//------------------------------// // New Day // Story: How my Little Brother Became an Alicorn // by WiseFireCracker //------------------------------// Traditionally, weather patrols were stationed in cloud cities, as meteorological changes were much easier to detect from up high in the sky. However, due to the proximity of the Everfree Forest and its wild weather patterns in combination with the continued elections of earth ponies as mayors and the nature of the sponsors it sometimes needed to accommodate, Ponyville was unique in that its weather patrol’s headquarters were located in the middle of the town, firmly set on the ground. Its canteen, as usual, was filled to the brim with winged ponies, about half of the staff spending some time together before the beginning of one more difficult day at work. An air of casualty floated between the pegasi who were joking, laughing and exchanging so many stories over hay breads and bowls of cereals. Unseen by the majority, an orange unicorn stallion hesitantly trotted inside, glancing around with a mix of anxiety and curiosity. His frazzled yellow mane obscured his blue eyes, giving them a much darker tone than they actually were, but, at the same time, gave him such a juvenile appearance. His steps were timid, slow and unsteady. From the way he carried himself, it was easy to understand that he was both a newcomer and not sure he had a right to be there. As it would be, such behavior attracted the attention of others much more quickly than a confident attitude would have. “Hey! What are you doing here? This place is for employees only!” A brash pegasus interrupted her breakfast to call out the intruder, causing him to jump lightly, obviously startled. All around them, the workers in the room rapidly went silent, observing the poor unicorn with a mix of curiosity and deterrence. Being made the center of attention only had the young stallion shrinking on himself. “Oh, huh… well, I came for the ad in the newspaper,” he said quickly, searching through his saddle. “It said somepony was being transferred and I figured I should try it out... I had this letter to give the manager.” “Well, he ain’t here.” The mare got out of her seat, eyes half closed in an unimpressed glance to the stallion. Nonetheless, she extended her hoof, hinting at him to give her the letter. “But I’m assistant-manager, so I take care of this stuff while he’s outside of town.” “You’re Rainbow Dash, right?” He levitated the scroll of paper to her level, looking at her recognizable multi-colored mane. “Fastest flyer in all of Equestria, Wonderbolt in training and hero on my off days, that’s me alright.” Dash flexed her wing muscles, posing advantageously in front of an imaginary camera. “Guess I’m finally getting the recognition I deserve, eh?” A couple of exasperated groans rose from the table behind her, some of her colleagues more than a little sick of hearing the pegasus bragging about her exploits. Saying nothing, the applicant resolutely refused to smile at the pegasi’s antics, simply waiting patiently for them to be finished. Fortunately for him, neither the arrogant mare nor the weather ponies at the nearby table let it degenerate in a conflict. Quickly, Rainbow Dash had broken the seal with her mouth and started reading. A few seconds in, and she raised her head to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “Wait, you want to be a field worker?” “Hum… yes.” The stallion pointed at the scroll with his hoof, looking a little bold for a second. “That’s what the letter says… alongside the recommendations of the Canterlot Weather Institute.” A few seconds of silence followed this declaration, as the ponies nearby stared at him in confusion. Finally, it was the aspiring wonderbolt that broke the silence, although with a rather self-contained statement. “…You’re a unicorn, aren’t you?” “Yes, I graduated from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” The young adult scratched the back of his head sheepishly, with a faint blush adoring his cheeks. For a short moment, Rainbow Dash could have believed he was almost embarrassed to have enrolled in a school for true eggheads. “My specialty is weather magic.” Hearing this, the pegasi at the table grew even more attentive and, to the discomfort of the shy unicorn, slightly warier, it seemed. “Oh really, chump?” Rainbow Dash’s raspy voice echoed in the dining hall, with a trace of annoyance to boot. “Care to put your bits where your mouth is?” “Huh…” He looked around, his tail twitching under the hard gaze of the employees of the weather patrol. “S-sure, if that’s what you want. What should I do?” A light of competitiveness seemingly appeared alongside the predatory nature of her smile. Her would-be employee fought the urge to step back as she herself stepped forward with extended wings. “Show you can pull your weight like any other pegasus. Show me how you handle the weather!” Eyes widening, seemingly dumbstruck, the stallion glanced outside to confirm what he had previously noticed. “It’s… a clear sky?” “Well, yeah, right now it is.” The mare rolled her eyes, before grinning evilly. “But we do have a small training ground outside, to make sure our employees can handle the job, if you catch my drift.” Oh yes, the poor stallion certainly was catching the arrogant mare’s drift. “I… huh… believe I do…” “Good.” She nodded, without appearing any friendlier. “Come outside and show us you can pull your weight then.” About half a dozen pegasi eagerly got out of their seats, following Rainbow Dash outside. A cloud of exalted chatter seemed to surround them, creating an aura the soon-to-be-tested applicant swore he could see. However, he dutifully walked after them, ears and tail twitching. Words were exchanged between the weather ponies, as this would, at the very least, be quite the show. Had one of his future colleagues taken a long hard look at him though, they might have been uneasy. Beyond the few tics and the apparent shaking in his hooves, the unicorn didn’t seem all that worried. -- “Attention, class.” Her sweet voice went over the usual commotion her little foals always made coming back from the morning recess. “I have a great announcement to make. Our class will count a new student as of today.” Instantly, the whole class erupted in questions, the little ponies looking at each other and at their teachers with eyes wide. They asked everything from the identity of this new comrade, to their gender, to their reason for coming here, to big questions as to the nature of the school system itself. That last one got Cheerilee blinking in a bit of surprise at the yellow unicorn colt responsible for such an elaborate question. Fortunately, the mare quickly shook her head and called for order in her classroom once more. “Please, calm down. You will get a chance to ask your new classmate all the questions you want,” she said, making a lowering gesture with her right front hoof. Understandably, it took the foals a minute to get back control over their emotions in the face of such life changing news. Some of them might get a new friend! …Or bully… “Alright,” Cheerilee declared, before turning to the door. “You can come in now.” A dozen pair of eyes avidly followed the new form in the doorstep, trying to catch a better glimpse of this new pony they would soon share their daily classes with. Even under this strong pressure however, the newcomer, a burnt orange pegasus colt with a dark brown mane, proudly trotted inside. There were a couple of groans from a few fillies, grunting about another source of cooties now in the room with them. Those received harsh glares from their teacher. Then, once the colt had walked up to the chalkboard where she had indicated him to, she pointed to the rest of the class. “Would you please present yourself to your new classmates?” “Hey, name’s Feather Dust.” The colt reared on his hind legs, flapping his wings a few times for balance. Then, with an arrogant grin, he tilted his head to the side. “How’s it going?” Just like how it went with his teacher before him, Feather Dust found himself completely overwhelmed by questions asked. Unfortunately, the rarity of the event had excited the students and the competing voices soon pushed the bolder ones to shout to be heard first. Even then, the pegasus colt at the front was not to be undone as he tried to answer anything he heard with an equally loud reply. Everything quickly became frantic. A strong stomp shook all the desks. “STOP!” The whole group of foals stared at the one mare in the room in complete silence. “Now, we will try this again,” she said with a small sigh. “But in an orderly fashion, with you all raising your hooves and waiting your turn.” Timidly, a white hoof rose into the air, soon followed by a few others of varying colors. Feather Dust’s eyes widened briefly, with recognition – Cheerilee could have sworn –, at the sweet young filly with the purple and pink mane. “Where do you come from?” “Oh, Gallopfrey.” He shrugged, as if that wasn’t a particularly interesting detail. “That’s where our parents worked.” And with that, the question session started, sanely, for once. To the heart melting amusement of Miss Cheerilee, a certain pink filly seemed to be blushing heavily at the sight of her new comrade. Hiding her face behind her books, she was the only one not shooting questions after questions at Feather Dust. Another filly though, whose gaze had briefly turned into a glare, had no hesitation in asking her question, loud and clear. “Why did you come here?” The hint of resentment in Scootaloo’s tone made Cheerilee’s ear twitched. Worried, she sent a glance at the pegasus filly and made a mental note to talk to her in private later. Seemingly oblivious, the colt simply blinked before answering ‘honestly’. “Huh… I moved to Ponyville with my brother ‘cause of his work.” “What’s he doing?” The filly asked quickly, foregoing the turn system in favor of her curiosity… and less than noble sentiments. “He’s a weather pony.” He shrugged. “So he’s a pegasus.” Now, Scootaloo seemed to have completely disregarded her teacher’s instructions. Not that the foals in the class seemed to care much, least of all, Feather Dust. “Nah, he’s a unicorn.” For a short moment, Scootaloo fell silent, her jaw dropping, as did the few pegasi in the class, while their classmates took a few minutes to get the implications. Quickly, the filly expression mutated into something vindictive. “That’s stupid, everypony knows only pegasi can be weather ponies!” “It’s not stupid!” The colt shouted, eyes flaring with anger. “Hu-uh!” Scootaloo leaned fiercely over her desk, meeting his glare head on. “Nu-uh!” “HU-UH!” “NU-UH!” It was more than time for their teacher to intervene. She stepped forward, placing herself between the two and sending them a very disappointed look. “Stop it, you two,” Cheerilee said sternly. Reluctantly, they both looked away, albeit the fury in Feather Dust’s eyes was far from extinguished. Scootaloo’s scowl was no underachiever either. Nonetheless, Cheerilee decided to go on, knowing from experiences that their grudges would decrease with time, at least enough for her to get them to apologize later. “Well, it seems that enough questions about you have been answered. It is high time that we get on with our lessons.” Of course, her words prompted a collective groans from the foals, which earned them a gentle reprimand. Their sheepish expressions earned them a quick forgiveness, fortunately. “Now then, you can go sit behind Rumble, at the back of the class.” She helpfully pointed to a pale gray colt, who seemed a little surprised at being singled out. “’Kay thanks.” Feather Dust nodded, before quickly making his way to his newly designated seat. In his haste, he certainly didn’t notice the little gasp of shock that Diamond Tiara had let out at his proximity. What he did notice, however, once he had been firmly seated, was that the equations written on the board were easy. Dreadfully so. This stuff… he had learned all this stuff ages ago! And far from having faded from his memory, it was all so ridiculously easy that it couldn’t have been forgotten. After the first three sentences, his mind had already started drifting. The ladybug on the window chill was cute… her black dots made for a fun pattern. He wondered how it would look like if he looked at it upside down. Or sideways… Or in a mirror… Or in the reflective surface of a puddle rippling from a hoof disturbing the calm water… CELESTIA, HE WAS SO BORED! Slouching, the little colt let his head slid against the desk, resting his cheek against the hard wooden surface and looking with mind numbing boredom at the uniform ceiling. Maybe this was death. Or Tartarus. He had heard a lot about that place, but wasn’t quite sure what it did… Then, a voice called him back into the world of the living. “Feather Dust!” He blinked, slowly going back into awareness and glancing upward to a frowning Miss Cheerilee. “Have you been paying attention?” Straightening up into a less incriminating posture, the colt gave her his best winning smile. “Yes, Miss Cheerilee.” Eyes half closed, mouth set into a straight line, she certainly didn’t seem convinced. With a meter, she indicated the chalkboard. “Then what is the answer to this equation?” Rapidly, not wishing to be punished or scolded for his lack of attention, Feather Dust glanced at the front of the class, ignoring the looks he was getting from his classmates, that ranged from the amused to the compassionate. When he saw the ‘difficult’ problem he was asked to solve, he felt momentarily stunned. Two times three. “Huh…” This was a joke, right? He didn’t really need to study all that all over again? He really wanted his big brother to come down and save him from this crap! Taking his silence as an admission of ignorance, the purple mare started making her way back to the chalkboard, a frown on her face. “See? You would have known the answer if you were listening to my expla-” “Six.” The colt said over her voice, sounding supremely bored and annoyed. A heavy silence fell on the room. From everypony, there were only incredulous gazes and jaw drops. “How did you know that?!” A certain filly shouted in indignation. “Miss Cheerilee wasn’t even finished!” Said teacher sent a warning look at the misbehaving foal, before turning back toward the problematic colt. “Feather… Have you already covered multiplications in your old school?” “Yeah, and division, exponents, tables, graphs and a whole bunch of other stuff,” he listed off nonchalantly, leaning into his desk with a look of utter boredom. Now, the mare’s body language screamed of hesitation. Feather Dust’s tale seemed a little too unbelievable for her taste, but she had also been certain that her class was ahead of the official scholarly schedule for their age group. Had she been too lenient with her management of time? “Hum... Class, complete the following exercises while I go look for some more materials in my office.” She picked up the chalk with her mouth, scrambling a few equations for them to solve before speaking up again. “Don’t be turbulent in my absence.” Yet, while her efforts were noble, that attempt at digging up more appropriate material for her new student would soon prove itself fruitless, as he solved it all without much effort, under the absolutely gobsmacked eyes of his classmates. Feeling out of her depth, the poor mare resolved to ask him to be calm and quiet in his corner until she managed to contact his guardian, which he agreed to unenthusiastically. By the end of the first hour, the colt was firmly in the land of dream and drooling over his desk. -- They had brought me into a small garden outside the building, surrounded by plain, two-ponies-high, fences. Nothing fancy, but enough to ward off the naturally docile citizens of Ponyville. Not that anypony would be really foolish enough to enter a training ground for the weather patrol. Who would appreciate being hit by a bolt of lightning? So the storm cloud floating right between Rainbow Dash and myself held a slightly ominous quality. It had taken two pegasi to bring it down safely down here. In essence, the finesse needed for such a task had been a show of their skills. Not to be outdone, Cloud Kicker and Thunderlane had brought a much bigger bundle of clouds, albeit plain white ones. This result satisfying the multicolored-maned mare, those two had flown off to the side, with the rest of the pegasi. All of them were on my left though, as two big red “X” had been painted on the ground to my far right. It was just me and her down here. “Alright, chump,” she started, her tone midway between annoyance and simple neutrality. “It says on your resume that you can do the same thing as any pegasus, except fly. So, yeah, why don’t you elaborate on that?” Everything you can do, except fly… is it that hard to understand? Still, it would not do to use sarcasm during a job interview. So, I showed a bit of timidity, scratching the ground with my right front hoof. “Hum… I’m able to move clouds around, create them, disperse them, trigger rain, snow, hail or thunderstorm with them, and I’ve got some measure of control over wind patterns.” Understatement of the century, mares and gentlecolts! I am the wind patterns. “Oh?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed simply, still not quite convinced. “Well, then, you won’t mind if I time you while you move the storm cloud over there, trigger the lightning on both targets simultaneously, then disperse it harmlessly, right?” “N-no, I won’t…” I said with a weak smile. Her expression turned so absolutely deadpan that I wondered if she didn’t actually find this mousy façade annoying. She had a history of not appreciating weakness in a pony’s character. Unfortunately for me, appearing as meek and, more importantly, as different from my ‘princely’ mask as possible was a priority Celly had drilled into my head. “On my mark…” Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes and thus provoking snickering amongst our audience. “Go!” Wasting no time, I made my horn glow and seized control of the darker cloud. No aura of magic surrounded it, to the obvious surprise of a few, but it nonetheless shot up like a cannonball toward my right and stopped right over the red lines. With another flash, two charred spots had appeared on the designated targets and the cloud was no more. The operation hadn’t lasted more than a couple of seconds, I knew that. “Not bad.” Rainbow’s brash voice rang to my ears, while she checked on my recorded time. The cyan mare didn’t look very impressed, but I could have sworn the corner of her lips had twitched upward. “Let’s see how you fare up with cloud cutting. You’ve got just enough material in there for six identical clouds in there.” At her words, a few pegasi moved the cloud to the middle of the training ground. Then, they quickly flew back to the sidelines. The way they hurried though… well, combined with Rainbow Dash’s expression wasn’t all that reassuring. “On your mark…” She paused, looking at my apparent nervousness slyly. “Begin!” This time, I seized control of the air surrounding the cloud and created a grid. With just a squeeze, six fluffy clouds popped into existence while their parent died via implosion. “Not bad,” Rainbow Dash admitted, although her tone had grown a bit less certain. The pegasi observing the scene on the other hand had started whispering amongst themselves. Most sounded surprised. Oh, who was I kidding? I knew exactly what they were saying and it meant that this interview was going swimmingly. Apparently, the assistant-manager, Dash, was also aware of that fact, as she sent silencing looks toward the crowd. After only a glare, the noise had abruptly stopped, as her message had been quite clear. ‘Do not let your impressions hinder this test,’ it said. ‘Somepony’s job is at stakes here.’ Then, her gaze snapped back to me. Her eyes narrowed, Rainbow Dash was gauging me from horn to hooves. “Well, then, seems like you can do what you said within acceptable delays. There is only one task left for you to accomplish. And it is the hardest!” She jumped, spreading her wings to their full length in an admittedly intimidating form. Under the spell, I felt my feathers flicker and sent a panicked glance to the pegasi observing us. If even one of them thought they had seen… “The ultimate test!” Rainbow Dash loudly proclaimed, gaining everypony’s attention, with the kind of intensity that made me believe she would start her own soundtrack. “What shows you can pull your weight when it really counts!” And it worked. My heartbeat had accelerated with trepidation and perhaps even excitement. The parts of me under this new mask were thrilled with the chance to show off. Imperceptibly, my neck stretched forward as I waited for her to name this ultimate test. “You, Cloud Circle, will have to singledhoofedly stop what we will have created. And by that, I mean you will have to stop a tornado!” “A tornado?” I repeated, desperately trying not to let the deadpan leak in my voice. "As in a big column of wind?" “What’s wrong?” She asked cockily, flying closer to me. “Can’t do it?” Intimidated, I stepped backward in the face of her savage grin. For good measure, my tail flickered and my ears twitched. “I… I will certainly try…” “Yeah, we’ll see how well you fare.” The cyan mare rolled her eyes, holding the chronometer in her hooves and looking on the verge of starting this ‘ultimate test’. Inwardly, I was laughing so hard. -- At first, nothing had seemed like the day would be so earth shattering for the nobility on the Canterlot scene. The sun had risen as scheduled, the tabloids reporters were feasting on one scandalous event or another, and most continued to expand their networks of acquaintances and favors, for the day it would become useful. Yes, all in all, nothing seemed to have predisposed this day to shake the very foundation of Equestria’s capital. What would later be retraced as the source of all these troubles happened in the great laundry’s room, unofficially dubbed as the maid’s meeting room. Mares of all ages and races would periodically gather to attend to one of their main task in the princesses’ castle. An amicable chatter floated around the air amidst the floating soap bubbles and the clouds of steam. Even the high level of heats in the room could not stop such gatherings. As the day had barely started, a good number of the ponies on staff were currently attending to the nobles in the dining hall – or in their private quarters –, leaving the laundry room quieter than it usually was. This, amongst other things, contributed to the disaster waiting to happen since Miss Glass Slippers’ entrance was far from unnoticed. Perking up from her basin of steaming water, her friend Frilled Dress tossed some strands of her mane away from her eyes the moment she caught a glimpse of her pale green fur. However, the smile that had started to appear on her face slipped away as soon as she took in the wide eyes and the shock painted all over her dear Glass Slippers’ face. “Slippers?” She called, momentarily abandoning her laundry in favor of more important things. “Are you okay?” Blinking, the poor mare seemed surprised of her surrounding, as if she had walked up to this room without realizing it. “I… I just finished cleaning up Prince Blueblood’s suite.” “What did he do?” The grey mare quickly grabbed her shoulder and looked in her eyes. “Did that pig hurt you, Slippers?! I swear on Celestia’s name that if he so much touched a ha-” “No,” the still dazed maid cut her off. “He… thanked me…” A heavy silence fell onto the room. Baffled expressions of disbelief were exchanged between the few ponies still able to move at all. “T-then… he apologized for being so demanding…” Glass Slippers continued, as if moving for the proverbial kill on the few that were hoping to salvage their perception of the world as a whole. Amongst those ponies sent spiraling into denial was, in fact, Green Blossom, who looked to be shaking even while her pupils had shrunken to small dots. “N-now, Slippers, I heard that he spent s-some time around Prince V-V-V-Ventus. P-perhaps, he-” But the shocked maid would simply not let her friend keep her illusions. It was almost with a vindictive regret that she then shouted: “And he gave me a tip!”. The world was ending. Or Discord was back to his old game. Either options warranted full and total panic. -- As soon as the door was closed behind be, my knees trembled enough for me to almost buckle. None of them had recognized me. They were all convinced I was a shy and nerdy unicorn that just happened to know how to deal with the weather. Despite my best effort, a sigh of relief escaped my lips. After a minute of calm or so, I felt well enough to start walking away from the office. My hooves being seemingly light, I proceeded to make my way back home, though still affecting a certain timidity whenever another pony sent a curious look my way. Not bad, I thought with a smile, as one precisely decided that I was nopony important and went on their merry way. So far so good. Nopony really suspected a thing, or else, there would have been a stampeded or something at another member of the royal family visiting Ponyville. With a little luck, we’d be able to completely disappear from the public’s eye and look for a solution in private, away from the curious ones. Twilight might have been feeling hesitant about it, but she had also confessed something immensely private to me. I-it wasn’t a lost cause… She had cared, I was sure of it. I… I didn’t really want to let her down… But… There was this hesitation growing inside me. According to Celestia, her student had been informed of our coming… And the train station had been depressingly empty when we had finally arrived in Ponyville. T-there had been a word to describe the emptiness that had filled my chest at that moment, but I did not want to truly ponder it. Not seeing her then… my more emotional side had associated it with previous experiences, albeit human ones. Sometimes I had inflicted it on them, sometimes they had inflicted it on me. Both ways were painful. She had avoided me, again… O-or maybe she was just busy. She does have a job, after all. With another sigh, I shook my head. Right now, I should focus on making our new house habitable. Because apparently, there were no such things as apartments in a small backwater town like Ponyville, we had needed to buy a house. Or rent an inn room for weeks and blow all our bits on that endeavor. Thank the Elders Celestia had created a special bank account for us. A pulsing guilt laid beneath my skin at the thought… I hadn’t done anything to deserve this… I’d just pretend... be an alicorn… and those things were ours on a silver platter. A searing pain erupted on the left side of my face, though it took me a second to realize it had come from my own slap. “Get a grip…” I muttered. I had better things to do than mope about how privileged we were. For starters, the house hadn’t come with any furniture. Camping in the living room with a couple of blankets would only work so long before the lack of comfort made either of us irritable. Alright, I’ll go back to the house to drop these forms off, then I’ll look for the stuff we need. IF there is time, I’ll go see Twilight’s library and- My thoughts came to an abrupt halt at the same time my legs did. All to my inner musing, I hadn’t realized our new home had come into sight until my eyes had fallen on the pony waiting for me at the door. Already, a thousand scenarios flew through my head, each one more apocalyptic than the last three, with all of these somehow involving Calx provoking a nuclear fallout. “Hello,” she said pleasantly, expression only slightly troubled. “You must be Feather Dust’s older brother, Cloud Circle?” “Hum… yes, that’s me…” I replied shyly. “And you would be…?” I knew her, of course, but since there had been no formal introductions yet... “Miss Cheerilee. I’m the local school teacher.” She offered a hoof and I quickly shook it. “Can we talk for a few minutes?” Playing the part of the slightly overwhelmed guardian wasn’t hard. In fact, it was more difficult for me to tell if I was playing at all… “Oh, huh… yeah… sure… But we’ve just moved, so it’s fine if we talk outside?” To that, I was relieved to see her nod. “So what’s the problem? He didn’t get in trouble, did he?” Because for real, squirt, that would be impressive even for you. As it turned out, however, Cheerilee’s concerns were of a completely different nature. “No, no…” The teacher shook her head slowly. “In fact, this visit is more concerning his school knowledge…” I blinked. Well, that was unexpected. School in Ponyville should be an absolute breeze for him. “I’ve tested him this morning and he already knew this morning’s lesson. To be sure, I gave him some of next week’s lesson as well…” “And…?” I asked, feeling uncharacteristically nervous on such a mundane topic. “I don’t know what to do with him. I’ve tried giving him my advanced material, but he completed it all without even trying.” She looked up to me with a distressed expression. “Has he taken an IQ test? It may be warranted seeing the brilliance he has displayed.” It took, literally, all of my willpower stretched to its extremes, for me not to start laughing hysterically. Calx, a genius? Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. “Mister Cloud Circle?” Her worried tone allowed me to get back some serious. “Would it be possible for your brother to get a higher level of education here? If the funds are a problem, perhaps you could apply him for the Luna’s Grant for the Gifted Youth?” The thought of such a course of action had a very sobering effect on me. Deep breath. Don’t mess this up. It could have serious consequences to our covers if Calx was labeled a child genius. With a sad shake of my head, I looked down. “He tried before and failed miserably.” Cheerilee stepped forward, frowning. I was not sure she was convinced. “But…” “Can you not just keep him in your class? Just give him essays to write or something.” “I don’t know if I’m qualified to properly correct the kind of essays he would send back…” She looked away, her mouth twisting into a grimace for the first time. Her tone had been slightly bitter as well, hinting at some things I could not accurately guess. “From the results I gathered in a measly afternoon, your brother could truly shatter some well-held records.” Which was exactly the opposite of what we were trying to accomplish here. Our backstories were solid, but the whole point of hiding was to stay under the radar long enough to let the medias calm down about me. Having that same scrutiny directed at us in Ponyville of all places… it might be enough to have me snap. “Miss Cheerilee, I’m working full-time during the day just to make ends meet,” I whispered, as if I was ashamed of the state of things. With a small effort of will, I sheepishly flattened my ears against my head and scrapped the ground with a hoof. My voice had started shaking. “I had to move here just to find a job that I could do. I’ve graduated from a great school, but I’ve got no experience and I’m a unicorn in the weather management business! We can’t afford a private tutor and there’s no other school in Ponyville. We’ll have to move again, but I can’t drop off like this. I’ll never get another job on a weather patrol if I do. I have to look after him and provide for him! I… isn’t it fine if he just has independent work or something?” Cheerilee looked like she wanted to kick herself for her, apparent, insensibility. If I had to guess, I would say she was angry with herself for trying to make things more complicated for a poor young adult trying to provide for his only remaining family. To be fair, that’s what I was aiming for… and the finishing blow to make sure she would keep her muzzle out of it… “Princess Sparkle lives in this town, right?” I asked, with a rather convincing note of uncertainty. Cheerilee bought it, as she nodded slowly, not really getting what I wanted to highlight with my observation. “I-it may be really presumptuous of me, but…” I faked a bit of stuttering, looking away and shrinking on myself a little. “S-she lives in a library, right? A-and she’s very knowledgeable. Some of her essays are used by the teachers back in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns…” Her eyes lit up with understanding and, as soon as they did, she quickly shook her head. “N-no, I couldn’t ask Twi- Princess Sparkle. I wouldn’t dare bring up something so…” “I’ll try to ask her if she would be willing to give him a few essays to do.” I felt my voice grow raspier, as some true emotion was starting to slip into my tone. “I… I’ll convince her, you’ll see! Keeping my brother in your class won’t cause you trouble, I promise!” Cheerilee’s eyes drifted to the floor, even as her face crunched up in an expression of frustration. I… I could understand somewhat… Teaching was her special talent, wasn’t it? “If you can make sure your brother will be provided with an adequate challenge to his knowledge…” Her voice trailed off, uneasy but unwilling to meet up my gaze head on. “Thank you!” I said with a smile and just enough gratitude to make her uncomfortable. She almost ran off after that. With a few whispered words full of sympathy, my brother's teacher promised she'd do what she could to help and left. As I looked after her shrinking form in the distance, I knew I had triumphed over this obstacle. Most likely, Cheerilee wouldn’t try to bring this up with me again. Go me! I was still good enough to guilt-trip an innocent mare into doing what I wanted in the end… Urgh, even here I couldn’t rid myself of this. Canterlot was probably much better off without us to cause all these troubles. I wonder how Celestia is doing now… -- The flavor of her tea was simply divine. After generations of work, some of her subjects had elevated the art of brewing tea leagues above any other. Each aroma elevating from her cup had her relaxing with pleasant thoughts filling her mind. Smiling widely, Celestia took another sip from her delicate porcelain cup. Ah, it seemed that nothing could make this day less than perfect. No trouble whatsoever seemed to be building up in the horizon. The only thing she needed for confirmation was her faithful student’s report on how her cousins were adjusting to Ponyville. It had yet to come, but with such a beautiful afternoon building up in front of her, the princess allowed herself to feel optimistic. “Your Majesty!” A young guard shouted, entering her office with what appeared to be a mixture of panic and hopelessness. Instantly, his attitude triggered a complete reversal in the alicorn’s mental state, who left the realms of complete serenity for an almost military stature. “Speak now, my little pony,” she ordered him sternly. “There is a rumor that Prince Blueblood has fallen gravely ill, is delirious and is highly contagious! The nobles are trying to escape the castle, while Captain Steel Rampart has declared quarantine, and the staff on hooves has gone completely hysterical! Also, the Canterlot Daily has filed a complaint about being assaulted with balls of mud thrown by a bunch of foals and the Wonderbolts had reported the sky being noticeably less blue than usual!” As if triggered by his words, distant shouts started to fill the hallways leading to her office. Well played, Ventus, well played.