//------------------------------// // Soon After, Aphidgust Was Shown The Campus Of The School Of Friendship And Subsequently Given A Place To Stay // Story: The Astonishing, Alarming, And Awesome Adventures Of Aphidgust Airin Adrigal the Eighteenth // by Discombobulated Soul //------------------------------// "Hey, Aphidgust?" A horrendous, bothersome, insistent voice tore relentlessly at my once peaceful rest. I was not one to so much as accept such an intrusion, let alone heed its unwelcome call. The only reactions that the troublesome noise elicited from me were an indignant grumble and a shuffle to a more comfortable position. "Hello? It's time to wake up now. I still have to give you your tour around campus!" Drowsily, I waved a foreleg in the nuisance's direction, determined to get my much-needed beauty rest. "{Nnnnurrfffive more minutes...}" I barely registered what sounded like an annoyed huff, and rather than speak further I instead turned completely to lay on my belly and bury my face into my glorious, hoof-sewn, enchanted, dandelion-seed stuffed pillow. When did my pillow get so hard? Suddenly, the powerful scent of what had to be a million different spices burned through my nostrils, and I was only able to last a precious few moments more in blissful unconsciousness before jetting several hooves into the air, coughing violently. I was instantly awake and scanning my immediate surroundings, noting the overall flatness and vastness of them. Where am I? This doesn't look like anyplace I've seen before. "Ah, looks like my smelling-salts spell worked!" I started at the incredibly voluminous sound coming from directly above me, nervously lifting my head there while subconsciously lowering my body to the ground. I recognized the ginormous face from before as memories began flowing back to me. The unicorn was much easier to make out in the light of the sun, and I made note of her dark fuchsia clothing. Breezies don't usually wear clothes; we're so lightweight that any dressage but that made of the lightest materials would weight us down far too much, and those substances were pretty hard to come by. However, one of the things that marked the Adrigals' status as the best Breezie family ever was our clothing, and I myself had packed plenty in my baskets. Seeing as this pony wore clothes, she was likely of high standing, perhaps even equal in status to my own family. "How could you?! Rude of you, quite that was!" I shouted at her in my finest Equestrian, huffing with irritation. What? Did you think I was gonna be all respectful to her just because I thought she was on par with my family? That's just ridiculous. I've always been higher than my family, being the chosen one and all, and I was undeniably higher than this behemoth of a creature, headmare or no. In any case, the unicorn seemed repentant enough, judging by the way her posture slumped and she raised a hoof in apology, so I decided not to blow her into the stratosphere. This time. "Oh, I'm really sorry! It's just that we don't have a lot of time and I was really worried that I'd hurt you!" This heavily amused me, and I launched myself up off the ground to be eye level with the mare, cockily staring straight into her wide, grey-blue, Breezie-sized eyes. Well, one of them. I couldn't exactly look into both at one time, given how close I was. "HAH! You, hurt me? Don't laugh make me." My confident smirk was back in full force as I blasted past her head, taking a concerning amount of time to actually pass it. "Now, leave let us. Tired I grow of this place." The sound of her clearing her throat, which I could hear even through the wind of my speed, caused me to stop and turn in the air towards her. "Actually, that's not the way we'll be going." Seconds passed as I confusedly looked at the pony, then the cave entrance behind her, then northeast, which was where I was heading and the direction of Equestria, then back. Starlight's smile grew as this cycle continued, and she approached my hovering form with thundering steps that shook the ground. "Tell me, have you ever teleported before, Aphidgust?" I blanched, my self-assured smirk now gone completely as I gulped nervously. I'd heard horror stories from Breezies who had encountered 'helpful' unicorns before, who wanted to teleport them closer to home. There's a reason we Breezies rely only on pegasus assistance when we migrate every two cycles. Every other kind of pony magic is too dissimilar to our own, and messes with our fragile equilibrium too much. I was about to shake my head and plead for mercy order Starlight to walk instead as she reached me and lit her horn once more, but a realization entered my mind, and my cocky smirk was back in full force. Sure, those wimps got screwed over pretty bad from the teleportation, but I'm different! I'm totally too epic to fail! I'll be fine! Exactly several centuries of light blue swirling Tartarus later, I was indeed totally, definitely fine. No, I wasn't collapsed in the oversized grass, projectile vomiting my breakfast out while Starlight awkwardly patted my back with her giant hoof. Why do you ask? I'm very proud to say that it only took me, the great Aphidgust Airin Adrigal the Eighteenth, around three minutes to be mostly recovered from the experience. Hah! Those fools told me it was weeks before they stopped seeing stars! I shakily rose into the air and wiped my muzzle on the blanket-sized hoofkerchief the headmare offered me, stopping both actions when I was eye-level with her once more. "So, uh, you ready to start the tour of our campus?" I grew confused as I considered her words, running them over in my head as I gazed out at the utterly massive school. We'd teleported to the grassy meadow just beside the path running up to it, so I had a full view of the distant structure. "Why we are doing this in place the first? Don't think you I can figure it out myself?" The unicorn smiled knowingly as she began walking up the path, upon which I reluctantly followed, hovering to the right of her severely oversized head. "Well, I was worried that it would be hard for you. Being a student here, I mean. With so many peers that are so much bigger than you are, and having to navigate through such a large campus, even by our standards. I figured I'd give you a personal tour of the place to help out with that, while also assessing your abilities and how much you'll need assistance to do things." That statement caused me to pause and stare incredulously at the back of the oblivious unicorn's head. Assistance? For ME? Does she have any idea who I am?! Still, I managed to remain silent, deciding that it wasn't worth the effort to protest. We traveled up the path, occasionally passing other giants of various species. Each time one of them went by, I had to spend yet more Airin to correct my flight. Seriously, these chumps were so massive that the wind-wake of their passing blew me off course. After a while of this, I noticed that my reserves were getting noticeably low--not, mind you, low enough to require serious adjustment, but if I wanted to have any left to work with in the near future, I'd have to stop using so much. Do you realize how long it takes for Airin to regenerate?! At this rate, I'd be lucky to be at half capacity by next week! My performance just before I left home certainly did not help things; all the Airin from my back, head, antennae, and legs was entirely spent, leaving what was left in my barrel and the sparse traces within my wings as the only reserves I could call upon. So, you know, about enough for a large (by the ponies' standards) tornado, if I blew it all in one go. I couldn't do that, though: I needed to ration out my supply if I was going to be living in this world of giants for the foreseeable future. If only there was some moving object I could hitch a ride on, something more reliable than the turbulent air currents, something heading in the same direction as me, and that, ideally, I wouldn't have to separate from. Hey...wait a second... My mind made up, I casually drifted over to Starlight's enormous head, latching onto her twitching ears as I made myself comfortable on her silky mane. Heh, I could get used to this. I thought as I repositioned her hairs, carelessly ruining her previous well-kept manestyle in the process. Fortunelessly, I was not stealthy enough to avoid detection in my endeavors--though, to be fair, I wasn't exactly trying to be--and the headmare tilted her head to glance up at me with her oversized eyes. "And just what are you doing up there?" I smirked at this, pointedly resting my forelegs against her enormous horn as I shifted into the most comfortable position I could. Surprisingly, that position was in fact very comfortable. As in, like, rivalling my best-of-the-best mattress back at home in comfortableness. I got so comfy that I caught my eyes drifting shut several times, and had to shake myself awake to get rid of the fatigue. Hey, it was an exhausting day so far, okay? You try teleporting several hundred megagusts away and see how long it takes to recover! I'll betcha it'd be more than three minutes! "Tired I am: Cannot fly much more." Wait, that sounded way too pathetic dishonest and untrue! "Er, could fly for longer, but, good idea is not. Need conserve flight, so fly later can." The headmare quirked an eyebrow at this, marginally jostling me in the process, but eventually nodded her consent, very nearly dislodging me from my perch as she did. "Alright, I'll take your word for it, but Rarity's going to throw a fit when she sees what you've done to my mane." The furry floor beneath me shook slightly as she continued walking, increasing the pace to a brisk trot. Strangely enough, I had to resist the urge to fall asleep then and there several times, even while being vigorously bounced up and down. This giant mare's head was unfairly comfortable, and it made me wonder if other ponies' manes were similar. Heck, maybe every creature's crown was an optimal spot for resting! Something about the bobbing motion was bringing back nostalgic memories from my grubhood. Memories of being held, rocked softly to either side, kept safe in my loving mother's embrace. Memories from before she and my siblings... ...well... In any case, we soon reached the grand, ornate, needlessly-large (not just to me, they were over-proportioned even for somecreature of Starlight's size) double doors that made up the entrance to the school proper. I discreetly wiped away all traces of a mysterious wetness that appeared around my eyes as Starlight lit her horn to open the gateway to my new life. Immediately beyond the immense doors was an even more colossal main room, complete with branching hallways, extensive decorations, and scores of creatures. All of whom were big enough to casually squash a regular Breezie beneath their various appendages and not even take notice. I'd been a present notion all throughout my interactions with Starlight and while we passed fellow students on the path, but it was only now that I truly appreciated just how big each and every one of them was. My primal Breezie instincts were screaming their antennae off. You might think that I was scared by such a show of size. Intimidated, perhaps by their probable might in comparison to the average Breezie. Aside from my unreasonable genetic reaction, you'd be dead wrong, fluff-brain. Of course I wasn't scared: I'd been trained my whole life for this! You know by now that I'm hardly comparable to the average Breezie (and if not, then you're stupider than I thought.) Why did you think my species used selective breeding to make such a long line of increasingly overpowered members? So that the final product of that line could quiver in fear just when his fans needed him most?! Nay! I'd show those chumps that they put their faith in the right Breezie. There's no way I'd let a life's worth of non-stop training go to waste like that! I'll have you know that my posture was as confident as could be, and I only flinched back in reactive fright twice as the headmare proceeded through her tour. The school's layout was, while massive, relatively simple and intuitive, so I had no issues committing it to memory. I figured I wouldn't have any problems navigating through the place, but if so, there were plenty of creatures I could ask for directions. One obstacle I had to keep in mind was how much Airin it was going to take to travel through this place: Between the sheer scale of it and the unreliable turbulence from all the traveling giants, that amount was looking unfortunately large. Not impossible, mind you. If I was at full capacity, I could blaze through the school for hours and still have plenty to spare. Thing is, I wasn't at full capacity, so in order to move around campus for the next few days, I'd likely have to either hitch more rides on the local behemoths or eventually be left completely powerless. One of those options was significantly more attractive than the other, for many reasons--not least of which was that I'd get to see if all creatures' heads were this cozy. In any case, Starlight was clearly quite popular in her school: She often stopped to exchange words or give out hoofbumps during the tour. Granted, that probably should not be very surprising information--she was the headmare, after all, and seemed like an altogether nice person, if a bit of a pushover--but it was good information to have, regardless. Eventually, after about thirty or so minutes, the tour was completed, with the last stop being the dormitories, and the headmare stopped just outside of a pony-sized door, which simply read: 166 (Thank goodness numbers were universal.) "Alright! Here's your room, Aphidgust! Go on and make yourself at home!" The mare's horn lit once more, causing the door's handle to turn and push inwards, enveloped in a bright blue glow. I (somewhat reluctantly, I admit) leaped off the unicorn's head in response, flaring my wings so as to hover in the still air before slowly propelling myself with a miniscule amount of Airin. An awkward cough slightly shook my position in the air, and I twisted to regard my headmare with an impatient expression. Her own was set in an expecting form, and after several seconds spent in blank silence, I finally realized what she wanted. "Oh, yes. Thanks to you, I give. Happy now?" The giantess smiled largely at this, and gave a succinct nod before gesturing me inside with her hoof. "Yes, Aphidgust, I am. Now, get yourself settled, your roommate should be here in a few minutes." Starlight teleported away after that, and I managed to make it several hooves into the enormous room before what she'd said finally caught up with me. Wait, my roommate?!