Chapter 4: Changes
The first school years of my life were a living nightmare. When I turned fifteen I changed school and started attending highschool. I was as nervous as I had been when I begun primary school. I woke ip early to get myself ready and did my usual morning routine. I began by showering and then I headed downstairs for breakfast. When I entered the kitchen I was met by my brother. He was now unemployed and we had drifted apart during the last couple of years. We said nothing to each other as usually. After a quick breakfast I went upstairs and fetched my saddlebag and once I had picked it up I walked downstairs and out the door and began my long walk to my new school. As I walked a thought struck me. What if I would meet someone in my new class that would be like Storm and try to bully me. The thought was quickly crushed as I remembered what had happened to Storm almost two years ago.
It had been a late evening and Storm had been walking home from a friends house when he decided to take a shortcut through an alley. It wasn't by bad luck that I found him that night. No I had been following him and when he went through the dark alley I had made my move. I had struck him down from behind with a bat and I beat him badly with the bat. He never found out who assaulted him. Ofcourse at the time it felt good but later I started to feel bad about it and several times i thought about turning myself into the canterlot police and confess to my armed assault but I never did. But he never bullied anyone again after that.
I had completely lost myself in my memories and when I snapped back to reality I had reached the gate of my new school. I stood there for a moment and read the school sign just to ensure myself I was at the right place.
The sign read "Canterlot Public HighSchool for Pegasi, Earth Ponies and Unicorns."
I looked at the giant wood gate for a second before I opened it and went inside. As I walked in the first thing I saw was long corridors with clean white walls and a stone floor. It kinda reminded me of a hospital. I saw a piece of paper that had been stuck onto an announcement board on one of the walls. I walked up and read it. It was a class list detailing which class you belonged to and which class room you were supposed to be in. Only then did I realise that I was late for my first class. I ran through the corridor until I found my classroom. Luckily the door was still open and I walked in quietly trying to not draw attention to myself.
"I assume you are Silver Steed. Am I correct?" I heard a voice ask. It was my new teacher Mrs.Harsh
"Yes Im Silver" I answered in a casual tone trying to sound like I didn't care.
"How good of you to join us. Now take a seat"
I sat down as far back in the classroom as I could. Mrs.Harsh continued to talk. After she had introduced herself we did a few exercises to learn each others names and after that our introductory day ended. As I walked through the corridors heading to the gate I heard someone shouting my name.
"Hey Silver" I turned to see who it was.
It was a mare from my class. Her name was Star Charmer and she was joined by two other ponies called Foggy and Icy Night. Star Charmer was a dark gray unicorn, Foggy was a gray pegasus and Icy Night was a dark blue Earth Pony. I turned and looked at them as they came closer. I was a bit paranoid when they trotted over to me.
"Yeah what do you want?" I asked trying to hide the uncertanty in my voice.
"We just wanted to ask if you wanted to hang with us?" Star Charmer asked.
"Um sure Star" I replied a bit dumbfounded by what they had just asked. Nobody had asked me to hang around with them before.
"Cool by the way call me Raven" She said in a friendly voice.
I nodded
"Oh also these two ponies are Foggy and Ice Night but you can call them Gloomy and Bones"
I just nodded my head as the two ponies introduced themselves a bit better.
Two months passed and not much happened. I spent almost everyday with Raven and the gang. We became good friends. We listened to music togheter and talked about our lives and hobbies. It turned out all three of them had been bullied by Storm just like me. One day after school we decided to look around in some shops around Canterlots marketplace. We decided to check out a newly opened fashion botique. Raven headed in first of all and we followed her after a couple of minutes. As we found Raven in the botique she was looking at a small bottle.
"What is that?" I asked her
"It's a new thing called coat coloring"
"Cool" was the response from the rest of us.
Raven turned heard head and looked at us.
"We should try it"
"Yeah totally" Gloomy and Bones said and looked at each other and then all three of them looked at me.
"Sure I'll give it a try"
We took a bottle each and headed to the counter to pay for them. They costed us about 15 bits each. It was kinda exspensive so we hoped that it would be worth the money. After we had exited the Botique we all agreed to walk our separate ways home and try the coat coloring. When I got home i hurried into the bathroom and stayed in there for about an hour. I had tried to follow the instructions on the coloring bottle and as I looked at myself in the mirror I saw that the coat coloring had worked. My coat was now black. When I exited the bathroom I got a bit nervous about what my mother would say. But she had stopped caring at all about what I did. I went to sleep early somewhat exited to meet my friends in the morning.
The next day I meet up with Raven and the gang. All of us now had black coloured coats.
"Cool" Gloomy and Bones both said at the same time.
"I told you guys this was a good idea" Raven said looking at all of us.
"So what do you wanna do now guys?" I asked.
We spent about ten minutes trying to decide what to do since it was the weekend and we had no school. Finally we decided that we would go down to the Canterlot square and hang around there. When we had walked for about five minutes Raven just suddenly stopped and spoke.
"You know what guys? I just realised that Silver dosen't have a nickname and we should give him one"
"Yeah" Gloomy and Bones both agreed with Raven.
"Hm..okay let me think" Raven muttered and began thinking for a couple of minutes.
"Ah i've got it! From now on your nickname is Dusk" And with that it was decided. From that moment forward they would always call me Dusk when they spoke to me.