Chapter 14
Arrangements
Bold strolled into the room with confidence in her stride, but Astro felt none as she trailed in nervously after her. A stallion sat at a polished wooden desk looking over some papers that he had stacked up there. He looked up as they came in and a look of surprise crossed his face as he saw Astro, but he quickly masked it. He had a pale blue and rather windblown and shabby looking mane as well as looking significantly older than some of the others that she'd seen there. He was a pegasus with a slightly bulky structure and a serious expression. "Mr. Star Dust," Bold began with a respectful nod in his direction, "Astro here has come from the Astral Plain to stay here with The Wish Division."
"I see. So we need to work out living arrangements and a tutor for the young filly," he said giving her a slight nod. She returned it nervously as she wondered if she had done the right thing. He got up and walked over to one of the many filing cabinets in his office and opened and started to look through its contents. He pulled a file slightly out and flipped through the pages before stopping having found what he wanted. He read it over mouthing the words as he read them. "Left, Room 13. The pony who was in there just moved up and the room's been cleared." he said to Bold not even looking over at them. He then put the papers back in the folder and the folder back in the drawer before closing it. After that he went over to a different cabinet and opened a drawer in that one. It seemed a good bit emptier than the other one he had looked through previously. Then, just as previously, he pulled up a folder and looked through the papers inside before stopping and reading through one. "Take her to Sail Breeze. They should get along fine." he finished. Afterwards he simply put the file away and sat down with no further acknowledgement of their presence.
This made Astro nervous, but Bold just gave another respectful nod before leading her out. "He didn't look very happy." Astro commented warily after they had exited the room.
"Yeah, I know. Still, ponies who come from the Astral Plain, we call them night children, are notorious for being… cumbersome." she informed her awkwardly.
"Why?" she inquired confused as to why that would be the case.
"Well, we have our base on the Astral Plain set up quite a ways away from where yours is which is why the two never crossed paths before, but the Night Field is a large and dangerous place where ponies can easily get lost. All of the night children had all been lost for days on end and wandering around that place can do a number on anypony's head. There's a good reason that some ponies that go down in there don't come back up. The ponies that we have found before communications opened up had been lost in there for days, or weeks, or in some extreme cases even months. It takes them a while some times to get back to a right state. Even then though won't really talk about it or anything before it which is why we couldn't learn of your colony from them. Even the few who did mention it had the comments excused as deranged mumblings. Then even after they had recovered they would know nothing of how this world worked and had to be taught everything." she explained, "I'm sure you'll catch on quick though, you've already seemed to learn a lot just on your own." she added quickly.
"Yeah, course." she mumbled uncertainly.
"Anyways, we should probably get you to your room first. I'll let you hang out in there for a bit while I go find Sail. She's pretty nice, I'm sure you'll like her and that she'll like you too." Bold promised as she started off down the hall. She was going the opposite way that they'd come on the way back. As they walked almost the whole way down to the main room Astro wondered why they'd go full circle. Just three doors down from the main room however they stopped. Unlike most of the doors which had names on them that one was labeled as vacant. "I'm sure Mr. Dust has already got ponies getting a new sign for this door for you. After all, this is going to be your room."
"Why is it room 13 if it's the third door?" she queried confused.
"Oh, that's the division that it's in. The five managers are each in charge of one division and Mr. Dust is the manager of the 1st division so all of the ponies are in rooms starting with a one. It's really more like room 1-3, but we just 13. The third room for the 2nd division be room 23, and so on and so forth. But that's beside the point, you should go inside and take a look around since this is where you'll be staying. It's just been cleared, meaning basically returned to the way it looked originally, or the way it looked before anypony moved in. You can do anything you want with the interior as long as you don't break anything. It is your room now after all." she told her opening the door for to go inside, "I'm going to go and get Sail for you okay."
"Okay." she replied with a nod and looking anxiously inside her designated room.
The inside was fairly bland, but of course that was to be expected. As she gazed around at all the empty space she thought of how it was all hers to do with what she wished. Most of it was empty space in all honesty. A simple wooden dresser stood against one wall with a mirror on top leaning on the white wall behind it. Opening the drawers on the dresser she found them to be empty. She quickly closed them and turned to the rest of the room. A small closet rested in one corner and a bed in the other. It had sterile white sheeting with a similar pillow. The flooring was a light gray tile and her hooves clicked against as she walked about the room. She stuck her head inside the small closet inquisitively, but found nothing there. She again walked around the room her hooves clicking on the floor before sitting down on the bed.
She took off her saddlebags and laid them out before her. It didn't take her long to fully empty their contents. There wasn't much that she had to her name. All of her school things, a bag of bits and her little drawing. She then also had the hat on her head and the necklace that she wore. The money, school supplies, and necklace, the majority of what she currently owned, had all been given to her by North. She sighed sadly looking at it, but quickly reminded herself that there was no point to it. He had given his blessing to her journey and she knew that was the most the she could expect from him at that point. He still had a sky to run. At his age however it wouldn't have been long before his apprentice took his place. The thought had struck her suddenly. He no longer had an apprentice. After she had left he would've had to have found a new one. Maybe one day she would see another walk into class who didn't belong.
Her thoughts however were interrupted by the door opening. She looked over to see Bold standing in the doorway gesturing for somepony behind her to come in. As she watched a rather thin earth pony mare glided gracefully into the room. She had a deep blue green mane the fell in wavy strands to one side of her face and neck. Her stature was tall and willowy, but each step had a deliberate motion to it. Her eyes had a delicate look to them as well, but again held the same structured look behind the fragility. She towered over Astro with her height, but didn't appear to be at all intimidating.
"Astro, this Sail." Bold introduced her.
"Hello." Sail greeted her with a nod.
"Hi." she responded as she sat up straight trying to look proper under her gaze.
"You are to be under my supervision?" she asked with a pointed look. Astro gave an anxious nod under her gaze. Looking her in the eyes had an unsettling effect. "Of course, I should have assumed as much." she said with a small smile. Astro tried to return the favor, but felt that the smile she was giving didn't look genuine.
"I'll, uh, let you two get acquainted. Good luck." Bold finished with a warm smile before walking and shutting the door behind her as she left.
Sail moved to sit down next to Astro on the bed and gave her a smile not dissimilar to Bold's. "So tell me Astro, how is it that you found yourself here?" she said adjusting herself to a more comfortable position, "I am curious to know."