Starlight arrived at the train station dark and early Wednesday morning. Nopony looked entirely awake, and a few looked markedly surly. Starlight supposed that she wasn’t entirely surprised. How many ponies were actually capable of feeling any emotion besides regret and grogginess at… she checked her watch. Quarter to five in the morning. Great.
Starlight was feeling a little bleary-eyed herself, but she had drunk a big cup of coffee and cast Australis’ Alertness on herself, so she would probably be good until about noon. Where was Lyra, anyway? She’d said that they would be meeting here before the train left at six. Starlight felt that old familiar twinge of irritation at the back of her mind, like the twang of a guitar string tuning up.
She bit back her annoyance. That was the way towards questionable spellcasting and destroying Ponyville for the eighth time in five months. Lyra still had almost fifteen minutes to arrive, and while Starlight herself would never have cut things this close, she was willing to accept that other ponies did things differently and it would be a terrible mistake if we were all the same.
Starlight let out her breath in one long sigh. “Hi Starlight!”
The sigh ended in a strangled scream as Starlight spun around. Lyra, already bright of eye and bushy of tail grinned back at her with much, much too much good cheer for this disgusting hour. “Aren’t you excited? You’re going to see so much of Canterlot! I mean, you’ve probably already seen a lot of Canterlot. But probably you haven’t seen the parts that you’re going to see today! Isn’t that just the most exciting thing ever?”
Starlight blinked, frazzled. “Hrung.”
“I thought I should probably show you around some of the departments first,” Lyra continued. “I managed to get a few words with some old friends about some guided tours of their buildings and labs. We’ll have to eat lunch, of course, and I can’t let you leave campus without showing you the library! Actually, if Cross Reference is at the desk, we may not even have to go anywhere for lunch. They’ve always got a stash of lemon squares or chocolate cookies or something.”
“Urkl.”
“After that, well, life at CMA isn’t all tampering with forces beyond the ken of mortals. If you’re feeling up to it, I know this great little bar on campus where we can have dinner.”
“Gah… Lyra. How much coffee have you had so far today?”
“Coffee? Never touch the stuff. Too bitter, and anyway, Bonbon says that if I ever drank the stuff I’d probably go supernova or something. Dunno how a pony can go supernova, but whatever. So! I think that’s everything, we can be done and on the ten o’clock back to Ponyville.”
“Um, shouldn’t we talk to whoever’s in charge of hiring new professors at all?”
“Silly! Nothing’s set in stone yet. I thought this was just to get you introduced to the idea of going to work up there at all. Anyway, Archchancellor Pentacle is really very busy dealing with the students and staff and occasional assassination attempts and the budget, I couldn’t have made an appointment on such short notice.”
Starlight paused. “Say that middle thing again.”
“Staff?”
“No, the one after tha--”
She was cut off by the shrill whistle of the train. “Oops! I think that’s our cue,” Lyra said merrily, running for the nearest carriage. “C’mon!”
Starlight shook herself. She must have been hearing things. What kind of school had assassination attempts, anyway?
***
The train ride up was mostly uneventful. Lyra chattered on for the whole ride, but its constancy was strangely soothing, and Starlight fell into a doze not long after the train pulled out of the station. She only awoke when the carriage came to a sudden, screeching halt, sending her to the ground in a flurry of hooves and hair.
“Hwargh?” Starlight blinked awake, deeply and terribly confused.
Lyra hauled her back upright. “C’mon, Glimglam! We’re here! Gosh you sure are chatty this morning. I felt like I could hardly get a word in edgewise!”
Starlight stared through bleary eyes. “Coffeeeee,” she groaned. “Neeeeedee coooffeeee.”
“Oh, yup.” Lyra nodded. “Don’t worry about that. I know a place. You will love Queequeg's. They’re expensive, but they do these great little scones and…”
Starlight tuned out again. She did not like morning ponies. In the back of her head, she felt that old tension twanging some more.
She shook herself. That was the way towards questionable spellcasting and destroying Canterlot for the first time, and while that would be a change, it wouldn’t be a welcome one. Lyra was… energetic, like Pinkie Pie. And while Starlight felt that the day had no business starting up before nine o’clock, she was willing to accept that other ponies did things differently and it would be a terrible mistake if we were all the same. It would.
Therefore, Starlight allowed Lyra to lead her along the platform and into the station proper. Canterlot Central Station was a gorgeous piece of architecture, with soaring marble arches and stained glass windows, slender carved pillars spaced evenly along the gold-lined tiles of the floor, and ornate oaken doors leading into the city. Pity, then, that Starlight wasn't feeling in quite the right mood to admire the awe-inspiring designs of the station. As soon as she stepped into the cavernous atrium, she was driven by one force alone-- the faint but unmistakable smell of fresh coffee.
The two mares made their way through the vast marble hall to a small shop. Starlight had begun to drool from the mere presence of so much coffee. As they passed through into the cozy little shop, she began to tear up. How beautiful it was. How glorious. That bitter, earthy fragrance, the warmth, the caffeinated energy seeping into her bones through its mere proximity.
She staggered forwards out of Lyra’s grasp and stumbled to the counter. “Coffee,” she growled.
There was a stallion behind the counter. He was a bright-eyed, cream-colored pegasus with a deep green mane and a moustache that seemed to defy gravity. He beamed at her. Him, she could forgive for his early enthusiasm. Nopony could be sad working around this much coffee. “Certainly, ma’am. Would you like a frappuccino? A latte? An espresso? Perhaps a frappumochalateeny? Our special today is the blue raspberry whip triple-press. Or, you might enjoy our new Coffka: Metamorphosis!”
Starlight stared at him. “Coffee,” she repeated. “Black. No sugar. No milk. Coffee.”
His smile faded. “No sugar or milk?”
“No. Black coffee.”
“How about some cream? A shot of caramel?”
“No! Black coffee!”
“With dark chocolate!” the barista gabbled, desperate.
“Coffee coffee coffee!” Starlight wailed.
He glared. “Fine,” he spat. “If you don’t want your coffee to awaken your soul, then that’s your problem. What size? Medium, large, venti, grande, hyperbole--”
Starlight glared. “Big,” she snarled.
The barista upgraded from glaring to outright glowering. “Name?” he snapped.
“Starlight. Starlight Glimmer.”
Without another word, he pulled a large paper cup from the counter, juggling it between his wings. At the apex of one of its arcs, he spun and snatched it out of the air, scribbled something on the side, then artfully ran it beneath a pot of coffee. Then, the instant it was filled, he snapped on the lid and slid it down the counter. “Order up for Stoplight Gloaming.”
Starlight glared at him. Then, without another word, she picked up the piping hot cup and guzzled it. She slammed it back down. “Mm-mm. Delicious,” she said. “How much?”
The barista spat out a figure. Starlight went pale. “I’m sorry, I think you left the ‘square root of’ out of that little math problem.”
He named the figure again. Lyra hurried over. “Uh, hey, Latte. How ‘bout I apply my educator’s discount?”
“You aren’t paying for it,” the pegasus replied.
“Yeah, I am. My treat.”
Latte gave one last baleful glare to Starlight before turning to Lyra. “Alright, fine.” He named another figure which was still ludicrous to Starlight’s mind, but considerably lower than the original price.
Lyra shilled out the required bits, plus a sizeable tip. Starlight gave him a tip as well; don’t insult your customers’ taste in beverages to their face.
The barista returned by calling her a pleb and a philistine, and after a few minutes, Lyra was forced to escort the other unicorn from the shop. “Of all the nerve,” Starlight huffed. “I should report him to his manager.”
“Good luck with that,” Lyra replied. “He is the manager.”
Starlight chewed on that for awhile. “How?”
Lyra shrugged. “He’s the best barista around. Every move is poetry, he mixes every drink perfectly. But when you don’t let him show off, he gets huffy.”
“But he’s a jerk.”
“Doesn’t mean much in Canterlot,” Lyra said, pushing open the station doors. “Ponies don’t tend to care so much about getting polite service as much as they do about getting quality service.”
They started down the stone stairs. “What do you mean?” Starlight asked.
Lyra waffled for a moment. “They want,” she said at length, “an experience. Something they can tell all their friends about later. Something unusual.”
There was something wrong with that statement, and it took Starlight until the bottom of the steps to see what it was. “Hold on. If everypony has the exact same weird story, though, isn't it not weird anymore?”
“I guess, yeah,” Lyra admitted. “But it isn't like it's all anypony ever talks about. It's like talking about the weather, just small talk.”
Starlight frowned. “I hate small talk. It's so… I dunno.”
“Well, I guess that's true,” Lyra agreed. “It can be a little boring, I guess.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just so banal.”
“Aren’t those synonyms?”
“Pointless, I mean. Nopony is saying anything that everypony else doesn’t already know.”
“That’s fair, I suppose. But it can be nice, and kind of useful for getting to know new ponies. I mean, how would you react if somepony came up and--”
She was cut off as a yellow mare with a bright blue mane came hurtling across the street towards them, leaving several cabs skidding to an abrupt halt. “Lyra! Lyra!” she shouted, exuberant. “The archchancellor’s just been assassinated!”
***
It is a regrettable tenet of academia that upward motion tended to be sluggish at best, and more often completely nonexistent. New ideas and new professorships are seldom granted when all the available positions aren’t so much filled as stuffed in with a plunger. Most of Canterlot University’s tenured staff were so old that students wondered if they’d written papers on Luna’s banishment in the same year that it had happened. Dead ponies’ horseshoes were often the only way that anypony could get ahead, and for some centuries, academics had taken that quite literally. It had been founded some three centuries before the birth of the bloodthirsty Tenochtitlan civilization known as the Asstecs, and some scholars supposed that its stones had seen at least as much blood. The life expectancy of a new archchancellor was about a year, perhaps two if they were particularly well-liked or good at self-defence. On the whole, there was enough blood spilled to write a scholarly treatise on the decline of scholasticism in the face of potential murder against the entire faculty.
When Celestia and Luna had come to power for the first time, scholastic reform was among their first acts together. It had been a tricky affair. It was no use trying to pass laws banning murder. Those already existed, and anyway, getting a magical scholar to observe the law of the land is less like trying to herd cats and more like trying to hold back a pride of lions with a toothpick and a feather. Instead, they made it possible for another type of assassination to occur; institutional. The Equestria Education Association had been founded to be a sort of court of peers for any ideas or professors whose time had come once and for all. On the whole, the magic-using community was rather disappointed that their era of magical murder was being discouraged. However, they were also in no small way comprised of complete nerds with several axes to grind. A new list of guidelines designed to help them rat out their peers was a sort of catnip, and soon even the biggest and toughest battle-mages were purring in the hooves of the diarchy. That was how it had continued through Luna’s banishment and return, and that was how it remained today.
Lyra explained all of this to Starlight, who stayed completely motionless the entire time. She didn’t really have a choice. As soon as she’d bolted, the other unicorn had conjured up the construct of a giant golden pair of hands, which had grabbed Starlight around the middle and hauled her bodily back to the group.
“So,” Starlight said. “Not actually a spate of murders.”
“Nope.”
Starlight nodded at the yellow mare. “Not a psychopath.”
Lyra hesitated. “She does not take delight from the death of others,” she said diplomatically.
Starlight frowned, but then shrugged. “Eh, like I’m much better. Okay, fine. Will you let me down now?”
“Promise not to freak out like that again?”
“Promise.”
“Alright.” Lyra unclasped her hands and let them fade to nothing. “So, with that out of the way, let me introduce to you my good friend, Lemon Hearts. Lemon, this is Starlight Glimmer, Twilight’s protege.”
“Ooh, neat!” Lemon extended a hoof and Starlight shook it. “I’m in the psychology department. I guess you’re the one I’m meant to show around my building?”
“That’s the plan!” Starlight paused, then glanced at Lyra. “That is the plan, right?”
Lyra grinned. “The general outline, yeah. I’m ready to get started if you two are.”
Starlight looked at Lemon’s wide, bright eyes. “Yeah, sure. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Great! I can’t wait to show you my latest experiments.”
As they set off, something struck Starlight. “So, uh, what exactly the the old Archchancellor get ‘assassinated’ for?”
“Trying to petrify all the other senior faculty and steal their magic,” Lemon replied breezily.
Starlight stopped mid-trot.
Lyra sighed and summoned the hands again. “Well,” Starlight said slowly. “I suppose I’ve nearly ended the world twice this month alone, so I guess I can’t judge too harshly.”
Lyra smiled. The hands vanished. “So,” Starlight said. “What’s the new guy like?”
***
After the termination and incarceration of former Archchancellor Triumph, whose only lasting legacy would prove to be the sheer irony of his name, none of the senior faculty particularly wanted to step up to the plate. All of the most recent Archchancellors had met particularly sticky ends, even by CMA standards. Before Triumph, Archchancellor Silvermist had been converted into a fine red mist which the custodial staff were still working to remove. Before her, Archchancellor Warlock had wandered into the Deep Dimensions one fine sunny morning and had yet to return. Before them, Archchancellor Grimoire had been hauled before the EEA for attempting to replace the Underwater Basket-Weaving building into a student center. He had returned gibbering about how the end times would come in triplicate, with all appropriate forms filled out in blue or black ink and filed away in a grey binder.
All of this in the space of two years. The faculty would never be so gauche as to suggest that the position was cursed; certainly not! Curses did not exist, and there was no scientific backing for suggesting anything untoward about the position beyond a greater presence in the public eye. However, the recent events were enough to make even the most gung-ho ladder-climbers hesitate. Neither were they particularly fond of the idea of promoting any of their juniors to such an exalted position. The whiplash might affect their brains. Worse yet, they might think that they were now in charge, and that could by no means occur. But with all the professors ruled out, there simply was nopony left to fill the gap. Nopony, that is, until Professor Wyrd happened to recall a certain professor, retired from teaching some years ago, who might be persuaded to return to take the position. As soon as she said the name “Foxfire”, a vague picture began to form in the heads of all assembled. She had been adept at defensive spells and transmogrification. She had published a treatise on how an age-regression spell might be achieved without necessarily stealing years from another pony. Overall, a good and scholarly candidate, they all agreed. But there was one concern. Did she have a beard?
Professor Wyrd merely shrugged her withers. “If not, I’m sure she could grow one,” she said simply.
A great cheer went up at that. If nopony could remember her personality, or ever talking to her, what did that matter so long as she filled the position with gravitas and barbate grace? Of course, nopony stopped to wonder why exactly she had left the university to live out in the countryside, or if perhaps they had all made some concerted effort to forget her…