After a few days of freshman orientation, all the students were glad that it was over and can enjoy a few days of rest before classes start. It would also be during that time that the upperclassmen would start to check in to their dorm rooms. But for Sunset and a few of her friends, it would be something else.
Night had fallen on the last day of orientation, and the cafe lounge was open and serving free coffee to all the freshman students that came. Sunset Shimmer, Flash Sentry, Applejack, Rara, Sour Sweet, and Sunny Flare decided to go together to check the place out. It wasn’t as big as the cafeteria, or even the food court. But it had enough room for students who wanted to hang out a relax with their friends. It almost reminded a few of them of the Sweet Shoppe that they liked to hang out from time to time.
While the group looked around for a place to sit, they saw at the counter Aria waving at them with the stools vacant except for one. Sitting at that one stool was a face that Sunset recognized back at CHS after the Battle of the Bands.
“Is that Gear Works over there?” Applejack asked.
“Yep. That’s him,” Sunset replied. “He still looks the same since I met him years ago.”
“He must have finished work for the day,” Sunny Flare said. “I hope he has an update on the A/C part he was waiting on.”
The group made their way to the counter to join up with Aria and Gears. As most of the group took a seat on the stools, is was Sunset who approached Gears personally.
“Sunset Shimmer. It’s been quite some time.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Gears.” Sunset embraced him in a quick hug before taking her seat next to him.
“So, how’s everything been since our last meeting? Looking better I presume?” Gears asked.
“In a way,” Sunset replied. “I have been dealing with a new set of problems, but it’s nothing that we couldn’t handle.”
“So I’ve been told,” Gears replied.
Aria came up with some coffee cups along with milk and sugar for them and pour some coffee into them. “You’re just in time. Already got myself a fresh batch made up. I’ll leave it to you on how much milk and sugar you want to add to it.”
As they were fixing their coffee to how they wanted it, Gears turned his attention to Sour Sweet and Sunny Flare. “Got some good news. The part just came in today. I can start fixing the A/C unit tomorrow if you like.”
“That would be great,” Sour Sweet replied. “As long as we don’t have to use the box fans again.”
Sunny Flare glared at her friend. “Sour. Shut up and drink your coffee.”
“So, Daisy tells me that you wanted to know more about Centaur, right?” Aria asked.
“Well, we were wondering as to what got him into a state of depression,” Sunset explained. “I mean, this is Flash’s roommate we’re talking about.”
“I can understand what you mean,” Aria said. “But first, there’s someone that I think you should meet.”
Aria nodded to the entrance. The group looked over to see Adagio at the entrance, who was wearing a purple shirt and blue jeans and purple heals. She was with another lady that almost looked like her. She had pale yellow skin and orange locks, and was wearing a white blouse, blue jeans, and black boots, along with a denim jacket. The group was wondering who it was, but Rara was the first one to recognize the lady.
“That’s the lady who helped Moon Dancer remove the curse from the bracelet,” Rara said.
“I wonder if that’s River Song that Adagio was talking about,” Applejack said.
The two ladies went up to join the others at the counter, to which Gears was the first to greet them.
“Hello, Adagio. River Song. Already done for the day?”
“You have no idea,” Adagio replied. “Sunset, this is Professor River Song, the lady that I was telling you about before.”
“Is a pleasure to meet you,” River Song said. “Adagio has told me much about your encounter with her.”
“Then you understand what we now carry with us, right?” Sunset replied.
“Yes I do, sweetie. And I hope we can keep it out of the spotlight from the rest of the world,” River Song explained.
Aria came up with a couple of cups and pour some coffee in them. “Just so you know, the guy next to her is Flash Sentry, Centaur’s roommate. Next to him is Applejack, Rara, Sunny Flare, and Sour Sweet.”
When River Song heard each name, she was able to recognize one of them. “Rara? Is that you? You changed your hair.”
“I know Miss River Song. That was something that was long overdue,” Rara said.
“How is Moon Dancer, by the way?”
“She’s doing fine, miss. And she still has the bracelet with her.”
“That’s good.”
“Sunset, were you able to look into the bracelet?” Adagio asked.
“Yes. And so far, it’s not Equestrian magic. But it was emitting a strange amount of energy from it. Twilight is still looking into it.”
“Well, that’s one less problem for us to worry about,” Adagio said. “If it’s not Equestrian, then it’s something that we have no control of.”
“She’s right,” River Song added. “I’m still new to this… Equestrian magic I keep hearing about. But if it’s something from another world, then it’s something that I plan to look into. But enough about that. How do you feel with freshman orientation being over?”
“Better, that’s for sure,” Applejack replied.
“They wanted to know more about your pupil, Centaur. So I decided to wait until you arrived to help explain,” Aria said.
“We heard that he has severe depression. And we wanted to make sure everything works out between him and Flash,” Sunset explained.
“Both Sunset Shimmer and Sour Sweet are majoring in psychology,” Adagio explained.
“I see,” River Song replied. “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Blaze and Steel have that part covered. Plus, Gem and Silver do their best to make sure that he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Speaking of which, Daisy just heard from her cousin, Blaze, that Silver should be around tomorrow,” Aria explained to Adagio. “She’ll know more about the place when the others get here.”
“Nice.” Adagio turned her attention to the others. “Me and Silver have become jogging buddies since I got here. She’s been a real help for me.”
“Well, whatever you do, don’t jog with Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said.
“Or Indigo Zap,” Sunny Flare added. “It will be too slow for them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Going back to Centaur. How did he get into that state?” Sunset asked.
“You want to know? Two bitches, that’s for sure,” Aria replied.
River Song decided to explain. “Two of the girls on campus decided to do some… silly bet.”
“A virgin bet, to be exact,” Aria clarified.
“Anyway, Centaur started college with an undecided major. And Mr. Discord requested me to be his guidance counselor for the time being, since he was working on his core classes. He had a room on campus by himself, since his roommate didn’t show up.”
“He actually withdraw his application to the school at the last minute,” Adagio clarified. “But I was able to put him in next to Blaze and Steel’s room, since they attended the same high school. Surprised to find out that they knew each other from there. I figure that it would make things easier for him. But somehow, that wasn’t the case.”
River Song continued. “He was able to make some friends at the time, but two of them had a different idea. Never had a girlfriend in his life, had the room to himself, and shared different classes with the girls. I just had this gut feeling that something wasn’t right. And Aria also had the same feeling.”
“Yea. I knew that they were helping each other with their own classes,” Aria explained. “Centaur had a hard time with his literature and biology classes, but was good in his trigonometry class. He helped them, and they helped him. But I knew that both girls were roommates in another dorm. I just knew something wasn’t right.”
River Song went on. “Before the semester ended, he was still undecided on his major. So I recommended that he major in astronomy, maybe learn more about the stars and space. I told him that I would help him out if he had a problems with his classes. Even Dr. Zecora, who works for Disability Services, was willing to help him out with tutoring sessions. Plus, I have been working on an astronomy major program that Mr. Discord approved, but no one wasn’t willing to explore the opinion. And I was just one of the guidance counselors for the history program.
“One of the things he liked to do at times was take walks at night around the campus grounds, enjoying what was around him. And that included the night sky. So he selected that as his major, and planned to start his first class for his major this year. But when the spring semester started, things were still the same for him. I think Aria would know what happened next.”
“Oh do I ever.” Aria explained. “Blaze and Steel decided to take him to a party just outside of campus. They figured that he needed to loosen up, tried to help make more friends. But at that party was those two same girls. And somehow they were drinking… underage drinking. Somehow, they were not in their frame of mind. One of the girls was hanging with him. But the other saw this and tried to do the same. This led them to start a fight between both of them. To most of the guys at the party, it was like a cat fight. Centaur tried to stop, but there was too many people around to stop them.
“Steel, who’s always careful when trouble comes around, decided to take Centaur away from the party with Blaze. I saw them as they were returning to the dorms and asked how the party was, and they told me what transpired. That’s when I later heard that the police came to the house to break up the party. Both girls were arrested for underage drinking, along with a few others. They were released the next day.
“I decided to confront the two and asked why they were there drinking and fighting, and they said that it was some misunderstanding between each other because they have become close friends with him. Somehow, I wasn’t buying it. So I confronted Centaur and asked if he ever had any feeling for either of them, and somehow the thought of that never crossed his mind. I decided to ask Adagio’s friend, Silver, for her help. We looked into it and saw that they were getting too close to comfort with him.
“And then I found out why they were doing this. Their neighbor next door overheard them auguring about how one was trying to interfere in taking the boys’ virginity. When I was told about this, I told Silver and decided that we should confront them both. But we weren’t the only ones that wanted answers. Gem has become a close friend to Centaur and was worried about him with the two girls. Somehow, she wanted to make it personal. We told her that it would make things worse if we did it her way, so we followed Silver’s way instead and went with what she would call legal threats. We got our answers from them and I wasn’t pleased that they would use him just for sex. So I told them that they need to stay away from him personally, or I will throw them out of the dorms.
“But somehow, Centaur found out the hard way the next day and just hit rock bottom. Blaze and Steel came to me about it, and we decided to take him to Dr. Chrysalis, since she helped me and Adagio with our problems. She said that he had severe depression, possibly from how he was bullied back in middle school. It was only because that Blaze, Steel, and Daisy were by his side that he didn’t have those same problems. Somehow, he never had any experience with girls.”
“What about Daisy?” Sunset asked. “She was with him most of the time in high school.”
“I was wondering that myself, but she never thought of him as more than just a friend when I asked her,” Aria explained. “And Gem has that same kind of view about him as well. The one thing I knew about him was that he liked archery. So I decided to have some targets brought over for him to use. It has helped him at times, but not many on campus wanted to try it out as well. Gem tried, but wasn’t really good at it. Maybe because she’s more used to show guns like her mother. I’m just hoping that things would be better for him this year, but I’m not sure if that can be possible. The best thing to do is help him out through the challenges that come to him.”
“Maybe I can help him out,” Sour Sweet said. “I’ve been doing archery since middle school as stress relief. And it was helpful in the Friendship Games.”
“Really,” Applejack said. “You were showing off that time and got lucky hitting the bulls-eye. I did a better job in that sport. Plus, your still dealing with that disorder that you have. Do you think he can handle you when you have your outburst?”
“I hate to say it, but she might be right about that,” Sunny Flare recommend. “Even I’m still concerned that you will have another outburst out of nowhere.”
“You’re siding with her, over me?” Sour replied.
“Only because I worry about you as well,” Sunny added. “If you want to help him out, you need to work on yourself as well. Don’t take it the wrong way, but his mental state is kinda damaged right now. I take it slow, OK?”
Sour Sweet let out a sigh and said, “Fine. I’ll take it easy if I see him.”
Then Sunny Flare had a funny feeling and wanted to be sure are it. “You’re not interested in him, are you?”
Sour Sweet started to panic. “What? Me? Oh no, not me.”
“Ya sure about that, girl?” Applejack said, starring at her. “You know I can see a lie a mile away.”
When the others started to look at Sour Sweet, she started to get nervous. Really nervous. Enough to finally cave in. “Fine. Maybe I might be interested in him.”
Sunny Flare had to make sure she was clear in her choices. “I understand why you are trying to do this, but you don’t need to do something like this on the fly. If he sees you and is interested in you, he’ll let you know.”
“Am I missing something here,” Flash asked.
“Yea. Why would you do something like this just to get a boyfriend?” Sunset added.
“I think it has to do with our conversation that we had while Sunny and Rarity were getting the color out of Rara’s hair,” Applejack explained.
“Yea. She said that she had a hard time getting a boyfriend in high school,” Rara added. “I think it has something to do with both of you,” as she pointed to Aria and Gears.
“Now what makes you say that?” Aria asked.
Sour Sweet explained. “Well, you were more of the rude one of your sisters, and yet, he was more nice. I just don’t see the connection.”
“Rude?” Aria responded, raising an eyebrow.
“She does have a point,” Adagio said.
Aria crossed her arms and looked away from her sister, whispering, “Baka.”
“I heard that,” Adagio said, staring at Aria.
“It’s because I always see her whenever she calls me for dorm repairs when one of the others screws it up,” Gears explained. “She always complained about how bad they do the repairs while I’m making the repairs. That’s when I became the manager of the maintenance crew. She reported how well I did while the others keep making mistakes. So, I took her out to dinner as a thank you, and… well, the sparks just flew from there. Maybe you’re just having a hard time finding that spark with someone out there. Someone that’s has the guts to ask you out.”
“Did anyone ever ask you out to your senior prom at CPA?” Sunset asked.
“No one didn’t bother to ask all five of us out to the prom,” Sunny replied. “Maybe because we had the guts to stand up to Principal Cinch back then, and they didn’t want to get in the mix with us. I’m sure Twilight had better luck in doing so, since she moved to CHS.”
“Well, she did,” Sunset replied. “In fact, all of us did. Well, almost.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sunny asked.
Applejack let out a sigh. “I wasn’t able to get a date for our senior prom.”
“You would think that after what you and your friends have done, you would be able to at least get a date,” Rara said. “Or did you brother, Big Mac, have anything to do with it.”
“No. Big Mac already graduated last year,” Applejack replied. “Micro Chips was able to escort Rarity to the dance, and Sandalwood did the same with Fluttershy, to which I’m grateful for them doing so. Pinkie Pie asked Bulk Biceps, which I’m surprised to see that he’s the only guy to keep up with her on the floor. And Rainbow Dash had Soarin from the soccer team as a way to celebrate their championship win against CPA. Nothing to brag about.”
Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet replied, “None taken.”
“And I decided to go with Flash to the dance,” Sunset added. “I figure we try to make up for all that has happened in the past. That’s all. Plus, he was still reeling from having to let Princess Twilight go.”
“Which is all in the past, by the way,” Flash added.
“But no one wanted to ask me out. So I went by myself,” Applejack said.
“You never thought about asked a guy to the dance?” Sunny asked.
“She still believes that a guy should ask the girl out,” Sunset explained.
“Plus, I’ve been busy on the farm,” Applejack added. “With school and after school activities, I never even thought about dating anyway.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Sunny replied.
“It’s nothing. Maybe my luck will change while I’m here,” Applejack said.
“Well, at least someone’s luck changed on the fly when we started working here,” Aria said as she nodded to the booth behind them.
The group looked behind to see Sonata with another guy at the booth, exchanging hand gestures.
“Is that… Sonata’s boyfriend,” Sunset asked.
“Yep,” Gears replied. “That’s Stalwart Gray, a student here. His family lives close to campus, but they don’t like him to go out alone.”
“Is it because he’s deaf?” Applejack asked.
“What makes you say that?” Sunset asked.
“He has a hearing aid in his ear. And they’re talking in sign language,” Applejack explained. “I have a nephew who was born deaf. I wasn’t good at sign language, but I was able to pick up on the letters and numbers, which my nephew was able to understand.”
“I think I can understand what you mean,” Sour Sweet said. “It’s like learning a foreign language. I always have a hard time learning other languages.”
“Well, she hasn’t had any problems learning with him,” Adagio said. “I think Sonata was helping Centaur early last year delivering some items to Disability Services that the two met. She was curious in the hand gestures that he was making with Dr. Zecora and… well, he started teaching her with the letters, then words, then they started dating. I always thought she wasn’t that bright, but I guess she just wanted to get away from all the pain and suffering that we were all going through.”
“Well, as long as she’s happy, that’s all that matters,” Sunset said.
That was when River Song had an idea. “You know, if you’re learning psychology and want to help Centaur out, then maybe you should look into Disability Services to learn more. Dr. Zecora understand more about physical and mental illnesses. I’m sure you can learn more about his learning disability there. There’s just one catch.”
“What’s that?” Sunset asked.
“She has a habit talking in rhyme. So you have to figure out what she’s saying.”
“And how do we do that?” Sour asked.
“Spoilers!”
“If you want to know, talk to Stellar Eclipse,” Gears explained. “He a student here and works at the office desk most of the time. You’ll recognize him because he’s always in a wheelchair.”
“Did he hurt himself or lost the feeling in his legs?” Sour asked.
“He has multiple sclerosis, so he rarely walks on his legs. Having a wheelchair is the only best way for him to get around,” Gears explained.
Sour Sweet knew what Gears was talking about. “I see. I remember coming across a few articles about MS. One of the worst diseases to have. And can be experienced in several ways. There’s been lots of discussion about the topic.”
“Nice to see that you knew about it,” Sunset said. “I read about it, and most of the time it can affect the legs, causing them to have a hard time walking or standing when it takes effect. I don’t think they have found a cure for MS so far.”
“No. But it hasn’t stop Stellar from working,” Gears said.
“I’ll talk to Dr. Zecora about you visiting someday and let her know that you’re trying to help Centaur out,” River Song said.
“Hey, if Sunset was able to help Twilight with her own fears, I’m sure that she can do the same for Centaur,” Applejack said.
“Well, it’s not magic related, but it’s something that I can do if I plan to help out others back in Equestria.”