//------------------------------// // Chapter 20 // Story: Dreamstrider // by OkemosBrony //------------------------------// A cool breeze blows through my mane, getting it in my face and messing up the brushing I did this morning. Hopefully it doesn’t look too bad. It’s nice and cool for the first day of school which is good because it’s not hot, but it can get hard to see with my mane in my face and I almost feel like I’m going to get blown away in this wind. Before long, I get up to the large building for Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, which now looks a bit smaller than it did last year. The doctor back in Coltlumbus did say this age was when most fillies started going through all their growth spurts, but I didn’t think I had gotten that much bigger. It might even be because I’m used to it, now. I’ve already done a year of school here, and this is going to be my last year. After this, just learning from Luna and going out and experiencing everything myself. I’m going to miss it a little, actually. Learning’s fun. I guess I won’t stop learning, but it’ll still be weird. Once I walk inside, I go past the pony directing all the first-years to their classroom and find room 22, the classroom I’ll have this year. Unlike last year, the desks aren’t all in groups of four, but rather like a normal classroom, in rows with them all facing the front. Most of the seats are full now, and I at least recognize everypony from last year. There’s a seating chart on the blackboard, so I find my seat and sit down. I’m next to two fillies who I sort of recognize but don’t think I ever really talked to and they’re both talking to other ponies, so I guess it’s just me for the time being. Before long, every seat is filled, so the stallion at the front of the room taps his chalk on the blackboard a few times to get our attention. “Alright everypony, please listen up!” It takes a few moments, but before long, everypony has gotten quiet and is looking towards the front of the room. “My name is Mister Cosmic Power,” he says as he points to himself, “and I will be your teacher for this year. But please, call me Mister Cosmic.” He grabs a piece of chalk in his magic again, and then starts writing on the board. “Anyways, I know you must all be at least familiar with each other, but I want to get you to all get acquainted on a deeper and more personal level.” He steps back, and I can see what he wrote on the board: Icebreaker: Two Truths and a Lie “If any of you have ever done this, then you know where I’ll be going with this. If not, listen up. There should be a sheet of paper in all of your desks, and I want you to take it out and write your name on it, as well as two truths about yourself and a lie. Once you do that, please levitate them onto my desk. I will pair you off, and you will have to find the pony whose paper you have, because they will have yours as well. You’ll both guess each other's lies are, and then tell them the answer.” He puts the chalk down. “Start writing!” I pull out my paper and just stare at it blankly. Come to think of it, I’ve not really had that interesting a life. Well, besides one thing, so I write it as the first thing on my sheet: 1: I’ve killed a demon all by myself Figure that’ll trip anypony up, since I think I’ve only talked about demons with my family. I should put the next one as a lie, because whenever I’ve done this, I've found a lot of ponies don’t really think that the middle one is a lie for some reason. I can’t really think of much else, so I just put something random down: 2: My dad is in the Royal Guard Don’t know why I thought of that. May have been all the guards I see on a regular basis in the castle. Now for a final thing. What could I do? I can’t think of anything that would sound like a lie but isn't, so I just put something true that’s not hard to believe: 3: I’m the youngest of three sisters That works, so I write my name. I’m one of the first ponies to levitate my paper into Mister Cosmic’s pile, so the other ponies in class must also be having trouble thinking of things. Glad I wasn’t the only one that had to just think of things on the spot. After a few minutes when everypony's put their papers in, he takes the pile in his magic and casts a spell. The sheets all fly out onto different desks, and then everypony starts reading the ones that landed in front of them. I look down, and I can see that I got the paper of somepony called Bloomrose. Everypony’s getting up and finding their partners, so I’m finding mine. There’s a filly near the front of the class with a red mane and tail and something that looks like a rose on her flank, so I walk up to her. “Are you Bloomrose?” I ask. “Yeah,” she nods. “Are you Aurora Borealis?” “You can just call me Aurora,” I say as I sit in an empty desk near where she’s standing. She sits down next to me, and I read through her things: *I almost teleported the judges for my entrance exam to the frozen north *My mom is a professor here at Princess Celestia’s for the advanced classes *I was born in Yakyakistan Wow, no matter which one of these is a lie, she’s way more interesting than me. They all sound pretty possible, so I’ll just pick the first one. Soon after I decide on a lie, she looks up from my paper with a smile. “You didn’t kill a demon all by yourself.” “Is that what you think my lie is?” I ask, trying my hardest to not smile. I knew I’d get her! “Duh! Demons don’t exist, and even if they did, you’d probably need to be a demon expert to do it.” “Number two is the lie,” I admit, the smile now breaking out on my face. “My dad’s not in the Guard, he’s a financial planner for poor ponies.” “How?” she exclaims. “I don’t even know what to ask about that. I need details.” “I can Dreamstride, which means I can go into the dream world just like Princess Luna,” I start to explain. “Creatures from that world are called demons, but it’s just their name. They’re not all bad.” “Uh huh,” she nods. “Well, last summer, I killed one that was eating the dreams of ponies in my hometown.” “How did you even do that?” “Magic,” I shrug. “There’s a spell for it.” “There’s a spell for killing demons?” “There’s pretty much one for every type of demon, but yeah.” “Man,” she laughs, “now nothing on my sheet is as interesting as yours.” “I don’t know,” I tell her. “These are all pretty interesting. I don’t even know which is the lie honestly, so I just said it was the first one about teleporting the judges to the frozen north.” “Almost teleporting,” she corrects. “And unfortunately, that one’s true. I wasn’t born in Yakyakistan, but I did move there when I was a baby.” “I’m just from a farm town east of here, so you’ve at least lived in more interesting places than me. Why did you move there?” “My mom taught magic at one of their universities there. They don’t know that much about magic since they can’t cast it, so she was sent there to give them some more knowledge about fundamentals and theory. Soon after we got there, they closed the borders and so we couldn’t leave. We moved back to Canterlot just two years ago once they reopened, so it still can be kind of weird to walk into a room and see ponies that aren’t just me and my mom.” I point at her flank. “So what’s your Cutie Mark? I’ve never seen anything like it.” “It’s called a bloomrose.” She laughs. “It’s a magic thing, and so my mom named me after it. It’s used in temporal teleportation spells.” “Temporal teleportation?” I repeat. “That doesn’t even sound real.” “It’s the fancy name for time spells. It’s kind of complicated, but the general idea is that you draw from time energy and then teleport it into or around object, which can mess with its age. It’s called a bloomrose because the first pony to do it used it on a rosebud to make it bloom. It’s still pretty new though, and it hasn’t been perfected on any animals or ponies yet. Just plants, but since it’s my special talent, I hope that one day I can become the first pony to master magic that most ponies consider impossible!” She points at my flank. “So what’s your Cutie Mark? Clearly that’s the moon and some stars, but what’s your special talent?” “Dreamstriding, the thing I mentioned earlier. I can enter the dream world and have a stronger connection to its magic, can go into others’ dreams, and can understand the Demon language.” “Demons have their own language now?” By this point, her jaw is almost on the floor. “Can you speak it?” “Not well,” I admit. “And it’s harder in this world since the language is very magic-based, so I probably wouldn’t even be able to say anything right now if I tried.” Before she can ask another question, Mister Cosmic taps his chalk on the board to get our attention again. “Alright everypony, listen up! Hopefully you’ve had some time to get to know your partners, which is good: not only will you be working each other throughout the year and the for the rest of your education if you stay here at Princess Celestia’s, but when you’re all grown up and doing great things with magic, it will help to know ponies you went to school with. I have a list of all your special talents and done some research into each of them, so I can say that we have a very diverse mix of knowledge here in this room and you’ll never know when you need somepony that’s an expert in a type of magic that one of your classmates specializes in.” He points a hoof at himself. “And now that you all know a little bit more about your classmates, it’s my turn to share some things about myself: as you know by now, my name is Mister Cosmic Power. I recently graduated with a degree called a Master’s of Education from Canterlot University, and so I'm very excited to have all of you as the first class that is entirely my own. I’m also from Ponyville, and a fun fact about me is that I was friends with Applejack, the Element of Honesty, when we were in elementary school together! And I’m very excited to be teaching you all this year, so I’ll be planning to set up individual meetings with each and every one of you to get to know you all better. Now, if you could all go back to your seats, we will begin our lessons for today.” I say bye to Bloomrose before returning to my seat and getting looking up at the board. Mister Cosmic is drawing something that looks like a unicorn horn next to some wavy lines, with an arrow pointing from the lines to the horn. “Now, as you all know from last year, divination is the study of ambient magic. This is where we start for this year, but unlike what you learned last year, we won’t be focusing on its study and theoretical applications.” He puts the chalk down, then looks at the classroom. “How many of you have ever meditated, or done something to feel closer to the magic around you?” I think some of what Luna’s made me done is meditation, but I’m not sure, so I don’t raise my hoof. Glacial’s sitting a few rows in front of me, and for once, she doesn’t raise her hoof either. I’m surprised, because she’s the first pony in this class that I would have guessed besides me would do exercises like what I do for Dreamstriding. “Well, please take out your textbooks and open up to page 394 to see what I am talking about. While you’re doing that, I encourage each and every one of you to read up a little on meditation and try it out. It is a fantastic way to enhance your magical abilities, and should you ever find yourself in a state of magical overload, it can help speed up the healing process and make it more comfortable.” While he’s saying all this, I pull the big textbook out of my bag and open it up to the page he’s talking about. There’s an outline of a pony with a map of all the nerves in the body, with a closeup on the horn. It’s kind of interesting, actually. I never really thought about how my horn worked before now. I don’t really understand everything, but I can tell that there’s one big thing in the horn that connects to the nerves of the body. “Okay everypony, the first unit we will be talking about is magical physiology. If you would look inside your desks, I have given you all a sheet so you may follow along and take a few notes.” I look inside the desk’s little cubby, and there’s a piece of paper in there that I take. Most of the paper is filled out, but there are a few blanks here and there that we’re meant to fill in. He starts drawing something else on the board and speaking, so I get a pencil out and start listening. The bell signaling the end of the day rings, so Mister Cosmic looks up from his desk and waves his hoof towards the door. “Have a glorious afternoon everypony, and I will see you all tomorrow! We will continue on these worksheets tomorrow, so you do not have any homework tonight!” I put my supplies into my saddlebags, and just as I’m about to get up, I feel somepony nudge me in my side. When I look at who it is, I see Glacial smiling right at me. “Hey, Glacial,” I say as I get up and put my bags on my back. “Have a good summer?” “Yeah!” she beams. “Got to join my parents a little bit in the Ice Magic Institute, and it was just exciting!” She makes a noise that I can only describe as a squee as her smile gets bigger, something I didn’t think was possible. “What about you?” “Princess Luna put me in charge of keeping my hometown safe in the dream world, and I did get to put my talents to use a few times.” “She must really trust you a lot, to put you in charge of your hometown.” “Yeah, she said she did. It was pretty terrifying at first, but it really helped me learn.” “Let’s walk and talk,” she says, moving past me towards the door. “So I’ve got a question for you.” “Oh?” I ask as I follow her out. Glacial’s usually not the one to ask me questions; last year, it was almost always the other way around. “You said Dreamstriding used a lot of divination, right?” “It used enough of it that I had to learn more than just was taught in class, yeah.” “And you talked a lot about the magic in your body and how you manipulate it to Dreamstride, right?” “Sort of, why?” “I talked with Mister Cosmic during lunch a little bit about what we’re learning right now. He said that if we did a project on magical physiology, he would give us a little bit of extra credit.” “Glacial, it’s the first day. You’re already talking to him about extra credit?” “I talked to him about a project,” she corrects. “He mentioned the extra credit.” “Whatever. So what would this project be, and why me?” “Measuring magic levels in our bodies. Simple enough thing to do, we’d just have to learn a few spells and draw a little blood. And I decided to ask you because I tried to research Dreamstriders a little bit over the summer because nopony I had asked had ever heard of them, and I found almost nothing beyond the very basics. It sounded like there was a lot of strong magic that surrounded Dreamstriding, and since you said you’re the first one in over a thousand years, I figured we’d do a little experiment to get to better understand you.” “So I’m a research subject, basically?” I laugh a little, as she looks like she’s ready to defend her point no matter what I say. “It’s just a joke. That sounds fun, I’ll join in it with you. And to be clear, we’re both doing this, right? It’s not just a project about me?” “Yeah,” she nods. “I think it would be interesting to see my magical levels as well, since it runs really strong in my family.” “And this ‘drawing blood’ thing, just how much are we walking about?” “Just a little prick near the hoof. If you remember my presentation with Arcane Force last year, just like that.” “Sure, why not? That would be something interesting to try out.” “Awesome!” She gives me a strong pat on the shoulder. “I’ll look around in the library for spellbooks that would give us what we need, and then we can get together and start practicing those spells. Sound good?” “Sounds good,” I agree. After a quick nod from her, she trots faster than me out of the building and towards the dormitory towers. I aim towards the castle and start walking, now with the first day of my last year of actual school behind me.