//------------------------------//
// Chapter 55: Second Day of Class 
// Story: Marshmallow Dreams 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

Meadow did wake up before we returned, and she did get flustered that we were all missing when she woke. She said her first thought had been that she had overslept and no one had woken her up. Thoughts quickly followed that something was wrong with Sunflower's stitches that caused us to run her to the hospital. Finally, her thoughts had shifted to we were playing some sort of joke on her. She was not happy when we returned to the room.

Nightscape and Ashley made the excuse that Sunflower needed some air, and the rest of us had just happened to be up already and felt no need to wake Meadow up. The green pegasus accepted this excuse with some skepticism, but went to work immediately afterward checking Sunflower's bandages.

Nightscape and I headed out to breakfast before everyone else since we were the only one with an eight in the morning class that day, while the rest of our friends started at nine. It turned out that Nightscape and I both had astronomy. The night pony wasn't thrilled about having a morning class, but started this was the first science class that had come available for her lab science credit that didn't have a lab scheduled in the middle of the afternoon when she would typically be sleeping. 

Remembering what I was told about the Warden of Order, I ate three servings of breakfast. I also stowed some bagels in my saddlebag. I had no plans to go hungry while he interviewed me. Nightscape watched me with an amused look in her eye, but didn't say anything about my eating. Our meal only had occasional strings of conversation to break the silence, mostly involving school. 

"Alright, Marshmallow, time for us to get going," Nightscape announced. "Physical and arcane sciences building is on the far end of campus. Don't want to be late."

My ears perked up. "Arcane sciences? What do they teach in those classes?"

Nightscape grabbed her tray with her wings. "I assume magic, but I don't know specifics. Do you see a horn on my head? There aren't many of those classes—it's an art school, after all, not a magic school. You won't see Harry Potter running to class here."

"Harry who?"

"Fictional human wizard character from a series of books thirty or forty years ago," Nightscape explained. "My dad always references him whenever he says he doesn't understand some magic. Nighty, who do you think I look like? Harry Potter?"

"Oh, never heard of it. It sounds like an obscure literary reference," I replied and gathered up my tray. 

Nightscape hopped down from her chair, tray still perfectly balanced in her wings. "Eh, a lot of the old fiction involving magic dropped off the face of the Earth after ETS. These days you only hear about the big classics like The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz, Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland, but there used to be thousands and thousands of stories."

I couldn't answer her back with my tray in my mouth, but I had heard of those ones. Alice in Wonderland was my favorite book because it was weird, creative, and embraced nonsense. I hadn't read any of the others. Maybe I should read The Lord of the Rings since everybody else in my friend group seemed to have read it but me, and Ghadab supposedly liked it a lot. I didn't want to feel left out by the references.

After leaving the cafeteria, we saw a small commotion where animal control was trying to catch the still very loose and still very aggressive peacock. They were using fishing nets, but the bird wouldn't hold still as it spread its large feathers and charged one person after another. A few students were standing just out of range of what was going on, filming the entire thing with their phones. 

Nightscape eyed the commotion warily. "Think you can fly with your saddlebag?"

I gave a little hop to show the bag didn't weigh much. I wasn't carrying any textbooks at the moment. "Sure."

"Can you safely land with your saddlebag?" she asked. 

"Uh—are there going to be a lot of people around the building, and does it have some nice soft grass next to it?" I asked as I flexed my wings. 

"It does have some grass near it, and there shouldn't be that many students around the building this time of day," Nightscape replied. "Does that mean you're good to fly?"

"Yep!" I said proudly. "Lead the way, my senior classmate!"

"I'm only about two years older than you!" Nightscape snapped verbally before physically snapping her wings open and flapping them. "Come on. Follow me so we can avoid the big bird."

I took off after her, only wobbling a little. "Are you afraid of large birds?"

"No…I got knocked senseless by a swan when I was a filly and have just been a little cautious around large birds since then," she replied without looking back at me. 

"That sounds like you are afraid of large birds," I replied. "It's okay.  Everybody's afraid of something."

"I am not afraid. I am cautious!" Nightscape snapped. She then headed in for a landing near a building, and I followed. 

As we neared our landing site, I tried to slow myself down and put my landing gear—legs—in position. Nightscape landed perfectly in the grass, but not so much me. Really, it was kinda just physics. I was big and bulky, and that meant I had more mass. The higher the mass in motion, the more it takes to slow it down and stop it. However, there was this helpful thing called the ground that is much bigger than me and has much more mass, and is enough to bring me to a complete stop, just not a clean one. 

"Ouchie, my poor legs," I whined as they took the brunt of the impact. I didn't do any tumbles or rolls, so it was more or less a perfect landing, but it still hurt. 

"You may be a cruddy flier, but that landing hurting you was completely the fault of your lard. You need to stop eating multiple servings during every meal," Nightscape chastised. "I'm supposed to look out for you. Am I going to have to start rationing your food?"

"Twilight Sparkle eats lots and lots of food," I said in my defense. 

Nightscape glared at me. "Twilight Sparkle is constantly adventuring—which burns calories, regularly performs mighty feats of magic—which burns more calories, and is an alicorn—which means she has the most efficient and effective metabolism you can get. You aren't an adventurer. Your magic—while different, isn't really powerful. It is also pretty obvious you aren't an alicorn and don't even have a remote chance of becoming one. So comparing yourself to her is not a valid argument."

"But she's got nothing on my dance moves," I said as I shook my rump. 

Nightscape didn't seem impressed, and she started walking to the building. "Come on. If you can do that, your legs can't hurt too much to walk."

The physical and arcane science building was like all the others in that it had murals related to the town's history. These murals depicted people harvesting the trees' wood after the Cataclysm, people in industry building things, medical doctors. When we entered the building, there was a statue sitting inside the lobby.

"Hey! That's a statue of my friend!" I exclaimed as I looked at it. 

"Doctor Middleton?" Nightscape asked. 

"Yeah, I didn't know they had a statue of her," I answered. 

"Well, this building's proper name is the Middleton Science Center, though no one calls the building that," Nightscape replied. 

"Does she teach here?" I asked. I wouldn't mind having a class with my friend as the teacher. 

"I believe she's fourteen, so no, that would be against child labor laws or something," Nightscape replied. "She wouldn't teach here anyway, even if she could. She'd want to be somewhere with a big, well-funded, and prestigious physics department, not an art school. She's just the most famous scientist to come from the area since she discovered a law of physics, so they named it after her. Come on. We need to get to class. Look at the pretty pictures and statues later."

Most of the rooms had nice plaques saying what they were used for. The room we went to didn't have a plaque; it had a written sheet of paper on the door that said Astronomy Room and Lab.

Inside, the room was very dim. About half the class had already arrived. There weren't any sort of decorations. There were lab tables, with stools in front of each table, and those seemed to be where everyone was supposed to sit. I didn't see much of any equipment. There were some cardboard boxes piled in a corner, along with a telescope, but nothing out at the lab tables. 

"Looks like the professor hasn't fully moved in yet," Nightscape muttered. She then led us to an empty lab table near the middle of the room, and we took our seats there. 

Over the next five minutes, more students filtered in, along with the professor—a red-furred, purple-maned, night pony mare with a telescope for a mark. She went to the front of the class and tossed her saddlebag on the desk, and then went and checked the cardboard boxes. The mare checked the time and then hurried to the front of the class. 

"Morning, students! Welcome to the great big universe of astronomy!" the professor said happily as she mounted the desk to be better seen. "I'm professor Scarlet Moon. Technically, it is Scarlet Eclipse, but call me Professor Moon, it’s just easier for professional stuff if I use my maiden name."

She paced around the desk as she continued. "Sorry, there isn't much set up yet. I got this classroom a week ago and thought there would be some actual astronomy equipment when they told me this was the astronomy lab. Kinda my fault for assuming that an art school had a big budget for astronomy, but oh well, no sweat. We'll make it work."

I looked around. They must not have any budget for astronomy. 

"Now, I know none of you are planning on being professional astronomers since this is an art school and all, but I hope that by the end of this course, you’ll all have a little more love for all the stuff up in the night sky and that maybe you’ll even get some new inspiration from it," Professor Moon continued happily. 

She paused and pursed her lips. "So now onto the important stuff like the qualifications I’m supposed to be sharing… Well, I have a master's degree in astronomy from the University of Colorado, and I was one of the first ponies from Earth to get to study Equestria's stars, which was pretty cool. We'll mostly be focused on Earth's astronomy, but we'll talk about Equestria's astronomy a little. What's the same, what's different, that sort of stuff. It might sound a little boring, but trust me, I’ll do my best to make it interesting for you all."

That did sound interesting. I would be seeing those Equestrian stars in about a month, so I would have some first-hoof experience to work with. 

"So, as you all probably read from the course description, this class has a mandatory lab portion. Labs are going to be a little different in this class compared to some of the others you might have taken before," Professor Moon explained. "We need to get a good look at the stars, and we need to do it with as little light pollution as possible. Right now, we are dead center in the middle of a city with a giant set of trees obscuring part of our vision of the sky. Now I’m an optimist and try my best to make the most of any situation, but that simply won't do for our needs. With that in mind, some lab sessions will be shortened and some extended. The extended ones will involve field trips to places where we can have a better view, and I've marked the schedules for those on your syllabus."

A human raised a hand. "How late are we talking for the extended sessions? They’re normally supposed to be just an hour."

"Our labs will usually be three or four hours," Professor Moon replied. "If that is going to clash with your schedule in any way, you'll need to either take a different class, or we'll work out a separate arrangement on weekends for those that can't make it. The trade-off is you should only have a lab about once a month instead of every week, and I’ll try and be as flexible as I can."

"How are we getting to these places for field trips?" an earth pony stallion asked. 

"Bus," the professor replied. "The school agreed to it, and they have several buses and bus drivers available. This was all written out in the class description, and I am willing to work with students who are having trouble attending."

I raised a wing. "Professor, I have a week-long trip to Equestria next month. Can I use that for one of my labs?"

Professor Moon blinked. "We can discuss that in private after class, Miss…"

"Riddle, ma'am."

The professor nodded. "Miss Riddle. Go ahead and see me after class, and we'll discuss that."

"You're what?!" Nightscape whispered harshly to me. "When were you going to tell me this?"

"No personal discussions while I am talking to the class, please," Professor Moon called out in response to Nightscape's whisper. "Trust me, I don't want to be that kind of professor, but I need you focused on me when I'm talking. You'll have some time to talk later, and I’ll try not to be too long."

Nightscape grimaced and gave me a dirty look. I shrank into my seat a little. 

First class continued more or less like most of the other first classes. This professor didn't require a textbook, but was adamant we be ready to take notes each day. She said she would have plenty of visual aids and would be sharing those all online for reference. We went over the syllabus, and she dismissed early. 

"What's this about a trip to Equestria?" Nightscape demanded as soon as class was dismissed. 

"I just found out last night, and we didn't get much time to talk this morning," I replied. 

"You could have told me over breakfast," she snapped. 

"I forgot," I said. My eyes went wide. "Oh no! I forgot my birth control pills this morning."

A couple of close by students heard me and snickered. Nightscape was not impressed. "Birth control pills? You suddenly change your mind and decide you're going to bed someone this weekend?"

I shook my head and sagged my ears. "No, but I promised my mom I wouldn't forget."

"Forgetful about a lot of things today, aren't you?" Nightscape asked as she glared. She then softened her expression and sighed. "We'll talk about it tonight, along with anything else you might have forgotten. I'm going back to the room. Remember, you have a meeting after you leave here."

I spoke with Professor Moon for a few minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't have exact dates for when I would be in Equestria, only that it would be at the end of next month. She stated that she would probably have me observe and look for certain things in the Equestrian night sky, but would have to wait to give me a list until after I gave her dates and she had time to draw up a plan. 

After leaving class, I looked around and wondered how I was supposed to find the OMMR guys or if they would somehow know where to find me. Nightscape hadn't explained that to me. I walked out of the building and wondered what I should be doing. 

"Hi, Rebecca. You look lost. Need some help?" I heard a familiar voice say. 

Russell walked over to me, and I gave him a smile. "Some people were supposed to meet me after I finished my class just now, but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to find them. How are you doing? Going to class?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, on my way to botany. My mom insisted that I take that for my lab science elective—she's an earth pony, so it's kinda a near-and-dear subject for her. It doesn't impact my degree, other than needing an elective lab science, so I signed up for it this time around. What did you just finish up?"

"Astronomy," I replied. 

"Huh, I didn't even know we had astronomy classes here," he replied. 

I looked back at the building. "I think it is super new. The room isn't set up, and it had a written label on the door. We're going to have a lot of field trips, so that's cool."

"Makes sense. Hard to see the whole sky with those in the way," Russell replied as he pointed to the trees of the monument, which did indeed obscure the view of the sky in their direction. 

"Rebecca Riddle?" 

I turned to see a human man and woman in dark business suits walking over to me. Those looked like the people I was expecting. 

"That's me!" I said and gave a little hop. 

The pair pulled out badges. "I am agent Huxley and thus is agent Dred. We're with the OMMR," the woman said as she put her badge away. "We would like you to come in for questioning."

"You guys got a warrant or something?" Russell asked skeptically. 

The Agent Dred pulled out a piece of paper. "Actually, we have a warrant, and she is sure to be fined. The amount of the fine still to be determined. She will be free to go after questioning to determine how much she should be fined or if further punishment is needed. If full criminal charges get levied then the police will show up with that warrant."

My eyes went wide. "Warrant?! Fine!? Fine for what?"

Dred looked at the paper in his hand. "Violation of dreamwalking code four-point-three-two— dissemination of private information obtained while in a partial or full dream state without prior authorization by the party which was the source of said private information as per requirement. Event witnessed by the Dreamwardens Arbiter, Yinyu Wu Yan, and Ghadab last night at one-thirteen in the morning eastern standard time. Perpetrator will be questioned about possible further violations. Fines ranging from twenty-five dollars to five thousand dollars may be levied, temporary or permanent suspension of ability, and the violator may or may not be turned over to courts for criminal trial if the violation is determined to have a substantial negative impact on the victim."

One in the morning last night? I was asleep in bed last night, talking to my parents and Luna around that time. Oh crap, did I tell them something I wasn't supposed to because I hadn't asked permission to? I doubted that they'd lock me up for that, but they'd fine me for sure. I didn't have my own income yet, since the foalsitting job started tomorrow and I hadn't been paid yet. That meant my parents would have to pay the fine for me. This was all an excuse to have a legitimate reason for picking me up like this, but there was a good chance the fine was real. Mom was going to be peeved with me.

"I know what this is about, it's okay. This will be a small fine, but I made a boo-boo," I glumly told Russell. "I'll catch up with you later. Thanks for talking to me."

He seemed confused about what was happening still. "Okay, well, if you say everything will be alright, I'll believe ya. Hope everything goes well."

I was getting ready to go see the Warden of Order and he was arranging the meeting by arresting me. Not the best way to start a conversation.