You wanted to really call whoever designed this building and slap him/her upside their head. Everything about this schoolhouse seemed to scream cliché. The old looking building with an old timey bell, the rather young and kind looking teacher, and even a freaking school yard with a large sandbox and jungle gym in the back, nothing about this place stood out to you to even bother taking a mental note of.
Your teacher wasn’t helping. She was talking to Pinkie Pie like an old friend, which based again on signs of aging the two could have gone to school at the same time at one point, though Pinkie was obviously younger by a year or two. The talk itself was not important. As soon as you realized it was going into stallions you tuned them out. Such talk was of little importance to you in the long run since you didn’t like the idea of being a “player” with such information as your mom put it when describing your father.
This teacher, Cheerilee you thought you heard, finally turned her attention to you after some exchanging with Pinkie. “Hello there my little pony.” You just stare at her. She grimaces to Pinkie and tried to whisper in her ear, “Not very talkative is he?” It was easy enough to hear, you do have some pride in your observational skills after all when it isn’t an inconvenience.
Something else is getting at you now that you see her up close. What was it? The evidence was there but it wasn’t something you knew well so you couldn’t draw from your well on this pony. Her rose colored coat caught the eye too much for you to see exactly what it was that stood out to you at first. “Well how about you come in with me? Pinkie, I can handle this from here. I’ll tell you how everything goes later.”
“Oki Doki Loki,” said Pinkie happily skipping away. You roll your eyes. She just had to be so happy all the time didn’t she?
“Hey,” commented Cheerilee’ voice looking at you, “Rolling your eyes is disrespectful. When Pinkie comes to pick you up I expect you to give an apology.”
She can’t be serious. She looks like the type who does it all the time herself. Talk about a pot talking to a kettle. So in turn you respond with a stare and rolling your eyes again with a shake of your head as one would do if they were imitating someone.
“Ugg,” said Cheerilee rolling her own eyes now, “Let’s just get you introduced. I’m sure you will get to like it here once you have a friend or two and all the fillies and colts around your age come to school here.”
“I doubt it,” you mutter not caring if the teacher hears you. If she does she doesn’t look back and her smiling face returns in full the closer you get to the classroom. It doesn’t really matter though, soon enough she’ll see why.
Once inside you were greeted with the sight of a wide variety of ponies of all shapes and sizes. In fact they look far more different that the others you’ve seen around town. What you found interesting was that no stallions looked anything like any of the colts here, and thinking about it you didn’t look like your father at all either. Did this mean all boys go through some massive face morphing at puberty? You shudder at the thought of what your face would morph into because of this and how you would feel with your jaw extending. Another pony shared your color scheme, only since her mane was longer this filly had full blonde hair.
Your own hair was cut back, but Pinkie refused to let you have it all done short so little tuffs of orange showed at the ends of your hair. As you expected that was the cause of all these new kids to take a second glance at you. Well aside from two fillies in the middle that looked at you once, laughed about something and went back to talking and snickering between each other.
“Now quiet my little ponies,” announced Cheerilee with her grin returning, what did she just love being meta without realizing it? That aside, apparently you couldn’t keep her frowning long, but it wasn’t like you were trying….yet. “Today we have a new student joining us. Please say hello to…” She paused, and you held back a grin. In all the talk she had forgotten to ask your name from Pinkie, or at least if she did get your name it was lost too her now.
Only something strikes you, if she tries to say your name and gets it wrong you will be mocked with that name until you leave. You had already been on both ends of that situation and even a week of that sort of bullying isn’t going to fly well on your tolerance level. Worse yet, those two foals who didn’t seem to care about you suddenly seem interested in the teacher again. Either they are going to use what she said against you or were going to make fun of the teacher herself for it. And while Cheerilee would deserve it if it was the latter, the risk of the former and something inside told you it was best to give a save. So in a polite tone you bow and introduce yourself, being careful to avoid telling anything about your family. It wasn’t long till you finished with, “Just call me Cog for short, I don’t much like my full name.”
Any thought to admiring this teacher was lost the moment she couldn’t say your name. True it was a long one not many would have bothered to say or even know existed in equestrian language unless they were book smart. But at least Pinkie Pie had decided to call you Coggy outright instead of failing as this educator was. In fact why were you quite about it?
“I mean that has to be easy for your simple brain.” There it was, you did it. You just couldn’t hold back could you? You could hear a pin drop after the gasps all the students made from your comment.
Cheerilee however didn’t look mad. In fact she looked rather glad to hear that for some reason. Then suddenly she winked, but not at you, to the entire class, “Gotcha.” Then she goes and pronounces your name in full with no issue what so ever. “Now your desk is in the back over there. And thanks for that little bit Cog, but I think your acting was a bit off with the delivery. Next time I have to remember to tell you to smile.”
You couldn’t believe it. The teacher actually spun this into her favor AND got you to introduce yourself properly. The little snake. This teacher defiantly gained some points with you now. You scratch annoying the teacher off your list of ways to get out of this quicker. Even if you tried harder this teacher would find ways around it, you were sure of that. So you just took your seat in the back row and didn’t’ say anything.
The three students around you were the only ones still staring at you by classes start, the two colts on either side of you with cutie marks already and a girl without one. One of the boy’s marks is barely visible with his white coat but a feather nestled his flank. The other on your left was chubby and had an odd cutie mark you couldn’t place and seemed to have nothing to do with why his face was in the news paper with a fez on. To each their own you supposed.
It was the last one of the three, the filly directly in front of you, which struck you as off a bit. Her yellow coat was bare, and the bright big bow in her red hair somehow even redder than the hair is what first struck you. The second thing was how she was obviously only a few months to a year younger, and then her eyes that like your hair seemed to change color a bit, at least in shade from top to bottom. The two colts you understood, as the guy next to them you’d logically have to share text books with them, but why was this filly still staring at you? Did she notice that you were not acting earlier? Well whatever, at least I can use this to your advantage.
You proceed to then stare daggers at the filly. She’s taken aback for a bit and, wait she looks like she’s about to cry. Or is that her normal sad face? Before you could decide you feel your face soften as you exhale and extend your hoof. You cursed your own nature sometimes.
This was another thing you did since you were a foal. Not exactly something either of your parents made you do, but when your mom would tell you stories of a valiant knight defending princesses your boyish dreams were set to roost as you wanted to be a canterlot guard at one point. That of course led to helping as many damsels as you could find to help and the rest just naturally happened. You cursed your younger self sometimes for giving you this compulsion.
However, unlike what you expected, the girl doesn’t take your hoof. She scoffs at you and turns back to see her teacher again. You frown confused, was your dagger staring face really that good? You glance at the two colts next to you. The feather flanked one shrugs and other had gone back to his paper at some point. Not wanting to extend a hoof for no reason you throw it instead to the feather flanked one, who shakes it and greets you as Featherweight.
For the rest of class up to lunch Featherweight shares his text books with you and you get to know one another a bit. You didn’t tell him much about yourself but that was easy since featherweight seemed to be able to talk about being a reporter for forever. His own deductive skills seemed to be better than yours in some ways. He didn’t notice the useless stuff as much which left him to notice all the things you didn’t. Like pointing out how that yellow pony, Applebloom he tells you, was staring at you at first because she saw you didn’t have a cutie mark. This meant you were one with only five others in class now who didn’t have one out of all twenty. “That filly has some club with two of the other blank flanks,” he explains, “careful you don’t get mixed up with them. The only reason they didn’t go after Pip was because he’s too young for one still.”
You give him a nod but still ask, “Why avoid them then? Do they bully ponies around or something?”
“Oh no,” said Featherweight shaking his head, “it’s actually the opposite. I don’t personally but most ponies listen to those two.” He pointed at the two fillies that mostly ignored you at introduction, “Diamond Tiara is the pink one. She is the class bully if there ever was one. The grey one with the snow white mane is Silver Spoon. I’d say to avoid them, but if you do when they come looking for you it would be far worse.”
“I’ll take your word for it then,” you reply noticing Cheerilee is looking at the two of you and shutting up to focus back on your studies and grab the pencil in your mouth to appease her. Gets you to clam up quick with just looking at you? Yep, she was definitely a teacher you did not want to cross this week.
Recess began after lunch. Featherweight had invited you to play with the other colts in some activity, but you decline saying you’re tired and lay against the fence. That was a lie, but you couldn’t go and just keep interacting with Featherweight. If you did hang out with him and his friends outside class that would mean you’d get friends. Friends you may not want to leave when the time came.
So you just lay against the wall trying to think. You don’t exactly want to be a problem child, but if you don’t try to be one you’d end up staying here until your father showed up, and already you didn’t want that, at least not as much as last time. With nothing better to do, you look at your right hoof just by the joint. It’s small, but the pink scarred skin still shined against the dark fur. It doesn’t really sting, but you could feel it like it was fresh just looking at it so you put your hoof back down.
From the corner of your eye you can see Applebloom and her friends playing together. The orange Pegasus seems to ask something while the white unicorn watches you, but Applebloom shakes her head and said something and they start playing again.
The recess likely would have gone on without incident if Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had not decided to bother you. You could feel the other ponies’ eyes on the three of you when they approached. Well, let’s get this over with.
You meet them with a strong stance. There are two ways this could go. Either way is good for you, but the first would be preferable. “Can I help you?”
“Well looky what he have here,” said Diamond Tiara, “a blank flank who thinks he’s too good to interact with any pony.” She continued to say something while you took full mental notes on the two. Silver Spoon only seemed to either repeat or agree with Diamond Tiara. Finally they finished with, “You’ll never get a talent like this you dull looking clod.”
You were waiting for that, “Actually it’s Cog, and really if I were you I wouldn’t make fun of other ponies’ talents or lack thereof considering your own.” The two blinked and looked confused so you elaborated. “Tell me, what is your special talent? You know aside from the obvious that your vapid snobs that only spend money other ponies give you.” The two didn’t seem like there were going to answer and shrunk back a bit when you finished so you continued. “No retort? Well I’m on the money it seems, and I guess you would know it since that’s all you two will ever be good at. Heck I’d guess you two only push other ponies around because you know that deep down you have no decent talent anyone wants. I kind of feel sorry for you, every pony else will be so much better at one thing or another than you and you’ll be unable to do much except use it for personal material.”
You close your eyes and pulled back your ears to minimize sound as you trotted back into the school building. You knew that would make them cry but it doesn’t affect you if you don’t see it firsthand. You notice the entire class is still quiet so you do look out the window to see what is going on. Instead of agreeing with you the ponies, including Applebloom and her friends are gathered around the two to try and console them a bit. You had been harsh. Hit them right in their life purpose. There was no way any of them would like you at all now. Heck Featherweight would quickly disassociate with you and say he was only helping because Cheerilee said too. Mission accomplished.
Only something was off, Applebloom and her friends look at you in the window. The orange one has the mad face, but it was obvious she was holding back a laugh. The white one is annoyed. But Applebloom is the only one that looks sad about this for some reason. Whatever, you go back to your desk alone where you belong to wait for class to start again. Cheerilee said she was going to quiz everyone this afternoon so you might as well keep busy by studying for all the good it will do you.