//------------------------------//
// A Everyday Life Of a Unicorn Student  
// Story: The Adventures of Charm Feather, In Just Me,  and possibly her Chronicles. 
// by R-A-B-G 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Fifteen
Edited by: Pinklestia


“Oh Sun and Moon! Oh pony feathers!” Rarity panicked not really knowing where she got the last expression from, but it suits the current crisis. “I’m late! So very, very late!”

Right now she is running as fast as she could because she was very, very late for her classes. She had fallen asleep during her history lessons. Which she is so regretting doing now, in reality she isn’t late at all and had only slept for a few minutes. But to Rarity, apprentice mage of Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns she might as well had slept all day and is about to enter class at the end of the day.

She ran past other students and teachers, she jumped over foals and school staff, she ducked under a table filled with books. Running into the class panting and sweaty and in a panic called out, “Sorry I am late!” just for the bell to ring the start of the class as it was being filled with the students she ran past earlier, so far it has been a normal day for her.

Calmly walking into the room behind her is her new friend, Lyra Heartstrings, a green unicorn whose talent is music based. “Relax Rares, we are not THAT late! I told you this before, as long as you get decent grades the professors won’t really care.” Sheepishly Rarity walks to her desk ducking down and blushing at the odd looks she received from pretty much everypony in class.

Sitting down in the desk near Rarity. Lyra looks at the front listening in to the unicorn professor teach about shields and their importance, with a bored impression. Of course it inevitable leads to mentioning her best student Shining Armor and could he create shields big enough to shield a whole house at their age. 

While the class progress Lyra basically copies Rarity notes, while at the same time she starts to mentally compose a new song. The Green mare has some complicated way to split her focus that she had to create since she gets bored easily. So she can basically do more than one thing at once even while not casting spells. 

Every unicorn in Equestria comes to this school at one point in their lives. Despite the name of the school, they accept ordinary unicorns. But depending on their skill they may end up being placed in less advanced classes where they are taught the basic uses of magic and practices. Of course, a single school cannot teach every bucking unicorn in Equestria, so only those with money and talent get to stay after the first year. And the whole 'staying for at least a year even if you suck' rule was only put around ten years ago, thanks to some stupid Noble really irritating Princess Celestia with something he said. 

‘Still, getting put in magic kindergarten it’s a good way to undermine certain students.’ Lyra thought bitterly. To be honest with herself, the only reason she had stayed in the school at all was because she wanted to prove the world that she was more than a musician. That and she had actually made some friends. 

In the school the students used to be placed in groups and learn based on the whole group, and depending on who you know, or whom are your family you got taught above everyone else. Then Celestia changed things ten years ago, now the school was more like a University, with students taking classes and forming study groups on their own. The change was needed due to the huge amount of new students the rule changes had caused. So basically if you did not learn how to study on your own or had friends or a tutor to help, you were screwed. 

Shaking her head out of her depressing thoughts, Lyra focused on copying Rarity while listening on some complicated formula for spellweaving the professor was saying. Something she thought was rather much for something simple. Then again she isn’t a master, or has a magic based cutie mark, for her the spell would be harder because of that. 

Granted, Lyra had a cheat, but she could not use it in tests, her cheat was uses a Lyra to chant spells and use songs to boost her magic. Of course no rule said that she could not give herself a song boost BEFORE she took a test. After all, no pony found weird that a musician was always playing music, right?

Earlier in the year, any new students of the school were put to the test for their skill and talent by hatching a dragon’s egg, but everypony but Twilight Sparkle failed. It turned out it was a test to find a personal student for princess Celestia. And those who failed the test were offered to try to get into the school next year with a much more fair test. Of course both Lyra and Rarity had taken their entrance exams tests AFTER the whole magic surge that purple unicorn had, so they actually got to show off their best spells and passed with flying colors. 

Lyra had created an harp out of her magic and used to play a song that put everypony to sleep. It might not have been as impressive as Twilight Sparkle hatching a dragon egg or Rares making an old mare look and feel ten years younger, but she passed. 

‘Anyway’ she thought getting back on track. The sciences we learn will help us get a better understanding and facts about the world and how things work giving better control and influence on the world. And adding math to the equation unicorns are capable of performing more predictably and energy efficiently. Granted, ponies like Lyra Heartstrings actually worked better using imagination, one of her other cheats was to sing a song in her head when she performed a spell. 

Rarity on the other hoof, seemed able to memorise things easily, and seemed to have developed an incredible observation skill that helped her to learn spells she at least saw once. Rarity had explained to Lyra that her healing magic worked by analyzing a patient's body to fix out what was wrong then fixing it. So as a side-effect of practicing her healing magic she had developed an observation skill that helped with other things, like learning spells. Granted she still had to learn the spell the usual way, her observation skill just made it easier by giving her a vague idea of what she had to do. 

Anyway, it seemed her mind was wandering more than usual, since the class had almost ended. 

Lyra almost growled as some stupid noble had spit a blob wet paper at her. He probably did that by using telekinesis to lift a tube, mixed paper with spit, then used magic in the tube to launch it at her. That's one of the reasons she tends to get so angry. Rarity is mostly safe from pranks since she might not be Celestia's personal student, but is one of the few favored by Celestia, the Princess even got her a house to stay, instead of making her stay in the students dorm. And the way Celestia humiliated that noble ten years ago is still taught to Noble unicorn families as an example of why it’s a bad idea to get the Unconquerable Sun angry with you. 

Still, Lyra pretended the blob was not in the fact of her head and continued to try to listen to the the lesson.



Before Celestia's changes, a commoner who shows more acquired knowledge and talent in magic would unwillingly become a target, as the nobles would sometimes rig their tests to make it more difficult for the commoner to overcome the test. That would continue even if the young unicorn passed the entrance test. 

Such things as a magic suppression field around the unicorn filly during testing for example. This greatly limits a unicorn foal’s ability to cast magic. Another such tactic is to put the foal through mental stress, for example, ‘don’t blow it, or you might be place through magic kindergarten for the rest of your life.’ such a tactic is enough to throw off the young minded foal into making mistakes.

Despite the changes, they had tried the last tactic during her entrance exam, that's one of the reasons why Lyra hates nobles so much.

Anyway, the class finally ended and Lyra followed Rarity for lunch, it was no coincidence the two of them had the same schedule, Lyra had sneaked into the files and copied Rarity schedule to make sure she had the exact same classes. After all, being close to one of Celestia's favored was the only way she would be able to endure years of insulting nobles, mean pranks, and possible sabotage. 

Sure, Celestia had changed things for the better, but about half of the teachers were from Nobler unicorn families, so injustice and abused still existed. Lyra Heartstrings was not only making sure to be Rarity’s friend because she wanted to graduate, it was also to help Rarity, as the poor filly came from Ponyville and probably had no clue how life in Canterlot worked. 


~ Earlier change of perspective. ~

Events of the previous week were unexpected to many of The Noble Councillors, who already are upset about having to endure the squabbling of other nobles about the changes made in the last ten years. Worse, half of the school teaching staff is in the hooves of 'commoner' ponies nowadays. 

It was bad enough that Princess Celestia personal student was from a minor noble family, one that had never shared the views of the old noble houses, but now Princess Celestia had given a filly from a nowhere town her own house. Granted it did not violate the school rules, and the unicorn filly healing magic was impressive, but the fact was then that filly should be sleeping in the school dorms, not have her own, worse, any attempts so far from unicorns of noble house to get into that filly good graces have failed.

How could they get her to join them? while uncommon it was not rare for a noble to marry a powerful commoner unicorn mage, and while they could not go after Twilight Sparkle due to the bad blood with the purple filly family, this Rarity was just a country bumpkin! It should be easy to make her forget her origins and make her start to date unicorns from noble houses. Yet every attempt failed somewhat.  

In the highest tower of the school sits the Arch-mage for Celestia School for gifted unicorns, he wears a decorative red and gold robe with a blazing sun on his flanks symbolizing his importance of his position.

He sighed as he looked up at the ceiling in slight despair and fatigue, in front of him on his desk was a stack of complaints of the noble families who are sharing classes with the commoners. Even if it had been ten years already, they just would not give up their damn complaining. 

“Sigh, I really hate this job sometimes.” he said rather annoyed at the extra work he now has to deal with, going through the letters one at a time then placing them down, he relaxed in his chair, looking up towards the ceiling he thinks about how everything went downhill for him.

I shouldn’t have mixed politics with school work.” He said in regret, ‘I was in such a need of influence and fame that I had the bad idea of boasting how Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns was only for ponies of Noble blood, then it happened Princess Celestia herself had been hearing me. But did she fire me? Oh no, she charged me with the task of solving the problem."

Sighing at that awful mistake he looked down at his desk, at the then even more work arriving by magical fire on his desk, the growing strength of the monster that is paper work.

‘All it really did was placing me at the mercy of these wolves wearing pony skins.’ He thought in disgust. To think that ten years ago he wanted to be just like them, that was until the lengths they would go to avoid commoner ponies even getting into the school came to light. Oh, how he wished to even have a fraction of Celestia's power, then he would use to burn all of them alive. 

But alas, he was actually not very skilled at magic save the basics, his cutie mark was a book, not a book with a pentagram or another magic symbol, just a book. He should have stayed as a librarian, he had actually liked that job. 

Reaching over to the paperwork with his magic he looks out towards the courtyard of the school in melancholy, an eye falls upon a decorative statue of an Alicorn mare, which looked awfully liked a certain noble mare he knows of, raising her hoof above her in some kind of victory hoof pump while her wings seem to be in mid flap at their highest reach.

"And now you brought a powerful healer to the school, one that made Gentle Breeze become ten years younger, and that was with just as she claimed, a BASIC healing spell. You are never gonna let me retire, will you? If I claim I am sick and tired and have weak bones you will have that little monster fix me up!"

Turning around back to his desk he looked at the letters, then lift them up and burned them to ashes with a basic fire spell. 

"I already read one, they are all the same complain anyway. I need a drink." Sitting back into his desk he pulled a bottle of alcoholic Cinder from the Apple Family Farm. 

"Why I had to leave my old job in ponyville as a librarian? Ah right, my damn family wanted me to be a powerful and influential pony. And being a librarian in a  no name town wasn't gonna cut it."

Then Gentle Breeze, the not so old anymore mare that had taken Rarity’s test, entered his office. 

"What do you want?" The Arch-mage, actually The School director, asked in  an angry tone. 

"Well… I… uh… nevermind." Gentle Breeze left in a hurry, her plan of inviting the Director for lunch forgotten.  

******

Groaning softly at her current discomfort Lyra continued to take notes, she hated sitting all day. Why she thought it was a good idea to have the same advanced that Rarity did again? Most of the talented unicorns have shown how disorganised and frantic they are if left to their own devices.

Not Rarity.

The little filly really knew how to live on her own, granted she told that she had been living with a pegasus for a week, and that she would probably get visit on weekends, but its like the filly was crazy about order or something. Yet still had not that much problem with getting dirty like a tipical fru fru pony would. 

Also for what little time she had knew Rarity, the filly seemed to have an impressive memory, only needing to read a text once or twice to remember it. 

In fact Rarity is one of the few who are doing very well, if anything she is just as good as that purple unicorn with the purple baby dragon. Lyra is also doing well but because she basically copies Rarity and studies with her. 

Had she thought about how good Rarity was at this before? Hard to tell, she was so scatter brained sometimes! 

In fact sometimes she had dreams about a far away land full of adventure, where she… ah did the class end already? Nevermind. Time to go to her daily study sessions with Rarity. 

Ever since entering the school Rarity, has been put through the grinder in all the classes were Nobles are professors off. Yet despite that she was doing quite well, that meant Lyra was doing well too. 

They also mock her attempts at casting spells that isn’t healing magic, much to Rarity’s frustration she sometimes gets a spell sequence wrong and end up messing up the spell, and they would tease her about it. Yet they all seemed to ignore that only happened when she had just learned the spell, after a few days she got it perfect. 

Lyra while not perfect, had her cheats to make magic easier, and was used to ignore the bullies. Lyra also shielded the white unicorn of the worst of it, but making herself a target. Granted, Rarity had it easier than others since no pony dared to go too far as that would probably get Celestia angry, but, she was still a young pony living on her own for the first time in her life. 

Lyra had already consoled a crying Rarity once, that was how they became real friends instead of Lyra just being close to her to make surviving in the school easier. 

Unknown to Lyra Heartstrings, Guiding Star had also consoled Rarity when she wasn't expending time with Charm Feather.  Otherwise Rarity would have quit the school and took the ofer Princess Celestia had done to her before about a private tutor in case she did not pass the school entrance test. 

Also unknown to both Rarity and Lyra, Twilight Sparkle saw the white unicorn as a rival, because despite the fact she gets topped by the purple unicorn filly in raw magical strength, Rarity has proven to assimilate math and science more quickly and perform with much more control than her. And the fact it only took her slightly longer than Twilight Sparkle did to master spells, despite wasting a lot less time studying and practicing magic. That was of course, because of Guiding Star help, but no pony but Charm Feather and Rarity herself knew that. 

And the green unicorn, to her surprise, found herself having to fend of suitors of Rarity, since she knew they did not want Rarity for anything but her unique healing powers. 

'Since when I became her secretary?' Lyra Heartstrings thought in annoyance 

******

“Um... sorry about that and stuff.” A voice said beside Fluttershy and a blushing Charm Feather.

the brown pegasus slowly, ever so slowly as she was still a tad scared, got down Fluttershy arms and turned her head to see a pegasus pony with a cyan coat and a rainbow mane.
"Eh… is okay." Charm Feather said to the new pony, then turned to look at the yellow pegasus that had caught her. "Thank you for the save Fluttershy, and I am eating well, I just made myself really light using a spell to compensate the state my feathers are in."

Fluttershy and Charm Feather stared at each other, not really knowing what to say. Until Fluttershy said "Oh, how have you been Charm?"

"Well, I guess… and you?" 

"I got to help at an old mare who takes care of the animals around here… is, nice."

The blue pegasus, started to slowly back away, until she got a glare from the yellow pegasus.

"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy yelled at the rainbow maned pony. "How could you be so careless?"

“H-hey look I’m sorry I didn’t...” she trailed off as the eyes were directed to Charm Feather then to the yellow pony. Who continued to scream at her and shut up any argument she tried to formulate at this point.

"Hey Fluttershy, calm down, I am okay? See?" Charm Feather jumped and landed on her hooves to prove the point, and the yellow pegasus relaxed.

"I… I am sorry I overreacted but… I don't like to see my friends hurt each other." She said meekly.

"Is okay, just… let the other pony go, okay?" Charm said. 

Fluttershy then looked at Rainbow Dash, who was so terrified  that she was breathing hard. Did… did she really do this?

The rainbow pony not knowing what she could had decided to leave, until Fluttershy hugged her. "I am sorry Dash, I did not want to scare you like that!  Is just that Charm Feather almost died not long ago and when she had fallen from that cloud, I got scared and you tend to be so careless and crash all the time and…"

"Fluttershy, small breaths!" Charm Feather said and Fluttershy calmed down. 


After being spooked by Fluttershy's assertiveness and harshness, Rainbow Dash being the youngest of the three of them had cried. Thinking she was about to lose her friend, after many hugs and reassurances had helped calmed her down and promising she would be more careful, she made the other two ponies promise they would never tell that she had cried like a baby. 

Charm Feather then had mentioned she was planning to go to a flying camp as her flying wasn't very good, or at least take classes somewhere. It was a ploy to change the subject. If Dash had noticed she didn't make a effort to show it Rainbow had offered to join in to help out, that is until Fluttershy pointed out Rainbow Dash  was not very careful and also was not good at landing. 

Laying on her back Charm stared into the sky, somehow they all ended up in a three pony hug pile. Guiding Star wouldnt stop making jokes about how they were all as adorable as kittens in a basket about it making Charm blush.

Later all three of them ending admitting they all needed to get better at flying, the point was, what they would do about it? 

To be continued…