"We've noticed you." Snails was watching Dry pointedly. "Always hanging out with the mares."
"Yeah." Snips made as if to spit. He just forgot to actually spit outside of making the noise. "They're always, um, paying attention to you."
"And we've had it." Snails stomped the ground with an angry snort. Against a lot of colts, his anger would not work so well, but he could see Dry was cowering in fear. It was working! It was finally working! "And it's not just us."
"Nuh uh." Snips glanced left and right. "They're hidin'." He meant they were too cowardly to face Dry, but that sounded much better, and is what he remembered. "But they're watching, the other colts."
"They're watching you, not the other colts." Snails rolled his eye as if to be clear on that point. "So cut it out!"
Dry raised a hoof, shaking as it was. "Did I do something wrong?"
This question seemed to catch Snails off guard. "Oh, um... no?"
Snails bopped his teammate. "Traitor!"
"What?" Snails inclined his head slowly. "He seems nice."
Dry smiled at the dopey but rapidly nice-seeming pony. "I'd rather be friends if I have the choice."
"See?" Snails pointed. "They don't wanna fight."
Snips applied a hoof to his face. "I give up." His grand plan, ruined. He sulked back to his chair to sink on it and frown with appropriate rancor.
Snails was on the other hoof, inspecting Dry. "Your hair is neat." He reached up and patted the fluffy but more Equestrian-like mane that Dry had. "I like it." He giggled, easily amused.
Dry joined in the giggle, unused to such attention from another colt, but it wasn't a bad sort of attention. "I'm a ghost pony. Hi!"
"Hello. I'm a unicorn." Snails pointed up to his horn for demonstration. "They say I'm good at unicornininining." He stuttered that word despite being good at it. "Are you good at ghosting?"
Dry lifted a hoof to his chin. "I never thought of it like that. I think I am. Hiding is my specialty."
Snails clapped with approval. "That's great! Can you show me?"
"Okay!" Dry dashed out of the schoolhouse.
Snails looked around slowly at the Ghost pony-less area. "Wow... He's good."
Snips threw an eraser at his slow friend. "He went outside, dummy. Bet he's hiding out there."
"Oh." Snails went outside sedately, not at all upset for drawing Snips' anger. The outside world was much larger than inside. "Where are you hiding?" He looked under pots and buckets, then under a chair and a startled mare, but no Dry Whisper at all. "I told you he's good..."
"Right here!" Dry pounced free of some bushes, knocking Snails over with a happy giggle. "I was ghosting."
"That was good ghosting." Despite being knocked over, snails remained calm as he sat up. "Want to see me?"
"Yes, please." Dry had only heard rumors of how unicorns worked. "What sort of unicorn tricks do you have?"
"I can do this." Snails willed over several plastic shovels that twirled over his head slowly, but faster by the moment. "I can do more." He casually grabbed a rock in his magic, sending it spinning with the shovels in a dance. "Unicorninining!"
"Wow!" Dry was applauding the display with big claps. "That's amazing! Unicorn tricks are hey!" He lifted from the ground, joining the toys in their spinning. "Hey! Please put me down!" And suddenly he dropped along with everything else as Snails just dropped them all. "Ow."
"You alright?" It was as if Snails just didn't understand why that might have hurt Dry. "Are you mad?"
"No..." Dry sat up, rubbing where he bumped his head. "More surprised. That's amazing that you can throw me around with all that stuff, but please don't do that again unless I ask."
"Okay." An easy request, Snails bobbed his head. "Don't surprise me again. I don't like surprises."
Dry offered a hoof. "Deal." They met with a clop of hooves in solidarity to not turn their tribal gifts on the other without pre-warning. "It's nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too." Snails inclined his head. "Is it?"
"It is!" His first coltish friend was a special thing. "It's hard to make friends with other colts. Any tricks?"
"Oh, um..." Snails seemed to consider that gravely a moment. "Have you tried saying hi?"
Dry sank to his haunches. "Huh..." He hadn't exactly done that, exactly... "I'll try that. You're full of good ideas." He was clever enough to know that Snails likely didn't mean that to be all that clever, but Snails didn't really seem that kind of pony. "Thank you."
"You're welcome! We should go to class." He started towards the inside. "I hate taking notes," he got out in more of a suffering whine.
"Notes aren't hard." Dry coiled on himself and pulled out the previous day's notes, showing them to Snails. "See?"
"Wow..." Snails looked over the writing with wide eyes. "You wrote all of this?"
"Every single word." Dry found his hooves were sticking a bit more on command, so he carefully flipped to the next page. "And I'll do it today too. Do you want to see them after class?"
"Can I? Wow... Most ponies say I'm being lazy when I ask about that."
"You're not lazy." Slow, sure... But Dry didn't get lazy feelings from Snails. "If you want to go over what we learned, I'd be alright with that. It'll help me learn, too."
Snails applauded in celebration. "Thanks!" But he hurried right into class, lest he get in trouble for being late.
Dry followed him back inside and hopped into his seat. He took extra good notes that day. He was writing for two ponies!
"Luminace is kind." Silver was guiding Dry along. "And so are you. I saw you sharing notes with a colt, and you weren't even asking anything for it."
Dry blinked at the idea. Wait, he could have asked for something?! But he dropped the idea quickly. "Snails isn't very good at writing, but I am, so I thought I'd share with him. I think he wants to learn."
"We all, like, want to learn. We're just not all good at it." Silver smiled as she walked. "And you helped him get closer. Luminace is super happy with you!"
Dry went red at the idea. "A god is happy with me?"
"Well, I am, and I'm her priest, so I think she would be too." Silver turned in place. "In fact, she's so happy I have a gift for you."
"You do?!" Silver pressed something against his surprised hoof and he turned it upwards for a look. There, dangling from the end of his hoof, was a silver Luminace charm. "Oooo, it's perfect." He hung the holy symbol around his neck and danced with naked joy. "Now I look the part!"
Silver casually brushed her own chain into view with a smile. "I have one too, so we match. Now we can be library buddies."
"Ooo!" Dry had red enough to know about those. "We will help each other study?"
"Yes." Silver paused, but it turned into laughter. "Meanie! I thought I'd be your first, but you have a library buddy already."
"I do?" Dry looked around as if that'd reveal it. "Who?"
Silver booped the extra-dimensional pony. "Snails? He's relying on you to help him learn. Sounds like a library buddy to me. Now, you and me? It'll work different. We're peers. We'll help each other learn things on the same level, like... get it?"
"Peers, got..." He raised a brow at Silver as if getting something for the first time. "Are you asking for my help to study or to court me?"
Silver went red quickly. "W-what?! You should..." She turned away from him, hiding her face as she danced impotently.
He grinned softly. In at least one way, Everglow foals knew which way was up. "I am very flattered and accept."
"Wait, what?" She turned back on him, looking dizzy as if the turning knocked it out of her. "What are you accepting?"
"Your courting me." Dry nodded softly. "I am ready."
Silver sank back onto her haunches. "B-but..." It had happened all too quickly! She was the one that made the first move, and he noticed, and instead of running or pouncing her, he had... accepted her courting?! "Do you even have parents?"
"None that you will meet, I bet." Dry tilted his head. "So you only have to convince me. I look forward to meeting yours when you think the time is right."
"You are way too calm!" Silver threw her hooves up at the situation. "You fear everything but this? This you're just accepting?"
Dry leaned closer to the upset filly. "You are an upperclass filly. I am nervous that you picked me, but you did. It is my job—" He patted himself on the chest. "To be courted properly. I didn't think anyone would court me. This is exciting." He danced in place with a giggle.
Silver set a hoof on her head. "I need to take, like, a break." And she wandered away without another word.
They did not leave Dry alone for long. Diamond came up snickering. "Wow... Just wow." She shook her head at Dry slowly. "You've got some real nerves doing that. If I didn't know you were harmless, I'd already be ringing you dry."
Backing up a step, Dry swallowed nervously. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Not yet." Diamond raised a brow. "But I bet you would if I don't step in. Want some advice?"
"Please?" Dry inclined his head. "Are there more steps I do not know? I only know the ghost pony ways, and they are not your ways." That much seemed clear. "But I want to do it right. She made the first move, didn't she?"
"She did." Diamond was smiling way too much. "But reminding her will just make her embarrassed, so stop doing that. Step one! Her parents. Your parents are off on another world." Diamond waved a hoof in the air in a fluttering. "Hers are not. In fact, they are over there." Diamond pointed to Silver's house with a soft snort. "You will have to visit and say hi. You will want to be decently dressed for that."
"I'm not already?" Dry was dressed as a student, which wasn't very well. He had a backpack on, and his holy symbol and not much else. Like the Equestrian ponies, he had picked up a few habits of wearing clothes every day. "What kind of dress?"
"Not a literal dress. That'd be funny." Diamond imagined Dry in various frilly dresses, all fitting poorly on his form. "I want to see that.. But no! You have to dress up fancy, like us." She reached up and primped her mane and the tiara that rested on it. "I'll lend a hoof. I care about her, which means I want you to succeed and not embarrass her."
Dry didn't resist Diamond's advance. He was walking with her as she ensnared him with a leg and got to hiking. "Thank you for showing me. Equestria is a strange world, but it has some nice things in it. I think she might be one of them."
Diamond whistled softly as she went. "Wow, there you go. You sure she's chasing you?" She nudged against Dry. "Look, just don't take my friend away. You two want to be lovebirds, fine, whatever, just don't shove me out in the process." She raised a brow. "I'm still trained with mind magic and I will use it if I think you're taking my place. Capiche?"
"I do not know that word." This did not stop him from piecing together the meaning in general. "I will not try to scare away any of her friends like you. You make her happy, and I like you, too. Um, besides, you feed me every day!"
"Glad you didn't forget." She squeezed his trapped neck on the way. There was so much to teach.