Pine live here anyways.”

“Tony?” Octavia asked. “It’s a nickname. All my friends call me that, so feel free to do so too.” Two Tone said, blushing slightly.

Octavia seemed to beam at his words. Only Vinyl got why, and she smiled at the happiness her new roommate radiated.

The yellow and green earth pony mare intervened: “About Blue: Hornface here seemed to find it funny to pull a prank on him when he teleported us down here…” she said with an annoyed look at the black maned unicorn. The latter had picked up his grin from before again.

As if on cue, a blue Pegasus entered the hall, soaking from head to hoof.

“You are so dead.” He growled at the still grinning unicorn.

“The pond in the royal gardens? Really? Do you have any idea how freaking hard it was to dodge all those guards?” He asked through his teeth.

“Yeah, the gardens were the only place in the Palace where the teleport blocking forcefield was weak enough for me to pierce it. I wanted to teleport you into the throne room and on Celestia’s lap.” Tony smirked. Blue growled.

Two’s horn glowed once again, and the Water in the Pegasus’ coat vaporized, along with the different sized puddles on the floor of the corridor.

Blue slumped down at the free spot between his friend and his mare, just as the food arrived, served by the small kitchen crew.

He ‘Accidentally’ smashed his right hoof into the unicorn’s right shoulder, while sitting down. Tony winced, but just kept on grinning, mumbling something along the lines of “Worth it.”

Vinyl just looked at Blue wide eyed. At least the others assumed she had wide eyes; she still wore her shades. “You got from the castle back here in less than five minutes? While dodging the royal guard?” She was no pegasus, but it was quite a distance, almost the other side of the city. “Well, I’m no Feather Flash, I’m sure most other pegasi could have done it just as fast.” He said modestly. Referring to the current, soon retiring, captain of the Wonderbolts.

“Speaking of pegasi.” Octavia remarked “You’re the only one here. How comes?”

Vinyl looked around. The gray mare was right. The students of the dorm were mostly unicorns, and some earthponies, but no other pegasi around. “It’s simple really.” Carry explained. “Pegasi can fly. Distances that seem far for us, are just a jump to them. Most pegasi live in the dorm farthest away from the school grounds, which is also the cheapest. That in turn is very convenient for the Pegasus families from Cloudsdale, which aren’t all as wealthy as most Canterlot nobles.”

“Are any of you nobles?” Octavia cut in into the conversation. She had a bit of a fascination for these so called nobles. Most of them were noble only by title, but she had met Fancy Pants once. He was a true gentlecolt.

“Nope.” Tony simply stated.

“Nah, I’m from the Manehatten branch of the Apple family. I’m sure you’ve heard of them before. We’re actually one of the oldest families in Equestria.” Pine said with a hint of pride.

“I was born and raised in Ponyville,” Carry remembered “But I went to this school, and live in Canterlot ever since I’m old enough.”

“I’m from Cloudsdale. But my parents have multiple houses, and they change the place they live frequently. I didn’t want to change schools so often, and so I’m living on my own here in Canterlot.”

“Me? A noble? Yeah, who would believe that?” Vinyl joked. But Octavia thought she noticed a slight waver in her voice. She didn’t press the issue though, in fear of angering her newfound friend. “What about you Tavi?” She changed the focus from her to Octavia.

“I was born in Canterlot. My father is director of the royal symphony orchestra. My mother plays in it. Long story short they didn’t have the time to take care of me, next to touring around.” ‘And they wanted me to make some friends.’ She added silently.

Their idle conversation went on for the next half an hour, until Carry stood up from her place. “Anyways, it was nice to get to know you two a bit, Vinyl, Octavia. I’m the teacher responsible for your room by the way. So if you have any questions or problems, come talk to me. I have to go and finish some stuff now. First student get together is at 2:30 pm in the school’s aula. I’m sure Pine will show you the way.” With that she left the hall, soon followed by the other 3 teachers.

“Did you get the chance to unpack yet?” Pine Apple asked Octavia. “If not, you should probably do that now, the first meeting of the year usually takes quite long. I’m not sure when it will end and you will be happy if you don’t have to unpack late in the evening. No stress though. You have a good 90 minutes left.

Octavia thanked her and left the dining hall together with Vinyl, to finish unpacking and organizing their room.

***** 90 minutes later *****

The three mares walked over from their dorm to the great castle like schoolhouse. The two colts were some dozen hoofs behind them, talking about something they didn’t want the girls to know, or they knew the girls didn’t want to know.

“So, what’s gonna happen at that first meeting?” Vinyl asked curiously, secretly wondering if she should try a voice amplifier spell on the stallions, so she could listen in.

“You have read how this school works before applying here, didn’t you?” Pine wondered.

“I did.” Octavia saw fit for her to voice her knowledge, since Vinyl was obviously lost. “In this school, we can ‘build’ our timetable ourselves, to bring our own talents to upmost use. It’s a revolutionary school system, and so far unique in equestrian…” Vinyl stared at her, mouth wide open. “…or so I’ve been told.” Octavia ended her almost word-by-word quote from the school’s advertisement.

“Octavia did her homework I see. Yeah, this is more or less exactly how it works. It’s just that they don’t always have all the capacity to teach everything to everypony, but they do a good job, and the whole system works pretty well. Just hope that you get all the courses you want.”

“Sounds pretty neat.” Vinyl gave her opinion. “How come you visit this school without knowing a thing about it, Vinyl?” Pine pressed. “Eh, I just trusted my parents with the choice of my school.” The white unicorn said, looking away. Again, Octavia felt like there was something her roommate didn’t tell her.

Blue landed with a soft thud next to Pine and Tony caught up, for once without magic, and fell into their pace in the middle of the four ponies, between Pine and Octavia.

“Do the ladies already know what courses you’re going to take?” Asked Tony nonchalantly.

“I hope I can get into Musical Theory, Music History regular music lessons and some minor courses to fill my week.” Octavia answered hopefully.

“Yeah, I’m gonna apply for some music stuff too.” Vinyl said. “And probably some magic courses.”

“I hope you’ll be getting all the courses you want.” Pine stated thoughtfully, just as they entered the enormous school building. Vinyl and Octavia followed the other three to the aula.

“Why?” the gray mare inquired. “Can’t be that hard, can it?”

***** 3 hours and 30 minutes later *****

“That was madness!” Octavia let herself slump down on her bed.

“Madness?” Vinyl asked “No, that was… far worse than just madness.” She buried her head in her own pillow.

“It wasn’t that bad.” Pine insisted. She wasn’t as worn out as the other two mares from choosing her courses, since she had already been used to it. “You two got the courses you wanted, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Octavia admitted. “But there was so much more there. So much choice!” She laid down on her bed belly side up, her head on her pillow. “I applied for archery! Lucky I didn’t get taken, I wouldn’t even know how to use a bow… But it looked so interesting.” She whined.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Last year, Two ended up in a knitting class. He says he doesn’t know how it happened and he doesn’t want to talk about it, but from time to time he wears a handmade scarf.” The mares giggled.

“Anyways, you will see; after one week you have settled in nicely. It’s less of a school, than it is a tightly knitted family. But like any family, we have our black sheep. I recommend you stay away from the snotty unicorn nobles.” She almost spat the word. “They still think they can do anything without consequences sometimes. Especially to a mare.”

“Well, I have to finish organizing my room too and actually get to know my roommate. She’s a freshmare just like you two. See you at dinner?” Pine asked cheerfully.

“Yeah, sure.” Vinyl answered as the earthpony mare walked out of the room and downstairs to her own. Then she turned back to Octavia. “Phew. That just has been one crazy first day, hasn’t it?”

“It certainly has, but it’s nice to make so many friends on the first day already. I would have never thought it were so easy.” Octavia remarked with happiness about her new friendship situation.

Vinyl looked up at the ceiling in thought. Her head on her pillow just like Octavia. “It isn’t always this easy.” She said. “The ponies here are just very outgoing... and maybe slightly insane.” Both smiled at the true statement.

The two mares talked like they had been friends for life. It sure felt like it. They talked and talked until it was time for dinner. While standing up Vinyl just said: “Well, this has been a great start. Let’s see where we go from here.” And they walked downstairs to the dining hall side by side.

Author’s notes:

I used 2 chapters just for the first day? O.o sheeeeeet…

Ok from here on out I’m going to skip some days/weeks from time to time, and maybe just write out scenes. Since the main focus is on Vinyl and Tavi, I’m only going to write mainly about their courses and stuff. More awesome OCs/friends of mine will be coming along as I write. Actually the whole story is always made up on the spot. Sure I have some major plot ideas I will bring into the story, just wait 

Concerning cutie marks:

You might have noticed that I mentioned the cutie marks of some ponies, but not of others. This has multiple reasons. The first is that I would like to think of Octavia, who’s in the main focus, as a bit of a prudish mare. So no flank staring for her if it isn’t necessary. Secondly are there OCs I just have no idea what CM to give them… Blue would be drawing tools, that one is easy, but Two? What special talent do I have? I have no idea…

New chars:

Pine Apple: Not only did it give me a perfect possibility to use the Apple family, it’s actually her real (nick)name. She’s my best friend’s girlfriend and she would kick my balls into my stomach for calling her pineapple XD she hates that nickname.

And of course this A/N got too long again… excuse me for a second I’m gonna bash my head against the wall to get all those ideas out…

-Eli