//------------------------------// // Chapter Ten // Story: Falling For Our Stars // by bobdat //------------------------------// Chapter Ten On the first day back, I found myself sitting quietly in the school hall next to Rarity, waiting for a presentation that could apparently ‘change our lives’. There was an official-looking unicorn at the front, messing around with little notecards, but I wasn’t convinced she could change my life just by talking from the front. “Quiet down please girls,” the Headmare said sternly, and the general whispering died out. “Thank you. Now, please give a warm welcome to Mrs Racecourse who is here to talk to you about your post-school options.” We all stamped our hooves then waited for the unicorn to speak. She looked quite young to be a Mrs. “Thank you everypony. My job is to give you an idea about what kind of things you can do after you leave school here. I know it seems a long way off, but in one year’s time, you should be totally decided and ready. So it’s best to start early.” She used her magic to swap notecards. “Most of you will probably want to progress onto a university, although other options do exist, like doing an apprenticeship at a business. It’s up to you to decide what you’d like to do, but your teachers and mentors will be able to help you.” I felt uncomfortable. University seemed too far away to be relevant but now we were being told all of this information on what we’d be doing to apply. “This term you’ll be going on a trip to get prospectuses and see which universities exist and appeal to you. So you’ll need to do some research before that to see what you’re interested, and trying to think of a degree course you might be interested in.” Mrs Racecourse adjusted her mane for a moment, probably allowing everything to sink in, before continuing. “You should talk to your family and friends until you’re absolutely confident about what you want to do.” She went on for a few more minutes, but I didn’t listen very closely. We hoof-stomped a bit more when she left, then we were all sent back to our rooms to think it over. “Before that, you need to hear my announcement!” Rarity said as we got back to our room. “Just wait a moment.” The three of us sat there, watching her searching for something in her suitcase. It was probably just something Sweetie Belle made for her, or maybe fresh pictures. I did love seeing the cute filly. Instead, Rarity pulled out a glossy brochure, the pages covered in bright images. She squealed in excitement and then pointed us to the page she’d highlighted. It was an advert for a one-week holiday on what seemed to be a tropical island somewhere I’d never heard of. “I was thinking that we could organise this for the summer holidays so that we don’t have to be apart for all of it. It’s actually really close to Equestria, so you might even be able to stop over in Ponyville or something,” the unicorn explained, trying to sound excited and yet still keep her cool. “What do you think?” Miri was about to burst, so I jumped in ahead of her. “That sounds great! It’s a really good idea. I’ll ask my parents.” Fly agreed with me. “I just have to check that it’s okay with my parents.” This seemed to satisfy Rarity. “Superb! This is going to be really fun!” It sounded really fun. Going on holiday with my parents meant sitting around reading all day, but going with my friends meant that we could do all kinds of fun things. I found myself bouncing on my hooves in anticipation even though it was only a suggestion. I put it to the back of my mind and tried to concentrate on the looming university applications stuff. In truth, the talk had scared me a little bit. I had never been good at dealing with the future, and now it seemed like a very strange future indeed. “Have you had any thoughts?” Fly asked me in the common room when we were away from Rarity and Miri. “About universities and stuff.” I shrugged. “Not really. You?” The pegasus looked at the desk for a few moments and I managed to guess. “Don’t tell me you’ve already got it all planned out?” “Well it’s obviously not planned out, I don’t know where I’ll get in and all kinds of things could change. But I have got a plan.” I giggled and poked her with a hoof. “Trust you. Can you please plan for me too?” “I can help...” She was all for heading to the library and picking up a copy of the league tables, which ranked all of the universities in Britannia in order of their academic excellence. I wasn’t all that concerned about academic excellence, but it was a starting point. Nonetheless, I still wasn’t going to the library. “I’ll bring them to our room tonight. Tell Rarity and Miri that we can make a start this evening,” Fly said, but I suspected that the other two ponies wouldn’t take too kindly to having their recreation time taken up by an overly-organised pegasus. And if they were as lost as I was, then not much was going to be achieved. But Fly disappeared to the library to fetch resources and I resigned myself to an evening of work. On the plus side, I did have a cute notebook with butterflies on that I could use to record everything... It turned out that I was wrong. Miri agreed with me that wasting valuable relaxation time on looking for universities was silly, but Rarity seemed to think that it was very important and an excellent idea. So I was half-right, at least. “It’ll be fun,” Fly tried vainly to say, but Miri was unswayed. Eventually Rarity managed to get her to consent to the idea, even if she was just going to lie there and pretend to listen. Fly had brought an exceptionally large pile of books for us to look at, enough to fill two shelves at least. “Did the librarian let you take all of these out yourself?” Rarity asked, flicking through thick tome. “No, so some of them are registered to the three of you. I’ll take them back soon so you don’t need to worry.” The huge pile included a world atlas and a detailed map of Britannia, which I didn’t initially see the purpose of. “So we know where the institutions actually are,” Fly informed me. “No point saying somewhere looks really good if it’s out in the Trottish Islands or something.” Rarity had managed to get enthralled in a fashion magazine and Miri was reorganising her clothes, so I half-heartedly helped Fly organise the books and admired my beautiful notebook. I’d pencilled the words ‘university applications’ on the front, which made it feel more official. “Okay everypony-” Fly began, but Miri shot her a glare. “Well, okay then, the first thing is to write down which grades you think you might achieve.” The pegasus was reading from a black book entitled ‘How To Get Into University’, so I took her words to be accurate. “Then you need to write down some ideas for subjects that you might like to pursue.” There was a pause as the three of us hastily scribbled something down and felt self-conscious. “Now you can look down the league tables-” she pointed to a stack of books “-and match your grades to universities.” Thus I found myself using my magic to turn the pages of a gigantic book which had details of every institution in Britannia. The league tables were organised by subject, so I started with music. I’d actually written ‘Music???’ and ‘Music-related’, but they both said pretty much the same thing. I thought I might be able to get an A and two Bs if I worked hard, so I went for that kind of level. Fly was already circling things and writing stuff down, so I was pleased to spot Rarity looking bored and Miri reading over her shoulder. “Come on, we’re supposed to be taking this seriously,” Fly complained when she looked up. Miri had actually taken Rarity’s book and was reading something with intense concentration, whilst Rarity was just flicking through a fashion magazine and I was trying to ignore every mention of the word ‘audition’. It seemed like a lot of places wanted me to audition. “Sorry Fly. I’m just not sure I’m very interested in going to university,” Rarity said. “I think I’ll probably just try and buy the boutique in Ponyville and run that. It’s close to my family and I’m not sure that having a degree will help very much.” Fly thought about this for a moment. “You could get some business qualifications... plus all the ponies of high society will go to a university.” She dived into a book entitled ‘Studying Abroad’ and found a page she’d already bookmarked. “You probably wouldn’t make the cut for Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but there’s always Marevard. It says ‘if you’re looking for the lifestyle of the rich and famous, then Marevard is the place to be. Fifty percent of the current runway models are all graduates of this school.’” “Tempting,” Rarity said, levitating the book over so she could read it. “Mixing with models would really enhance my career.” “You should think about it.” I stayed out of their conversation, partly because I didn’t understand and partly because hearing about Rarity being thousands of miles away for the future was making me a bit sad. I went over to find out what Miri was reading. “Politics? Why are you looking at politics?” I asked. The earth pony shrugged. “People always tell me that politics is just gossip, so it might be a good career.” The idea of Miri running for mayor was actually quite intriguing. She could probably get to the top through blackmail pretty easily, which was more scary than it was reassuring. “Well, that’s a good idea,” I told her. “I’d vote for you.” Miri made a face. “I don’t know about that. It says here that there are all kind of opportunities behind the scenes, which would probably suit me.” “Would it involve gossiping?” “Probably. That’s why it looks like fun,” she said, smiling happily. “Finding out all of the gossip about boring politicians might even be better than finding out about everypony at school.” I giggled. “You’d be the most powerful mare in all of Britannia.” “Make everypony my slaves!” Next it was my turn to be harassed by Fly. I hate to say it, but she was starting to get pretty annoying. “Come on Cat, have you picked out anywhere?” she asked me in a businesslike tone. “Well, have you?” I tried, hoping to stall her. “I have, but I’m trying to see about you. Look in the book and see if anywhere interests you.” “But they all want auditions,” I pouted. “I’m terrible at playing for in front of anypony..” “Now Cat, just be confident. I’m sure you could nail an audition if it was to get into somewhere you liked.” I didn’t believe this for one minute, but it did at least prompt me to go back to looking. “So, what about you Fly? Where do you have your eye on?” I asked her. In the back of my mind I had a plan to try and find a university place near her. “Well, I’d love to go to Oxmare... I’m thinking about applying there. Otherwise, maybe Southoof, it’s not too far from home.” I surreptitiously looked up Southoof on the map, then started trying to find music courses in cities nearby. “I didn’t realise Plymhoof had a university,” I said. That would be as close to Fly as it got. “Don’t you think Plymhoof is a bit far for you to go?” the pegasus asked me. Looking at the map, it did seem a very long way... much further than the trip to Buckingham. That was a bit off-putting. I looked up Oxmare, which seemed much more reasonable for travelling to. That was assuming Fly got in; Oxmare had a ferocious reputation for only accepting the best of the best. I had no chance, so I was looking for nearby cities that looked big enough to have a university. “I’ll leave you to it,” Fly told me, noticing Miri’s sudden enthusiasm for university courses. Now that I was out of the spotlight, I went back to gazing into space and reading a magazine while Fly interrogated Miri. She was being a bit overbearing, but it was for our own good. I just wish she’d let me have more time to let it sink in. It was a big step and I was starting to feel a little sick just from thinking about it. “Don’t look so sad,” Rarity said, sitting on the bed beside me and putting her hoof around me. “You’ve got ages to work all of this out.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Just ignore Fly if she’s pressuring you.” I smiled. “I will. Thanks.” Rarity nodded. “Hey Fly, if you want to get into Oxmare, shouldn’t you already be studying for fifteen hours a day?” Fly gave her a glare which made both of us laugh. Unfortunately, I still didn’t really know very much about what I wanted to do when we were boarding carriages heading for the university conference, sweltering in the hottest day of the year so far. “Okay everypony, remember; this is about finding things out, not committing to anything. Just make the most of it,” one of the dorm matrons said to us. “Try not to get lost, and be back here by two o’clock.” My plan was to walk around with Rarity, since she wasn’t really interested in information about Britannic universities. I had no idea what I was looking for, but Fly had forced me to make a list of ten institutions I would at least speak to, so I was going to do that then have the rest of the day off. “Wow, this is busy,” Rarity said in my ear as we entered the giant hall. It was heaving with ponies our age, who had obviously come from all over the capital. Little stands, walled off by partitions, contained ponies looking to advertise their university and hand out prospectuses. “And warm,” I noted, realising that it was quickly going to become uncomfortably hot. A good reason to dash round and then relax outside. “Where first?” the unicorn asked me, and I pulled out Fly’s sheet. “Royal Institution for Music, apparently,” I replied, reading the first one off the list. “It’s actually not too far from here.” “Oh good, we won’t need to walk much.” “No, I mean the actual university isn’t far from this area. I have no idea where their stand is.” We wandered aimlessly, trying to decipher a terrible map, before finally getting directions from a flustered-looking member of staff. I was too scared to actually speak to the student-y ponies at the stand, so I just sidled over and grabbed a prospectus before turning to run. “Aren’t you going to ask them?” Rarity said, nudging me. “Ask about the auditions.” I sighed and turned around, getting the attention of a tall mare. “Excuse me, but are the auditions really hard?” The mare sighed. “We only take the best musicians, so they are quite tough. But if you’re up to the challenge, then you’ll get the best musical education anywhere in the country.” I nodded blankly and thanked her before retreating. “One to think about,” I said to Rarity, looking for the next one on my list. “Hmm, Manechester... I bet that’s on the other side of this gigantic crowd.” As the day wore on, it got hotter and hotter in the hall and I was rushing to get all ten visited to pacify Fly. The outside of the hall was full of ponies cooling off, and I wanted to join them. Rarity kept throwing the windows longing looks, and I knew that it wasn’t long before she lost patience and abandoned me. “Last one,” I said triumphantly. “And I can see it from here. Then, freedom!” Rarity squeezed through the crowd and grabbed the prospectus for me, and then we both bulldozed our way towards the exits into the glorious outside. It was like walking into an air conditioned building on a hot day, but in reverse. We sat down on a big set of steps leading up to the hall and just watched thousands of ponies coming and going. More than once I spotted ponies who looked very similar to River Blossom and felt my heart flutter, but closer inspection always revealed them to be regular ponies I’d never met before. I knew that my fillyfriend was in Buckingham, and I was just being silly. “Miri will be excited to see so many colts around,” Rarity said. I smiled. “She’s probably hiding with one of them inside the partitions or something.” “Knowing Miri, I wouldn’t put it past her.” “What about your coltfriend? Is he here?” Rarity shook her head. “He’s coming tomorrow, which is a shame. I was hoping we could spend the day together, but it’s just bad luck that his school has scheduled it for tomorrow.” “Oh, that’s not so great. When are you next seeing him?” “This weekend. We’re going to go to the pictures and then get something to eat. I think it will be really romantic.” She ran a hoof through her purple mane and blinked. “I hope so.” “How’s it going with River Blossom?” “Pretty good. I have only seen her a few times this term though. We should probably organise a proper date.” Rarity nodded. “I guess it must be hard for you, since the colt always suggests dates.” “It’s not really so bad. With both of us making suggestions, we actually get a lot of ideas out.” I sighed and combed my mane with my magic, wishing there was something softer to sit on than the concrete. “These prospectuses are heavy.” The white unicorn smiled at me. “Well darling, you were the one who wanted to pick them all up.” “Blah blah. Whatever. I just want to get them back to school so that Fly can look at them for me.” “I think you’re supposed to look and see which ones you might like to visit.” Fly finally surfaced from the hall, looking warm and weighed down with far more prospectuses than I’d managed to get. “Hi Fly,” I said. “How did it go?” She smiled. “Pretty good. I went to the talk on applying to Oxmare, and I’ve learned so much.” “Have you seen Miri?” “Yeah, she says she’s coming in a minute.” I wondered what could possibly be keeping Miri, other than a colt. Probably a colt, actually. After Miri arrived, out of breath from pushing through the crowd, it was nearly two o’clock and time to get back into the carriage. But as I looked around, I noticed that a lot of ponies were absent. “Has anypony seen Lilypad? What about Hazy? Leafy?” the dorm matron asked, listing off twenty names. “Well, since we appear to have lost everypony, we’re going to have to wait a bit longer.” Miri leant forward and whispered into my ear. “How about we leave our saddlebags here and make a dash for it. We can collect them back at school.” I relayed the message to Rarity, who agreed, and Fly, who was less enthusiastic but was outvoted. When the dorm matron was checking her list again, we jumped out of the side door and quickly joined the crowds still milling around, pleased to have some freedom. It was still warm and we were in Westmanester with the rest of the afternoon to kill. Miri whooped, but everypony gave her funny looks. We headed for the tube station and joined the rest of the population riding the trains towards the centre. “It’s too sunny to shop,” Miri complained, looking at the map as we discussed which station to alight at. “It’s never too sunny to shop,” Rarity replied, tossing her mane. “I’m with Miri,” I said. “We could head for one of the parks. They’ll probably have ice cream.” Buck’s Park was the biggest and best so we headed there, accidentally losing Miri during a dramatic train change. Once we’d found her again, we headed to the park and climbed the many steps out of the station. It was still sunny, and it seemed like the everypony living in Westmanester was out enjoying the weather. “Let’s try and get somewhere on the big lawn,” Miri suggested as we trotted towards the nearest entrance, dashing across the road when the lights changed. “I wish we’d brought blankets,” Rarity said. “I hate sitting on the ground.” Fly shrugged. “It’s grass, so it’s like sitting on a green carpet.” The other three secured the best spot to sunbathe while I bought four ice creams from the cart. It was tough to carry them back without dropping them, so the nice stallion gave me a cardboard holder for them. Didn’t stop them melting and dripping everywhere, so by the time I had rejoined my friends, the cones were covered in sticky ice cream. “Don’t worry, I can always lick my hooves clean,” Miri said, tucking into hers with gusto. Fly was less impressed, and I exchanged a smug look with Rarity as we both levitated ours. “Magical ponies are the best,” I said. “Oh yeah?” Fly replied, jumping up and flapping her wings, taking off and hovering whilst she finished the ice cream cone. “Can you do this?” Rarity giggled. “Touché! It’s actually only Miri who can’t do anything.” Miri glowered at us, but she’d already polished off her cone and was lying on her front, soaking up the warm rays. “I don’t care what you say, I’m the best pony out of the four of us.” The pegasus disappeared to do a quick lap of the park and stretch her wings, so I settled down to sun myself too. “So Miri, who was that colt I saw you with?” Rarity asked. I opened my mouth to when she’d seen Miri with a colt, but she just winked at me. “Oh, I only met him today. Pretty cute, huh?” Miri replied, and both Rarity and I burst into giggles. “Did you kiss him?” I asked, clutching my tummy which now hurt from the laughing. Miri smiled. “Maybe.” “Where did you find somewhere to do it? It was heaving for the entire day,” Rarity said, sounding impressed. “We sneaked behind the partitions at the back. Let me tell you, we weren’t the only ones with that idea. You should have come with your coltfriend, Rarity.” “Oh, he wasn’t there today. It would have been nice if he was.” “Are you seeing that colt again?” I asked Miri, rolling onto my side. “I don’t know what he’s called, so probably not.” Rarity rolled her eyes. “You need to find a serious coltfriend and stop disappearing with strangers.” “Hey, maybe I’m going to copy Cat and find a nice filly,” Miri said, winking at me. I couldn’t help but blush a little bit. “Yeah right. You like colts too much,” Rarity replied. “Beside, what filly would go out with you? You’d tell the entire school what they were like at kissing.” Fly returned and couldn’t work out why we were laughing. “Are you ponies just going to sunbathe for the entire afternoon?” she asked. “That was the plan,” I replied, turning onto my other side. “There are a few colts over there who are trying to organise some kind of mass ponyball game. I thought we could check it out.” “Get them to play it over here so we can watch without going anywhere,” Rarity said. Fly flew off to go and ask them. Of course, colts were more than happy to play ponyball somewhere else if it meant a group of fillies would be watching. They set up the posts and began playing near us, occasionally glancing over to see what we thought. “The only thing better than sunbathing is sunbathing with entertainment provided,” Miri said, propping her head up on her hooves so she could watch the colts getting sweaty. “Especially when it involves colts tackling each other.” Rarity giggled. “I’m not supposed to be appreciating this, since I have a coltfriend of my own.” I hadn’t given colts much thought since going out with River, but I had to admit, they were appealing. “I’m sure if River was here, she’d be joining me in admiring them.” One of the colts took off his shirt. Ponies didn’t normally wear shirts, but watching a colt taking off his shirt was somehow better than the fact that the rest of them were all shirtless anyway. “Look at those muscles,” Miri commented. “I bet he could lift me clean off my hooves.” “Wait, see if he tackles somepony,” Rarity added, and we kept our eyes fixed on the colt in question. He seemed content to just hang around at the back and not do any tackling though. “Come onnn, hit somepony!” Miri yelled, making us all giggle. The noise caught his attention, and noticing that four fillies were watching him, he galloped forwards into the next tackle, taking down his friend and rolling over a few times. “Woo! That’s how it’s done!” Miri cheered. “You should go and ask him out,” Fly suggested. “He wouldn’t be interested. He looks like he’s about five years older than me,” Miri replied, playing with her mane. “I don’t know... maybe three years. Ask him,” Rarity said, squinting a bit. “He might say yes.” “You think so?” Miri said anxiously, looking at the rest of us. I laughed. “You spent the morning with some colt you met at random, surely this isn’t much of a challenge.” As Miri trotted off to go and ask the colt out, Fly gave me a sharp look. “You let Miri waste her time with some colt this morning?” “I didn’t know at the time! She didn’t tell us until later,” I protested, now lying on my back and trying not to get too much grass in my tail. “I knew I should have made the three of you stick together,” Fly replied, sighing. “Miri can be so irresponsible.” The earth pony was now engaged in conversation with the muscled colt, tossing her mane and fluttering her eyelashes for all she was worth. “Ooh, that other colt is quite tasty,” Rarity giggled, pointing to one of the larger ones still involved in the game. “He just ran over that other one.” I went back to watching, keeping my eye on a good-looking cream-coloured colt who seemed pretty enthusiastic in his tackles. “Who’s winning?” Fly asked. “I have no idea. I don’t think I even understand the rules,” I replied, shrugging. “Rarity?” “Oh, I didn’t even know ponyball existed until last year. I’m clueless.” The ball escaped and came rolling over to us. I jumped up and kicked it clumsily back towards the cream colt who had come to collect it. He deftly grabbed it out of mid-air and caught my eye, smiling. I blushed and went back to my spectating. “That one likes you,” Fly teasted. “Well, he should know that I’m taken,” I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on him as he returned the ball to their game. “And that my fillyfriend would be upset at him.” “He’d probably like that even more,” Rarity said, before looking over at Miri. “Oh my, I cannot believe it. She’s actually kissing him.” We all swivelled as one to look at her, only to find our friend engaged in a long kiss with the colt in question. “He must be at least a student, if not older,” I said. “Probably a student. I think older guys would be more interested in how old she is,” Fly said. “Maybe she lied and told him she’s older than she really is,” Rarity suggested. After the hoofball game broke down due to everypony getting too hot, I had one last lingering glance at the colt who’d caught my eye and then went back to sunbathing and daydreaming about River. It was now getting on for late afternoon but it was as hot as ever. “What time do you girls want to go back to school?” Fly asked. I didn’t like being disturbed from my daydream. We’d just entwined our tails. “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until after rush hour.” That gave me at least two hours to continue my daydreams, which suited me fine. “How about we go back when it starts to cool down?” Rarity suggested. “Assuming we can get Miri back by then.” I lazily watched some ponies playing in the lake, wondering what it would be like to cool off like that. It would ruin my mane, of course. River would probably like it though. We could sit on the bank of the lake and paddle a bit with our hooves. That would be nice, and it wouldn’t make my mane go all frazzled and horrible. Maybe some splashing water at each other. River would look really nice when she was wet, perfect for kissing. “Cat, are you asleep?” Fly asked, interrupting the daydream again. “No,” I replied, opening my eyes and blinking as they adjusted to the sunlight. “What is it?” “Oh, nothing. I was just wondering.” Back to the daydream. The ponies were still playing in the lake. “I can’t believe Miri is still with that pony,” Rarity said, watching them. “She must have lied about her age. No way a pony that good-looking would be interested in anypony our age.” “I hope he’s only a few years older. If he’s much older, it would be a bit creepy,” Fly added. “Knowing Miri, this will turn into a sordid relationship that finally ends with her crying all night,” I said without opening my eyes. “Oh, I hope not. But I agree,” Rarity said. “Miri really does have the knack for finding the stupid ones. Good-looking, but stupid.” Now River was splashing me with refreshing lake water... her eyes were locked on mine... time for some daydream kissing... “Don’t fall asleep Cat.” I gave Fly a hard stare.