//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Education {RE-EDITED} // Story: The Poisoned Barb // by ManlyDerp //------------------------------// Yc E aqbmyehat eh dra bneun lrybdan- As I explained in the prior chapter; at the age of three I was sent away from the castle so that I might learn how to be the best assistant I could be under the tutelage of the Bluebelle family’s servants. I was to learn how to be the perfect little lady, with enough world knowledge to get by, all for Dusk’s benefit. I, of course, articulated my distaste for the arrangement and surprise separation in the most dignified way a three-year-old could; I wailed and screamed and threw a raging tantrum. Admittedly not my proudest moment. Dusk was all I had left though… ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ I peek up from my writing for a moment to quickly check in on my current company. Still just the bored head of the Bluebelle family, it seems. Perfect. Solaris likes to sneak up on ponies when they least expect it. I switched from English to Equestrian to not draw suspicion… Maybe I should lay off the whole ‘second life’ thing for now too, at least for this chapter. If the Prince asks to read this passage by chance I could safely show it to him without worrying as long as I keep it ‘in-house’, so to speak. “Right,” I mumble to myself quietly, settling on this plan of attack. “Better safe than sorry. Remember that you’re in this mess right now, Barb, because you got sloppy with that book ide-” “Pipe down, drake!” my ‘acquaintance’ suddenly barks. “Can’t you see that I’m trying to meditate here? It’s all the rage right now, though I don’t expect somepony like you to know.” “... I’m a dame, jerk,” I grumble angrily under my breath, before returning to my writings. “Drakes are male…” ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ Dusk was all I had left though. He was my family. I didn’t want to be taken away from him; didn’t want to be alone. The Prince didn’t care though, and because he didn’t Dusk didn’t care either. He’swas deathly afraid of even the idea of crossing his mentor back then; this fact was true back then and God Solaris knows that it’s still true now. Frighteningly so, in fact. Dusk once asked me, in a borderline delusional haste, if my breath was capable of teleporting him directly to the Prince. The teenager didn’t trust my answer of “Tartarus no” at the time, on account of my age, so he ended up galloping off to his important meeting covered in black soot. He also ended up not being tardy, thankfully; I was worried that I was about to get an early preview of a particular episode of the show that once scared my daughter. I’ve gone a bit off-topic. As I was saying, Prince Solaris didn’t care back then, thus Dusk didn’t either. The difference between the two is that the Prince eventually apologized, while Dusk has not. I don’t expect he ever will, nor will I push it. If it one day weighs heavily on his conscience, then I will gladly accept whatever he’ll end up saying to me. If it never does, well then I will choose to remember the good times instead of the bad with my centuries-spanning draconic memory. A hundred, two hundred, three hundred years between us? The time will heal all wounds, even the ones caused by his eventual death. What might remain with me, however, even if a hundred years pass, is the training from Tartarus I received from the Bluebelles. Two years; I was with them for only two years, yet in those two years I learned how to speak, read, write, transcribe, walk, run, shelve, organize, carry, lift, cook, dance, play music, count, study history, scream, kick, punch, bite, claw, rend, ignite. Needless to say, the list goes on. A normal pony, born to normal parents, living in a normal town like Ponyville, receives pretty much the same education when you think about it. In understanding this, one might be lead to believe that my time with the Bluebelles was actually a great opportunity. I’m a dragon, after all; it would have been unlikely for one such as myself to be accepted into a normal school, let alone treated as a normal foal once there. If not as a foal, how else would I have been treated? How else would I have been raised? I could have easily been kept as Dusk’s pet instead of as his equal, so why do I complain? Simple. A foal learns all this and more under the tutelage of parents and teachers who care, alongside ponies who have the potential to be his or her friends, over the course of ten to fifteen years. I received that same education in two years, under the tutelage of a drill sergeant, all while being surrounded by maids and butlers who were not only older than me technically but also dead inside. Doesn’t sound like the kind of environment that supports and nurtures a full childhood foalhood now does it? Prince Solaris thought that it was what was best for me though, every scrap of it. Again Dusk agreed but this should not come as a surprise to you anymore; he didn’t really start thinking for himself like a normal pony until I reentered his life at the age of five. I wasn’t supposed to become his assistant until he was an adult, but after an intense talk with the Prince I was graciously allowed to become it early during what I can only dare assume was Dusk Shine’s version of “rebellious” teenaged years. A normal person’s rebellious years usually involve staying out late, disobeying elders, and perhaps getting a tatto... ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ “... Wait. Hey! Bluebelle! Pop quiz! Are tattoos a thing in Equestria; yes or not?” “Silence, cur! Can’t you see… bah! Why am I even wasting my brea-” “Yeah yeah yeah; worthless lizard, gaudy purple reptile, whatever. Tattoos? A thing or no? Survey says…?” “... Yes. I do not understand the question, but they are in fact a ‘thing’... Will you now grace me with the sound of silence?” “That depends. Will you now ‘grace’ your poor mother with a letter once in a while? She must be ever so lonely in Trottingham...” “...” “... And there you have your answer, Princess.” ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ … Dusk Shine’s version of “rebellious” teenaged years. A normal person’s rebellious years usually involve staying out late, disobeying elders, and perhaps getting a tattoo or two, but Dusk’s involved questioning the Prince’s actions once in a blue moon... and then giggling madly about it like a love-stricken school filly. Living on the edge, that one. Again I’ve gone off track. As I keep trying to say, written in the simplest way possible; I hated my time with the Bluebelles. Hate hate hate hate hate hated. There. Simple enough, yet I don’t feel satisfied yet. I don’t feel as though I’ve properly announced my pure hatred for that household clearly enough; I don’t feel as though I’ve highlighted my reasons, nor explained how I came to this logical conclusion. I suppose it’s time to drum up some bad memories. Let’ start at the beginning. After spending a night gently crying in a crib, little three-year-old me woke up the next morning with the feeling of a magical aura washing over me. Being deposited flatly across one of Bluebelle’s butler's backs, I was carried all the way across Canterlot to the family’s estate. I didn’t fight back or complain any further, I remember; I had realized its futility the day prior, thus I remained still and unmoving. When we reached the large mansion, located so close to the mountains that shadow the city that one could dare say it was touching, I found myself thoroughly unimpressed by the sight. Perhaps it was because I don't understand pony architecture, but the Bluebelle’s mansion looked nearly identical to every other mansion I had ever seen on tv before the way there. The colors were as singular as they were bright, it seemed unnecessarily large, and it all together had an “I’m richer than thou” aura radiating off it that made me sick to my draconic stomach. And it was supposed to be my new home. I instantly hated it. It was mostly the company that inspired that sort of reaction in me, namely a spoiled teenaged filly by the name of Princess Bluebelle. ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ “Achoo!” I promptly ignore the Princess’s sudden sneeze and continue forth like it hadn’t happened at all. ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ Princess Bluebelle was, at the time, the next in line to inherit the Bluebelle’s name, estate, and massive fortune. She had also been ushered in as an official Princess of Equestria a year before my birth, having won the position thanks to a rigged vote in a contest to become Prince Solaris’ adopted niece or nephew. I’m actually not legally allowed to divulge this information in any shape or form to another pony. Please ignore; I don’t feel the need to waste ink by crossing it out right now or ever. Duchess Bluebelle, the Princess’ mother, was the current head of the Bluebelle estate at the time of my transfer. She was the one I was to serve, in preparation for serving Dusk Shine. She was, while not my favorite pony, admittedly a kinder soul than her spawn. She understood my limitations better than her daughter; she didn’t have me practice multitasking by brewing tea while being treated as a tiny mount or anything of the sort. She didn’t allow me to sleep more than four hours on any given day, but she at least understood what was and wasn’t a reasonable request. Her servants didn’t have this distinction, unfortunately. To them, everything was fair game. Thus I was trained for anything and everything imaginable. Gone were the days of stumbling around, trying to relearn learn how to walk and talk; now I had to learn how to run and sing first. I fell often, I cried often, I felt completely and utterly worthless often. Bluebelle’s staff was quick to remind me that I was, in fact, all that and more. “The Mistress expects perfection. The Prince expects satisfaction. We expect both; if you do not meet our expectations then you will be punished like the rest of us.” These words were, among others, engraved into my soul by the end of the first month alone. It didn’t matter that I was only three, I was expected to be able to keep up with the rest of them. I was a dragon; not many ponies understood what that meant. I was forced to shoulder their high expectations because of this discrepancy. To this day, I’m not completely unsure if this was Prince Solaris’ intention or not with my training. My daily routine became a blur of serving and learning once I was introduced to my temporary masters. First I would learn, then I would practice, then I was expected to have mastered whatever skill it was by either the end of the day or hour. Rinse and repeat, for a hundred and four weeks. No encouragement was ever thrown my way during that time, only acknowledgment that I could move on to the next task. Whenever I slacked off I was punished with the shortening of my fifteen-minute meal time or my already pathetic yet still precious sleeping hours. As you can imagine, it quickly became in my best interest to pick up the pace. True it was the same punishment given to everypony else under Bluebelle’s employment; the difference being that I would, regardless of how hard I tried, not be fired if all my time was reduced to an unworkable zero. To give the routine credit, it took me nearly three years by myself to pick up how to understand and babble out Equestrian. It took me three weeks at the Bluebelles’ to learn how to read and write it at a level close to how I used to read and write befitting of a, say, forty-year-old. Admittedly a small clawful of words still trip me up now and then, especially the more obscure ones Dusk likes to use. E ghuf ruf du fneda zihg mega "nalguhehk" yht "bnalebela", Ticg; E zicd tuh'd ghuf ruf du tu ed eh ouin pylgfyntc-ycc runca myhkiyka! If I were to concede one point more to the damnable process it would be this; I learned quite a bit about the world around me during my time within the Bluebelles’ walls. Knowing why everypony uses the term everypony, learning the history and the meaning of the word, along with all the other social differences etiquette attached to it and others helped in part to shape me into who I am today. I still feel that it didn’t need to go on for as long as it did though; two years was two years too many. The mere fact that it was supposed to last many more years chills me fiercely. Thank goodness you spoke up when you did then, dearest Barbara. I fear that I will never be able to properly apologize for my actions back then, but I am grateful that I had enough sense of mind at the time to request those yearly checkups from your instructor. ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ My mind goes blank as I stare dumbly at the lines I myself had just written down in my temporary journal. Those… those weren’t mine, nor is my ink red… “Oh! There you are, Uncle Sol!” My head jerks upwards right as these words leave Bluebelle’s muzzle, and my eyes dart to the right as my sluggish brain finally made the obvious connection. As they did, I catch sight of a golden magical aura leaving both my right claw and the tip of my quill… … only to then completely forget about that minor detail altogether when I quickly discover that a Prince has been reading over my shoulder. Prince Solaris turns his massive head sideways briefly, granting me a small smile through his autumn red beard, before drawing his attention across the table and towards his ‘niece’. “Ah, dearest Bluebelle,” the massive stallion greets kindly, his deep voice reverberating through the air as he did. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” “Well, dear Uncle,” the Princess begins in the high and mightiest voice I had ever heard her use. Swiveling my eyes, I look forward just to confirm that, yes, her head is now held high in the traditional Canterlot fashion. Bleh. “I’m here today to achieve what others thus far have failed to do; to convince you to bring the Summer Sun Celebration here to Canterlot this year.” “Oh. I see,” was the Prince’s simple reply. Though his smile never wavers, a glance rewards me with the sight of Solaris’ ‘mask’; the face he uses when dealing with those of high society. I know this face well, for Dusk and I have been fortunate enough to have witnessed him switching between the two rapidly during moments when studies and the royal court overlap each other. “Can this perhaps wait a little while, Bluebelle?” asks the alicorn. “I’ve been looking forward to having my tea time today with dearest Barbara here and-” “It will only be a minute,” interrupts Bluebelle, without a care in the world. “Besides, I would make for better company than this lizard. Wouldn’t you agree?” I almost want to support Bluebelle on this. “I’m afraid this particular tea time is partially business, my niece.” Nuts. The marefilly did not seem deterred in the slightest. “Regardless Uncle, I will only take a moment of your time today.” “Be that as it ma-” “Well, first of all, your majesty,” she starts rather abruptly. “Canterlot should host the thousand-year anniversary of the Summer Sun Celebration because it is Canterlot! Really the most obvious of reasons. I’m surprised that the fact alone has apparently alluded you! Secondly…” A sigh leaves my lips as the Princess begins her borderline nonsensical tangent. Well… great. Now I’m stuck here listening to this while waiting for the inevitable conversation with Prince Solaris. I can’t even write now, what with Solaris literally breathing down my neck. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Bluebelle will end up wasting all of his time... I really hope that happens. The sooner Dusk and I slink off to Ponyville, the sooner Dusk will forget all about the ‘Solaris’ gifted book in the daze of researching friendship, and the sooner Solaris himself will do the sa- I suddenly feel a tug on my claw. Instead of looking down at it right away, as was my first instinct, I instead glance upwards past the Prince’s now stony face and at the tip of his massive white alicorn horn. Squinting, I spot the tiny flicker of golden magic sparking off the end of it; so tiny and unnoticeable I doubt anypony else in the room could have spotted it unless they were as close to him as I am right now. With a gulp, I turn my head back downwards and watch silently as my magically manipulated claw went to work with scribbling out a message… ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ Dearest Barbara, Though I have no right to ask such a thing, I implore you to hear this old stallion’s selfish plea. I have been in court this morn’ since the sunrise itself, listening to this same speech perhaps a hundred different times ad nauseam. I fear another telling of this particular "sales pitch" will render me a broken pony by the end of it. Thus I implore you, neigh, beg you to allow me to read over thy shoulder as you continue your writings. Entertain me, educate me, share with me your troubles; anything is preferable to this personal Tartarus I’ve found myself once again trapped in. I’ll understand if your answer is no. I’ve caused you pain in the past that still haunts you to this day, it seems. I’ve also committed the cardinal sin of all stallions by reading a lady’s diary, or at least very much akin to one by the looks of it. Regardless, I ask this of you as a friend; please save me. Please. ◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠◠ Well… poo. This is… Um. This is… going to suck. If I say yes and I end up slipping up, that will just give him more ammo for our talk later. If I say no, I can’t trust him not to read over my shoulder anyways... And if I stop writing altogether he’s just going to be left with even more questions than before! So I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t. Though his eyes never stray from the motormouth of a unicorn on the opposite side of the table, it very much felt as if Solaris’ nonexistent gaze was now firmly aimed at me and my now free writing claw. The clock is ticking.