The Exchange Student

It had been more than a month now after sending that letter, and Connor still had not gotten a reply. His things were no longer packed, but they were organized in such a way that they could easily stuffed into a suitcase or two within minutes. Right now he was sitting on his bed.

Can you guess what he was doing?

I bet you can't.

SPOILER ALERT! He was reading.

He turned the page of the newest Hairy Putter book and continued reading, when a random thought crossed his mind.

How about I open a window?

Hmmmmm.

Well, why not?

Currently the shade ws down on the window. Connor opened it and found that there was no extra light coming in from the outside at all. That's odd, it's like 2 in the afternoon or something, he thought. He checked the clock next to his bed.

Yeah. 2:51.

As to what was covering the window, it looked a bit like smoke of some sort.

Open it.

Connor was having second thoughts. If the smoke was that thick, didn't that mean there was a fire?

OPEN IT!

Screw it. Im'ma open the window.

He yanked it wide open and immediately received a healthy dose of smoke in his face. (Nothin' like some good ol' smoke fo' yo's lungs.) He coughed quite a lot within that brief period of time. It only lasted for a second, though; the smoke proceeded to condense over his bed. Then it formed into a SCROLL.

(With a ribbon and seal, no less. The whole nein yards. So fancy.)

"Oh. Ok," said Connor aloud, who was currently still trying to process the given info into something he could understand. He looked a bit closer at the scroll. It was yellowed and tattered slightly at the edges, like you would expect any generic parchment scroll to be. The seal had a sun (as it appeared; Connor couldn't be sure) surrounded by runes of some sort form a strange language that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Latin.

Connor picked up the scroll, very carefully. He didn't want to burn his hand, that thing was probably on fire a minute ago! He peeled off the seal carefully as well, since he wasn't sure if there was a certain way to actually open one. His hand did not set on fire within the past minute or so, so he opened the scroll. It was handwritten, but it looked as though someone was trying to copy a typeface when they wrote it; almost as though they were unfamiliar with the language. The note was also heavily scribbled out in certain spots; specifically, he noted, when there were words like "people" or "everyone". (He couldn't find out what mistakes the writer could have made. There was a lot of ink wasted trying to get rid of the evidence.)

Dear Connor,

It pleases me to know that there are ponies people who would like to study our language. I have sent your request through the council and everypony everybody on there has approved of you coming here to continue your studies. I'm sure you will enjoy your stay here in the kingdom,as the town I will have you stay at is probably one of the friendliest of all; my personal student can certainly vouch for that. You will have approximately twenty minutes to prepare to leave after receiving this letter.

Sincerely,

The signature at the bottom appeared to be signed in a language similar to the runes on the seal, but this looked more cursive. He also noted that at the bottom was, "P.S. I apologize if the short notice is an inconvenience for you." He put the letter down and thought for a second. 20 minutes? Surely whoever sent it couldn't be serious. It had to have taken at least a day or so for this to even get here. He picked it up again and searched for anything on the letter that would indicate it was a joke or something. You know, "OMG you fell for it", "You've been pranked!", or even "Message will self-destruct after reading."

At least if it did blow up he could convince himself that this had never happened. He was still trying to figure out how this happened in the first place. Magnets maybe.

He also recalled something else; it was Saturday. Didn't they stop sending mail on Staurdays?

If that was the case, how did this get here? Magic?

Nah, thought Connor as he began to pack.