Sweet Sauce was barely even aware of the next few hours—the entire next day, really. Expending additional effort unnecessarily was his least favorite thing. On the other hand, letting other ponies believe things about him that weren't true was a state that was all too easy to settle into. The mares were well-meaning, but not terribly inquisitive.
They wanted him to drop his strange admission, and not hold them to their promise of helping him. So let them think that he'd been convinced. Of course, it was just a matter of accepting that he couldn't change the past and moving on. He could be a better pony, that was all.
Still, he slept better that night in the home of real ponies, instead of a municipal care office. They might not have helped him in any meaningful way, but Vinyl could play music like nopony in Equestria. And Octavia wasn't a bad cook. Nothing as good as he was, but he had to keep his expectations reasonable.
He didn't sneak out of the bedroom in the middle of the night to try and steal the bits right then and there. Temping as it might be to get his mission underway as quickly as possible, plausibility was just as important.
The longer he let them think he had peacefully integrated into this family, the less carefully they would watch him. He needed to do more than steal a few bits—he needed the train station to sell a ticket to a foal. He needed to be able to board a train without being stopped. Once that happened, it would be a simple matter of following another group, and pretending long enough to make it up through the city.
A city he knew nothing about, that had been a backwater mining colony up in the mountains. Less obscure than Motherlode perhaps, but only by centrality.
That was what separated Sweet from an actual foal. He could be rational long enough to realize his true goals needed more time. He could wait.
Begrudgingly, perhaps. But he could wait. He could sleep.
The next morning came, with another blast of music. Pretty good music, so he didn't mind being woken up. Besides—he could've been cold and lonely in an old castle, so maybe this wasn't so bad.
Octavia was already gone by the time he made it down, off to some performance somewhere, so it was just Vinyl with him while they had breakfast. "I think you'll love Miss Cheerilee," she said, as soon as his mouth was full of sugary cereal and couldn't defend himself. "Everypony says she's one of the best schoolteachers in Equestria. She gives ponies the personal attention they need."
"I don't need school," he said, as soon as he'd managed to swallow. The shock was bad enough that he'd nearly dropped the spoon. "I already forgot more than anypony there could teach me."
"Someone's sure of themselves," she said. "That's great, maybe you're like... a prodigy. Everypony's good at something." She took one glance at where his cutie mark would've been, but of course there was nothing there. That was one part of himself that could not be easily given back. I'll get it, I've been through this before.
Bodies aged, and replacing old ones was just part of the process. He would endure it again if he had to. And make sure he got the next one right, instead of depending on runes and hedge-magic for an entire lifetime.
"I mean it," he said. "I don't need school. I'm an expert."
Vinyl grinned at him. Her horn glowed, and the music blasting through the kitchen dimmed to something that let him think straight. A disappointment, really. He didn't want to think. "If that's true, then tell me. Who won last year's aerial relay in the Equestria Games?"
His mouth fell open. "Sports trivia? I wasn't here, I don't know that!"
The unicorn clicked her tongue. "Okay, how about... history then. Why was Nightmare Moon imprisoned? Who fought her when she returned, and how did they win?"
Nothing came, of course. Nightmare Moon. He'd caught that name before, in passing. It carried with it enough context to guess at who they were talking about. "What happened to Princess Luna?" he asked, meeting her eyes. "Why would she resort to forbidden summoning again?"
"That's the kind of thing you'll learn in class," Vinyl said. "Besides, didn't you make some friends in Ponyville? They'll want to see you again. I heard Honeydew say that Pipsqueak and Dinky really liked you."
Maybe one of them, because she'd never been taught how to use her powers in her entire life. But he resisted the urge to say anything uncharitable. For better or worse, those little ponies had risked themselves on one of his mad quests. That gave them some leeway with him that other ponies wouldn't enjoy.
"I would learn just as well from a book," he said obstinately. "Where I came from, we had this thing called... homeschool? I don't exactly know how it worked—but I can tell from the name it involved going to school at home. I think they sent students back with books, and every few days they'd get graded? I can guide my own learning. And graduate at my own pace."
"Graduate," Vinyl chuckled. "Graduate from your cereal, Sweet. How about this—you go today, see how class works out. Maybe it'll be great! You don't know it won't."
"I don't know how many compactified dimensions are in the space on my muzzle, either. The math says six, but I can't observe them anymore. I only have my memory of being able to observe them. But that was so long ago I'm not even sure it was real. Maybe I just think I remember."
Vinyl rolled her eyes, then stood. "Are you done already?"
He answered that by descending on the food again. Milk and cereal—it could almost be another day back home. Except that on this side, the cows actually worked at their farms, instead of being relatively dumb animals.
How many of them did I eat?
He put that thought away as quickly as he could, emptying out the bowl. He nearly dropped it in his attempt to get it to the sink—using his mouth wasn't ever going to be as easy as magic.
He could keep trying, though. Until he wasn't trapped as a stupid too-small pony anymore. This might be my last lifetime. The judgement could be death.
He would take it, over dealing with another summer in New Mexico.
Next thing he knew, and he was back on the streets of Ponyville. Not just to run away—against a unicorn as skilled as Vinyl, that was doomed. So he trudged along, going as slow as he thought he could get away with.
That worked for a few minutes, until he felt a sudden pressure, levitating him right off the ground and onto her back. "Okay, no more dragging your hooves. Class time."
He groaned. "That's the real waste of time, Vinyl. I should be teaching the class, not attending it. And I did—the castle had a whole wing for touring scholars, and I gave lectures sometime. Nopony in all Equestria knew more about the Johnson-Tanaka dimensional field equations. I'd give a practical demonstration, but Equestria can't bear to part with a talent like yours."
Vinyl didn't slow down. Even worse, it seemed the schoolhouse was out in the same direction as their home. He would have only moments to try and think of another way out.
There were some ideas—if he could get back onto the ground, he might be able to trick Vinyl into empowering some dangerous rune or another, maybe create an illusion that would chase her off.
But all that would undermine his hiding-place, and maybe place him under more security. More importantly, it would be an awful lot of effort.
He knew he was running out of time when the sound of giggling children replaced the morning hum of insects and the gentle murmur of wind in the trees. A few had already seen him—he was doomed.
They reached the fence, and he clambered off her back without prompting. The indignity of his position was only marginally worse than having to suffer through an entire day of class designed for a foal.
Yet the teacher wasn't here yet, so the other students were just playing outside. Another opportunity for escape, perhaps?
"I'll be here after class," Vinyl said, settling her sunglasses down over her eyes. "We can talk about how it went, ‘kay? I think you'll like it."
Without having said a word, Dinky was already making her way over. Subtly, but she'd left her little game behind. He caught a few other whispers from the other students—though he didn't care enough about what they thought to actually listen.
"Sure," he said. "You've made up your mind, so I guess this is where I'll be. I'll try not to get lost."
She waved, but that was all. She was just a foster parent, after all, one he'd only met the day before.
"You're not leaving?" Dinky was the first one to actually approach him. The other foals seemed to be sizing him up—though the older ones, with cutie marks of their own, had mostly lost interest. But Ditzy watched, and Pipsqueak wasn't far behind.
"There was no execution," he said, sounding as defeated as he could manage. "No judgement, nothing. I'm still here."
"I just thought you lived somewhere else." She levitated something through the air in front of her, settling it down on the fence ahead of him. Just a rock, yet... the proud grin on her face might as well stretch from one end of Ponyville to the other. "I practiced."
"I can see that." He didn't have to fake his smile back. "I've met a lot of failures, Miss Dinky. More often than not, they're not bad ponies, they're not incompetent. They're ponies who have been let down. You might have a real talent, but how would you know without somepony to show you? I wish you a lifetime of study."
"Told you he sounded like that," Pipsqueak said—to the assembled foals. "Fanciest colt you ever heard."
He shrugged one shoulder. "I've been called worse. Deserved it more, too." He looked out on the little crowd, and caught a sneer from a pair in the corner.
One whispered to the other, loud enough that he couldn't possibly fail to overhear. "That's a fancy pony? He looks like he doesn't even bathe."
"Probably not," agreed her silver friend. "He doesn't even have a bookbag. What is he going to study, anyway?"
Sweet Sauce gave them almost a full second of his attention, wondering what he would have to do to appropriately humiliate them. But that thought lasted far less time than infatuation with Vinyl's music, and he turned away just as swiftly. He was too old to care about schoolyard drama. Let the foals think what they wanted.
"If you want to keep learning, I could make a few more suggestions for you," he said to Dinky, as though he hadn't heard a word. "You've already proven yourself under pressure. Most ponies would crumble, but you made it through the Everfree. You fought timberwolves." And killed dozens of them, but let's not give you nightmares you don't need.
"You'd do that?" she asked, nudging him in the shoulder with a hoof. "There's more?"
"Wait, Dinky! He's gonna ask for something. Don't make any promises."
The door opened, and an earth pony mare emerged from inside. Exactly the kind he'd imagined with a name like "Cheerilee." Even her cutie mark was saccharin. "Come inside, class! We've got an exciting day ahead!"
"No promises this time. But I'm stuck here, and I'm bored. At lunch, maybe. But no pressure—I don't mind doing nothing."
He trudged his way inside, somehow ending up at the back of the line. He really was trapped here, at least for the day. If I can survive the Draconic Invasion, I'll make it through one day of pony school.