Living Mark of Courage

by Moowell

Different Times

"School?" Epona asked curiously. "What's a school?" She took another bite of oatmeal and waited for Ivory to finish chewing.

"It's a place where foals like us go to learn about math and history and other boring stuff," answered Ivory as they ate their breakfast.

"Oh, come now, Ivory. School isn't all that bad," Obsidian chimed in. "Don't you get to see all your friends?"

"It is a glorious thing to have friends in the most dire of situations!" Canvas held a hoof to her chest and closed her spontaneously tear-filled eyes. "I can't imagine what I would have done if I didn't have friends to help me through those boring lectures day after day!"

"Canvas..." Obsidian whispered harshly. "You aren't helping."

When her eyes returned to the ground, she noticed that everypony else gave her a wide berth. She hung her head under the harsh stares of all the foals.

"Ah dunno..." Epona murmured. "Ah don't think the other foals like me very much. Do Ah have to go?"

"Yes. You live in Ponyville now, so you have to go to school like everypony else," Obsidian stated firmly before looking outside. "The moon is almost up. Time to get going, you two." The fillies finished their meals then walked out the door. "I'll see you after school!" she called.

"Don't let the timber wolves eat you on the way!" Canvas called after them. Epona paused.

"Hey Ivory? What are timber wolves?"

"Timber wolves are magical wooden monsters with sharp teeth and claws that gobble up helpless ponies like you and me."

Epona whirled around. Her saucer-sized eyes were pinpricks. Obsidian facehoofed.

"Canvas!"

"Th-th-there are monsters like that here?!" the filly exclaimed worriedly.

"Don't worry, Epona. Canvas is just being Canvas. There aren't really any timber wolves on the way to school," Obsidian explained. Epona's entire body relaxed as she breathed a sigh of relief. She turned around to find Ivory staring darkly into her eyes.

"That we know of. But some fillies that take this road never return..."

*****

"Welcome to class! I hope everypony enjoyed their weekend and is ready for another great week of fun and learning!" A chorus of groans bombarded Jubilee's ears. She smiled patiently and grabbed a clipboard. "The first thing we're going to do today is take a roll call. Everypony stand next to your desks." All the foals in the classroom took their places. "When I call your name, please sit down. Juniper?"

"Here," called a blue and purple filly.

"Turntable?"

"Yo." A red unicorn colt with a scruffy black mane sat down.

"Twinkle Hooves?"

"Here!" bubbled a little grey pegasus filly.

"Truly?"

"Present," a pale pink unicorn sat down.

"Sticks?"

"Snapping," answered a brown colt.

"Seeds?"

"Sprouting," a green colt beside Sticks said.

"Deku?"

"Here." The blue leader of the Scrubs sat down and closed his eyes like the boss he was. Sticks and Seeds followed suit, like the flunkies they were.

"Ivory?" No response. Jubilee scanned the room. "Ivory? Not here?" The foals looked around the room. She was nowhere to be seen. "Absent. I'll have to talk with her sisters abo-" *BOOM!* The door suddenly flew open. A little white filly was huffing at the entrance. Behind her stood a life-sized replica of a yellow colored, red maned filly. It was so detailed that Jubilee thought she could see its fur flowing in the wind.

"Hergh...!" *skid* "Stupid...* *skid* "Scaredy..." *skid* "Pony..." Slowly, she dragged the model across the floor. Finally, she set up the model next to an empty desk and take her place. "Sorry... *huff* Sorry I'm late, Miss Jubilee."

"I might forgive you, if you tell me what this statue is doing in my classroom?"

"Statue?" Ivory looked at the unmoving yellow filly. "Oh, right." She reached over and smacked it. To everypony's surprise, it blinked!

"Ugh... What happened?" The model looked around to see 8 foals and an adult staring at her. "Are we at school already? How did we get here?"

"Be quiet, Epona. We're late to class because of you..." Ivory whispered sharply. Epona laughed nervously and sat down.

"Ivory, would you explain what's going on?" Jubilee asked as politely as she possibly could.

"This is Epona. She just moved in with me and my sisters, so she's going to attend school with us," Ivory explained.

"Wonderful! Always nice to have a new face. Epona, you said?" Jubilee wrote down the name onto her clipboard. "Good. Now that everypony is here, it's time to start our lessons. Today, we will be studying history." Another chorus of groans. "Now now, don't be rude. We have a guest speaker coming in today to give us a first-hoof account." A little grey pegasus raised her hoof. "Yes, Twinkle?"

"What does first-hoof mean?" the filly asked.

"It means she was there during the time these events took place, 100 years ago. Please give a round of applause for our speaker, Applejack." The foals lightly stomped the floor as an old mare walked through the doors. She was orange, very old, and very wrinkly, but even in her age the foals could tell she was still strong. She also carried a pouch which held some spectacles.

"Good Morning, fillies and colts."

"Good Morning, Miss Applejack," the class said in close unison.

"Thank you for having me as your guest speaker, Miss Jubilee. I knew your great great grandmother, Cheerilee, when she was a teacher here." She shook Jubilee's hoof, then turned back to the class and began her story.

"I used to be a farm pony, 100 years ago. Things were very different from now, back then. Back then, the day was lit by one very big star called 'The Sun'. It was so bright that the weather ponies could work in the day without blocking all the light."

"How could something be so bright that it would stay light even through clouds?!" one of the foals exclaimed from somewhere.

"May I borrow a few sheets of paper, young lady?" she asked Juniper, who was sitting nearby. The filly drew a few sheets and hoofed them to the old mare. "Thank you. Well, you know how bright the stars are now, right?" she said as he tore one sheet into several small squares. "Imagine taking all the light of those stars and squishing them into a giant ball." She crumpled up the squares into a wad. "Then add the moonlight to that." A second wad formed then joined the first. "Then do it again and again." Soon, the wad was a large mass of crumpled paper. "It was so bright that the sky's color went from almost black to bright blue. That's how bright the sun was."

"How could anypony see in that? We would all be blind!"

"We had a different ruler, named Princess Celestia," Applejack explained. "She would control the sun, like Empress Moon controls the moon and stars. She never let it get too bright for anypony to hurt their eyes unless they stared directly at it."

"You mean nopony could admire it like we can with the moon and stars?"

"That's right."

"She must have been very sad..." said Twinkle.

"Not at all! She was happy to help everypony see the beauty in the world around them, rather than the beauty in the sky."

"What do you mean?"

"Back then, there was a lot less blue and a lot more everything else. Trees were bright greens and yellows and reds and oranges like us ponies. Fields had many different colored flowers. The land's beauty belonged to the day, and the sky's to the night."

"Wow... What else was different?" asked Jubilee.

"Well, Ponyville wasn't as big back then, but we didn't need the defenses that we have today. It was a peaceful time, thanks to the Elements of Harmony."

"The Elements of Harmony are just a little foals story," sneered Deku. "They don't really exist."

"Aha, but they did exist. Would you like to hear the story of how they disappeared?" Cheers came up from the class, prompting her to continue. "Very well. I remember it like it was yesterday..."

Comments

[Changeling-Drone]

how does applejack NOT recognize applebloom i mean epona

[Moowell]

2496369
She can't see very well.

[Changeling-Drone]

2496376 good point

[JXWheeler]

2496376 Make her put her spectacles on in next chapter to recognize apple bloom! Also, if Twilight got coronated she might look like her old self!

[Snowblack]

Well this took quite the interesting turn, please continue forward

[shenadri]

it is getting interesant so far, keep it rolling, ill give you a moustache

[Moowell]

2497530
The next chapter has already been written. You'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Interesting idea about Twilight though.

2497676>>2497568
I will gladly keep going, if only for the moustaches

[JXWheeler]

2497834 might NOT* look like old Twilight lmao

[AxtontheMechanist]

Deku? LoZ reference detected!

[Starcat5]

2500775
Worse: He's leader of the "Scrubs"!

Also, Applejack is closing in on 120 years old. May she live to see 200.