//------------------------------//
// An Even Longer Night 
// Story: School Days 
// by Dai Kirai 
//------------------------------//

	“And then he made one of the clouds into a convex plate, the entire group had singed fur.” Stormy laughed as he walked out of De Neve dining and back to the dorms.
“That’s nothing.” Dawn replied. “We had such a history of shooting each other with lightning that Heavy Rain made the most temperamental rainclouds you have ever seen. They chased us for an hour and shocked us anytime we bucked them wrong.” Using a wing to cover her mouth as she tried to contain her mirth. “My cutie mark has never been so sore.”
Stormy sobered up and his laughter died. “What did you do in Manehatten? I mean what kind of weather did you deal with?”
“It may sound stupid,” She admitted, “But I specialized in cirrus formation. I was the pony who got the clouds ready every morning to give fire to people when the sun rises.” Her left forelock rubbed her right leg as they stopped. “It became the same thing every day.” Her voice rose as her wing fluttered, ears perking. “It was an art.” Her tone dropped. “It became standard. Repetitive, especially with a whole wide world out there!” Dawn twirled taking in the road, the trees, and the buildings. “It’s like learning to fly all over again and all these places open up to you.”
“Did you know Sunny has actually seen a griffon?” Her eyes were wide. “Not just seen them but visited their Kingdom!” Letting our her breath with a wide grin. “What about you? What did you do exactly?”
“Different things.” Stormy turned away. Stupid things. “The first year I was helping make clouds, then I was out placing them and finally in the office double checking weather schedules and work rosters as an assistant.”
Dawn stared in disbelief. “Management? You were in management.”
“Kind of. My brother was trying to help.” Stormy looked away. “I don’t like talking about it.” He looked at her, at her nodding and acceptance. “But it was never what I chose. It wasn’t fun or interesting.”
“It just was.” Dawn finished.
They looked at each other, gave a half smile then finished their walk to Reiber in silence. 
A breeze blew through the evening air, perfect weather. They look at each other as they arrive at the building, both with a shy smile on their faces.
“Are you going to the movie tonight?” Stormy asked as he opened the building’s door.
“No, but heard so many people talking about it. I have plans with Sunny. We are going into Westwood; see what things we can find. You are welcome to come along?” 
“Isn’t that dangerous?” He asked as they stepped into the elevator. He felt his stance, falter, stepping a little quicker.
“Not with wings. Besides, Sunny said she is capable if anything does happen. So, you want to come?” She stared with that wide toothy grin, eyes bright. 
Stormy’s ears moved to the back of his head. The fur on the back of his neck bristling. “No. I really wanted to go to that Carpe Noctum thing tonight.”
Dawn returned a knowing smile. “Ok, well, have fun. 
“You too.” He waved goodbye as she went down the opposite end of the hall. “See you tomorrow?”
“I hope!” She hollered back and slipped into a room. 
Stormy heard voices through the door to his room, causing him to hesitate in opening the door. 
Stormy jumped back and fluttered his wings as the door flew open and a human stormed out not looking, clipping his wing as Roderick stormed out. 
“Tyrant!” Roderick yelled through the door. 
“Hippie!” Edward yelled back from inside the room.
Stormy sidestepped to avoid the storming human who never saw him and continued down the hall. The pony darted forward to grab the door before it finished closing. 
“What happened?” Stormy looked about the room at clothes strewn about along the floor.
“Nothing.” Edward replied curtly followed by language the pony didn’t understand. 
The pony moved to his saddlebag, closing a flap that had somehow come open, securing the latch. “Um, Edward?”
The human answered while folding his clothes strewn on the floor and placing them into his bag. “Yes?”
“You want to see Avengers tonight? They are playing it and it looked interesting.”
“No. Not a fan of the action movies. Too many explosions and not enough thought.” He replied while working, placing each item carefully. “But go and have fun. Tell me how it is.”
“Ok.” Stormy said flatly, securing the bag over his flank. He stopped and turned around at the door. “Were you still doing that thing tonight?”
“Of course!” Edward looked up from his work, brows knitted for an instant. “See you at the bear around eleven.”
“Sounds good.” Stormy uttered before exiting the room again. Humans are weird. Now what to do for the next three and a half hours? Most of the workshops were done for the day, he already had a plan on his schedule, but he could always change it. Instead he settled for roaming the ninth floor, eventually finding himself outside the lounge.
Inside was empty and dark, the pillows still there from earlier. Stormy tried the door to find it unlocked and slipped inside. The pegasus wandered around, eyes unsuited for such an environment. There was no light switch like he was expecting, just a small white panel near the door. He had to stretch up to reach where it sat on the wall at a human’s chest height. 
With a flutter and a whir the tubes of light blinked into existence, slowly solidifying into a solid force. The air was stagnant and humid, he briefly wondered about using it to make a cloud to rest on, but it would never support the book. So the pegasus just picked a pillow nearest the door and settled into it, placing the saddlebag to his right. 
Stormy pulled out his book, marker still in place from where he left off the previous day. He then rummaged through his bag for some food, thinking he had a snack somewhere floating around in there. Finding his bits, papers, watch container, water bottle, everything but food. Did I already eat it?
Shrugging, the pony set the book between his hooves as he settled in to read. 

Stormy Skies stared down at the book, wondering how much he wanted to finish the Celestia forsaken thing, having just finished the start of the ‘games’. The pegasus looked down at his watch.  Just enough time to meet everypony. Happily shoving the book into his bag and taking another sip of water and turning the light back off on his way out. 
Stormy waited by the elevator, something he felt occurred way too often. A window exit or some stairs would be nice for leaving. 
The doors opened and a girl in pink ran out oblivious to all around her.
“Kat!” Stormy called, “Kat!!!” But she was down the hall before and gone. Would she want me to wait for her? But what if Ed is already down there? Stormy runs into the elevator as it starts to close, his body forcing the doors back open. Is Sue in the room? He wondered through his descent. Refusing to close his eyes for fear of repeating the scenes from the book, imagining the scenes as he read they stuck with him. 
Not too much later, the pegasus arrived at the bear to see many humans wandering about, one in particular in a suit sat with his legs down on the Bear’s large concrete stand. He wasn’t the only human using it as a bench, but he was the only one dressed that finely and the only one with a book in his hands rather than a phone or chatting with others. 
Stormy approached slowly so his hoofsteps made no noise as the tread on concrete. He was tempted to fly, but the earlier troubles combined with the fact that pegasi wings were not made to be quiet. As he stalked closer, sure no one was the wiser, he noticed the book, always a new one. “How do you read so many books?” It just slipped out of his mouth like water through a sieve; he doubted anything could have stopped him from uttering it. 
“A LOT of practice.” Edward flipped the page before closing it shut without any preamble or bookmark. “Were you missing anything out of your bag?” The human grasped his hands behind his back and stretched.
“No.” Stormy answered. Just the pineapple. “Why?”
“Curiosity.” Ed turned, looking at the amassing people. “How is the book?”
Stormy swallowed to wet his mouth and gaged in the attempt.
“That good?” The human sat back down, leaning back. “Wish I could say it gets better, from your perspective that would be a complete lie though.” He stood up, waving to someone behind the pony. “But it does.” He finished, passing the pony.
What does that mean? He felt his ears lean back, unsure now about letting such visible signs of his thoughts show.
Edward cleared his throat. “What happened to Sue?”
“I don’t know.” Kat replied, the ‘d’ sounding off, more like an ‘n’. She rubbed the back of her neck. “Thought she would have been here already.” Her clothing was different than it had been earlier. She wore pants like the other humans but now wore a fluffy pink sweater over a white shirt, hair tied back into a ponytail. 
Stormy looked about, wondering if he would recognize anypony else present, a person, a pony, anyone. The only one he thought he recognized was a girl that looked like Suzanne walking in from Westwood; but, he couldn’t be sure. Her face looked different with her cheeks sticking out more and something just seemed off. Her clothes were odd too, the small black jacket that was open in the front rested over a white shirt. But this person walked straight towards his small group as another person started speaking from the middle of the plaza. 
“Ok, I hope everyone is ready to have some fun and explore the campus. It’s time to ‘Seize the Night’!” As the female voice spoke, people gathered closer and closer to her, Stormy had no idea what the person looked like. “If you all meet with the table in front of Ackerman to sign up your group you will be given a disposable camera and a list of places. Your goal is to take a picture with your group in front of each place listed. The first team that gets back with all their pictures will win Bear Wear sweatshirts. Now go out and have fun!” The people surrounding her all dashed for the tables, his group stayed back. 
“Why aren’t we running up there?” Stormy asked, looking at the thrashing forms of people fighting to get their stuff first.
“You really want to fight through that crowd? Go right ahead.”
Stormy saw the feet moving, how closely packed the people were, and while there was a sense of order it was nothing the pony wanted to deal with. “You may have a point.” 

Edward and Sue walked off to one side to talking animatedly, Stormy didn’t notice. They were taking a break up on campus near something called ‘Public Affairs’. The buildings here were all mixed, one was white with lots of glass, another was the usual red brick, and this other looked like some sort of giant grey box shaped building with small black windows. The only thing he liked about this part of campus was that there were so many more trees; you couldn’t see any building without the view partially blocked by foliage, even if a road cut through the campus. 
The pony lifted his sore legs, the only thing not wanting to collapse were his wings itching to fly. They had been running through the campus for more than an hour and were not yet halfway done. Near him stood Kat staring at her phone, pushing buttons, looking up occasionally at her friend. 
“Kat?” Stormy turned to the pink clad human. “Katherine?” Although he talked, she continued to look at her phone or her friend. That thing must be really interesting. He surmised.
Stormy moved closer to the human, moving to within five feet of her, just in case. “Katherine?!?” He half-yelled, moving his wings up to his mouth to funnel the noise, still no response. Why is she ignoring me? Did I do something wrong? Is she mad at me? 
The pegasus moved closer until he was right next to Kat and gently poked her leg a few times. “Are you ma-“
She turned around faster than Stormy could have opened up his wings, there was a large intake of breath and her eyes darted around and settled on the body, her body was trembling. “Don’t do that!” Her speech was even more off than usual.
“I-I-I’m s-sorry.” He stuttered, mouth not responding and slipping.
“What?” Kat squinted, her mouth stayed open as she stared. 
Stormy turned his head away, that creeping feeling of his stomach trying to escape through his mouth, his wings telling him to run. “I’m sorry.”
Kat shook her head. “I can’t hear you.” She moved her right index finger, pointed upward, from her ear to her mouth. “I’m deaf.”
Stormy turned back to the lady in pink, the blond hair hanging over her left shoulder in time to see her hands move. “Deaf? Then how do you speak?”
“I read lips, sign. But yours are hard.” Her hands moved the whole time, her breathing still hadn’t slowed.
“That’s terrible; there must be something that can be done. Maybe the Princesses know of some way to fix you.” The pegasus offered. 
The next thing the pony knew her hands and arms were moving faster than he could follow, all short quick movements, her fingers would maneuver and reposition while her hand moved between her head and waist. All fast, quick, and jerky. Not a word left her mouth. Her face contorted and twisted, red spreading across it.
Stormy looked around without taking his sight off Katherine. Sometime during this, Edward and Suzanne noticed something was up, as they were coming closer. 
Suzanne stepped to the side and waved a hand in Kat’s field of view to get her attention, they exchanged hand signals in a flurry of emotion before Kat stormed past the pony, going back the way they had come. All this while Edward stayed back, hands in his pockets.
“You said WHAT!? What kind of insensitive…” A hand landed on her shoulder. Suzanne looked back at Edward, her expression went from mirroring Kat’s to something smoother. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”
Edward didn’t move his hand, holding her in place. “No. He created this problem and it should be his job to fix it.” His gaze turned to the pegasus. “If he doesn’t though…”
Stormy looked at the cold eyes glaring at him. What just happened? He turned away, hooves not wanting to move. Did I just alienate my only friends here?
He wandered off in a daze, head moving right to left, not sure where to look or what to do. What did I do?
A soft sobbing sound could be heard by a small building to his left. While he couldn’t see anything due to his eyes not be suited to darkness, he followed the sounds, eventually finding a small form hugging her legs. 
Stormy stopped two feet in front of her, sitting, pretty sure this was the same person. It had been a while since they had seem another person. 
And for a while, they both just sat there, in the dark.
“I am not broken.” She whispered. “I do not need to be fixed.” There were tears in her eyes as she sat against the wall. 
“What?” He had no idea what that meant. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he had to say it, and stay until she looked up.
“I am not broken.” Kat looked up and the pony saw her bloodshot and puffy eyes. “You know how many times I have heard that? How many people treat you as stupid all because you can’t hear? How many people think you are less, that you should hold yourself to their standards? How many can’t see that deafness has a culture and its own life? That some sort of implant that most people can’t use and can destroy what little you have will make your life magically better?” 
There was a need, a desperation, a cry. Not just in her voice, but for once Stormy could fully see the expressiveness of a face. The downturned eyebrows, the moving lower lip, the trembling upper lip. But it was more than that, her posture, her hand positions. Everything communicated something. 
“I’m sorry.” It was hard, to look her straight in the eyes and face her. One of the hardest things he had ever done. But he needed to, he knew that, if he were to turn away now it would invalidate everything else. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Just treat me normally.” Kat pleaded.
Stormy nodded and stood, he moved over to sit next to his friend who proceeded to wrap him in a hug. She was warm and tender, her grasp desperate as she held him tightly to her chest as tears fell onto him.
But who am I doing this for: me or her?