"What in the heavens is she doing?"
Celestia was anxious. Despite the appearances, she wasn’t fond of talking in public. Every year she had to perform this welcome speech to the students, and as she was walking in circles behind the scene’s curtain, she couldn’t help but to feel like something was going to go wrong this year. Still, she tried to feel more confident.
That is, until one of the teachers came to her.
“Oh, our favorite principal! What a delight!”
“Hello, Mr. Discord.” she uttered in a monotone voice, rolling her eyes as the school’s most obnoxious person was approaching.
“Hey, are you ok? You don’t look so well: you’re sick? If you need something, I’ve got Paracetamol, painkillers, or even antipsychotics if that’s what you need!” he smiled while taking out of his bag an incredible amount of packages.
“W...Why would you have such an absurd quantity of drugs?! I’m pretty sure there’s a campus rule against that, even for teachers!”
“Oh, you know, I have so much stuff in this that I don’t even remember everything! Look at this: the last Daring Do movie, popcorn, my social security paperwork, 3D glasses, a card deck, a fork, why not, and one extra sock! And that’s only the first pouch!”
God was he irritating. Discord was a good physics and chemistry teachers, and students appreciated him, but as an everyday life human being, he was as upsetting as he could be. He was right to carry medicine, people he met often needed that.
“Please put this mess back where it belongs. Such things don’t have their place in a teacher’s belongings.”
“Oh, you’re boring.”
“And you’re insolent. Make yourself useful for once: have you seen my sister around? She’s supposed to prepare the speech with me, but she’s nowhere to be seen, and doesn’t answer the phone.”
“Aww, poor Ms. Celestia, lost without her sister! How will she ever manage to perform this task alone??” Discord mocked, his eyes watering and his eyelids blinking in a fake sadness.
“What I will manage to do, if you continue, is to have you replaced by… let’s say Mr. Sombra!”
“Oh please” his eyes rolling as he was speaking, “You and I both know that this bull couldn’t even use an air displacement pipette properly!”
“Neither could I.”
“Yeah, you see, that’s my point!”
“Wha-”
“Concerning your lil’ sister, no I haven’t seen her on my way to here. Have you checked her office?”
“Yes, thank you for this incredibly helpful advice.”
This man was really starting to cross the line between sarcasm and inherent stupidity. Celestia didn’t know how much more she could take, but probably not enough.
“Anytime. Seriously though, maybe in the computer room? I heard Ms. Luna was quite in love with those video games kids love so much. Doesn’t surprise me really, she’s still young.”
“Wait, how do you know-”
“I’ll go check there! See you in a few!”
And just like that, he disappeared in the hallway.
Sometimes, Celestia interrogated herself over the decisions she had made concerning this school in the past few years. Sure, it was successful, both students and parents were satisfied, and they had a great campus, but she felt like more and more issues were coming up. There was this girl, Sunset Shimmer, who had been here for a while now, and was apparently bullying students, but nobody ever came in her office to make a serious complain. Then there was the P.E teacher, Mr. Sombra. She didn’t like him much more than Discord did, but he was efficient, obedient, and even if he had already been suspended once, he promised to better manage his methods in the future.
And finally, there was the physics teacher.
Mr. Discord was a strange man. Not only because of his look, that let’s face it was completely random and made no sense whatsoever, but also because of pretty much everything else. He was a sarcastic, narcissistic, obnoxious man, who spent more time having fun than being professional. He has a certain charm, of course, his stature was really young-looking for his age, and he sometimes, sometimes, very rarely could be amusing ; but it was quickly forgotten once he was getting back at getting in other people’s businesses.
“Come on Celestia, pull yourself together, don’t think about the problems, think about the good things! Let’s take a look at this year’s new students!”
She slightly pushed aside on of the curtains to observe some of the new arrivals: a shy-looking girl with a massive cello case, a short-haired one, laughing with Bon-Bon, a student from last year, and… this had to be Vinyl Scratch. Her parents had called several months ago during the applications period, to mention one small detail: their daughter was a mute. It had been a big decision to accept her at CHS, since the school never had an handicapped student like this before, but since she didn’t require any kind of special installation, she had been accepted in the school.
Celestia heard a slight sound to her right, and turned her head, only to find herself one inch away from Discord, who was casually looking at the students as well.
“AAAAAAHH! Are you out of your mind?!”
“Ms. Luna wasn’t in the computer room.”
“Don’t sneak up like that ever again! You’re not a child anymore!”
“By the way” said Discord, completely ignoring his superior’s remarks, “Have you seen this new girl? Vinyl Scratch I think. Mute, if I recall. That’s certainly unusual, it took some guts to accept her in CHS. I just hope other teachers won’t complain about the lack of participation.”
“Because you won’t?”
“Oh that is not a problem for me! I speak… well can we really talk about speaking… sign language you see. I was on holidays in Arabia, but instead of learning the local language, I felt more like learning to sign. So yeah, no problem with that.”
“Well, I have to say these are actually good news. This talent of yours will be appreciated I’m certain.”
“Oh, you’re making me blush, stop! Oh, maybe I shouldn’t tell Ms. Scratch that we had this talk. I’ll just tell her that Ms. Cheerilee told me! Yes, great idea! Agreed?”
“Honestly, I don’t care.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, someone appeared in the doorway. Celestia’s face lightened up his relief:
“There you are Luna! Where have you been? I’ve been searching everywhere for you!”
“I’m sorry, sister! I was working on… some very important files, and my battery ran out!”
“She smells like Mountain Dew and Doritos, though.” Discord said with a big smile, crossing Luna’s angry look.
“Principal Celestia! Vice-principal Luna! It’s time for your speech!” yelled Ms. Cheerilee from the other side of the stage.
“Alright Luna, no more time to practice. You,” she said to Discord “Careful to your behavior with the students and the other teachers.”
Celestia got on the stage, followed by her sister, trying hard not to think about all the pairs of eyes staring at them. She took a big breath, and smiled at everyone.
“Good morning, students, and welcome to Canterlot High!”