Wallflower Blush knew CHS like the back of her hand. She knew the students, which classes they had and when they had them, where said classrooms were, everything had already been checked in her head prior to entering for the umpteenth time. But now that Smolder was a talking dog, she had no clue about what she would do if someone heard her speak. She couldn’t use the Memory Stone anymore—not that she ever planned to do so if someone else found out—and people didn’t forget magical goings on that easily. She was going to have to play her cards right in order to survive and keep the secret she carried intact.
Smolder popped her head out of the backpack after the chore of unzipping it from the inside. Which, given that paws were much chunkier than fingernails had made it hard for her to move the zip. Still, she was out of the bag now and looking around CHS in all of its’ splendour. She had never been inside a place like it before, so a lot of her time, her gaze was locked on to whatever caught her eyes. Lockers, trophies, papers on bulletin boards, the entire trip was junk food for her eyes. And her wagging tail, big grin, and the way she was leaning out of the bag just proved that for Wallflower.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had such a great school, Wallflower?” Smolder asked, resting her head on her owner’s. “I never saw anything like this back at the shelter.
“I’m glad that you’re enjoying the view, Smolder. But I have to get to my class now. Another lecture on physics is the last thing I need to add stress.” Wallflower rubbed underneath Smolder’s chin briefly before trekking down another corridor.
“Lecture? What the heck’s a lecture?” Smolder blinked twice at her with a tilted head, sending one of her floppy, horn-shaped ears into the side of Wallflower’s head.
“A lecture or lesson is where people go to learn things,” she said with a raised finger. “Kinda like how dogs get taught to sit, roll over, lie down, shake, all that sort of stuff.”
“Oh. I get what you’re saying now. You just do whatever your owners say without anyone questioning it.” She gave a dog-shaped thumbs-up to Wallflower before hiding her paw away in the bag once more.
“Well... not exactly like how dogs do it. Maybe we do in preschool and kindergarten, but not in a high school like this.” Wallflower tipped a hand and twisted her wrist. “When you grow up, you’re given these things called pens and paper. You write on the paper with a pen, then the teacher decides if you’ve been a good dog or a bad dog by giving you a grade from A to F. If that makes any sense.”
“I think it does. But why would you ever want letters anyway? Sounds like a way of overcomplicating it. All you need is a treat and that’s it. No point in this letter hooey.”
“If you say so, Smolder. But we get much better treats if our grades do well. So it’s kinda important to us humans. Not to say that the dog way is bad, it’s just...” she fumbled with her words, face falling apart as she tried to simplify the expression without hurting Smolder’s newfound feelings.
“Suit yourself. Still, everyone else here would be much better if they behaved more like dogs. Y’know, fewer letters and more treats for being good boys and girls.” Smolder rolled her eyes. “But hey. It’s your life. Your strange, unique, human life.”
As Wallflower arrived at her next class, she hid Smolder away by pushing her head gently under the zip and sealing it back up again, leaving a small gap so that Smolder could at least breathe. Wallflower didn’t want to take any risks for fear of everyone else’s reactions. What else could she do? Magic always seemed to command attention at CHS, distracting everyone else from the point of coming to a school in the first place.
Wallflower walked over to her desk and planted her bag by the side, before reaching into one of the pockets on the side to retrieve a fuzzy, teal pencil case. She unzipped the case and laid her stuff out on the desk, giving glances toward some of the other teens in her class. None of them were Sunset or her friends, but that just built up more and more pressure for her. If Smolder got restless and wanted to get out, that was game, set and match.
As she started to think about the lesson, her teacher for the day walked into the class. She had a jagged and slender physique, with plain black shoes, black leather trousers, a green shirt with a pocket protector and a pair of sharp-edged black glasses. Her skin was a pale white and her hair was what could only be described as cotton candy coated in honey, as her hair was a large puff of topaz with pink points at the end of every strand of hair. This was Icy Fire; one of Wallflower’s many teachers at CHS. And from the way she gave the students a little gaze of her own spelt a sense of unease within them.
“Okay, class. Now, let’s pick up where we left off. I’m sure that you’ve all taken centrifugal force to heart after last week’s assignment I gave you, but there more to physics than just how things move and the impact that they have on the world around them. So with that being said, let’s take a look into magnetism and more importantly, how it works as a whole.”
As Icy wrote the lesson down and Wallflower took notes, her backpack rattled and shook as Smolder tried to find something inside that would help her pass the time. With the lack of visibility, she couldn’t make anything out within the shadowy sarcophagus sealing her off from the rest of the world, so tried to get a look at what was going on outside. She batted the zip once more, pushing at the metal piece holding the zip in place. It took a few attempts, but Smolder widened the split separating her from the other side. She popped her head out again only to see a desk and lots of legs, with shoe-tips either on the ground or pointed toward it.
So many shoes. Are they asking for me to go and take a bite out of ‘em? Smolder’s tail swished back and forth as she continued to gaze further at the footwear. I mean, okay. But it’s their fault for wearing them...
As Smolder tried to escape from the bag, Wallflower had noticed the excessive shaking and rumbling. Smolder’s little chance at feasting on feed was thwarted by the face of Wallflower as she tried to put her back in the bag.
“What are you doing? I told you to stay in the bag...” Wallflower whisper-groaned as she shoved Smolder back inside. “Don’t you know that if I show you here, I look like a bad girl?”
“Ms Blush? I don’t think I need to remind you that lack of attention leads to a lower grade, do I?” Icy Fire folded her arms as she glared at Wallflower, who not begot the attention of the whole class. “Stay still, sit up straight and pay attention.”
“Yes, Mrs Fire. Sorry, Mrs Fire.” Wallflower sunk deeper into her chair, feeling the weight of embarrassment crushing her from the head down. She had never had a moment like this before, but thanks to Smolder, it had finally happened.
The lesson resumed, all eyes off of Wallflower and back on to the whiteboard, where Icy Fire was beginning to write down a diagram of the subject matter she was talking about. Everyone in the room, Wallflower included were scrawling notes onto their notepads, taking in as much as possible.
“This is the weirdest lesson I think I’ve ever seen. There’s no body action, dogs aren’t allowed to be seen in class, and I just got Wallflower scolded.” Smolder fiddled with her paws within the confines of the backpack. “Magic or no magic, I’ve gotta spice this up somehow. Plus, Wallflower needs to stop worrying about what may never happen. This is just the kicker she needs.”
Smolder once more tried to pick at the zip that was keeping her locked inside the bag. The struggle resumed for her, but at long last, she pulled the zip open wide, completely bathing her in the light of the classroom. She wasted no time in darting out of the bag and up the body of one Icy Fire, who let out a yelp as the small puppy’s jump knocked her onto her rear end.
“Y’know, it’s one thing to talk about lessons and stuff, but that’s not the best way for people to learn things.” Smolder’s tail was swiping itself across the fazed woman’s chest as her gaze drilled into hers. “I know that you humans live the lives you want, but there’s no shame in being more dog once in a while. All you need to do is give them one-word commands and promise treats. Then, they’ll be sure to listen and remember.”
The whole class fell silent. The eyes of the students had been opened so wide that they were on the verge of popping out. As for Icy Fire, she couldn’t make coherent sentences anymore, trying to comprehend the fact that Smolder had a voice and wasn’t afraid to use it. All Wallflower could do was bury her head in her hands and moan to herself. This was a disaster in her eyes.
“You... you’re a... you’re a TALKING DOG!” Icy Fire screamed as she jabbed a finger at Smolder’s nose, inches away from booping it.
“Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re gonna say. I’m not the first one. You can thank Spike for that.” Smolder turned to the rest of the room. “I just have to ask this: why do people have to be so paranoid about all this stuff? There’s no point in it all. I mean, seriously, Wallflower Blush thinks I’m gonna be carted away by some government people because I can talk, yet the same thing’s never happened to Spike and he’s been talking much longer than me.”
“Maybe because, uh, Spike comes from a group of magical girls, for one?” Diamond Tiara cocked a brow at Smolder. “The Rainbooms get immunity from this kind of stuff.”
“Then why shouldn’t Wallflower and I have those same liberties?” Smolder asked. “Dogs are meant to be free. They shouldn’t have to hide. If magic can make me talk, then I’m taking it and running with it; not just trying to fit in because apparently ‘magic is bad if it’s not being used by Twilight and her friends’.”
“It’s not magic, Smolder. It’s the fact that it is a lesson that will help me later on in life; one that you just hijacked with that ballsy move of yours...” Wallflower lowly growled as she picked up Smolder with the backpack slung around her. “I’m gonna be sent to the principal’s office now to be put in even more trouble.”
“Ah, who cares about some stuffy old principal anyway? You don’t need that kind of person to say what’s wrong and what isn’t...” Smolder rolled her eyes.
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. If I don’t graduate CHS, I can’t get a job, a career, or anything nice at all. I’d be in a permanent doghouse all my life with no way of ever getting out of it!” Wallflower gnashed her teeth, prompting Smolder to recoil. It took Wallflower a few minutes to recompose herself afterwards, but a sigh followed with her hanging her head. “Sorry, Smolder, but I worried that this was going to happen. I was worried that you’d get restless and want to disrupt the class. I should have just left you at home instead of getting myself in trouble like this.”
“Are you really in trouble, though?” Smolder tilted her head. “Is this teacher saying ‘bad Wallflower’ to you right now?”
The both of them looked over to Icy Fire, whose face was hard to read. She was both enraptured by Smolder and her words while also trying to decide on how to feel towards the fact that her lesson had been interrupted by a talking dog; something she had never seen in all the years she had been down this road. When she did try and say something with a raised finger, Smolder just interrupted again.
“See? She’s not angry. And I don’t think anyone else in this class is gonna want to rat you out like that. Heck, they’ve been friends with Fluttershy and the Rainbooms for a long time, so trying to do that wouldn’t really fly well with them; especially since it was Fluttershy who loved me before all of this.”
“Smolder, I...” Wallflower wanted to talk, but a paw against her mouth silenced her in an instant.
“If everyone were more dog-like, there’d be no reason to worry about things. Not just for you and your friends, but for every single person on this planet.” Smolder looked out to the other students. “Think about it: If all of your lives just revolved around learning like dogs do, living like dogs do, maybe even playing like dogs do if you wanted to go that far, you’d never get bored, you’d be much more fit, and there’d be much more fun to be had day in, day out.” As the students tried to make a rebuttal, Smolder turned back to Wallflower. “Worrying’s a bad habit. You need to drop it; live like there are no consequences for anything and never worry about something that may or may not happen. They say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but that doesn’t apply for humans now, does it?”
“If we could just talk for—“ Silver Spoon wanted to try and get a word in, but Wallflower just took back the conversation once again.
“Smolder... I... I don’t know what to say.” Her eyes shifted all around her sockets as she tried to come up with a counterargument, but nothing came to mind. Either it was her shock leaving her paralysed with how much this class had gone off of the rails or the fact that Smolder had openly spoken her mind to everyone in the room.
“Look. If you want to meet this principal guy or gal so we can settle this issue once and for all, I’m down for that. But I just needed to come out and say that before I went mad and you got overworked with stress. You don’t need that kind of stuff, so why think about it?”
"Because, well... I..." Wallflower's hands danced through the air, eventually causing Smolder to leap off and land by her feet.
"See. There's no reason for you to ever worry about anything. As long as you take it easy like us dogs do, you shouldn't ever have to think like that. But, just to be clear, I think we should go and see this principal character you're talking about, just so that we can clarify the issue." Smolder looked at Icy Fire. "You don't mind if we excuse ourselves and see them, do we?"
"I... I was going to tell you to go anyways..." Icy Fire blushed as she stood back up and readjusted herself. "But to answer your question, yes. Yes, you can see Principal Celestia."
"Well, this is gonna be the most interesting trip to her office I've ever seen. And witnessed." Wallflower took the backpack, scooped Smolder back up, and walked out of the door. All the while, the students and Icy Fire could not take their eyes off of her and her talking dog. "Come on, Smolder. It's time to face the music."
"What does that even mean? How do you face the music when it hasn't even got... well, a face?" Smolder asked as the two of them went down the corridors together, nothing but their footsteps accompanying them all the while. "Just a bit weird to think that music's got human-like traits when you think about it..."