Smolder furiously knocked on the dorm door. She didn’t get a reply as fast as she wanted so she knocked again with both claws. After continued attempts, the door finally opened up. However, the creature on the other end wasn’t who the dragon was hoping to see.
“Good morning, friend Smolder,” the yak said with a yawn, opening the door just enough to poke her head through.
“Yona, is Ocellus in there?” Smolder asked with a panicked look.
“Oh,” Yona turned her head to look inside the darkened room briefly, as if looking for an answer. She continued as she started to turn her head back to Smolder, “Friend Ocellus doesn’t want to see Smolder right now. Ocellus said something about not feeling good and state of the school.”
Smolder was starting to get more desperate, “I swear Yona, if Ocellus is actually in there right now, I’ll change the rules so you will have to give up your wrestling title in P.E. class by throwing the next few matches.”
As Yona reacted in horror to the thought of losing, a voice from behind her spoke up, “Yona, move, I got this.” The yak moved aside to reveal the light blue changeling that Smolder was looking for. Her face was bitter as she looked at the dragon. “What do you want, Smolder?”
“Ocellus! Oh, thank Dragon Lord Ember,” Smolder said, relieved to finally find her friend, “You gotta help me, the last two days have been absolutely insane! The whole student body is going crazy because I gave them whatever they want. Please help me out and I’ll give you whatever you want!”
With a glare that would even paralyze a cockatrice, Ocellus simply leaned on the frame of the dormroom door with her front limbs crossed. Her face easily showed how frustrated she was with her friend.
“Come on Ocellus, you got to help! You don’t like how the school is now, right? You can help me out by fixing it and making it better!” Smolder pleaded. “I’m begging you, everything is such a mess now!”
“Really? I can’t imagine why. Or maybe I just don’t care to,” the changeling snarked.
“That’s not funny! Please, will you just help?”
“You really don’t get it do you? There are consequences for what you’ve done. Being the class president isn’t about popularity and giving every creature whatever they want, it’s about making decisions that will have a lasting effect on every single creature. And making major changes on whatever whim is absolute insanity!” Ocellus’ raised her voice to a scolding tone, one that caused Smolder to retreat in her stance with guilt. “And look at what you’ve managed to do in less that 48 hours! There’s a club turf war going on, the cafeteria is serving nothing but cake and gravy, I think the teachers might be drunk, and the entire library is filled with comics! We haven’t seen Sandbar in days!”
Smolder gave a defeated groan, “I know, I know! Can you please just help me? Please?”
“I want to hear you admit you were wrong.”
“Do you mind gloating about it later?” Smolder asked, raising her voice a bit, “I can’t keep up with all these promises I keep making! I just promised a student I’d find their birth parents!”
Passing behind Smolder was their friend Gallus, still reading through the school’s charter. “Oh, hey Smolder, find anything yet?” he asked as he paused movement for a second.
Smolder forced a reassuring smile to the griffon, “N-No, not yet, but I’m still looking, Gallus!”
“Okay, cool. Take your time,” Gallus said as he resumed making his way down the hallway, “but pick up the pace if you don’t mind. But, you know, no rush….but please hurry.”
As Gallus continued and, when he was finally out of ear shot, Smolder turned her attention back to Ocellus, “You see what I’m dealing with here?”
“Fine, let’s go clean up your mess,” Ocellus said as she closed the door behind her. “Just so you know, I don’t forgive you yet.”
“Thank you,” Smolder breathed a sigh of relief as the two started down the hallway, “if you didn’t come with, I was going to have to figure out some way to colorize the moon for a student.”
Ocellus was dumbfounded, “Just what have you been agreeing to?”
“You really don’t want to know.”
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“My fellow students,” Smolder stood at the podium, “Thank you for coming here today. I have gathered you all here today to discuss something of importance.”
The seats of the auditorium were filled by the entire student body. However, looking out into the crowd, it became apparent to the dragon just how her reign as president was already affecting the students. A number of the students were wearing luchador masks and a few of them were in some casts. The club terf war still seemed to have a number of the students clutching their weapons, waiting to strike if the moment called for it. Other students were eating from the new food that the mess hall was able to provide, including one particular pony that looked like they were eating gravy with their hooves. In the front row, Smolder saw a few of her friends, each affected by her decisions: Sandbar seemed to have his nose buried in a comic from the library, which he was most likely pulled out of by Yona who was wearing a luchador mask, Silverstream was barely able to sit still as if she ate nothing by sugar for the past few days, and Gallus was still looking through the school’s charter.
“During my time as your class president, I have understood the weight and the responsibility of this role,” Smolder continued. Standing nearby her was Ocellus and off to the side of the stage was Headmare Starlight, who may or may not have been trying to hide a flask. “I took it upon myself to listen to you, the students, and use my power and ability to help make your time here at the School of Friendship the best it could be. Upon becoming president, I swore an oath to serve with honor and insanity.”
Ocellus leaned in and corrected Smolder, “Integrity.”
“Right, right. Integrity,” the dragon spoke, “And it has come to my attention that perhaps my governing ability might not be suited for the role of class president. And with that, I have come to the conclusion that it would be in the best interest of both myself as well as the entire school if I were to step down, effective immediately. With that, I will pass the responsibilities onto the next candidate who earned the most votes.”
After Smolder stopped speaking, there was a fair amount of murmuring and gossiping amongst the student body.
“What just happened?”
“Did Smolder just resign?”
“Did we just get dumped by our class president?”
“What’s going to happen to the student government?”
However, one student stood up and raised their limb up, “So, I get that you’re stepping down as class president and all, but what about the new stuff you did for us?”
Smolder shuffled around the papers she had in front of her. While Ocellus helped her out by writing a resignation speech, she wasn’t expecting any creature to ask any questions. She turned to the changeling with a look that seemed to plead for help.
Ocellus simply motioned for her to respond with a few words, “You’ve got to break some hearts, Smolder.”
With a sigh, Smolder turned back and spoke, “All changes that I have made president are going to be put back normal.”
Her words did not sit well with the students as the crowd rose up and started to clamor in disapproval.
“But what about the cafeteria food?” a voice asked.
The dragon shrugged, “I guess it’s going to suck again.”
Another voice called out in horror, “But the club war is still going on! Who’s going to win the money for their club funds?!”
“Yeah, about that….” Smolder rubbed the back of her head with a claw with awkwardness, “there was actually plenty of money to fund the all of the clubs….”
A few of the students threw their weapons down in anger and disappointment, but a collective sigh of relief came from the majority of the various club students.
“But what about wrestling?” Yona asked as she raised a hoof.
“Normal P.E. classes will return,” Smolder answered.
Disappointed, Yona took off her luchador mask and threw it on the ground.
Sandbar looked up from his comic in a panic, “She can’t take away the comics in the library, right? Right?”
Gallus was still looking through the school’s character, “The class president can remove whatever they see, even as they exit the office. It also says they can create a book burning ritual, which seems to be kind of a strange clause.”
Another creature stood up to ask a question, “What about the Wonderbolts? Are they still going to visit and perform?”
Smolder silently turned to look at Headmare Starlight. Her face was tired and bitter as she simply shook her head. “Guess not,” Smolder answered with a shrug.
The entire auditorium was becoming chaotic. Students were upset as the new order of the school had come to an end.
"Hey, hey, I assure you, it is for the best. I am not suited for the role as your class president. In fact, I believe myself to be better doing something more constructive in the way of destructive….like burning things.” Smolder paused for a moment, looking around with a guilty expression. “Instead, I believe there is some other creature that will be far more capable to lead the school.”
A chorus of shouts came up:
“We don’t want some creature to lead us!”
“Yeah, we want whatever we can think of to make this place better than our home!”
“Yeah, if we lived here, we’d be at school by now!”
Smolder repeated herself to get the auditorium to calm down, “Please, I assure you that this creature will be better to lead the school’s student government.”
The students didn’t calm themselves. However, as Headmare Starlight trotted to the podium at the center of the stage, she called the room to order, “Students, please settle down. I know this is a sudden and unprecedented moment, but it still calls for us to be our best selves.” The students did manage to calm themselves as she spoke. “Now, in accordance with our school’s charter, which still happens to be missing, when a class president steps down, the candidate with the second most votes takes leadership.”
Ocellus smiled as she made her way to stand next to Smolder. She cleared her throat and began to speak, “I thank you all for your understanding, and I can’t wait to help lead this school to a brighter future. We shall do so together, with both honesty an-”
Headmare Starlight interrupted, “However, Ocellus is disqualified due to her bursting into my office the other day without permission.”
“I….what?” the changeling’s expression dropped.
“It’s in the charter,” Gallus spoke up from the front row. “Any student that trespasses into any faculty office or space without permission from said faculty is subject to punishment. This is in accordance with….”
Starlight glared at Gallus, “You still have the charter? Gallus, you better give it back to me!”
“I’m still reading it!” he called back.
As the two continued their shouting match, Ocellus’ was stunned, “You mean….I can’t be class president because of….a technicality?”
“Seems that way….though I don’t know whatever that last word you used was,” Smolder commented.
Headmare Starlight stopped her shouting and continued to address the student body, “Anyway, with Smolder resigning and Ocellus disqualified, our third place candidate will take hold of the office. And, with a single vote, that would be….Silverstream. Wow, really?”
In the front row, the pink hippogriff stood up and cheered, “Yayyy!”
“Friend Silverstream was running?” Yona asked with puzzlement.
Silverstream turned to answer, “Nope! I thought every creature was writing their names and turning them in!”
“Somehow, I believe that,” Gallus snarked.
“Today,” Silverstream loudly proclaimed, “the halls shall run red with the blood of my enemies!”
Sandbar’s ears perked up, “Wait, what enemies?
With a frustrated sigh, Starlight spoke up. Her words were sharp, “You know what, forget it. No more student government. It was very obvious from the start who was the most qualified student for the job of class president. The lot of you were just absolutely stupid with your votes. I mean….come on!” Another frustrated noise came from the unicorn. “No class president, no student government. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: democracy simply doesn’t work. Now go back to your classes.”
The auditorium of students all stood up and started to talk amongst themselves as they filed out of the room. On the stage, Starlight stormed off to the side of the stage, leaving a baffled Ocellus next to Smolder.
The dragon turned to look at her friend, “A pretty crazy week, huh?”