Aurora: The End of Beginnings.
Chapter 6
Of Many Things and Yet of Nothing
I awoke today like the ones before, mostly confused as to a many of things, mainly as to how I had gotten in that cave and even more so about that strange orb I had found inside of it, though at least this time I had a goal for the new day; The asking of Princess Luna to be my mentor. This, by no means at all, was going to be an easy task for me to accomplish though at the most part I was going to try anyway, ”No use in not trying after all.” I thought to myself, though if anything I was more so wondering how I was going to get around to doing it, being after a short history update from Cheerilee I learned that both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna lived in a place far from Pony-Ville called Canterlot.
“Not much use in thinking about this at the moment I think, it’s not like I’m able to get all the way to Canterlot at the moment.” I said to myself in debate. Come to think I hadn’t even bothered to see what time it was. I looked toward the table the doctor had put the clock on to fix only to not see it there anymore,”Derpy must have moved it over to someplace else.” I thought for a moment, only to end up glancing over toward the window to the left of me to find that same clock hung on the wall for any-pony to see; a quick look at the hands of the clock told me it was 7:03 AM.
“Only around seven?” I thought for a moment, I then realized this was actually a perfect opportunity for me for I actually had remembered something for once; School starts at approximately 8:15 AM Monday through Friday unless it’s a Holliday such as Christmas, no idea what this “Christmas” was though, guess I would just ask some-pony later what it was when I had the time to.
As for why this was an opportunity to me, I figured even if I had known so much about stuff I shouldn’t know at my age that I should still attend school as even as I just thought; I may actually learn something I don’t know. “Who knows, maybe it’s a good idea, I could meet some other ponies my age after all.” Though shortly after thinking that, I had another thought; I had absolutely no idea where the school was.
“Oh, you’re up early today?” said a voice.
“Huh?” I got jarred out of my thoughts only to find Derpy standing in the entrance to the living room.
She blinked at me a few times, “Doing some early thinking?” she asked after a short moment.
I nodded, “Yeah, about the school Cheerilee talked about yesterday. Though I did end up thinking it may be the best for me to attend school after all, meet some ponies my age, and maybe learn some things I don’t know about.” in the end this would put a wedge in my plans with Princess Luna, though I figured it for the best. After all, for all I knew I may end up getting some of my memories back in the process.
She smiled at that, “Alright then Aurora, that’s not a problem at all. Though, may I suggest taking a shower first?”
“A shower? Why would I need a sho- oh….” A quick glance at myself from the windows reflection gave me the answer, I was absolutely filthy looking, my hair had dirt and mud in it, I had a few cuts on my face that most likely were from running through the Everfree forest, along with the fact I had been wearing the same sweater that Luna had given me a day or two ago; most likely covering up more dirt and cuts on my body. Come to think why hadn’t Derpy asked me where I had gotten it anyway? I mentally shrugged then asked, “So where’s the shower then?”
Derpy motioned for me to follow her, so I got up off of the sofa to follow her though the kitchen and upstairs to a set of five doors, “The door at the end of the hall is where I keep all the towels and cleaning items, the door at the back and to the right is the bathroom with the shower in it and across is the storage room which I normally keep locked for…..reasons.” she looked slightly distressed when she mentioned that room though I wasn’t going to question why, “The front two rooms from the left are Dinkies and mine on the right. Speaking of Dinky I need to get her out of bed, you can handle yourself in the shower….right?” she gave me a glance.
I nodded; I didn’t see any reasons why I couldn’t take a shower by myself aside maybe age. I left Derpy to tend to Dinky and opened up the bathroom and took a quick look around. Inside were the usual items to find in a bathroom; a mirror, soap, towels, a sink, a tub with a shower and, as always, the toilet along with the paper. I shut the door to the bathroom for some privacy as shortly after noticing the toilet I realized just how badly I needed to go; let’s just say that my eyes were floating up into the back of my head from needing to use it so badly. After all it had been around four days since I had found myself in that cave; some relief was much oriented.
After that short excursion I opened up the shower curtain and turned on the water to just above medium heat then took my sweater off and got into the tub with the water running, I thankfully found the soap just next to me and went to work cleaning out my hair, also making sure to keep my eyes closed as to make sure I didn’t get soap suds into my eyes. It was a mess of messes I tell you, I could literally feel clumps of mud falling out of my hair, shortly after I put the soap down to wash the leftovers out of my hair then I opened my eyes to clean the rest of my body off only to find something I had entirely not expected.
My silvery fur had turned into a purple-blue color with a silvery liquid pouring down off of my body and into the drain. After seeing that happen I screamed and found myself hugging the far corner of the tub trying to get away from the water. The next thing I know I see Derpy bursting though the door looking a bit frantic with worry, though after a few moments this look changed into a one of wonder and of question, “Aurora?” she said after pausing a few moments to try gathering what she was looking at.
All I could think to do was look at her face and hers to look at mine, we both had no idea what had just happened though it seemed that my simply looking at her calmed her down enough. She went over to turn the shower off then went over to me and sat down on the sill of the tub then put one of her hooves onto my head.
“It’s alright Aurora, just tell me what happened.” She said in a calming tone, thankfully also enough to calm me down enough to speak again, “I’m not supposed to be blueish purple.” I mumbled also pointing down to the silvery liquid still draining from the tub, she removed her hoof from my head to go down and touch the liquid and thusly also getting it stuck to her hoof in the process. At the same time I also noticed Dinky walk into the bathroom to stand behind Derpy, she then looked over to what Derpy had stuck to her hoof, “That stuff looks like clay.” She said abruptly catching both me and Derpy by surprise.
“Clay?” I asked.
“Yeah, clay, you know, take it, make pots and stuff, you know. That kind of clay.” She explained.
“Oh. Well, I guess I was just surprised is all. Not every day you find yourself covered in clay.” I said, though more so wondering how I ended up getting covered from head to hoof in the stuff. I climbed out of the tub to go look into the mirror to find that not only was my fur actually a purple blue color but that my hair was actually both light blue and black with my tail being a solid light blue (cut half way to full length) along with my hair quite a bit longer then I had originally figured as it was now covering up my right eye again. Though I decided this time that I would let it stay that way, it just felt right to me.
I hadn’t noticed at the time but both Derpy and Dinky had both left the bathroom and down downstairs to eat breakfast when I had been looking at myself in the mirror, so I quickly dried myself off with one of the towels in the room and headed down into the kitchen to get my breakfast as well. Though I quickly took note of the one extra pony in the room aside from Dinky and Derpy; the Doctor was also sitting at the table eating a few muffins.
“You again?” I said gesturing over toward the Doctor.
Too much Derpys surprise it seemed like I knew the Doctor already, “You two know each other already?” she exclaimed after a moment’s notice whilst Dinky simply ate her cereal.
“Quite yes actually, had a bit of a scuffle with the Tardis door I must say, along with the fridge, somehow managed to open the Tardis door though extension of the refrigerator, a minor error on my part really, fixed it up in a jiffy. And I must also add, wasn’t she a different color before?” said the Doctor though a mouth full of muffin, in all honesty it’s a miracle anyone could understand him with it in his mouth let alone how fast he said all of it.
I simply had my mouth agape from all that and frankly didn’t even know why he was here.
“Covered in clay.” Said Dinky with a mouth full of cereal.
“Ah, quite right, that would do it.” Exclaimed the Doctor with yet another muffin stuffed into his mouth.
My stomach grumbling at me brought me out of my stunned moment, it was best that I just ate my food at the table for the moment and question things like this later like after I get home from school for instance. Come to think, as far as I had known, this would be the first school I had been to too my knowledge, I hadn’t any idea what I should expect aside the fact I would be with other ponies my age that all had the same general goal; to learn from their teacher Cheerilee. Come to think again I guess I did have some idea of what to expect from going to school with Dinky after all.
Apparently I had finished eating without realizing it because I had been spooning leftover milk into my mouth for the past few moments, only after looking at what I was eating did I actually stop with the milk spooning.
I decided to help put away the dishes with Derpy before Dinky, Derpy and myself left for the school around 8:00 AM, thankfully I remembered to grab that bag I had found in the cave with me, for some reason I couldn’t find myself to leave it behind.
From what I could tell it was about a five minute walk to the school from Derpys house, though I had half expected it to be longer. Nothing wrong with being wrong I guess, though I can definitely say I wasn’t expecting to see so many other ponies my age to be attending the same school, I counted around fifteen others excluding Cheerilee and what I assumed were the other ponies’ parents or siblings, the total of ponies was around twenty. My guess is that some of the parents or siblings had left for their own work already or that the younger ones had walked themselves here. Needless to say the area was a little on the loud side for my liking.
It wasn’t very long after arriving at the school that Cheerilee spotted us, though I don’t think she knew who I was being that the last she saw me I had been an entirely different color. Needless to say she went up to greet us just the same; the change of my color was explained by both Derpy and Dinky, thankfully it didn’t seem like that was going to be much of a problem.
After a short talk with Cheerilee about my attendance at school it wasn’t long after that she had rounded up the rest of the ponies my age into the school house, along with me and Dinky. It was a rather orderly thing, aside a few quiet whispers, all the ponies other than me had taken their respected seats at their desks and awaited to hear what their teacher had to say about me, whom had been told prier to stand at the front of the class next to Cheerilee. In front of every single…pony….
Every single one of the other ponies in the class room was fixed directly onto none other than me, I instinctively shied over to Cheerilee. I was begging to think that it hadn’t been the best idea going to school after all.
Cheerilee started “As it seems I have every-ponies attention already I would like to introduce your temporary new classmate Aurora. Now, as many of you may or may not already know as news around Ponyville travels rather quickly Aurora was recently adopted into the Hooves family under some rather interesting circumstances that I won’t go into details about. None the less she will be attending class every so often when she herself sees fit, if you want to know why then feel free to ask her yourself later if you so chose to. Now are there any questions?” to my surprise not a single one of the others had spoken up at all despite what she had just said, not that I was complaining.
“Now then, let’s see. There’s a seat over next to Sweetie Belle and another next to Snails so feel free to pick one.” Cheerilee had gestured over to two of the ponies in the room, both unicorns, one being rather scrawny looking and to my personal opinion somewhat elongated in form as well as having as I had expected from the name, a snail for a cutie mark; as for color, a dark orange/brown coat with a green tail and green hair. The other however quite different though, curled hair and tail that are shaded pink and light purple and their coat being almost a pure white color, they had no cutie mark to speak of.
My personal opinion of Snails got the better of me and I ended up taking my seat next to Sweetie Belle, class started directly after.
Turned out I was right about learning a few things though there wasn't much Cheerilee covered in class that I hadn't already known aside some history about Equestria. I found that slightly strange actually; from what Twilight had told me when we first had met I had some kind of memory loss. I was actually starting to think that it wasn't memory loss at all but something else entirely. How else could I explain knowing so much about math and other things and yet know absolutely nothing about history? No, this was something else entirely alright I just didn’t know what.
It wasn’t long until we hit art class, I was actually glad there was one honestly if anything it would give me some time to quit thinking so much and just draw something random. Thankfully I remembered to grab my bag with all of my drawing stuff in it and went to work trying to find a pencil in my bag figuring that I had put the one I had used for drawing that one night Luna suddenly came by the house back into the bag, what I did find however I wasn’t prepared for in the slightest.
The unfinished drawing that I had found in my bag when I first found it was in color instead of black and white.