//------------------------------// // Morty's First Pony Friend. // Story: Master of Death and the Equestrian Adventure. // by aliengirlguy //------------------------------// To say that his relationship improved with his royal roommate would be something of wishful thinking. Morty did everything within his power to avoid encouraging any sort of friendly contact with the young alicorn. He took the Ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away approach that had been successful in his youthful years after Voldemort fell, and had found that it was a surprisingly effective tactic, since, eventually, most gave up after a certain point. Cadence meanwhile had never before been around another pony who didn't love her. Every one she came across in the castle, in Canterlot, the occasional time she traveled with her aunt Celestia to other parts of the country; every pony gazed upon her with reverence and adoration. The only being to be even more beloved by ponydom was Celestia herself. She didn't understand it! She was the Princess of Love after all, with a sweep of her horn, the most sour of relationships could brighten and bloom into joy in her presence! In fact, she'd even had a chance to demonstrate her ability to Morty when an arguing couple, who had been dropping off their colt on the first day of classes, had passed them by, and with a wave of her horn the two were suddenly all smiles and planing a trip to Las Peguses to renew thier wedding vows. When she had turned to her roommate, who was not a morning pony thank you very much and had been stumbling by her, to see if this might have at least impressed him, the colt had looked at her with such...well, she hadn't known exactly what the expression was, having never seen it before, particularly directed at her, but when she described it to one of her maids after dinner, the earth pony had tsked and said "well it sounds like he plum doesn't like you miss, though I can't understand why?" Cadence was rather shocked by this revelation. Certainly others experienced such things of course, but Princesses like herself and her Auntie Celestia were adored by other ponies. Never had she been personally hated before. Her distress gave way to confusion, how was she supposed to deal with this? ooo ooo ooo Morty grumbled into his coffee which was magically hovering near his muzzle as he moved his heavy feeling hooves towards his usual seat in the darkest part of the cafeteria. 'Ug, I hate Mondays,' he growled mentally, pulling out his homework with his horn and looking down at the open scroll with disinterest. Name at least seven uses for a transformation spell. Harry was not feeling particularly inventive so he just pulled some stuff from his World War 4 days (he had been rather good at transfiguring forks into knives and mushrooms into grenades) and called it done, before shoving it back into his saddle bag. Harry took another draw on his coffee and was about to dig into his grilled cheese sandwich when something caught his attention. There was a group of upper year colts and filly's surrounding a smaller colt who looked to be a first year as well. He was white with the slightest blue tinge, with short blue and turquoise mane and tail that was all the rage among young colts right now. "Your such a nerd Shinning Armour!" one of the biggest colts sneered, "all you talk about is playing Ogres and Oubliettes all the time! who wants to play some stupid dinky adventure game when they can play hoof ball or learn cool powerful spells?" The others nodded. "I do so know spells!" Shinning Armour huffed, sticking out his little chest, ears going back. "What? a shield spell? that's nothing special!" the head bully sneered, "Do you think that will be enough to get you into the Royal Guard? I doubt they wont even let you in the door!" The bully pony snorted in disdain, shoving the other colt and sending him sprawling. The groups laughter suddenly stopped with yells of shock as every single one of them found themselves with a tomato impacting their eyes with deadly accuracy. "Ah! the seeds!" one colt screamed, "the seeds! their in my eyes, Ahhh!." (1) "The acidic juice, it burns!" another whimpered. When someone had the presence of mind to cast a cleaning spell from the gaggle of wide eyed onlookers, the enraged ponies turned to trample whoever dared mess with them, only to freeze when they saw a large swarm of ripe plump red tomatoes buzzing around a baggy eyed, white flanked colt with dark messy mane. "Can't a colt enjoy his morning coffee in peace?" the youth sighed to the frozen bullies, "is is to much to ask?" Morty held a hoof aloft dramatically, before lowering it and shooting a glower at the perpetrates of the disturbance to his morning routine, "Now clop off and go harass ponies somewhere else!" The swarm of tomatoes began swarming the bully ponies, sending them screaming from the cafeteria, followed by a goodly portion of the rest of the student body to watch the spectacle or head to class. It took a day or two for the spell to wear off...or more likely for Morty to lose interest in the whole matter, but afterwards, he found himself with an unintentional seat mate during lunch in the form of Shinning Armour, and eventually his first real friend. ooo ooo ooo A month into their schooling, and Cadence had run out of ways to get her roommate to talk to her. She had first tried giving him space, then she had tried walking with him to classes. She had offered to help him with his homework, only to find that Morty was doing very well, so well in fact that she had actually been forced to ask him for advice from time to time, which he at least gave grudgingly if she didn't talk about anything but homework. She had even tried giving him some of her favorite candied apple, but he just grumbled about his waist line. Eventually she grew so frustrated she had cracked and demanded of him to tell her why he didn't like her. Morty had blinked at her from the edge of his book, and shrugged his shoulders saying rather disinterestedly, "because I don't," and not elaborating further before returning to his book while Cadence screamed into her pillow. Out of ideas Cadence finally decided to write to her Aunt for advice. ooo ooo ooo It was the end of the semester and Celestia settled into the throne-like chair at the head of the round table where the various faculty of the school had taken their seats. "Sorry I'm late, I had to deal with a small matter of state," Celestia apologized, then perked when she spied a banana cream pie among a variety of others making the rounds. The monthly school faculty meeting came to order, and Celestia rubbed her hooves together eagerly when she saw that, as usual, she had the pie mostly to herself. She didn't understand why many of her subjects didn't like bananas overly much, but it wasn't something she was going to complain about since it left her with all the banana pastries she could eat. There was some general chit-chat, such as a few reports of homesick ponies, and some minor illnesses and a few magical accidents, but nothing overly concerning or interesting as a group at large, until they began talking about individual students. Some ponies were showing remarkable progress and talents, such as young Sunset Shimmer, a young filly that Celestia had been keeping her eye on as a potential new protege. There was also reports of her niece, who was doing well in her studies with many friends, and a positive personality. Her power of course was applauded by the staff, but also not much of a surprise, given that she was an alicorn after all. Other then some difficulty with the theory end of some of her classwork, Celestia was pleased with the reports so far. There was also the students of concern among the staff. The two biggest of which was Prince Blueblood, Celestia's distant nephew, and another colt that had the ruler's interest, Morty. Blueblood was outgoing and social, but was often a bit arrogant, and other then a surprisingly good grasp of international relations, the prince was rather narcissistic. He had reduce one poor student to tears after they had accidentally spilled ketchup on his immaculate white coat during supper a week ago. Celestia sighed, she really needed to have another chat with that colt's parents. They spoiled him much to much. If they didn't stop nurturing that behavior, she sensed he would be a pain in the withers when he was older. Morty meanwhile was rather opposite of Blueblood in that he was heavily anti-social, looking perpetually unkempt, and seemed perpetually bored most of the time, and harbored a rather strong and alarming morbid streak. One teacher nervously presented an assignment on transforming spells that had been answered with a rather disturbingly large assortment of imaginative and deadly weaponry transfigured from random objects. "I'll never look at a carrot the same way again," the teacher, Frosty Oats moaned. Celestia hummed thoughtfully, setting down the assignment, and tapped a hoof on the table top as she thought. She recounted the letter that her niece had sent her. Cadence's frustration and confusion over Morty's attitude towards her. Though by the sound of it, it looked like it was something isolated between the two roommates. She remembered her own encounter with the colt. He had been rather blunt and wryly amusing, but it hadn't escaped her notice, that odd foreign dark tint that surrounded him and imbued itself as part of his magic. And that was another thing, his magic. "Tell me, in your personal opinions, what do you all make of his magic? The professors as one turned to Inkwell, after all they had all commented on the matter to her more then once. "If I didn't know better, I would have thought him a full grown and graduated unicorn. The magic comes to 'im easily, there is no seeming needed effort made on his part to get anything done. The only odd thing about it is that he can't seem to make anything grow, in fact, we had to take 'im out of herbology because the plants kept up and dying on 'im," The old mare nodded, "no doubt about it, that colt will be something spectacular when he's all properly grown up, baring that black hoof of his of course." Celestia frowned worriedly. She had read the subtle warning in that last part. Something "spectacular" could be either very good or very bad for others. The anti-social behavior and the many ways that this colt seemingly knew how to kill a pony was also rather alarming as well. Combined with the dark tint of his magic, well, she couldn't afford to have another King Sombra on her hooves. "Are you sure that he hasn't been hanging around with anypony?" Celestia asked the others, who all wore considering expressions. "Oh! I just remembered!" chirped up Sunnilee, the earth pony that taught potions, "There is a young colt that he has been following him around and sitting with him in class since the tomato incident a few weeks ago." Celestia decided to save the questions about THAT for later, instead asking, after all the others nodded their heads in agreement, "who is the colt?" "Oh that would be young Shinning Armour, Twilight Velvet and Night Light's eldest, if I remember correctly," hummed Inkwell, "bit obsessed with board games, average student really, but got in with an impressive display of shield magic. When he finally gets his growth spurt and bulks up a bit, wouldn't be surprised if he tries out for the Royal Guard, got the cutie mark for it, and the analytical mind for strategy, probably all those board games of his." "What about Morty? what is his attitude towards Shinning Armour? has he obtained his cutie mark yet as well?" the princess asked. Inkwell shook her head, "No, his flank's as bare as a new born. Would have pegged him for magic as his special talent, but he doesn't seem interested in studying it. As for Shinning Armour...well, the colt seems to tolerate his presence at the moment, an I've even seen young Shinning teaching him about RPG a week back in the cafeteria, and the boy didn't look like he was about to rip his tail off with a butter knife." "Urg! please don't reference number two on the assignment," Frosty Oats groaned. "Hmmm...I would like for you all to encourage that pair a bit more if you can. Assignments, seating and so forth. Also, I would like you to encourage Blueblood within those two as well." Several teachers raised eyebrows, Inkwell asked bluntly, "Why?"" "Oh, just a feeling I have, nothing concrete so far, but if it works, we may be able to hit to parasprites with one note," and privately in her thoughts, 'and I will do something behind the scene from my end as well, this may even help Cadence in the long run.'