Itinerant Kingdom

by Istaran


Chapter 3: New kid in school

Wind Chaser, no.. Clean Sweep and I waited by the Orange Seeds Schoolhouse as the sun came up, waiting for the teacher to arrive. She did not leave us waiting for long. She was a bright yellow unicorn mare with yellow and green mane and a chalkboard cutie mark.

"Hello there! It's always nice to meet a new foal. Are you hoping to enroll him here?" she asked my 'mother' as she approached.

Clean Sweep nodded, nudging me forward with a hoof. "Yes, indeed. My little Blank Slate here had a hard time at his last school, so we were hoping to find a more welcoming place for him. I do hope it isn't a problem for you? Miss.."

"Lemon Drop," she replied, "and it's never a problem taking on a new foal. What was the problem at his last school though? Miss.."

"Clean Sweep. He can be a bit.. overspecialized. He likes math but sometimes he tunes out other lessons, and forgets some really common things. The other foals have been picking on him for things he gets wrong, and occasionally as retribution for making them look slow at math. He'll probably be an accountant or something when we grows up, but right now he just needs a little patient understanding."

"Now, Blank Slate," the teacher said, finally turning toward me. "I do trust you'll pay attention to your lessons this time around, won't you? You wouldn't want to see my sour side.." her voice carried an unmistakable air of vague threat before her usually saccrrine sweet demeanor returned, "I'm sure you'll do just fine here, and make lots of new friends in no time."

"Yes, ma'am!" I replied immediately, straightening myself up, to the sound of Wind Chaser's laughter echoing across our silent connection. [Even your king can feign humility when the situation calls for it,] I replied. The tone of her laughter changed from a bit derisive to more.. supporting. [You are getting far to much amusement out of my predicament, though,] I said jokingly.

"I'll have you take the leftmost seat in the front row for now. After the class arrives and you have been introduced, you can have another seat. By the way, how skilled are you with that horn of yours?" she asked.

I shook my head, as I headed toward my seat. She floated several textbooks onto my desk, mathematics notably absent from the collection. "I haven't managed to do anything with it yet, aside from occasionally bump into things." I figured we were far enough from the diner that word of my magic overuse would never catch up with me.

"That's nothing to be embarrassed about. You are quite young yet, and every foal learns at his or her own pace. Here, have you had a chance to look over something like this yet?" She levitated a book entitled 'Me and my horn' that looked quite rudimentary.

"No, I haven't," I said, snatching the book in my hooves and immediately cracking it open. "I do hope you'll be able to teach me more about it. My mother is an earth pony, and I haven't met my father.. I hear he was easily lovable, so I'm sure I would have enjoyed spending time with him," I said with as much innocence as I could fake.

Clean Sweep turned a bright pink and made herself scarce, laughing all the louder through our link, this time at her own expense. She rolled with the slander remarkably well, probably because it fit our cover like a glove. My changeling partner was, of course, far more accustomed to all these spy techniques than I was.

I looked back down at the state secrets I had managed to pilfer with our clever ruse. I had to laugh back to her through our link, sending along choice snippets as I read through the first several pages. Well before they told their foals anything about the channeling of magic, the authors had taken the time to talk about the inapproriateness of touching ones own horn, or letting another pony touch your horn in public. I already knew how.. errogenous the horn could be, how intimate its touch, but to see it spelled out for children like this was something I hand't thought to expect. From there it jumped into a bit of an anatomy lesson, with a cutaway view naming the various structures of the horn before finally going into what I was actually looking for.. the most rudimentary of descriptions of how to use the horn.

Lemon Drop finished getting the classroom ready while I read. She looked up at me as my horn started to glow a dim green. "That's very good, Blank. Fine self control for a beginner. Most first timers make a bunch of sparks until they get the flow under control."

"I read that, I just figured I would start as carefully as I could and work my way up," I lied. I was shoving magic into the horn as hard as I could, and barely got a glow. I couldn't spark if I tried, literally, I was trying very hard! This was going to take a while. It kind of felt like I was trying to push a square peg through a round hole.. the green magic just didn't want to be horn magic. It was all I could do to resist using it to shapeshift my horn into something else.

Lemon Drop nodded, buying my ruse. "That's a good idea, but I don't want you practicing during class. You need to pay attention to your lessons, and not distract your classmates."

I agreed, and let the glow stop just as the first of said classmates arrived.

The first was a black furred unicorn filly with a purple mane. She took the seat beside me, and introduced herself as Midnight Oil. I tried not to assume too much from the fact that the seat hadn't born any traces of her scent when I passed it earlier, suggesting she was making a point of being close to me.

"Blank Slate," I returned her introduction, offering a hoof to shake. I smiled, pretending not be jealous, as she shook it in her violet magic rather than make physical contact. "Always glad to meet a friendly filly. You seem to have a good grasp of your horn," I said, blushing visible as she giggled at what I assumed must have been a double entendre. "Sorry.. I just meant.."

"You're lucky you're cute," she replied, "but yes, I know what you meant. If you need some.. private lessons, I can meet with you after school."

I nodded eagerly, as a half dozen other children filled in the classroom. A green furred pegasus colt with thick glasses gave Midnight Oil the stink eye before taking a seat toward the back. As his scent drifted toward me, I realized Midnight had stolen his seat. I really hoped this wouldn't turn into some foalish melodrama. I was also hoping Midnight wouldn't prove to be some kind of stereotypical school drama 'popular girl' bully.

Lemon Drop called me up to the front for introductions, which I went through with exaggerated shyness and set Deus to work generating reasonable ways to get their names wrong a few times to mask my eidetic memory.

I noticed, quickly, the gender imbalance in the class. Out of the eight foals, there were three colts, myself included, and I was the only one who could be mistaken for a unicorn. Two mares shared my horned status: Midnight Oil, and a slightly younger pink filly with a red mane by the name of Ginger Dimples. I guessed they might be rivals for my affections in Midnight's mind, but Ginger seemed cheerily oblivious.

The back right of the room had a couple of earth ponies, OJ the colt and Summer Sun the filly, who seemed content to goof off and trade notes and spoken comments, largely ignored by the class, including miss Lemon Drop. I kind of suspected they had been mentally relegated to farmwork or other unskilled labor by all involved. A second earth pony filly, the blonde haired, brown furred Amber Waves, sat in the front and was quite attentive to the lessons.

And rounding out the numbers, there were the two pegasi. Stormcloud was a hilariously stereotypical goth, whose white fur I quickly recognized as dyed. She was by far the most dressed of the class, with a variety of black leather accessories. I liked her already for the striking irony of her very existance in this world, while she seemed to be appreciating my whiteness just enough to get Midnight's annoyed attention. The glass-bearing stallion behind her, the perhaps ironically named Long View, seemed more annoyed by being so far from the chalkboard, and especially the trouble he seemed to have seeing around Stormcloud's wings, than whatever threat I might pose to his potential dating pool. I felt that made him probably the wisest foal in the room, or at least tied with Amber Waves. By all appearances, we were all much too young to be worrying about relationships.

At noon when we stopped for lunch, Wind Chaser stopped by with a set of oversized, used, dull brown saddlebags for me. They managed to emphasize the 'poor' aspect of our cover in a way merely being naked and bagless did not. The unicorns waved me over, and I joined them, finding a flower sandwich and some hay fries in my bags to feed me. I noticed the foals all clustered by tribe during the break, with the teacher making the rounds. It offended my own sensibilities, but I wasn't about to make waves.

"Was that your mother," Ginger asked. "She seems nice. Is she a maid?"

In other circumstances I might be annoyed at such an assumption, but in this case she had intentionally tattooed the idea on her hindquarters to promote exactly that assumption. Also, that's what she was doing all day, as we needed to get bits from somewhere.

"Yeah. She can be a bit strict when she needs to be, but she's really great. I still can't believe she was willing to pick up her life and move just to get me into a better school," I said.

"If this is a better school, what was your last one?" Midnight Oil asked, incredulously.

I blushed, looking away a bit. Time to sell the backstory. "Well, I guess the school itself was okay, but a lot of the other foals picked on me there. They called me names like 'abacus head', and teased me every time I got something wrong." I trembled my lip a bit, summoning a bit of moisture to the eyes at the fabricated memories. A part of my raged against everything I was doing, demanded that I jump up onto a table and declare the truth openly, but I smothered it under a layer of fear of being found out.

"Aww, that's no good. They sound like a bunch of meany pants!" Ginger complained. "Well, we'll be much nicer to you, won't we?"

"Oh yes.. much nicer.~" Midnight singsonged as she rubbed her shoulder against mine with an unmistakable edge of sensuality. About this point Deus informed me she was showing signs of going through adolescence. Thanks buddy. My stiff response did not go unnoticed, but didn't seem to have the desired effect, as she leaned in all that much closer.

"Thanks, I really appreciate that," I said, nervously. There were so many reasons I did not want an adolescent girlfriend, especially knowing our stop here was intended to be short lived. Biology was disagreeing with me there, but I was not going to be its slave. Pushing the hormones aside, made things a bit worse though.. as the more tactical part of my mind started to consider the value of making her mine in another sense.. getting her to take the nanospiders, and give me her memories.. her knowledge and skill with horn magic. The terms of the challenge allowed it, as long as she was my subordinate first. I shook my head, clearing the idea from my mind. I had no idea how to get her to swear fealty to me, and even if I did, that was even more wrong than just lying with her like a normal, horny young stallion. "Midnight.. would you mind giving me a little, umm.. space?"

She countered with a bit of pouty lips but complied, giving me at least an inch of space between us. It was a start but it wasn't enough. Time to abuse my cover's reputation for social obliviousness.. "Umm, Midnight? Is there a reason you're being so affectionate? Did you, umm.. want something?"

I could feel the heat of her blush, even as she gave me several more inches of space. Yay? She struggled for an excuse. "Well, I uh, heard you were really good at math, and I could use a tutor?" A glance showed Ginger was buying it, and it suited me well.

"Oh, you should have just said so. I'd be happy to tutor you in math, if you could tutor me in how to use my horn. I just barely managed to get it to glow. See?" I lit it up, lightly, barely visible in the midday sunlight.

"That's a lovely shade of green, Blank. I'd be happy to show you how to use your horn," she said, making it sound dirty. It seems she was not so easily dissuaded.