Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 1

My alarm goes off, shrill and loud. Moaning quietly, I turn over and slam a hoof down on it to stop; I wish I could sleep longer, but then mom would come up and be all ‘It’s the first day of school! Get up!’ and stuff like that. And she’s never fun like that.

Forcing my eyes open, I can see my room pretty clearly, even though it’s dark; my saddlebags are next to the dresser, all ready to go. I walk over to my dresser and look in the mirror on top of it to see my mane’s kind of a mess, so I grab the brush in my magic and start fixing it. Once it looks better, I put it down, levitate the bags on my back, and head out of my room.

“There you are!” mom beams from the table as I get downstairs. “All ready for your first day of school?”

“Yeah,” I lie. Why did summer have to be so short?

“Your sisters already left for high school,” mom says as she gets up to walk into the kitchen. “And dad’s at work, but you’ll be able to see them all later today.”

Exciting, because it’s not like I see them every single day of my life! I sit down at the table, where mom’s put a plate featuring a nice stack of pancakes at my place. I can’t help but drool over them.

“What are you most excited about?” she asks as she starts pouring some juice for us.

“I don’t know,” I shrug, picking up the fork and focusing instead on my breakfast.

“Come on!” she pleads. “I bet you’re excited to show everypony your Cutie Mark!”

Quickly, I shoot a glance down to my flank, where a white crescent moon is surrounded by a few shining stars. “It doesn’t do anything.”

“The Cutie Mark itself doesn’t do anything, sweetie,” she giggles as though I don’t know that. “It represents what you can do; your special talent.”

“But I don’t have one!” Man, I must’ve told her this like a million times. “I told you, I just woke up with it.”

“Well, then there really is something you can do,” she says sweetly, sitting down across from me and levitating one of the juice glasses to me. “Everypony has a special talent.”

Not me, though. Nothing’s changed since getting it. Just the same old me. Which made my cute-ceñera really awkward when everypony kept asking me what my special talent was. I told mom and dad I didn’t want one.

“I guess,” I say just to get her off my back.

We finish eating in relative silence, with mom asking every now and then what I’m excited about for school this year or what I think I’ll learn. I don’t mind school, to be honest. It’s fun, though having to answer all of mom’s questions isn’t fun at all. Hopefully after the first week, she’ll stop asking. Like she always does.

When breakfast is over, mom goes through a double- and triple-check to make sure I have everything my teacher told me to bring, then she smiles and kisses me on the forehead before letting me go to walk to school.

When I get outside, the sun shines on me, warming my coat. It's really bright and a little hot, but it's better than the winter when it'll feel like my hooves are about to fall off.

“Aurora!” I hear somepony call from behind me. I recognize the voice; it’s Cressie’s, and sure enough, when I turn around, she’s running to catch up to me.

“Hey Cressie,” I smile at her as she slows down and starts panting. “Running late again?”

“Yeah,” she admits.

We laugh, then start walking down the path to school together. “You excited for this year?” she asks me.

“Kinda. I’m going to hate having to explain to everypony what my Cutie Mark is, though. I didn’t tell any of them at my cute-ceñera.”

“Why’s it such a secret?” she asks, looking down at my flank. “You haven’t even told me yet.”

“Because I don’t know!” Does nopony listen to me?

“Right,” she laughs. “I don’t believe you really just woke up with it one morning. You had to do something, right? You always have to do something.” She quickly turns around and walks backward, her dull green flank right in my face. “See? I got mine after I grew that strawberry bush all by myself!”

“I know, you told me. Lots of times.”

She turns back around and continues walking normally. “But yeah, you have to do something. They don’t just appear.”

“Well, mine did.”

The rest of the way to school, she keeps insisting I had to do something to get my Cutie Mark while I keep telling her that no, I didn’t. But as always, when she gets an idea, she sticks to it and never changes.

“We’ll talk about it after school,” I tell her as we get to the old, worn-out Coltlumbus Elementary School sign outside of school.

“Hello there!” a happy mare with a bright yellow coat says as she walks up to us. “You must be Watercress and Aurora Borealis, correct?”

“You can call me Cressie!” she says enthusiastically.

“And you can just call me Aurora,” I say, much less excited than Cressie did.

“Well I’m Miss Sunbeam, and I’ll be your teacher for this year!” she says, pointing a hoof at herself. “I'll really be looking forward to having you two this year. Do you want me to show you the way to the classroom?”

“Sure!” Cressie says before I can respond.

“I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun together,” Miss Sunbeam says as she walks next to us. “You both excited?”

“Yeah,” we both respond, somewhat excited. I really am excited, but I always hate the first few days of school because we don’t actually learn anything. Snowy Jade and Dew Drop always tell me I’ll regret saying that once I get to high school, but I don’t think so. Dad says they complained a lot in elementary school too, and to not let them get to me.

“Here we are!” Miss Sunbeam says as we walk into a classroom. I lost my train of thought, I guess; I didn’t even realize I was still with her and Cressie. “I put name tags on all the desks; you can go around and talk with anypony for now, but when class starts, I’ll have to ask you to sit at the desk with your name on it. Okay?”

“Okay,” we both say. She smiles, then walks out of the room. I look for my desk to put my bags down at, and I’m relieved to see it’s next to Cressie’s. If this year is anything like any of the last, that’ll change really soon. Oh well. We always have lunch and recess.

Instead of going and talking with the other ponies, we just sit at our desks and talk. Cressie’s already found her crush: a gray-coated, blue-maned earth pony with a calculator on his flank. She decides to spend the rest of the time before class starts repeating the cycle of looking at him, blushing, then giggling to me and telling me how cute he is. I don't really see it, though.

Miss Sunbeam keeps walking in with other ponies, and she eventually goes to her desk and starts looking through some papers. When the bell rings, she walks up to the front of the class and looks over us.

“Everypony to your seats, please!” she calls, and all the ponies scattered around the room find the desk featuring their nametag.

“Now, as many of you already know, I am Miss Sunbeam, and I’ll be your teacher this year.” She turns to her side. “I noticed you all have your Cutie Marks now, and since this is probably the first time you’ve been in a class where that’s the case, I’d like everypony to come up here, tell us your name, show us your Cutie Mark, tell us what it means, and how you got it.” She points to hers, a big smiley face on top of an open book. “I’ll start: I’m Miss Sunbeam, and my Cutie Mark shows that I love helping ponies learn and succeed. I got it when I was about your age, helping a friend of mine who didn’t know how to do the math that we were learning. I managed to teach it to her, and I got this as a result!” She points at one of the ponies at the end of the front row, then goes back to her desk to sit and watch all of us present.

I recognize a lot of the ponies in my class; some of them I was in the same class before, some of them I know from around town, and some of them have older brothers or sisters that my older sisters know.

When it’s time for the colt Cressie finds cute to present, she puts her hooves on her desk and uses them to prop her head up.

“I-I’m Curved Slope,” he says pretty nervously, pointing at his Cutie Mark. “This is my Cutie Mark. I got it because I’m good at math and got it when I did good on a math test last year.” He quickly walks back to his desk, Cressie eying him all the way.

When it comes time for her to present, she walks up confidently, like she’s used to speaking in front of so many ponies. “My name’s Watercress, but you can call me Cressie!” she says excitedly while pointing to her Cutie Mark, a bright green bush with little bright red berries hanging off it. “My special talent is gardening, and I got it this last summer when I grew a strawberry bush in our garden!” She happily trots back to her desk, which means it’s my turn to go up. When I get up there, I look out at all the eyes just staring at me.

“Hi,” I say, my body shaking. “I’m Aurora Borealis, but you can call me Aurora.” I point to my Cutie Mark. “This is my Cutie Mark. It means my special talent is, uh…” Shoot, I should’ve thought of something before getting up here! Moon, stars...what could those be?

“...my special talent is astronomy. I, uh...got it looking at the stars over the summer.” Miss Sunbeam smiles at me as I quickly rush back to my desk.

“Astronomy?” Cressie whispers to me. “That’s what you kept secret from us for so long?”

“I made it up,” I whisper back.

“Why?” she asks.

“I told you I don’t know why I have it!” I whisper louder, getting a few looks from the other ponies.

“Ssh!” one of the ponies behind us shushes, probably even louder than we were whispering. Somehow, Miss Sunbeam doesn’t notice, but Cressie and I look back to the front anyways.

---

I look at the clock right next to my bed, and I can see that it's almost 6:30 PM. After checking it, I put my book down and pick the clock up to get a better look; yup, definitely that late. I knew the newest Daring Do book was long when I saw got it at the bookstore yesterday, but I had no idea it was this long. I started reading when I came home, and that was almost 3 hours ago! I met another filly in class that also liked the books, so I’ll have to see tomorrow how far she is.

“Hey, Aurora,” Dew Drop says as she opens my bedroom door. “Mom says to come for dinner.”

Grumbling, I remember what page I’m on and put the book on my bed. I bet I was almost done with the chapter, too!

By the time I get to the door, Dew Drop’s gone, probably back downstairs. Sure enough, she's sitting at the table with Snowy and mom and dad when I walk downstairs, and they're all talking with each other.

Once I sit down, mom starts passing the dishes. I take what I want and start eating, not joining in the conversation because it’s just Snowy and Dew Drop spreading the high school rumors: who broke up, who got back together (and how it’s not going to last), and who got caught sneaking from their parents’ liquor cabinets. To say the least, high school sounds interesting.

“So how was your day, Aurora?” dad asks after a while.

I have to look up from my plate to make sure he’s talking to me, and sure enough, everypony’s staring at me, waiting to answer. “It was good,” I say before putting another forkful of green beans in my mouth.

“Do anything fun?” he asks.

“Kinda,” I shrug. “It’s the first day and everything, so it’s not like we did a lot.”

“Meet anypony new?”

“Some, yeah.”

“New friends, maybe?” he asks excitedly.

“Maybe. One of them also likes Daring Do, so I’m going to be talking to her tomorrow about the new book.”

“What’s her name?”

“Midnight Rain, I think.” I think it’s her name, at least. I’m not good with names, so I usually end up doing that stuff where somepony knows your name but you don’t remember theirs and have to really try and avoid having to say their name.

“Midnight Rain?” Dew Drop repeats, turning to Snowy. “She’s Sunshower’s little sister, right?”

“Who’s Sunshower?” Snowy asks back.

“She was that one senior that got pregnant last year, remember?”

“Oh right, her! The really dumb one!”

And just like that, the conversation shifts back to them. I guess that’s one advantage of being the youngest; you tend to get overlooked a lot, so I can just lay low when I want to. Now I just get to eat dinner in peace.

After finishing dinner and quickly putting my dishes in the sink, I rush back upstairs to finish my book, or at least get as far as I can before mom comes up and tells me to go to bed.

When I hop on bed and pick up the book, I start leafing through it, trying to find the page I was on. I could’ve sworn I remembered it, but when it gets to all the stuff about Dark Mage Venefici, I have to stop. Wrong page. Plus, I bet he’s totally the pony who’s behind all the bad luck that had been happening to Daring Do. Total spoiler.

When I can’t find the page I left on, I finally just give up and go back to the first chapter I recognize. I try to skip some of it, but every time I skip a paragraph, I seem more lost than before. Maybe I really should use one of the bookmarks they’re always giving us at school.

Before I know it, the hooded unicorn who I bet is going to be Venefici is about to reveal himself, and mom knocks on my door and comes in. “Time for bed, honey,” she says sweetly.

“I’m almost done with the chapter!” I beg, but it’s a lie. I have no idea when the chapter ends.

“Fine,” she smiles lightly. “But after you’re done, go to bed.” Before she leaves, she flicks the switch by my door. “And turn the light on when it gets dark! Reading in the dark is bad for your eyes.”

“Fine,” I say before going back to the book. I didn’t even notice it was dark; looks pretty much the same to me.

When I reach the end of the chapter, I close the book and put it on my nightstand. If this were the summer, I would’ve stayed up until midnight reading, but I actually have to get up early tomorrow. And as much as I hate to admit it, I am kind of tired.

Using my magic, I flick off the lights from my bed and lie down. Even though I’m tired, my mind keeps racing over the book. Mom always says it’s a good way to unwind before bed, but she must be reading the wrong books, because I can’t wait to come home tomorrow and keep reading it! I close my eyes and try to go asleep, but I’m still too excited about the book to fall asleep right away.