It wasn’t long before the CMC actually did find us
“Are ya okay Green?” Asked Applebloom.
“I’m fine.” I said, “Pip here was just telling me something interesting that happened at the school board meeting.”
“They won’t pay for us to get new playground equipment.” Pip explained.
“Don’t say it like that.” I instructed. “The school board, headed by Diamond Tiara’s mother, is refusing to fund repairs on broken and unsafe playground equipment.”
“Aww.”
“But wait, it gets better,” I said, “Spoiled Rich said she wouldn’t listen to a runt like Pip, and that her daughter would make a much better president.”
“This all sounds bad. Why are you smiling?”
“Because Spoiled Rich is blatantly abusing her position, risking children’s safety to stroke her own ego, and she’s too arrogant and stupid to hide it.” I bared my teeth. “And I’m going to bring the wrath of the princesses down on her head.”
I felt my hooves shaking slightly as I paced.
“First I’m going to talk to Applejack, then I’ll write a letter to Luna, then I’ll go talk to Twilight.” I said. “Then I’ll talk to my social worker so foal services are aware of the situation. I’ll follow up with Luna in my dreams. Then tomorrow I’m going to start figuring out communicating with more parents of children in the class -”
“Don’cha think yer taking this a bit far?” Asked Applebloom.
My hooves began to shake more.
“I’m going to destroy her if it’s the last thing I do.” I spat. “She’s a fucking sociopathic monster. Bullying a little colt in front of the whole school board. I can see where Diamond gets it from.”
“Green, yer-”
“She can’t keep getting away with this!” I cut Applebloom off, “I’m going to get every one of those other fucking assholes too, that stood there and let her do this. I’m going to make sure they can never do this to anypony again.”
I was surprised when Applebloom grabbed my shakilly gesturing forehooves.
“Green,” she said softly, “Yer shakin’ like a leaf. Why don’t we go back ta the house?”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to kick Spoiled in her smug face.
I took a deep breath, held it, and then exhaled.
“Ok, let’s go.”
“What should I do?” Asked Pip
“Go back ta the clubhouse and tell the other’s that Ah found Green and she’s okay.”
When I got back to the house I went back up to my room to plan out what I was going to do to take down Spoiled Rich. I’d have to learn more about the situation before I moved against her openly, but discussing it with Applejack and Luna seemed like a good first step. Ideally Luna would fly down from Canterlot and go medieval on the spoiled wannabe noble, but it seemed unlikely that she would be so rash.
I spent my time trying to come up with the letter I would write to her, but I was hampered by my inability to write it down. I’d have to ask Applejack if I could dictate the letter to her. I tried to read some of my books but I couldn’t focus, ideas for how best to explain the situation to Applejack and predictions for how she might respond kept popping into my head.
Dinner was a vegetable lasagna which was a bit too firm to eat with just a fork. Coordinating my hoof grip in both hooves simultaneously to grip the knife and fork was a bit frustrating, but I managed to avoid asking for help with cutting my food.
I waited for the right time to bring up the school board situation, but it never quite seemed to fit. I decided for a more oblique approach.
“I want to write a letter to Princess Luna.” I said.
“Oh?” Asked Applejack, “Do ya want ta thank her for helping find you in the forest?”
“I’ve discovered corruption and malfeasance by a member of the school board and I want to bring it to her attention.” I explained.
“What do ya mean by that?” Asked Applejack.
“Spoiled Rich is withholding funding necessary for our safety for nepotistic purposes and she verbally abused and humiliated a child merely because he won a student election in place of her daughter.” I continued my rehearsed lines.
“Sweetpea,” Applejack began, “Are ya sure about this? How did ya find out?”
“When Pipsqueak asked for funding to repair the playground equipment, which is broken and unsafe, Spoiled Rich berated him and tried to convince him that he would need to pay for it himself.” I said. “I’m not going to tolerate adults bullying children, and I’m not going to allow a pony who would endanger children to stoke their own ego to remain on the school board.”
“Swee-”
“I’m going to find out why the rest of those cowards stood by and did nothing too.” I spoke over Applejack. “Watching this kind of abuse happening right in front of them!”
My fork clattered on my plate as my hoof grip failed. I growled angrily.
After a moment of silence Applejack started speaking again.
“Ah can see why yer so worked up about this, but Ah think yer blowin’ this a mite outta proportion.” Applejack placated. “Ah’ve met with Spoiled Rich before and she’s not some monster. We can just talk ta her and sort things out.”
“So she’s good at pretending to be a decent pony. So is a sociopath.” I ground my teeth. “How would you feel if Applebloom got hurt on that dangerous play equipment just because Spoiled wants her daughter to be class president, huh? Do we have to wait until a child is seriously injured before we do something about this?”
“We mostly just don’t play on that equipment because it’s broken.” Applebloom said.
Damnit Applebloom. Stop undermining my points.
"It’s alright Sweetpea,” said Applejack, “We’ll sort this out. Just sleep on it, okay? Ah’ll talk to Cheerilee tomorrow and get ta the bottom of this.”
“Alright.” Close enough.
“This might not be tha’ best time ta tell ya, but they’ve found a care assistant that will help you at school, so ya should be ready ta go ta school in the morning.”
Since I was going to be writing a letter to a Princess tomorrow I decided it was time to open the royal etiquette book.
The book was either horribly out of date, or there was a side of Celestia’s court we hadn’t seen in the show. There were entire chapters describing the specific courtesies that one level of nobility should show to another level, but the chapter about Celestia accounted for nearly half the total pages.
A Countess is permitted to travel with seventeen retainers outside of her own lands unless it’s for the purposes of attending the court of...
I reached the end of the page, realizing that I couldn’t recall any of it.
A Countess is...
I yawned.
This book really needed an editor.
Closing the book without bothering to mark the page, I heaved a sigh. The lightswitch was all the way across the room and I’d have to get out of bed to turn it off. I imagined reaching out with my magic to flip the switch but, like before, nothing happened. Reluctantly I got out of bed.
Maybe I could ask Applejack for a bedside light. She didn’t seem to be worried about me staying up at night reading. Were lamps expensive here? They didn’t seem to need power outlets. Did they need to be recharged?
I crawled back into bed, pulling up the covers with my teeth. Tomorrow I’d research how lamps worked and...
I was going back to school tomorrow.
I didn’t feel drowsy anymore.
It was dark and I felt queasy, but I decided I wasn’t going to get any more sleep that night. I threw the covers off and rolled out of bed. I wasn’t going to let my anxiety control me.
“Good morning Granny.” I called as I entered the kitchen.
“Yer up bright and early.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
"Something on yer mind?"
"How much do you know about Spoiled Rich?" I asked.
"Ah didn't take ya fer the gossipin' type deary."
"When I report what she's done it's going to make an enemy of her." I said, "If I can figure out how she's likely to retaliate it will be easier to trap her."
"Ah can’t say I’ve ever liked the mare, hasn’t worked an honest day’s work in her life" said Granny, “But Ah don' think she would hurt a filly.”
"She was willing to use her power to humiliate Pip and verbally abuse him in public." I said. "I have an obvious weak spot since I'm an orphan so she could use her connections to try and ruin my foster placement here; that's what I'm most concerned about, or she might be the type to try and manipulate me personally, or manipulate her daughter into bullying me."
"We do a lot a' business with her family." Granny said. "Yer an Apple now an' ahm sure she knows better than ta go after one of ours."
I technically wasn't an Apple yet, but I appreciated the sentiment.
"She'll act subtly then." I said, "Or as subtle as she can manage. The way she's been acting she’s either very stupid, or she knows nopony can stop her and likes to flaunt it.”
I heard hoofsteps from the stairs and turned to see Applejack enter the kitchen.
“Mornin’ Granny,” said Applejack, “Ya look a mite angry Sweetpea, is everythin’ alright?”
“Spoiled Rich.” I said, “What can you tell me about her.”
“Well, ta be honest she’s a bit stuck up,” Applejack said, “But ah don’t think she’s evil or nothin’”
“Who are her friends?” I probed. “Who will take her side if she’s accused of wrongdoing?”
“Young Green is worried about what Spoiled Rich will do ta her once she tells on her.” Said Granny.
“Ah think ya need ta stop worryin’ yerself over things that haven’t happened yet. '' Said Applejack, “Ya should just let the adults worry about this. Ah’ll be here ta protect ya, no matter what.”
“Nopony else will take this seriously!” I stomped my hoof. “They’ll treat this as a one off incident, they won’t notice the pattern of abuse, they won’t see the psychotic glee she takes in making other ponies feel powerless and miserable, and I’ll be left watching my back waiting for the moment she senses an opportunity to stab me.”
Applejack sighed. Applebloom entered the kitchen giving enough of an excuse to break off the conversation.
"I’ll talk about it later, not now. I have to go to school this morning and I don’t want to spend all day thinking about this.”
I wore my saddlebags to school, but left the hat at home. It was funny to think those were the only two pieces of clothing I had to choose from.
When we arrived at school, thankfully without a big sister escort, I was surprised to see a familiar face.
“Amy?”
The purple stallion was a little taller and thinner than Cheerilee, but with more defined muscles. Next Big Macintosh he’d look almost emaciated, but few ponies could match Mac’s Clydsdale-like build.
“You know this stallion?” Asked Applebloom
“Yeah,” I said, “He was one of the nurses that looked after me in the hospital.”
He looked around somewhat awkwardly until he spotted me and waved. Was he the minder that Dayglow had promised me?
“Hey Green,” said Amethyst, “I’m here to help you out at school today so just let me know if you need anything, otherwise I’ll just be watching - but, err I mean not in a weird way.”
I’d been practicing raising one eyebrow and decided now was as good a time as any to try it out.
“Supervising!” Said Amethyst, “I meant supervising, not watching.”
“How will you supervise without watching?” I asked.
I let the question hang for a moment before laughing and rearing up to put a hoof on his shoulder
“Relax Amy,” I said, “I’m joking.”
“I knew that.” Said Amy defensively.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to take care of you.”
“No I mean, you’re training to be a nurse,” I said, “Why are you working as a teacher’s aid?”
“Some ponies don’t realize but there’s actually a lot more jobs nurses do than just working in hospitals.” Amethyst explained. “This type of job will help teach community nursing skills.”
That’s not what a community nurse does-
I almost corrected him before remembering. Different world, different rules.
“Oh, alright then.”
The rest of the crusaders and Pip approached us and Amy tried to step back to let us speak amongst ourselves but I moved closer to him again.
We’d barely made introductions when we heard Diamond Tiara trying to get everypony’s attention.
“Everypony!” Diamond spoke from the schoolhouse steps. “There’s something you should know about your student pony president!”
The students turned to look at her, some with undisguised looks of contempt. I almost felt sorry for her.
“Pipsqueak promised you all that if you voted for him he would have the playground rebuilt,” Diamond continued, “But he lied! He can’t afford to have a playground rebuilt, he should be impeached! What do you have to say to all the ponies you lied to, student pony president?”
Diamond Tiara was grinning as if she’d made a point.
I nudged Pip. “Remember what we discussed. You’re running a fundraiser.”
Pip looked unsure of himself.
“It’s alright, we’ll come with you and I’ll tell you what to say.”
Having Amethyst next to me made it much less frightening to get up on the steps with Diamond Tiara, although I may have still been hiding behind him a little.
“Who’s this, your nanny?” Said Diamond Tiara.
Amethyst gave her a disapproving look.
“He’s my bodyguard.” I explained. “What, your parents can’t afford a bodyguard?”
The crowd was murmuring now as they waited for Pip to address them. I whispered in his ear.
“My fellow ponies, I promised you a new playground, and we will have a new playground.” Said Pip. “Today I promise that you will also have cake! Diamond doesn’t know this, but we’re planning a bake sale to raise funds for the new playground equipment.”
I spoke into Pip’s ear again.
“There will be games, there will be cake, and we will have our new playground!”
There was cheering and hoof stomping.
Diamond Tiara bumped me as she passed.
“This is not over.” She hissed.
I was glad that Amethyst chose to sit next to me rather than at the back of the classroom as I thought he might. I was able to ask him a couple questions on things I didn’t understand without having to interrupt the class. Having him next to me was enough of a distraction to keep myself from sinking into an anxiety loop over all the other ponies looking at me.
At the end of the class Cheerilee dismissed the class, but Amy and I stayed where we were.
“Sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before class,” Said Cheerilee, “Amethyst, right? I’m Cheerilee.”
“Amethyst Swirl,” The two ponies shook hooves, “It’s a pleasure.”
“I must say,” said Cheerilee, “Green seems much more comfortable with you here. How are you doing today Green?”
I could hear the high pitched yelling of the foals outside.
“I’m doing fine, I guess.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Cheerilee, “Now let's get outside before the children get into too much trouble.”
I wanted to stay in the classroom, but Cheerilee insisted that I go outside with the other foals even though Amethyst could have just supervised me inside the classroom.
The mulberry mare turned to Amy.
“Class starts again in thirty minutes,” she instructed, “Make sure Green uses the bathroom, she had a lot of anxiety over that last time she was here.”
My face flushed and my ears burned as they pinned themselves to my skull.
Celestia please kill me now.
“So, what happened last time, were you still having issues with using the bathroom because of your hoof grip?” Amy winced in sympathy, “It’s horrible that they would put you in that situation, I can’t even imagine what I would have done in your horseshoes.”
When it was Amy saying it, for some reason I didn’t feel horrifically embarrassed; even if the mental image he had created made me shudder.
“It wasn’t quite that bad.” Now there’s something I didn’t expect to be saying about my catastrophic first day of school. “I could manage without help, it's just...”
I sighed.
“You know how when you get really anxious you feel like you need to pee?” I asked.
“It’s part of sympathetic nervous system activation.” Amethyst recited, no doubt from one of his nursing textbooks.
“Yeah well, I was feeling really anxious but I didn’t want to interrupt the class, and I knew I could hold it,” I explained, “So I waited until the end of class and ran into the first bathroom I saw.”
I tilted my head towards the colt’s bathroom we were walking past on our way out of the classroom.
It took a moment for Amy to grasp my meaning.
“Oh.” He said, “That must have been embarrassing. If it makes you feel any better I think everypony has made that mistake at least once in their lives.”
“And then I had a panic attack and cried in front of everypony.” I kicked a rock in frustration. “And now Cheerilee thinks I’m not responsible enough to manage my own bladder.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Said Amy.
It was a stock response, but that was probably out of a desire to not say the wrong thing rather than any insincerity.
I found a table for us to sit and study at.
When I pulled ‘The Modern Mage’ out of my saddlebags Amy’s eyes widened in shock.
“Wow,” he said, “Where did you get those bags?”
“They’re so nice.” I said. “Twilight gave them to me.”
“Ah,” said Amethyst, “So those aren’t just merchandise? They actually belonged to the princess?”
I nodded, “They were her saddlebags when she was a filly.”
Amethyst took a closer look at the bags, igniting his horn and holding them in his telekinesis.
“The enchantments on these bags alone are worth more than I make in a month.” Amethyst remarked. “Which makes sense, Princess Twilight went to a school for nobles so her scholarship would have paid for them.”
“Are the books stored using alteration, or dimensionalism?” I asked.
Amethyst smiled.
“It’s a technique called ‘lossless alteration’,” said Amy, “It changes an object into another form but without losing any of the information required to restore the object to its original form. It sounds simple, but the spell matrix required to achieve it is incredibly complicated and difficult to craft.”
“Where does the mass go?”
“What do you mean?”
“When an object is changed into a new form using alteration, does the new form have the same mass as the original object?”
“Of course not.” Said Amy. “If you turned an apple into a rock it would get much heavier.”
And just like that, everything I thought I knew about physics was called into question.
I spent the rest of recess grilling Amy for all the information he knew about magic and physics. When the bell rang the other students all reluctantly started their way back towards the classroom.
“Ahh shoot.” Said Amethyst. “I got so caught up with talking I forgot to take you to the bathroom.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Amy, I’m fine.” I assured him. “I’m not a toddler.”
“I still have a job to do.” Amy explained. “Just go now and I’ll escort you back to class.”
“I’ll go after school.”
I saw a flash of frustration from Amethyst and I froze, but it only lasted a moment.
He hates me. I thought we were becoming friends, but he’s only putting up with me because it’s his job and I was asking so many annoying questions and he must secretly dislike that I call him Amy and Luna probably forced him to be here and he must resent me because he should be in the hospital learning to be a nurse instead of being stuck here with me and-
Breathe in, breathe out.
And he must think I’m -
Breathe in, breathe out.
Why am I like this? Why do I screw up everything?
Breathe in;
“Are you alright?” Asked Amethyst.
“I’m sorry for asking so many annoying questions!” I cringed as I said it.
Amethyst gave me a look of genuine confusion.
“What?” He asked, “Naw, I love talking about magic. I almost went into that field before I figured out what my cutie mark was telling me.”
His cutie mark was a swirl of magic around a baton, but if you already had medicine on your mind it did sort of resemble a Staff of Hermes, or maybe a Rod of Asclepius considering the wings were absent.
“Anyway, to be honest I actually need the bathroom myself,” Amethyst said, “I can’t let you go back to class on your own though, so how about you duck into the little filly’s room and I’ll meet you back here in five minutes? I’d be so grateful if you’d do this for me.”
I was almost certain that this was a manipulation to get me to go along with what he wanted me to do without causing a fuss. An unnecessary manipulation, since at that point I’d have done just about anything to sate my anxiety that he thought I was annoying.
And I felt like I needed the bathroom now anyway.
Stupid anxious body.
“Sure,” I said, “No worries.”
The second class passed much like the first and before I knew it the school day was over. I said goodbye to Amy and left school immediately to avoid having to see my friends hanging out with Diamond Tiara. If they were going to somehow reform her I hoped they’d do it quickly.
When I got home Applejack was waiting for me. She’d made a pot of tea and there was a blanket on the couch.
She sent Applebloom off to help Granny with preparing lunch, but she asked me to stay. I couldn’t help but notice the box of tea had three butterflies on it.
“Sweetpea, can we talk?” Asked Applejack. “About that conversation we were having this morning?”
The hair on the back of my neck was raised, and thanks to my coat of fur I was pretty sure Applejack could see it.
“About Spoiled Rich?” I asked. “Has she done something already?”
“Why would ya think that?”
“I’ve dealt with her type before,” I said, “They’re a malignant tumor. There can be no half measures. She must be stripped of all her power to hurt others, and cut off from anypony that would enable her.”
“Green,” Said Applejack, “Ya haven’t met Spoiled yet, ya can’t possibly know that about her. But Ah’m betting she reminds ya of somepony else.”
My breath ran hot.
“S-so?” I felt tears welling in my traitorous eyes. “I told you, I know how her type works! Of course I’ve seen it before!”
“What did they do?” Asked Applejack.
Nothing! Say nothing!
“No-” I stammered.
Say you don’t remember!
“I don’t-”
No! Don’t say that she’ll know you’re lying!
“It doesn’t matter.” I grit my teeth.
“Sweetpea, it matters.” Applejack said. “They hurt ya, and yer still hurtin’.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Applejack sighed.
During the conversation I’d migrated my way closer to Applejack sitting next to her on the couch to avoid making eye contact. She put a fetlock across my withers. She was warm.
“Ah won’t force ya, but Ah really think ya should talk to somepony about what happened.” Said Applejack, “It don’t have ta be me, ya can see a therapist, a different one from last time. Jus’ don’t try ta carry this all by yerself.”
Applejack could feel me shivering. I’d overplayed my hand. She wasn’t going to let this go.
“It wasn’t just one person.” My throat was sore. “It seemed like wherever I went, there was always someone new.”
I swallowed painfully. Applejack had pulled the blanket up over my shoulders.
“I didn’t understand why it kept happening to me, how I could always be so unlucky.” I gazed into the teacup Applejack had poured for me. “It wasn’t luck though. More of a sick joke. The behaviors I developed to cope with the abuse isolated me and perpetuated the cycle of abuse in every new place I went.”
“What do ya mean?”
“I didn’t trust anyone; which left me socially isolated, I over-reacted to small things; which signaled that I was a good target, and I was a sarcastic know-it-all to protect my fragile ego.”
“What did they do ta you?”
I closed my eyes and took a breath.
“They lied about me to get me in trouble. They stole my things and hid them, or broke them and lied about that too; told me that I was crazy. They threatened me, to make me do things, and then laughed at me for doing them. They hit me, sometimes, pushed me down and told people I tripped, told me that I was worthless, that nobody liked me, that I should kill myself because everyone hated me.”
“It wasn’t yer fault.”
“And yet, it was always me.” I said. “I know who’s fault it was, and I know that if they weren’t doing this to me, they would be doing this to somepony else.”
“Children can be so cruel.”
“It wasn’t just children.” I said.
“Why didn’t you tell somepony?”
“I tried that. It only made things worse.” I said. “They’d believe them over me, or they wouldn’t take it seriously, and even if they did take it seriously they’d be powerless to help. Then I faced retaliation from everyone.”
“So when yer talking about Spoiled Rich -”
“Spoiled Rich is a bully. And she’s groomed her daughter into being just like her.” I put my teacup down since my hooves were shaking. “You don’t engage with someone like that on their terms. They’re stronger, they have better social connections, they have more power; even if you win one fight they’ll just beat you twice as badly next time. If you fight them you have to destroy them so completely that you win not just that fight, but every fight in the future too.”