Monday.
It goes without saying that this day is hated by most ponies. Just the knowledge that your fantastic weekend is coming to an end and that you must go back to school is enough to bring a foal to tears. It was on this dreaded day of the week that the little colts and fillies of Ponyville must return to their daily studies.
But this Monday would be different. For today, Ms. Cheerilee’s class would be getting a new student.
On the west side of this village was a small, yellow building with a rather large, inflatable ice cream cone resting on its rooftop. It looked quite humble for what it had to offer, by Ponyville’s standards at least. This place was known as “Rocky Road”. It was an ice cream parlor owned by two enthusiasts of the frozen desert from Hoofington. One of the ponies a pink unicorn mare with a purple mane and an ice cream cone Cutie-Mark. This pony’s name was Soft Serve, and she had started this little business with her husband. He was a brown Earth Pony stallion with a black mane and a root-beer float Cutie-Mark; This pony’s name was Shaken Soda. Together, these two not only had a successful business, but also had a foal.
And that’s where this story begins.
As stated, it was Monday morning in Ponyville. All of the foals in town had gotten into their morning routine and prepared for the upcoming school day.
All except for this one unicorn filly.
In one of the upstairs bedrooms Rocky Road had to offer, you would think that a mad scientist would’ve lived inside. There were several hundred beakers filled with unknown, colorful liquids, burning hot plates everywhere, a gigantic ice cream dispenser, and several notebooks scattered across the floor, all seemingly filled with notes and formulas of various kinds, but all leading back to a similar topic.
Making and perfecting ice cream.
Sitting at a small desk among the organized chaos was a short, blue unicorn filly with a purple mane, not too unlike her mother’s. Her orange eyes were extremely bloodshot from a lack of sleep and over-concentrating. Emblazoned on her flank was a Cutie-Mark of two scoops of ice cream with a large banana resting next to them. Covering her forehead were a pair of protective goggles.
This filly was Beauty Split. Daughter of Soft Serve and Shaken Soda.
And she was in what she called “The Delight Zone”
You see, you unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of deliciousness. A dimension of chocolate. And most importantly, a dimension of mind. Your moving into a land of both creativity and taste of things and ideas.
You’ve just crossed into, “The Delight Zone”
…In other words, Split had an idea.
“Come on Split. You’ve got this old girl. Just hope to Celestia this one doesn’t blow up.” She said in a determined tone with a hardened expression plastered onto her face. Before her on the desk were two things. A large, red book titled “Dessert Magic for Morons”, and a bowl of vanilla ice cream.
Split reached up and pulled the goggles over her face. She looked like she was in an intense stare down with the frozen dessert, narrowing her eyes. She immediately closed and began to charge up the magic in her horn, which lit up a light blue. Now surrounding the ice cream was an aura of the same color. After a few seconds, it started to bubble and change from its natural whiteness to a light pink.
Split was twisted into a state of pure concentration as she worked. All night she had been working to perfect this spell. This specific type of magic had the power to change the flavor of any kind of ice cream into another.
It probably would’ve ended a lot better if her mother hadn’t interrupted her.
“Split, are you awake honey?” Soft Serve said with a knock on Split’s door.
“Wha-?” This sudden action broke Split’s concentration almost instantly which in turn caused her spell to overload and…
Soft Serve then heard a loud boom from the other side of her daughter’s glitter-sticker covered door and felt genuinely afraid to observe the scene in Split’s room should she open it.
The action was done for her by her daughter, who appeared to be drenched from head to hoof in melted ice cream, the liquid covering her goggles so it blocked out her eyes.
Soft Serve wore a very concerned look on her face as she looked at her soaked daughter.
“Ummm…Split are you alright?” she asked.
Split then pushed the goggles back to her forehead, revealing the only part of her body to be unfazed by the explosion. The area around her eyes had been completely untouched thanks to her protective lenses.
“I was.” She said in a grumpy pout.
Soft Serve tilted her head to its side.
“Oh, I broke your concentration again didn’t I. Sorry Sweetie.” Soft Serve apologized.
“It’s fine mom. Wait a second…what’re you doing up in the middle of the night?” Split asked with a confused look.
“…Split its eight in the morning. Were you up ALL night?” Soft Serve asked.
Split’s eyes widened in terror and she took a very deep breath.
“WHAAAAAT?!” She screamed. Split had been so caught up in her work that she had COMPLETELY lost track of the time. It only got worse when she remembered that today was her first day of school in Ponyville, and she was probably going to be late.
Split then bolted out of her room, zipped past her mom, and quickly galloped down the stairs, where she saw her father, Shaken Soda standing at Rocky Road’s counter drinking his morning coffee with a newspaper in his hoof.
“Morning Split. Have a good slee…oh dear.” He said when he laid eyes on the mess covering the filly’s fur.
“Yeahgoodmorningdadcan’ttalkrightnowori’llbelateforschool.Loveyoubye!”Split said all in one breath as she grabbed her saddle bags and zipped out the front door, slamming it shut behind her.
“…She’s actually going to school like that?” Shaken Soda asked his wife who had just trotted downstairs.
“Don’t worry honey. Knowing Split she’ll find some way to look presentable before she gets to school.” Soft Serve assured.
After rinsing herself off with somepony’s garden hose and shaking herself dry like a dog, Split had made her way to Ponyville’s small, red schoolhouse, hearing the bell at the top loudly ring.
“Alright Split. First day in a new school. You’ve got to make a good impression!” Split said in a determined tone. She then levitated a small mirror out of her saddlebag and looked at herself in it.
Putting it lightly…
Her mane was a horrendous, poofy abomination that would probably make a certain white unicorn run for the hills on sight of the accursed thing.
“Oh dear Celestia! My mane looks like it was assaulted by a manticore! I can’t go in there like this! I’ll be a laughingstock!” Split wailed. She then levitated a brush out of her bag and started to brush her mane back into place with a few gentle strokes. She then managed to tie it back into its normal, ponytail fashion with a ribbon from her bag.
She looked back into her mirror, carefully inspecting the current state of her newly brushed mane. Being the very detail-specific perfectionist she tended to be, Split wanted to make sure she made a good first impression on her new classmates.
Unfortunately, this enormous attention to detail tended to sometimes drive her a little nuts.
“Ooooh. I just don’t know. What if they don’t like me? What if my stupid perfectionist self annoys everypony? What if-“
‘Will you stop being an insecure wuss already and just go inside?!’ she thought to herself. Split then slapped herself across her cheek.
“No! You can’t chicken out now Split! Just be nice to everypony, try and introduce yourself, and try to makes some new friends. Everything is going to be just fine!” Split assured herself as she trotted up to the schoolhouse’s door…
Diamond Tiara rested her chin on her hoof, a look on her face that clearly conveyed that she didn’t care what Ms. Cheerilee was lecturing the class about. Not that this was very different from any other day really. Not even Cheerilee’s upbeat and happy tone of voice was enough to keep the rich filly’s attention.
But it really isn’t her fault. NOPONY in Equestria can make math sound even the slight bit interesting.
It. Is. IMPOSSIBLE.
‘Ugggh. Why do I even have to go to public school with these losers?’ She thought bitterly to herself. This really was a legitimate question on her part. She never really understood why she couldn’t just go to private school with foals that were more like her. Her dad said it had something to do with “Teaching her humility” or something like that.
Well if that was what he intended, it definitely wasn’t working.
In her bored daze, her eyes shifted to the desk next to her. Her best friend, a grey filly with glasses and a spoon Cutie Mark, Silver Spoon, sat there practically asleep.
‘Hehe. At least somepony other than me has enough sense when to realize when something is hilariously boring’ Diamond thought.
Just when Diamond felt like she was going to doze off herself, there was a slight knock on the schoolhouse door which jolted the filly out of her trance, as well as Silver Spoon. The disturbance also caused Ms. Cheerilee to stop talking.
“Oh that’s right! Class I forgot to mention that today we would be getting a new student! She must have been running late this morning, the poor dear.” Cheerilee said loud enough for the class to hear her as she trotted to the door.
Diamond looked over to Silver Spoon and the two smirked devilishly and engaged in a bit of silent conversation.
‘New kid huh?’
‘Looks like it. You know the drill. Show em’ who’s boss.’
Cheerilee turned the doorknob and opened the door. The new pony apparently was a little skittish and hadn’t actually come in yet, and was out of view to everypony else.
“Well hello. Are you Ms. Beauty Split by any chance?” Cheerilee asked.
“Umm yes ma’am, that’s me. Sorry I’m a little late. I kind of got caught in “The Delight Zone” last night and didn’t pay attention to the time. Sorry.” The voice of the new pony said.
“…Erm…well, I’ll let it go this one time since it’s your first day. Just try to be on time from now on alright?” Cheerilee said, obviously not aware of this filly’s strange state of mind when she was having a creative explosion.
After this information was made aware to Diamond Tiara, she instantly gave her first buck of the day.
‘Hoooooold up! That voice. That name…No way.’ Diamond thought. Her realization had come as an even bigger shock to her when the filly who owned the voice walked into the classroom.
‘…It IS her!’ Diamond screamed internally.
Beauty Split’s eyes nervously scanned the room around her with a very sheepish smile. Seeing all of these ponies staring at her made her extremely uncomfortable.
All of those eyes.
Looking right at her.
Silently judging her every move and every decision.
‘You’re looking absolutely stupid staying quiet like this. SAY SOMETHING YOU MORON!’ her conscious screamed.
“Umm…Hi?” She said nervously.
Her mental self facehoofed.
‘Nice first move idiot’
‘Shut up.’
A few of the colts and fillies waved “Hi” in her direction with happy and welcoming looks on their faces. Though this relieved Split a little, she still didn’t feel quite right about so many ponies looking straight at her at the same time, and she nervously darted her eyes around the room for something, ANYTHING to break the tension.
And that’s when she saw the overly fascinated pink filly wearing a tiara.
Split knew only one pony that had the combination of that face and that purple and white mane, and she recognized the filly almost instantly.
“…Diamond Tiara is that you?!” Split said with a now beaming smile, the uncertainty from before not seeming to take affect anymore.
Split’s smiling seemed to be contagious, as Diamond did the same.
“Split, you didn’t tell me you were moving to Ponyville. Great to see you again!” Diamond said in a rather cheerful tone that was incredibly rare on this filly.
Upon seeing that these two somehow knew each other, everypony in the room perked up in shock. Silver Spoon had a sort of “What the buck just happened” look, The Cutie Mark Crusaders all had their mouths agape, and even Cheerilee looked surprised.
“…You two…know each other?” Cheerilee asked.
“Oh absolutely! Diamond used to live next to me back in Hoofington. Heck, we were best buds the two of us.” Split said proudly.
“Yeah, Split and I go waaay back. She’s a cool filly, and I can’t say that about a lot of ponies.” Diamond said.
Cheerilee wasn’t entirely sure how she was supposed to respond to the ending of that statement, so she decided it was best to just move forward with class.
“Well you two will have plenty of time to catch up during recess. Split, there’s an empty seat right next to Featherweight over on the right.” Cheerilee said, pointing to the only vacant desk in the room. Split thanked Cheerilee and made her way over to her desk. On her way there, she noticed the looks the other ponies were giving her had dramatically changed. In a sharp contrast from earlier, they were looking at her now with glares so hard that she swore she would burst into flames if they stared any harder.
The feeling of uneasiness was starting to creep back into Split’s mind as she noticed the looks the ponies were giving her.
‘What’s that about? Did I…do something? Oh jeez, I thought I had taken every possible precaution to avoid this.’ She thought to herself. She took her seat next to a buck-toothed Pegasus colt whom Cheerilee had identified as Featherweight. To try and break the tension starting to build up, Split decided to directly introduce herself.
“Umm…Hello. My name’s Beauty Split. Nice to meet you.” She said with the most optimistic tone of voice possible considering her situation.
Featherweight visibly flinched and started to cower back into his seat and he was starting to shake.
“Y-You k-know Diamond Tiara?” he asked with a nervous stutter.
“Uhhh yeah?”
“Oh dear Celestia…Please…just don’t destroy my social life. I didn’t do anything to you!” Featherweight pleaded.
“…Huh?”