//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: Friendship 101: Final Exam 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

Sunburst wasn’t sure if the lecture had gone over well. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things, actually. For example, he had no idea how he had left Dun Hall, or when. He remained foggy on where his crystal sample had gone. He was completely stumped about why he, his new friend, and everything else that had been in the auditorium smelled of cheap soda and potato chips, and why he was feeling so hungry. He gestured to a nearby restaurant with a wide, lazy gesture. “You wanna get some food?” he asked, voice slurred. Was he perhaps drunk? He felt like it, a little.
Nocan shook his head. His eyes were tinged with red. “Not there. I got somewhere better in mind.”
“Alright.”
They walked on for a little while longer. Sunburst didn’t know how long. Time was weird. He should research that, he thought. Hadn’t he had some kind of idea about time earlier on? He didn’t remember it very clearly.  He gestured to a nearby restaurant with a wide, lazy gesture. “Hey. You wanna get some food?” he asked, voice slurred. Was he perhaps drunk? He felt like it, a little.
Nocan shook his head. His eyes were tinged with red. “Not there. I got somewhere better in mind.”
“Alright.”
Eventually, they reached a bar. Nocan talked with the bouncer a little, about journals and visiting professors who’d already had a little much. Eventually, they were both allowed in. Sunburst reeled as the neon assaulted his eyes, and all of his other senses were assaulted by various other things that were very much not common in the Crystal Empire, and which his brain didn’t seem able to process well right now.
He turned his head away from the most blinding of the lights, blinking away the afterimage as best he could. And then, looking across the bar, he locked eyes with a mare. She looked familiar. Was that Starlight?
He blinked, and she was gone. “Hey,” he said.
Nocan grunted. He was scanning the bar for the right seat. “Hey!” Sunburst said, louder. Half the bar turned to look at him. Apparently he’d been louder than he’d thought.
“What?” Nocan asked, glowering at him.
“I, I, did you see a pink mare with, uh, purple mane, purple with like a, a cyan stripe down the middle?”
“No,” Nocan snapped. He had, actually. He cursed his cutie mark almost reflexively.
“Oh. I thought she was my friend, my friend Starlight Glimmer,” Sunburst explained. “She’s really good at magic. Like, just the best at magic. But she lives in Ponytown. Ponyplace. Pony, Ponyville. So she can’t be here. Right?”
“No, if she lives in Ponyville, I can’t imagine she’d be here,” Nocan replied. “Look, there’s one of my… coworkers. Let’s go sit with him.”
“Mmmkay,” Sunburst agreed. He cast one last glance at where he thought he’d seen Starlight. There were a lot of confused-looking mares there, but no Starlight. That made him a little sad. Then he looked away and forgot all about it.


***


Dean Green Bean trotted up to the Oscillating Quark, head held high. Behind them, Dr. Ruiz, Professor Mean, and the Bursar formed an intimidating posse. Well, as intimidating as any posse could be when one of your members is wearing a hat made primarily of potatoes, another is munching a bag of chips, and the third is even now working on her upcoming lecture.
The Dean lit their horn and attempted to open the door. This was quickly met with a smack on the horn from the bouncer. Dean Bean stumbled back, dazed. They quickly recovered, though. “Do you know who I am?” they snarled.
The bouncer gave them a slow once-over. This was followed by a significant pause and a very pointed blink. “No,” said the bouncer. “That’s the point.”
“I am the Dean of Academic Honesty, and I demand to be let in to search these premises!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you not believe me?”
“I need some ID first. APA citation of your last published work.”
The Dean fumed. “This is an outrage. Let me in. I have backup, you know. See how you fare four on one!”
The bouncer looked at the three other faculty members. The Chair was daintily cleaning the grease from around his mouth with a hankie, Dr. Ruiz was searching for a red pen, and the Bursar was looking up at the sky, naming the stars as they came out. “I think I’ll take the risk.”
The Dean looked ready to argue further, but Dr. Ruiz cut them off. “Ruiz, J. (6 B.A.T.) Manehattan Cultural Journal. Manehattan: Inkstain Press.”
The bouncer gestured her in. “Now,” he said, subtly flexing and making his ‘Bad to the Gluon’ tattoo dance, “how about you tell me what you’ve been working on recently?”
The Dean gave in with poor grace, and Chair Mean listed the Bursar’s most recent work as well. The bouncer checked his clipboard and nodded, allowing them all into the bar.


***

Lemon Hearts tried to avoid looking at the empty seat. She couldn’t. It was the naked singularity of awkward situations. “So… does she do this often?” she asked Lyra.
Lyra appeared distinctly uncomfortable. “I dunno. We aren’t that close, really, but…” she trailed off.
“One of us should probably go and talk to her,” Lemon said.
Nopony moved. At length, Moondancer rose. “I’ll go,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t think she likes it here, and I can commiserate with her.”
Twinkleshine huffed. “You don’t actually want to go, do you?”
“No,” Moondancer admitted. “The bathrooms here are disgusting.”
“Alright, I’ll go,” said Twinkleshine, rising. “You stay and eat, you’re wasting away.”
“No I’m not!”
“Moonie, I love you, but if I let you, you would sit at a corner in the library until there was nothing left but a dust-covered skeleton.”
“A well-read dust-covered skeleton.”
Twinkleshine scowled. “Eat your stuffed peppers, or I’m hiding your copy of Principia.”
“Fine," Moondancer grumbled, picking one up and taking a bite.
Twinkleshine trotted over to the bathroom, grumbling to herself about stupid book-horse marefriends with their darned adorable faces. She slung the door open and let it fall back behind her.
Moondancer was right. The bathrooms were indeed disgusting. Twinkleshine was pretty sure she could already hear somepony retching into the toilet, and it wasn’t even eight in the evening. She knocked on the first occupied stall she could. “Starlight? You in there?”
“No.”
Twinkleshine hummed. “Really? You sure?”
“...What do you want?”
“Well,” Twinkleshine began. Then she paused. “Look, could you open the door? This just feels really weird, talking to you like this.”
A moment’s hesitation. Then, the door swung open.
Starlight was not looking her best. Her eyes were red and raw. So was her nose. Pieces of her mane were clutched in her trembling hooves. Twinkleshine commented on none of this. Instead she smiled kindly. “Now, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“Don’t know what to do,” Starlight said quietly. “Don’t have an assignment anymore. I can’t-- can I even make friends without an assignment? And-- And I don’t know any of you, and I don’t know this city, or I barely do, and I’m just-- I’m just lost.”
“Ah.” Twinkleshine nodded. “You know what I think?”
Starlight shook her head. “I think you’re a little homesick,” Twinkleshine said, matter-of-fact. “I know how hard it can be. I went through it myself when I moved here from Vanhoover.”
Starlight looked up askance. “Mind you, I was about seven at the time,” Twinkleshine mused. “Still, it’s no crime to miss the friends you’ve left behind, especially if they were very close friends, y’know?”
“They were the first friends I made in years,” Starlight said sadly, kicking a hoof back and forth. “They helped me out of… well, let’s just say I was in a bad place and leave it at that.”
Twinkleshine nodded. “I get you,” she said. “It’s hard to make new friends without feeling like you’re replacing the old ones, sometimes. But you’re not. You’re getting more friends, not exchanging them.”
“I… I know that,” Starlight said. “But they knew who I was, and I knew who they were, and they helped me get back to a place where I was a functional member of society, pretty much. And now I don’t really have that kind of guide, y’know?”
Twinkleshine chewed her lower lip. “I’ll be honest, I’ve never gone through anything like that,” she admitted.
Starlight looked down, ashamed.
“But,” Twinkleshine continued, “that doesn’t mean I can’t help you. I want to be your friend, Starlight. You seem pretty interesting and smart, and I’d like to get to know you better. I think the others all feel the same way. We’ll all help you, if you can just tell us how.”
There was a poignant pause. “I… thank you,” said Starlight, looking Twinkleshine in the eyes. “You have no idea… do you think we could all go somewhere a little quieter and just, I dunno, talk for a little while?”
Twinkleshine smiled. “I don’t think anypony would object to that. C’mon, let’s go out and--” she was cut off by an uproar from the bar.
“What the heck?”
Both mares made for the door at top speed.


***

Sunburst didn’t quite like this new stallion. There was something about him that the researcher just couldn’t put his hoof on. He had a nasty smile, and a beard that had seen better days, and he had wicked ears. Sunburst wasn’t sure how ears could be wicked, or what qualities would mark them out, but he was quite certain that this Professor Path’s ears would be mentioned in whatever paper was first published on the subject, possibly with an annotated illustration for guidance.
On the other hoof, Path was paying for his supper, so Sunburst wasn’t going to complain. “I was offered a post up in the Crystal Empire myself, you know,” the stallion was saying. “The princess said that it was a sin that my work was so underappreciated in Canterlot. I would have gone, but I could never stand the cold.”
“‘S pretty warm inside the city, actually,” Sunburst said, picking up another forkful of asparagus. “Not exactly a day in June, but it’s pretty okay most of the time.”
“Ah.” Path looked rather put out at that. “Have you ever met Princess Cadence?” he asked, leaning forward, eyes gleaming with interest.
Sunburst leaned back slightly. “Sure,” he said. “I’m sort of the royal babysitter, and she and Shining Armor are pretty much the only other experienced Ogres and Oubliettes players in, like, the whole empire. So we’re, we’re pretty close. They’ve both kissed me.” He paused. Leaned forward. “D’you play Ogres and Oubliettes?”
Path shifted back in his chair. “I regret,” he said frostily, “that my schedule is too tight for such pleasures.”
“Oh. Too bad,” Sunburst sighed, returning to his meal. “How about you, Nocan?”
“Never tried,” Nocan replied, munching on his own turnip casserole. “Never had anypony interested in playing with me.”
“Too bad,” Sunburst said again, shaking his head. “If you’re ever in the Empire, I’d be glad to set up a party with you.”
“No, thanks,” Nocan said. “I, um, don’t travel well.”
“Oh,” said Sunburst, and he lapsed into silence.
Fractal, sensing his opportunity, launched into another vain and almost totally fabricated story about his academic prowess. Nocan tuned him out instinctively, instead brooding on the fact that he’d built another wall to keep out a new potential friend. Curse his cutie mark. Curse his mouth. Curse his talent for shutting down anypony and anypony who might ever like him.
He barely noticed Fractal suddenly cut himself off. “Excuse me, I believe I just saw an old colleague walk by. I need you to watch my briefcase while I talk to him.”
Sunburst nodded, and Fractal left. Nocan continued to sulk. Wait a moment. Wait a moment! Was he actually--
Yes. There was Dean Bean, casting suspicious glares around the room. The investigators had arrived, and Nocan had been left with the bag of swag. Or rather, the briefcase full of probably incriminating papers.
He looked to Sunburst, still sitting there, eating his asparagus. He had a choice to make. Could he leave, take Sunburst with him, and leave the case there? Could he stay and take the fall as well? Could his reputation take that hit?
He rose, physically. He sunk, morally. He muttered something about going to the bathroom and left, teleporting away once he’d rounded a corner. He reappeared in the dank, smelly alleyway behind the bar. Fitting, he thought. Maybe I’ll just stand here for a little while. Or for the rest of my life. Either or.


***

The Dean scanned the restaurant, eyes peeled for any signs of shady dealing. They didn’t see any. They saw quite a lot of other goings-on. Quite a lot indeed. But of black-market academics, there was no sign. 
Dr. Ruiz gave them a sharp nudge to the ribs. “Over there,” she hissed.
“Dr. Ruiz, kindly refrain from acts of physical--”
“The stallion in the cloak.”
The Dean frowned. “Which one?” they muttered.
“Orange, with spectacles and a ginger goatee.”
The Dean looked at her askance. “A cloak with spectacles and a goatee?”
Dr. Ruiz fixed them with a hard look. “An orange stallion,” she stressed, “who happens to have spectacles, a goatee, and a blue cloak. One who also happens to be sitting alone at a table for four?”
“He’s not,” the Dean said. “Look, there are two other plates there.”
Dr. Ruiz nodded. “Yes, but he’s got a briefcase as well, with papers sticking out. And I’ve never seen him on campus before.”
The Dean nodded. “Alright, keep an eye on him. I’ll check with Two-Chairs and the Bursar.”
“You really shouldn’t call him that.”
“What, ‘Bursar’? He hates being called ‘Froggy’, and it feels ridiculous to call him ‘Dr. Pills’ when he isn’t medically trained.”
“I meant--”
“We can work it out later. We’ve got a cheater to catch!”
Silently, Dr. Ruiz made a note to have Chase from HR talk to the Dean about appropriate nicknames.


***

“Well, gentlemen?” the Dean muttered, slipping into the booth shared by Arithmetic Mean and the Bursar. “See anypony?”
“Chap from Stalliongrad,” Mean replied. “Could be connected, given what we know of ‘Lobachevsky’. And the Bursar saw a mare-- what did you say about her, Bursar?”
The Bursar blinked once. He blinked again. And again and again until his eyes were strobing, open and shut, open and shut. 
The Mare from Neighples has arrived here in town,
And all hope of salvation, tonight she will drown.
Her eyes are like gimlets, her dimples, how scary!
A single wrong move and it’s you she will bury.
For one thousand years, she was locked in her tomb,
But tonight she roams free, and it spells out our doom.
The Dean looked unimpressed. “Yes, but is she involved in plagiarism?”
The Bursar stopped blinking and shook his head ‘no’.
“Well, then, we can let the boffins in the Ancient Evils Department sort that one out,” they said dismissively. “Anything else?”
“Couple chaps in suits meeting somepony in that booth yonder,” the Chair said, gesturing with a fork. “Seems a bit suspish, to my mind.”
“Right. On my mark, we grab them all, and that orange stallion in blue, with the case. Ready?”
Both of them nodded. A glance at Dr. Ruiz confirmed that she too was ready and waiting. The Chair stood up. “Your attention please? I would like to move for a raid!”
“Seconded!” Dr. Ruiz shouted.
“All in favor?”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“Aye!”
“Aye-aye, cap'n!”
“Chair Mean?”
“Dean?”
“Never say that again.”
“Yes, Dean.”
“And take off that ridiculous sailor’s hat, it doesn’t suit you at all.”
The Chair removed his hat, rather sullenly, and shoved it into his jacket pocket. “Better. Now, GET ‘EM!”
And the room descended into utter chaos.