//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9 
// Story: Equestrian Skies 
// by RomeoDKat 
//------------------------------//

“Kids come on down! It’s time to go to school!” Blue yelled up as she finished up preparing the lunch bags for her kids. Normally, she would have to only prepare a lunch for Cloudchaser, but today Sky needed one too. It was his first day of school after all.
“Mommy?” She turned to the kitchen’s entryway to find Sky standing there, holding his shoes up. “Can you help me with these?”
“Of course I can, sweetie. Come on, let’s get you seated on the couch,” She said as she led him into the living room. Once he was seated, she took one of the shoes and began to put it on his right foot. “So, ready for your first day of school?” She asked.
“I guess.” Sky responded a little apprehensively.
A frown formed on Blue’s face. That’s not the answer I was hoping for. She thought as she used her wings to tie his shoelaces together. “What’s the matter Sky? Is something bothering you?”
He sat there silently for a few seconds before responding, “Mom, you said that I will be able to make friends at school, right?”
“That’s right.” She responded as she began to work on the other shoe.
“But what if nopony wants to be my friend?” He asked.
I should’ve known that it’d be about that. Blue thought as she took the time tying his other shoe to think of a response. Over the past couple of years, Sky had been having problems increasing his circle of friends beyond Berry Punch and Thunderlane. It wasn’t necessarily because the other foals didn’t want to play with him, but primarily because their parents were nervous about the idea about something larger than their children playing with them, even after Blue tried to reassure them that Sky was practically harmless.
Once she was done tying his shoe, she gently grabbed Sky by the shoulders and said, “Sky, I need you to listen to me for a second. There’s going to be lots of foals going to school with you. Some of them might want to be your friend, while some of them won’t. It’s not something that you have control over. Just bear in mind that if they don’t want to be your friend, that doesn’t mean they hate you. They just don’t know who you are yet. Just give them time to get to know you, okay?”
“O-okay,” Sky stuttered.
“Good! Now, come on, we’ve got to get going,” she said before she pulled him up to his feet. She turned to the staircase and yelled up, “Cloudchaser, get down here! It’s time to go!”
“Alright, I’m coming down!” Cloudchaser yelled before quickly flying down the stairs.
“Alright,” Blue said as she walked over to the playpen that they had set up in the living room, where Flitter was currently sitting. “Let’s get you ready to go, sweetie.” She said sweetly as she carefully picked Flitter up from the playpen and flew over to the stroller, which was set up by the front door.
Once she had Flitter secured in the stroller, she turned around to find Cloudchaser and Sky standing behind her holding their lunch bags. “You two ready to go?” She asked. When the two of them nodded in response, she got behind the stroller and said, “Alright, let’s get going then.”
After an uneventful walk that primarily consisted of Cloudchaser explaining to Sky what school was going to be like, they reached the schoolhouse alongside other foals and parents, where Whiteboard was standing outside the entrance welcoming everypony who entered. As they approached the entrance, the white mare took notice of them and gave them a bright smile, “Ah, hello there Cloudchaser. It’s wonderful to see you again. And hello to you too, Sky Chaser. Are you ready for your first day of school?” She asked.
“I guess so.” Sky responded.
“Well then, why don’t you go inside. I’m sure Cloudchaser’s got plenty of things to show you before school starts, right?” She said, glancing at Cloudchaser.
“You bet I do! Come on, Sky!” She exclaimed before she grabbed his hand with her wing and led him inside the school.
As Whiteboard and Blue watched them go inside, Blue leaned over and said, “Well, I need to go run some errands. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine, right?”
“Don’t worry about anything. I’ll be keeping my eye on him, just in case.” Whiteboard reassured.
“Alright, I’ll be back later to pick them up. You have a good day!” Blue said before she turned around to leave.
“You too!” Whiteboard waived back before she continued to welcome students inside.
Meanwhile, Cloudchaser was enthusiastically showing Sky around the schoolhouse and explaining everything that the place offered, but Sky wasn’t paying too much attention to her. He was paying more attention to the foals around him. Many of them were staring right at him, which was making him more nervous than he was before.
“-and that’s a globe.” Cloudchaser explained, pointing a wing at the object sitting on one of the many bookshelves. “Mrs. Whiteboard likes to use this when she talks about what the world looks like. Cool, right?” She asked as she turned around, finally noticing that he wasn’t really paying attention to her. “Hey, Sky, are you listening?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” Sky softly answered.
Cloudchaser gave a slight frown at the answer before she looked around the school and noticed all the foals staring at him. She almost immediately realized what was going on, so she turned back to Sky and said, “Hey, don’t worry about them. They’re just wondering what you are. They’re not going to try to hurt you.”
“You sure?”
“Of course, cause if anypony tries then they gotta get through me.” She said proudly as she puffed her chest out. It was at that moment that the school bell started to ring. “Oh, shoot! That’s the bell. We gotta take our seats,” she exclaimed.
“Where at?”
“Anywhere really. Just gotta sit at a desk before somepony else does. Now, where’s a good spot?” She asked herself as she looked around the seats, many of which were being occupied by foals already.
“Cloudchaser! Sky! Over here!” They heard somepony yell out. They turned to find Berry Punch waving from a desk in the back row. There was an empty desk on either side of her. “I saved you guys a seat.” She said as she pointed to the two desks.
“Awesome, thanks Berry!” Cloudchaser exclaimed as she took the seat to Berry’s left.
“Yeah, thanks.” Sky said as he took the other seat.
It was at that moment that Whiteboard walked into the school and closed the door behind her. “Good morning, class,” she greeted.
“Good morning, Mrs. Whiteboard,” most of the class responded.
“It’s good to see many of you again. And it would appear that we have a couple of new students here today. Can I have all the new students come up and introduce themselves?” She said before moving to the side of the room.
Sky looked over at Berry Punch and Cloudchaser, who both just motioned him to walk forward encouragingly. Sky let out a tiny gulp, but still got out of his seat and walked up to the front of the room, where a yellow pegasus filly with a cyan mane and tail was already standing.
Whiteboard looked over the two new students with a hint of interest. She wasn’t really surprised that there was only two of them, since the school was in a relatively small town. What she was interested in was how the class was going to react to Sky and that the little filly already had a cutie mark, which consisted of a group of three raindrops. “Alright, you two, don’t we start by telling the class your names. Starting with you, miss.” Whiteboard said, gesturing a hoof toward the filly.
The filly nodded before taking a step forward puffing her chest out. “Hi, I’m Raindrops!” she announced proudly. The class gave her an applause in response.
When she stepped back, everypony turned their attention toward Sky. In spite of his nerves, he still managed to take a step forward and squeak out, “I’m Sky Chaser.” To his surprise, the class began to give him an applause too. The only noticeable difference between the applause was that Cloudchaser was clapping louder than what she gave to Raindrops.
“Good job, you two,” Whiteboard said as she turned to the rest of the class. “Now, I’m sure you all have some questions for your new classmates, so if you have one, please raise your hoof.” At that moment, several hooves began to rise to the air. “Hmm, why don’t we start with you, Lily?” She said, pointing a hoof at a pink filly with a blonde mane.
“Okay,” the filly said before turning toward Sky. “So, Sky, I was wondering. What are you exactly?”
Sky wasn’t sure how to answer that question. It was a question he had asked his parents multiple times, but they always told him that they didn’t know. Thankfully for him, Whiteboard stepped up and said, “Sky is actually an unknown species from outside of Equestria.” The class let out a series of amazed ‘wows’ at Whiteboard’s answer.
An orange hoof of a filly rose after that. When Whiteboard selected the filly, she stood up slightly and said, “Hi, I’m Applejack, and I was wondering something about ya Sky. Where are ya stayin’ at?”
“With my mom and dad. They’re pegasi.” Sky answered. Applejack gave him a nod in satisfaction before sitting back down.
“Alright, who’s next?” Whiteboard asked. A blue colt’s hoof rose up. “Okay, Noteworthy, what’s your question?”
“Are those claws?” The colt asked, pointing at Sky’s hands.
“Nah, they’re not sharp enough to be claws,” a filly piped up before Sky could answer. “They look more like paws to me.”
“Regardless, they’re definitely not hooves.” Spoiled Milk commented.
“Alright, class, settle down.” Whiteboard ordered with a raised voice. She looked over at Raindrops, who was glancing toward the ground with a dejected look on her face. Guess somepony’s feeling left out. She thought before addressing the class. “Does anypony have a question for Raindrops?”
The room was still for a moment before a filly rose her hoof up. Once Whiteboard called on her, she stood up and asked, “When did you get your cutie mark?”
“Last year!” Raindrops stated proudly, waiting for some form of follow up.
“Oh, cool,” The filly said before sitting back down. Raindrops sense of pride began to deflate as the teacher asked if anypony else had any questions.
There were many more questions after that. The vast majority of which were directed towards Sky, with about three questions being directed towards Raindrops. Eventually, Whiteboard decided that it was time to move on to the next lesson and told the two of them to sit back down. Once Sky was in his seat, Cloudchaser leaned over to him and whispered, “See, that wasn’t so bad.”
Sky gave her a sheepish smile before turning his attention toward the teacher. Though he wouldn’t be lying if he said that he had fun introducing himself to the class.
“Alright class, why don’t we start the day with some basic addition and subtraction,” Whiteboard said as she picked up a piece of chalk and began to write various numbers on the board.



The foals filed out the school when Whiteboard allowed them to go to recess. Many of them forming their own groups before running off to play a game or on the playground equipment. Sky felt lost at first, until his sister yelled out, “Sky, over here!”
He turned to see Cloudchaser standing by one of the picnic tables along with Berry Punch and Thunderlane. With no idea what else to do, he ran over to them. “Sis, what are we supposed to be doing?” He asked when he reached them.
“Whatever we want, silly,” Cloudchaser giggled out. She then turned to the rest of the group and asked, “So, what are we going to do?”
“We should let Sky decide. It’s his first day after all.” Thunderlane said.
“I’m okay with that,” Cloudchaser said before turning back to Sky. “So, what do you want to do?”
“Um…hide and go seek?” Sky offered.
“Nah, not enough good places to hide.” Berry Punch responded with a shake of her head.
“Okay…what about tag?” Sky asked.
“Alright, I’m okay with that. What about you guys?” Cloudchaser said.
“Sure.” Thunderlane responded.
“I call being it first!” Berry Punch exclaimed with a mischievous grin.
It was at that moment that Sky decided to look around, but stopped when he saw something that caught his attention. Standing a few feet away from them, with her back turned to them, was Raindrops. It looked like she was looking around the playground to find something to do or somepony to play with. Needless to say, Sky felt slightly sorry for the filly, so he decided to walk up to her. “Hi!” He greeted when he reached her.
She turned around and frowned when she saw Sky. “What do you want?” She curtly asked.
“My friends and I are about to play tag. Wanna join us?” He asked.
She snorted before responding, “No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? Cause it doesn’t look like you’re having a lot of fun.”
“And what’s it to you!?” She exclaimed bitterly. “You think you’re so special that you can get everypony to like you?! For what?! What’s so special about you?!”
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!” Cloudchaser yelled out when she saw what was going on and ran up to be right next to her brother.
“Just letting him know how I feel. He’s not as special as he thinks he is,” Raindrops said haughtily.
“What’re you talking about?! He doesn’t think like that. If anything, he was just trying to be your friend!”
“Please, like I need some freak as my friend.” Raindrops said without really thinking.
Cloudchaser was taken aback at that. “Well, if there’s anything he has going for him, it’s that he’s much nicer than you.” She said as she took a threatening step forward. “So, you better stop saying bad thing about him or else.” She warned, flaring her wings out. Raindrop instinctively flinched back at the display and found it increasingly difficult to argue back.

“Oh, please. Resorting to threats again, Cloudchaser,” they heard a new filly’s say. “If anything, I think that the new filly has a point.” They all turned to find Spoiled Milk sauntering right up to the three of them.

“What do you want, Spoiled?” Cloudchaser growled.

“Why, I couldn’t help but notice your little display and just had to listen in. And I for one, agree with the new filly. There’s absolutely nothing special about that little ape of yours. As opposed to Raindrops here,” she said, catching Raindrops by surprise.

“Oh really, and what’s so special about her?” Cloudchaser asked.

“Why, just look at her flank.” Spoiled Milk responded while pointing a hoof at Raindrop’s cutie mark. “She’s probably younger than you are, yet she’s already figured out what her special talent is. Unlike you and the ape.”

“Yeah, well…I’ll figure that out soon. Besides, Sky probably can’t get a cutie mark.” Cloudchaser argued.

“Oh, really. Is that because he’ll never be good at anything?” Spoiled taunted with a sneer.

“What did you say?!” Cloudchaser exclaimed. She tried to lunge at Spoiled Milk, only to be stopped by Sky.

“Cloudchaser, please don’t,” He pleaded. “It’s not worth it.”

Cloudchaser growled at the two fillies before she glanced at Sky and paused. The look in Sky’s eye was enough to remind her of all the lectures her mom gave her about being a role model for her brother. “Fine,” she relented taking a step back. “Just leave us alone, got it?!”

“That’s something I can agree with.” Spoiled said before turning around. “Come on, Raindrops, let’s get away from these brutes.” She added as she began to walk away.

“Oh, um, sure.” Raindrops replied before following him.

Cloudchaser and Sky walked back to their friends, a frown still present on Cloudchaser’s face. “Hey guys, what was that about?” Thunderlane asked when they reached them.

“That new filly was being mean to Sky when he was just trying to be nice to her. And then Spoiled Milk decided to get involved.” Cloudchaser explained with a growl.

“Oh, boy. I should have known.” Thunderlane replied before turning back to Sky. “Are you doing alright, Sky?”

“Mhmm.” Sky replied with a nod.

“That’s good,” Berry Punch said.

“No, it’s not!” Cloudchaser exclaimed, catching everyone by surprise. “I mean, I knew Spoiled Milk was going to be mean to you, but why was that other filly so mean to you when you did nothing to her?”

“Well, mommy said that not everypony was going to be my friend.” Sky replied.

“Yeah, well she could have been nicer about it.” Cloudchaser growled.

“Hey, stop worrying about it, Cloudchaser,” Berry Punch said as she tried to think of something to get those two fillies off of Cloudchaser’s mind. After a few moments of silence, an idea came to her mind. With a mischievous smirk, she sauntered up to Cloudchaser and lightly booped her snout. “Tag, you’re it!” She exclaimed before she ran off.

“W-what?!” Cloudchaser exclaimed before she realized what just happened. “Hey, no fair, Berry! We didn’t start a game yet! Berry!” she yelled chasing after the mulberry filly.

“Come on, Sky. Let’s start running before they start chasing after us.” Thunderlane said before he started to run in the opposite direction that Cloudchaser ran.

“Okay!” Sky responded before he followed him.

While the four friends were playing tag, Raindrops had been following Spoiled Milk to a nearby hill, silently trying to think of a way to thank her. “Hey, um, so, thank you for helping me out,.” She finally said when they reached the top.

“Oh, it’s no problem at all. Anything to help a special pony like you.” Spoiled replied with a faux friendly smile.

“You really think I’m special?”

“Of course. Getting your cutie mark at your age is proof of that.” She replied. Even if it’s a mundane cutie mark for a pegasus. She kept to herself.

“I-if you say so.” Raindrops replied feeling slightly flustered. In reality, she knew her cutie mark wasn’t all that unique for a pegasus to have, but a large part of her wanted to believe that Spoiled Milk was right. “So, what are we gonna do then?”
A haughty smile formed on Spoiled Milk’s face as she pointed at a random cloud. “Bring that cloud over here and put it over me.” She ordered.
“Okay.” Raindrops responded before flying up to the cloud. When the cloud was over Spoiled, she asked, “Now what?”
“Now, we rest.” Spoiled said before curling up in the shade and closing her eyes.
Raindrops frowned in confusion. “That’s it? You’re just going to take a nap?”
“Of course, what else would we do.”
“Well, we could play a game?”
“And feel tired when Mrs. Whiteboard is trying to teach us?! I don’t think so. Now, just let me get some sleep. And wake me up when Mrs. Whiteboard calls us inside.” Spoiled Milk said before closing her eyes.
“Okay.” Raindrops sadly replied before lying down next to her and began to look around the playground. She didn’t feel tired at all. She wanted something to do. She wanted to approach one of the other fillies earlier, but she felt to nervous to do so. Then he walked up to her.
She didn’t want to be the center of attention during the introduction, but she was still disheartened by the lack of attention she was given. Meanwhile, Sky was given more attention from the other students, just because he was some different looking creature. To say that she was frustrated and jealous of him would be an understatement. To her, him coming up out of no where and trying to be her friend when no one else would just rubbed salt in the wound.
A sudden burst of laughter caught her attention. She turned her head and watched as Sky and two other ponies she didn’t recognize were running away from Cloudchaser. All four of them had smiles on their faces.
She frowned at the four of them at first, but soon her frown shifted into a more solemn look. A part of her wanted to walk up and ask if she could play with them, but one glance at Sky and Cloudchaser kept her from doing so. They were the only things she needed to remind herself that the damage was already done. So, she did the only thing she could do. Lie her head down and watch them, bored out of her mind.



The final bell of the day rang as all the foals ran out the school house. Blue Typhoon was standing by the gate with Flitter in her carriage as she waited for her kids to walk up. When they showed up, she gave the both of them a hug and asked, “So, how was school, guys?”
“Great!” Cloudchaser beamed out.
“That’s good. So, how was your first day, Sky?”
“Pretty good,” Sky responded. “Though, there was this one thing that happened.”
“Oh, what happened?” Blue asked.
“There was another filly that was starting school too. I tried being friends with her, but she ended up being mean to me.”
“Oh, well that’s not very nice of her.” Blue responded.
“Yeah, but I stepped in and confronted her.” Cloudchaser chimed in proudly. Blue raised an eyebrow at her daughter.
“Hey, I didn’t fight her!” Cloudchaser chimed in proudly.
“It’s true. I kept her from doing so.” Sky spoke up to help defend her sister. However, even Cloudchaser knew that what he just said was going the opposite effect.
“Cloudchaser, we’re going to have a talk when we get home.” Blue said as she began to lead them home.
“Hey, give me a break mom. I’m his older sister. It’s my job to keep him safe,” Cloudchaser said as she and Sky followed her. “And so long as I’m at school, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do!” She said proudly
Blue just gave her a deadpanned look before sternly saying, “We’re having a talk when we get home.”
“Yes, mom.” Cloudchaser replied.
After a few minutes of walking, Sky turned to Cloudchaser and asked, “Hey, did you really mean that? That you’ll keep me safe.”
Cloudchaser gave him a sweet smile. “Absolutely, cause I love ya, Sky. And I’ll always be there to protect you. No matter what.” She stated with pride. They continued the walk home, content smiles on both Cloudchaser’s and Sky’s faces.