//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - The Offer // Story: Principal for a Day // by TheGJ90 //------------------------------// “I can explain, Principal!”, exclaimed Gilda with her arms crossed, clearly annoyed by the situation she was stuck in. She was sitting on a chair in front of Principal Celestia’s desk, with the lady herself sitting on the other side while giving the petulant student a calm unreadable glare. Standing to Celestia’s right was her sister and partner Vice-Principal Luna, who gave Gilda a similar glare that had an additional layer of coldness to it that was unique to her. The girl they stared daggers at was not one to be shaken by such a reception, however. With increased indignation and a slightly more restrained tone, she elaborated on her point; “Look, it’s true that the VP here caught Rainbow and me shouting at each other in the hall.” “Your shouting quickly turned into a fist fight by the time I had gotten close enough to intervene.”, Luna added with a professionally delivered deadpan voice that hid any emotions she was feeling over the topic of discussion. Gilda shouted out of pure frustration, her restraint nearly tossed aside; “Yeah, but Dash started it!” “You threw the first punch.”, Celestia noted calmly. Hearing this did nothing to sooth the girl’s anger; “She threw the first insult! I ain’t taking that sitting down!”, the outraged student yelled in response. Neither official was moved by that claim, however, as Luna gave her retort while furrowing her brow ever so slightly; “And yet, you chose to resort to physical violence instead of thinking of a more appropriate response. Your choices matter, Ms. Gilda.” Gilda looked away with a grunt while a most grumpy expression fell upon her face, her arms still tightly crossed. With a sigh, she asked; “What are you gonna do about Dash?” Celestia spoke up with soft dignity, her eyes refusing to move away from the student she sought to discipline; “She’s being treated in the Nurse’s Office as we speak. We’ll talk with her once she’s ready.” Luna chimed in with similar propriety; “Make no mistake, she’ll be held to fair account for her side of the altercation, just as you will be for yours.” After grumbling a little more for good measure, Gilda begrudgingly accepted her punishment (one month in detention and a talk with her parents to be done at a later date) and was politely sent away. Once it was clear to the two sisters that the room was empty, Celestia looked over at the door on her right that led to Luna’s office and said aloud with a small smile; “You can come out now, Starfire!” With a twist of the knob, the door was opened, revealing its occupant to be Starfire himself: a twenty-seven year-old man with tan skin who rocked short red hair that was neatly combed backwards, a dress shirt that looked very much like Celestia’s, brown pants, and black tennis shoes. Appearing to be quite confused, he asked the two officials while looking at each of them; “So… why did you have me hide in Vice-Principal Luna’s office?” Celestia and Luna chuckled politely for a bit before the former answered his question; “For two reasons: to give you an idea of what our line of work can look like and to make sure no curious eyes and ears catch what we’re about to offer you.” He saw anticipation sparkle in the eyes of both women when he asked out of curiosity; “What offer is that?” Celestia’s smile, perhaps unconsciously, morphed to match the sideways smirk traditionally used by a certain bacon-haired student, her excitement over what was to come growing from within her mind… Principal for a Day Starfire was, at his core, a humble helper. He enjoyed being of assistance to others whenever possible, which helped to make him endearing to those he worked under. After graduating from Canterlot University, Starfire grinded his way up the educational system ladder, albeit at a snail's pace. Usually, his jobs involved him assisting teachers, sometimes subbing in for them. His goal was to become the Principal of one of the schools in the Canterlot School District, so that he could help everyone there, from the students to the staff. There was a reason, a driving force behind his work ethic and adherence to that goal: Celestia. Starfire was a CHS graduate and a Wondercolt through and through. He had joined CHS as a student during Celestia’s early years as Principal and he quickly came to respect her for her well-mannered nature, reasonable adherence to the code of conduct, and drive to help her students and fellow staff whenever she could. He came to look up to her as high school dragged on, sometimes wishing that he was in her position. Not out of jealousy, to be sure, but out of a healthy desire to become a leader as great as her. That is not to say that Starfire had no respect for Luna, far from it! In fact, he came to appreciate her stricter but fair style of handling students as well as the good cop/bad cop dynamic that the sisters had together. It was during his short stint as an assistant librarian to Ms. Cheerilee that he had gotten the attention of Celestia, who was impressed by his work ethic and sound mindset. He would become her assistant soon after that. Now, that assistant was looking right at Celestia in her office, listening intently as she asked him politely; “From what I recall in our previous talks, you strive to be a Principal one day, yes?” He eagerly nodded his head while answering professionally; “Yes, ma’am!” With a quick nod back, she explained; “Well then, you should find it interesting that, quite recently, Luna and I have acquired an opportunity for you to get a better sense of what it’s like to have that position.” That really got his attention! With wide eyes and raised nerves, he asked hesitantly while his mind went through several possibilities at a time; “Could you… elaborate, please?” Luna, with a serious glare on point, declared to him with calm sternness; “What is said here does not leave this room. Understand?” Gulping a little, Starfire nodded his head in agreement to this term, which prompted Celestia to speak again; “As you know, magic is a thing these days. Whether it be in the form of stray magical wisps affecting solid objects, sentient creatures from another world taking on Human forms, or magical artifacts finding themselves in Human hands.” As she spoke that last part, she pulled open one of her desk drawers, reached in, and pulled something out from it. Starfire could not see it clearly, as it was covered by Celestia’s right hand. She added while placing the item on the desk; “This is one such artifact.” She then released the item from her grip, revealing it to be a large round disc with decorative carvings on the side that faced the ceiling. Carved in the center of the disc was artwork depicting an Earth Pony standing proudly on all four hooves. Starfire was, in a word, stunned. His mouth was agape for a moment or two before he felt the urge to rant come on. Try as he might, he could not hold himself back. With a loud inhale, he began to nerd out at a rapid pace; “A magical artifact, here?! In your possession?! This is huge, since every time an artifact from beyond the statue portal is found, it is usually by some misguided young person who goes on to use it irresponsibly! But, since you have one in your hands, you are sure to handle it with absolute care without causing any lasting harm! When Sunset Shimmer and the Rainbooms find out about this, they’ll-!” The two sisters smiled as they watched the young man pace left and right during his rant. As charming as they found this little quirk of his, however, they had to move the discussion forward. So, with a breath, Celestia told him with a carefully raised voice that was bolstered by a sufficient amount of authority; “Calm yourself, Starfire!” Hearing the voice of his admirable boss was enough to bring him back to the present moment, allowing him to take a deep breath and refocus on the Principal and Vice-Principal. With nervousness all over his face, he told them in a soft voice; “I’m sorry. Please, continue.” Their smiles did not wane, which eased his worries considerably. Once Luna began to speak, however, her face switched to a serious expression as she explained with a calm and clear voice; “We found that artifact in a pawn shop during our shopping trip yesterday. We had initially believed it to be a simple hand-crafted decoration of some kind. Wanting to liven up our home, we managed to acquire it at a fair price. Shortly after we returned home and began examining it, Celestia here activated it by complete accident.” Luna shook her head out of quiet bemusement as Celestia continued the tale for her; “Through this error of mine, we had discovered that the artifact allows one to transform into another person.” Starfire’s eyes went wide with shock as a single thought crossed his bewildered mind; “To be able to become someone else…?” An idea popped into his head, but he quickly tossed it aside on account of its ridiculousness as the Principal went on while holding back a chuckle; “Thankfully, it can also be used to undo such a transformation. Through careful testing, we have found that it only allows you to turn into sentient creatures, so you can’t turn into a tree or cat.” “You can, however, transform into any person you want, so long as you remember their name, face, and voice.”, noted Luna, her seriousness cracking ever so slightly as a particularly humorous test played out in her mind, causing a tiny smile to appear on her face. Celestia, having caught this, grinned back at her sister before returning her gaze over to Starfire and getting to the point; “Putting it simply, we would like to give you the chance to spend one day in my shoes, and yes, I mean that in a magical literal sense.” Now, her assistant was floored! His jaw dropped as far down as it reasonably could, his eyes wide with shock. It took him about five or more seconds to reposition his jaw and speak in a stunned voice; “You… you want me… to use that artifact…” He pointed at Celestia with a shaking right index finger as he finished; “To become you?!” After giving Starfire a moment to recover from the shock, Luna spoke again; “To elaborate on the offer given, we would like for you to use the artifact’s magic to act as Principal Celestia in this school for an entire school day, while Celestia acts as you in return. For us staff, as you know, such a day typically lasts from before the opening bell to soon after our after-school duties are finished.” At that moment, the assistant had realized a considerably important detail that he felt had to be addressed. As if sensing this with her mind, Celestia noted with an understanding tone; “If you decide to go through with this, you’ll have to deal with the resulting physical changes for the duration, as will I.” While said changes were quite worrisome to Starfire, the very concept of spending an entire work day as the head of the school he has both learned and worked in was uniquely enticing to him. Feeling torn, he asked his superiors; “Will I get in trouble if I decline?” Their headshakes were a good enough answer for him, but Celestia went further by explaining with a grin; “If you don’t want to undertake this transformation, there will be no disgrace or trouble. We’ll simply give the artifact to Sunset and be done with the whole affair.” Luna added with a playful smirk; “As for why we haven’t given it to her yet… Well, we decided we’d try to have a little bit of harmless fun with it first.” Starfire’s nerves were rising by the second as he thought to himself; “Yeah… harmless…” Adding a layer of sweetness to her grin, Celestia clarified to him; “You have my word as Principal of CHS and an educator that we’ll do what we can to help you and prevent undo harm from befalling you during your short stint as yours truly. With that said, the choice is yours: will you take the chance before you or step away from it?” The poor young man had to take several deep breaths to steady himself enough to think all of this over. To be the Principal of the school for a day? To be Celestia for a day? The very notion nearly overwhelmed Starfire for a bit there! But, once his mind settled down enough, he started to take note of the numerous variables involved; “How would we even make this work? Obviously, we would start the transformation early in the morning, so that I could get situated with the students and staff being none the wiser. But then, once I’m in the office working, how would I fool the others? Luna would probably help me keep up the charade and I know a great deal about Celestia’s mannerisms, so putting on a good act wouldn’t  be too much of an issue. I’m her assistant, so I’m acutely aware of her day-to-day work schedule, so honoring that would be easy…” One would think he would lay out such variables in his head, silently at that. But, this was not how Starfire worked, for he noted his thoughts aloud in a rant that was barely above a whisper. Celestia and Luna were patient people, but they felt it best to not let him rant for too long this time. The Principal called out to him with calm authority; “Starfire, compose yourself!” Once again, her voice was enough to pull him out of his rant. After giving both her and Luna an apologetic nod, he listened as Luna told him; “We want a simple answer from you before we proceed further. Do you want to become Principal Celestia for a day, yes or no?” After taking a moment to think about the pros and cons of each answer, the assistant made up his mind. It was a huge risk, doubly so because of the magical variable, all of this he knew. He also knew that opportunities like this were once in a lifetime. If he didn’t do this, he would spend the rest of his life wondering about what could have been. Starfire learned from Celestia herself the importance of taking a risk from time to time. After all, a life without risk would be a life without growth. “Yes.”, was his answer, both calm and earnest in equal measure. Celestia and Luna showed him smiles filled with appreciation as they explained their plan to him in great detail. The next day was going to be the most unique day in Starfire’s life.