//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Her First Day At School 
// Story: (1) Cinder Phoenix Trilogy: The Secret of Cinder 
// by CinderUnicorn 
//------------------------------//

Cindy woke up. "Where am I?" she asked herself. She was in a dull grey room. She looked around and found that she had a chain around her neck, attached to the wall. She walked forward until the chain stopped her from going further. She tried to break it with magic, but she found that she could use any magic. Huh? she thought. What is this? No magic?"Fluttershy!" she called out. "Are you here?" There was no reply. She  sat down and started crying a little. 

Then she heard a laugh. She stood up. Huh?! she thought. She saw a dark figure moving towards her. As it got closer, she recognized it as Fluttershy! "Fluttershy!" Cindy cried out, hugging the figure when it got close. "Hello again, Cindy," a voice said. She recognized the voice as Celestia and noticed that 'Fluttershy' now had a white coat. She looked up and saw Celestia there instead with a chainsaw floating beside her, held up with her magic. Cindy gasped and tumbled backwards. She saw Luna slide to her from another corner of the room and land in front of her. 

She used to her magic and Celestia froze. Luna turned around to face Cindy. "We know not why this would appear in thy dream, little filly," She said. "But however it happened, we can try to help." Cindy peered at her. Does she not know who I am? she thought, half joyed and half sad. Can she not tell? "How can thou have such an impression on our sister?" Luna continued, looking down at her, puzzled. "We thought that everypony had thought of our sister as a friend!" Cindy looked down at Luna's hooves. "I can't tell you why," Cindy replied, quietly. "It is a secret. You'd just laugh like everypony else." Luna lifted up Cindy's head with her left forehoof. "No we wouldn't," she replied. She leaned closer and whispered, "Sometimes, we are scared of her too." Cindy giggled.

"Anyway," Luna continued. "It is time for thou to wake up. Soon, Tia will raise the sun and we will have to rest. Don't fear our sister, she is not to be feared." Luna vanished, and so did Celestia. The room got darker and dark, until Cindy couldn't see anymore. 

After that, Cindy woke up. She looked around and saw that she was in the room Fluttershy let her stay in again. She sighed with relief. She sniffed the air. "Hmm?" she said to herself. "I smell something delicious!" She jumped out of the bed and walked downstairs. "Fluttershy?" she asked, wondering where she was. She spotted some pancakes on a plate in front of her. She trotted delightfully over to them, and started to eat them. "Oh there you are," she heard Fluttershy whisper. Cindy looked up and saw her flying above her head. "I was looking everywhere for you, Cindy." After Cindy ate the pancakes, Fluttershy walked over to the door, opened it and said, "Come on, Cindy. You need to go to school." 

Cindy happily skipped out the door as Fluttershy showed her the way to the school. "I'll come to bring you home at lunchtime, okay?" Cindy nodded and walked nervously into the classroom. On the way, to the school, Fluttershy said to act normally and not use much magic, only if it was necessary. As she entered the classroom, a purple earth pony greeted her. "Hello," she said. "My name is Ms. Cheerilee and I will be your teacher. Let me introduce you to the class." Ms. Cheerilee waited for the class to settle down. 

"Good morning, Class," she said. All the fillies and colts stopped talking and responded by saying hello back. "Before we start our lessons, I'd like to introduce you to your newest classmate, Cinder." All the classmates looked at her as she walked quietly over to an empty desk. Beside her was a grey filly and a pink filly with a tiara matching her cutie mark. They both glared at her. Cindy avoided eye contact with them, and sat down on her seat and picked out a few books from her saddlebag.   

"Our first lesson today will be about Nightmare Moon," Ms. Cheerilee said. "Does anypony know the story already and like to share it?" None of the class knew, so Cindy raised her left foreleg. "I do, Ms. Cheerilee," she said. Ms. Cheerilee smiled and told Cindy to stand up and tell it.

"A long, long time ago," Cindy started, standing up. "There were two alicorn sisters. The older one, Celestia brought up the sun in the morning and the younger one, Luna brought up the moon at night. The ponies played during Celestia's day, but slept during Luna's night. She didn't have many friends.

"One faithful day, Luna refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. Celestia tried to reason with her, but the stubbornness in Luna's heart transformed her into a terrifying monster, Nightmare Moon. Although Celestia didn't want to do it, she defeated her sister with the Elements of Harmony and sent her to the moon. After that, Celestia had to control both the sun and the moon."

The class stared at her. The silver filly that sat next to her started clapping her hooves together slowly, followed by the rest of the class. Cheerilee smiled. "Thank you, Cinder," She said. "Now, who knows what the six Elements of Harmony are called?" Again, Cindy was the onlypony who raised her foreleg. "Honesty," she recited. "Kindness, laughter, generosity, loyalty and magic."

"Good job, Cindy," Ms. Cheerilee said. They continued on their lessons until the bell rang for them to go outside. When Cindy went outside, the two fillies that were sitting beside came over to her. She was sitting down and reading a book when they came over to her. "Hey," the pink one with the tiara said. "Why would you show off so much like that with the stories? Only I'm allowed to do that!" 

They looked at her flank. "Oh," the grey one said. "Hey, Diamond Tiara! It looks like there's another blank flank in our school..." They both grinned at eachother. "Oh, so we do," the one called Diamond Tiara said. "Blank flanks are so lame... Don't you agree, Silverspoon? Everypony already has their cutie marks... Except you!" Then Silverspoon joined in saying, "And look at her filthy coat! It's so dirty that its almost black and black is lame. Messy pink hair and grey coats don't go well together." 
They started laughing. Cindy stood up. She was angry now. "Leave me alone," She said. 
"No!" They both said, laughing.

Cindy had enough of this. She used her magic to make them both float in the air. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" she shouted at them. She threw them with her magic into a puddle of mud. They ran off, getting the furthest they could from her. A yellow filly with red hair came over to her. "Woah," she said. "Ya do have great magic. Ya taught those girls a lesson they'll never forget. They bully everypony, not just ya!" Cindy looked at her. "Does she bully you? Since you don't have your cutie mark...?" she asked. The filly nodded. "Mah name's Applebloom. It's a pleasure to meet ya!" Cindy and Applebloom shook hooves. She made her first real friend.

Once they went back into class again, Cindy noticed that both Diamond Tiara and Silverspoon were trying to stay away from her. They won't be bothering me ever again, she thought. She learned many things that day, about stories from Ponyville and how Fluttershy and her friends defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra. The other things they learned about she already knew of.
When school time ended, all the fillies and colts galloped out the door of the classroom, eager to get away from the school. Cindy wondered why they were so determined to get away. She stayed in longer, asking Ms. Cheerilee questions about Princess Celestia and phoenixes. Fluttershy and Applejack started to get worried, not knowing that Applebloom and Cindy were still in the classroom.
"Where are they?" Applejack implored, looking at the school with confusion and worry. "They shoulda came out a long time ago." As if reading her mind, the two fillies ran outside, towards them.
"Sorry we're late!" They said together, giggling as they noticed.
"Ya'll worried us sick," Applejack lectured. "We thought something happened to ya, Applebloom. Don't do that again." Applebloom just rolled her eyes, but Cindy hung her head, drooped her ears and took it more seriously.
"I'm sorry!" she cried out with a sad face. "It's my fault, I asked Ms. Cheerilee if she could answer a few questions. I never thought you would be angry at us... Please don't be mad at Applebloom!"
Applejack tilted her head, looking at Cindy. She didn't think she'd be that worried just because she said that. "Don't be like tha, Sugarcube," she said. "We aint gonna punish ya and Applebloom or anythin'. We're just sayin' to tell us in advance before ya do that kinda thing, okay?" Cindy stopped looking sad and scared and looked up at Applejack. She nodded her head.
"Can Cindy come over to play later, Applejack?" Applebloom asked, smiling at her bigger sister. "Well," Applejack replied, looking at Fluttershy. "Of course she can, but it's up to Fluttershy. If she says No, then I'll have to say No too." Fluttershy looked at Cindy, then Applejack, then Applebloom and then back to Cindy again.
"Sure," She said. "But first, Cindy needs to eat some food. She might be hungry!"
Applejack shook her head in disagreement. "We can feed her," She smiled. "We have plenty of apples back at Sweet Apple Acres. Apple Pies, Apple Fritters, Apple cake, Apple Jelly, Apple Wheat, Apple... bloom, Apple-"
Applebloom cut her sentence off with her giggling. "I think she gets the point, sis," She said, putting a hoof over her own mouth to stop her from laughing.
Fluttershy smiled, "Well okay then. If it's no trouble..."
Applejack shook her head. "No trouble whatsoever."
They all waved goodbye to Fluttershy and headed for Sweet Apple Acres. As they went, Applejack kept talking about Fluttershy, how much she loved to talk about Cindy and how much she enjoyed being around her. Cindy never though Fluttershy liked her that much.
After they ate, Applebloom called her friends, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to come with them. After Applebloom introduced Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to Cindy, She made her close her eyes as her friends took her to the Cutie Mark Crusader headquarters. They told her to stand in front of a desk and listen to Sweetie Belle as she recited something from a paper. So she did. Scootaloo made some loud music from some bongo drums to the right of Sweetie Belle. When she was done, Sweetie Belle unraveled the scroll and began talking.
"The Cutie Mark Crusaders elect Cinder as a sister, friend, candidate, ally, gall pall, comforter, chum of chums-"
Scootaloo coughed. "Don't start all that again like with Babs! Just get to the point, Sweetie!"
Sweetie flipped through the speech. "Oh yeah, here!" She cried out as she found the part she was looking for. "You are solemnly sworn in this day in witness of your fellow sisters, friends, candidates, allies, gall palls, com-"
Scootaloo cut her off by jumping up beside her and pushing the page away. "Congratulations on becoming a Cutie Mark Crusader!" she exclaimed as they threw a red cape with a blue and yellow logo to her.
She put it on with her magic. All three of them stood there, beaming at it with pride.
They spent the rest of the day playing and trying to get their cutie marks. When Cindy got home, she literally collapsed from exhaustion. Fluttershy gave her a cupcake that she bought for her from Sugarcube corner. After she ate it, she fell asleep on the chair she was sitting on, so Fluttershy had to carry her up to her bed. She put a warm blanket over her and went back to sit on the couch.
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Twilight sat down. She was exhausted. "Oh, Spike," she said to her dragon friend in a sad tone. "We'll never find this bird! It could be anywhere!"
Spike sighed. "I know, Twilight," he said. "But don't give up hope! The princess knows you can do it!"
Twilight sighed. It was just so hard. There could be a little red bird anywhere. But she knew she couldn't give up. If she did, the princess would be furious.