//------------------------------// // The Stoned Student (Rewritten) // Story: Luna's Student // by MyWorld93 //------------------------------// Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, all characters besides my OC’s belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. I’m just borrowing them for a bit, I promise to return them. Chapter 1: The Stoned Student Written by MyWorld93 Edited by ThunderDash I always felt there would be terrible days in my life, but this one took the cake. Most days had a silver lining, but not today. Everything went wrong this day and I’ve never been able to recover. Even if I had stayed in bed the results would have been the same. Let me introduce myself, I am Dawn Pie, the primary and most faithful student of Princess Luna, one of the two primary leaders of the magical land of Equestria. It is a highly prestigious position, even if it does come with ruptured eardrums. What’s that now, you’ve never heard of Equestria? My, but you must live a sheltered life. Equestria is an Equine paradise; it has been quickly rising to the world stage over the past millennia under the careful watch of our two wonderful princesses, Celestia and Luna. Working together they combined the various pony tribes that made up the world into a single entity through the use of diplomacy... mostly. I’ve always thought that there was more to that story. Nothing ever works out that cleanly, but I’ve never really cared enough to question it. Besides I’d rather keep my position. My family would kill me if I lost it. Equestria is occupied by what you might call sentient horses, but we like to call ourselves ponies. I’m honestly not sure why we call ourselves that; we act just like horses anyway. I guess somepony just thought that we should separate ourselves from our less intelligent cousins. In any case, ponies come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors; all the colors of the rainbow in fact and more besides. It really is a little strange, makes stereotyping difficult in any case. However, while we come in a variety of different colors ponies only come in four different types. The most numerous group is the Earth Pony. These ponies have little outward magical power, but contain incredible inner magic; they are the best at working the land, cultivating it to perfection. A famous historical story involved one of the princesses granting some Earth Ponies a small area of desert land, within a year they had transformed it into a rainforest paradise. Most Earth Ponies today work the fields of Equestria, growing food for all of the ponies. There are times that I wish I could do that, but it isn’t in my skillset. The next most numerous group is the Pegasus, winged ponies that utilize the power of their magic in order to fly through the air while blowing raspberries at the laws of physics. Whenever anypony asks them about their ability to disregard physics they are most often told to get out of their way or more bluntly to buck off, most likely because they don’t know either. Their primary occupation is weather control, a rather necessary feature for the Equestrian ecosystem. Often they are seen working hoof in hoof with the Earth Ponies; creating weather patterns perfect for the crops and animals. The final group is the one that I am a part of, Unicorns. We are the least numerous, excluding the princess (more on that later). Generally speaking, we are the most magically powerful group; this is not idle boasting I have heard this from ponies of all types. We are able to perform feats of magic that often amaze others. Some of us even go into showmanship, but most of us become researchers or librarians working our tails off to try and better the lives of all ponies. However, our primary position in this pony ecosystem is keeping magic within the lands of Equestria, without this all of our livelihoods would fall apart. To be more precise about it magic cannot be naturally renewed and Unicorns are tasked with the utilization of magic in order to refill what is utilized by the Earth Ponies and the Pegasi. So we’re pretty much living batteries. Finally the Princesses, I told you I’d come back to them, are special cases. They are beings known as Alicorns, creatures that combine the abilities of all three pony races into a single entity. They have the landscaping abilities of the Earth Ponies, the flying abilities of the Pegasi, and the magical abilities of the Unicorns. Their primary position is the raising and lowering of the celestial bodies, a.k.a. the sun and moon. Princess Celestia is the bringer of the day and Princess Luna is the bringer of the night. Although they are tremendously powerful beings, revered as deities in some of the small backwater cities where they haven’t traveled, they are, in my humble opinion just like us. They are just as prone to mistakes as any other pony and as you will see they made a tremendous one on this day. In the end of course, none of our particular races are any better than the others, we need each other in order to survive. Without the Earth Ponies none of us would have nutrients we need, without the Pegasi we’d have chaotic weather patterns, and without the Unicorns magic would simply disappear and all pony life would disappear. The loss of any single group would end disastrously, but luckily we all seem to get along. You’re probably getting a little tired of my exposition, so I’ll tell you a little about myself instead. Like I said earlier I’m a Unicorn stallion. My fur is dark bluish in coloration, but my mane and tail are a dark pink. You can feel free to laugh at it, everyone always does. I’m not the largest stallion around, but I’m not the smallest either. Honestly I’m pretty much average in everything else. I always felt that if it wasn’t for my strange coloration, I’d likely be forgotten as soon as I left anypony’s line of sight. Of course the picture on my flank makes up for a lot, it really is amazing how the image of shimmering sun rising out of the water makes an impact on pony’s perceptions. As for my personality and magical ability, well I think I’ll just let you find out for yourself. Maybe I’ll surprise you and be the best at everything or maybe I’ll disappoint, but I’m leaving it up to you. In any case I was going to tell you about what was quite possibly the worst day of my life, a day that forever changed how I saw the world… _______________ My day, well more like night really, began simply enough: I got out of bed, bumped my head on the headboard, and placed my four hooves on the nice, padded floor. After rubbing the little bruise on my head I trotted over to my bathroom and performed my daily routine: brush my teeth, floss, and take a shower. I am so very lucky to have magic; it makes it so much easier to perform tasks like this. I once overused my magic forcing me to do without it for an entire week. I kept falling over trying to get the toothbrush in my mouth. It wasn’t a fun time for me, but at least I gained the skill of living without magic. I’ve never used it since, but I’m sure it’ll be useful at some point. Normally when I awoke everypony else would already be getting into their beds, it was rather late in the night by then. Besides me the only ponies that were ever awake at that hour were Princess Luna and the Night Guards. It was always very quiet and empty, in fact Princess Luna often complained to me of that very fact. Often those talks ended with my ruptured eardrums being cured by magic. Recently Princess Luna has been worrying me a little. I’ve been leaving those meetings with completely functional eardrums. I’ll have to talk to her about that later, it can’t be a good idea to keep all that locked up inside. In any case, there were a lot of things that I had to do tonight and one thing that I wanted to do in particular. There was this wonderful mare I’ve wanted to ask out for a long time now, but with our schedules it’s really hard to catch a moment to talk to her. To be more precise, whenever she’s awake I’m asleep and whenever she’s asleep I’m awake. We don’t even have a choice about it. When we were chosen as the students of the princesses a spell was cast on us that made our sleeping schedules match those of our teachers. They hadn’t bothered to tell us about what those spells did when they cast them, not that we likely would have understood anyway, we were just foals at the time. The sleep spell had a rather unfortunate tendency to cause a lot of trouble for me, even beyond simply making it difficult to socialize. Quite often one of us would be found sleeping in the middle of a corridor because our respective teacher had decided to go to sleep a little earlier than normal. Ever slept on rocks? It hurts, a lot. I have in the past tried to awaken before my teacher, but the spell always works perfectly. I was never able to get up more than a minute or two before Luna did, but this time I had thought it through and done the smart thing; I asked Luna for permission. Today I would wake up a few hours before Luna. That would give me just enough time to ask for that date. While it was unlikely that anything would ever be able to come of it… well, nothing ventured nothing gained. It was with this depressing thought that I trotted out of my room preparing myself for the chance. Believe me when I say that the palace is huge, I get lost so often it isn’t even funny and I’ve lived here for a large portion of my life. It doesn’t help that all of the hallways have the same design covering the walls, like the architect had decided that it was better to just reuse the same patterns over and over rather than actually use their imagination. There aren’t even any signs directing ponies, supposedly it keeps any would be assassins from finding who they were looking for. It was thought that if ponies couldn’t find where they’re going then they couldn’t attack anypony. In my opinion it was just Luna and Celestia trying to be funny. Today I made sure that I knew exactly which hallways to travel through to get to her room. I had spent all my free time in the last couple of nights memorizing exactly which turns I had to make. I knew exactly how to get there, I was perfectly prepared. Which is why I felt slightly irritated that after I’d trotted all the way over there I found that her room had been flooded the previous day and she had been temporarily moved into the room straight across from mine. Don’t get me wrong, I rather like how much easier it made my life, but it made all my plans suddenly worthless. It also made me wonder if that picture on my flank should have been of something more coincidental, to match how often these ridiculous coincidences occur. They are always occurring to me with incredible regularity and always at the worst possible moment. Maybe I did something really good, or really bad, in my past life and it just sort of carried over into this one. In any case, I still had to knock. I realize that I might sound a little confident in myself, and believe me sometimes I’m just as overconfident as I seem to be, but the long and short of it was that I am and likely will always be. When I was just a colt I could often be found hiding behind the leg of the nearest adult, which made it rather difficult to make friends with other ponies. As I got older it became less severe, but there are times when I still get anxious and try to hide behind objects to avoid meeting ponies. Of course being one of the only ponies still awake during the night didn’t give me many opportunities to practice so I hadn’t really gotten any better. So you can imagine the nerve wracking experience it was for me to try and knock on that door. I was sweating rather heavily and feeling short of breath, but I had been planning this moment and I knew it was going to go well. I had done all the research on it, looked at all the angles, and examined all the lines. I mean I even wrote a script to fit the occasion and practiced it both in front of a mirror and with Luna. I knew I was ready…but maybe I’ll just waste a few more minutes and tell you a little about this mare. What do you mean I’m stalling; I’m not, I just think you’d want to know more about her. Her name is Diamond Sparkle and she is the most beautiful mare I have ever seen in my life. Her magenta coat and purple mane were absolutely enchanting to observe and the magical diamonds on her flank didn’t hurt any either. Yes I do realize I sound like a lovesick puppy, it’s because I am a lovesick Pony. I also realize that was corny and I don’t care. I had known her since we were foals. She had seen me hiding behind my mother’s leg, had run straight towards me, and forced me to play with her. I mean that literally, she had grabbed my hoof with her magic and made me play house with her. It was probably one of the best moments of my life; I even have a picture of it on the mantle in my room. Okay, that’s enough of my stalling; I was going to do this. I just had to lift my hoof to the door and knock on it. I knew I could do this; I’d done it many times before. She was my friend and I knew that she would say yes or at least let me down gently. So why is it so hard this time? It felt like the local gravity had gotten much stronger. I struggled against it, I knew it was just my nerves talking; gravity couldn’t possibly change in a localized area like this. I was going to knock on that door if it was the last thing I did. After several agonizing minutes my hoof began to slowly rise, as if moving through molasses, but I was able to get it the door and knock. You have no idea the relief I felt when I finally felt my hoof on the door and the knocking sound reverberating throughout the room. I heard movement from inside, it sounded like someone in there had just bumped into several objects looking for a lantern… Okay really it just sounded like someone trying to move around the room and bumping her hooves into a few things, but I was making an educated guess. I waited patiently, my heart beating quickly from my nerves. Eventually I heard things settle down inside and then I heard her. “Who is it?” It sounded like a chorus of angels to me; I was going to do it this time. “It’s Dawn can I talk to you for a minute?” It was now or never, I had to get this just right. It was highly unlikely I would get a second chance like this, with our sleep cycles and all, but I needed to see for myself if this would work or not. “Yeah right, try again genius, Dawn is still sleeping. So who is it really?” You know I didn’t think she would be suspicious, but I guess it makes sense. The ponies that we surpassed to gain our positions are rather jealous and ruthless; they would try and kill us if they believed it would give them even a small chance of advancement. She may have been brave, but she wasn’t without brains. “Who is it really?” “I promise you that it really is me.” “Really? I’m still not sure if I should believe you. If you want to prove who you are you‘ll need to do something that only we would know.” I was getting tired of staring at this door and was willing to do just about anything at this point, I really wanted to get this off my chest. “Give me the Special Pie Promise and I’ll believe it’s you.” Somehow I should have known it would come to this. The Special Pie Promise was almost like a magical contract, once given it could not be retracted… ever. It was developed by my Mother and Father because they were always worried that somepony was out to kill them. They taught it to me back when I was a foal and Diamond got me to teach it to her. The really surprising part about that story was that when I told my mother I had taught Diamond the Promise she had merely smiled at me and told me that she had expected it. I’ll probably never understand my mother. Unfortunately there was one small problem with the promise, it sounded incredibly silly. My parents had taken an old foals promise and modified it, knowing that if a pony was going to say it they would have to be telling the truth, it was just so embarrassing. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eyowww!” I’d poked my hoof into my eye, it happened every time I said the promise. At this point I heard giggling from in front of me and upon opening my eyes I saw the beautiful sight of Diamond framed by the entrance to her room. “Well what do you know, it is you. So what are you doing up at this hour?” She was smiling at me; looks like that little promise had helped me more than just get her out of her room. Hopefully she would be more likely to accept my invitation. “What? So I can’t come and visit a dear old friend and maybe talk about old times?” I really was a wuss wasn’t I? All that practice gone to the four winds. “Really…? Now why can’t I believe you?” She was still smiling at me. Sometimes I wonder if she can read my mind. Maybe that was why she had dragged me out from behind my mother that day, she had read my mind and realized that I really wanted a friend. “No not really, I just wanted to ask you something…” I wasn’t able to look her right in the eye. I saw her eyelids sliding lower, she was glaring at me. I haven’t seen that glare since we were foals. It was a glare that looked straight into my soul; it made me so very nervous. It also made me a chatter mouth. “Iwashopingyouwouldbewillingtogoouttodinnerwithmetommorow, wellreallydinnerforyouandbreakfastforme,butyeah,sowouldyou?” And now she was giving me a bewildered look, it was incredibly cute, but I knew I had spoken way too fast at that point. “You need to slow down a little; I couldn’t understand a word you said.” I calmed down, I knew this would be my only chance and I was going to use it, “Would you be willing to join me for dinner tomorrow night?” I got it out, good for me. She looked hesitant, which honestly didn’t surprise me. I doubt that I was the first to ask her out, but I was kind of hoping to be the last. However, when I looked into her eyes I saw something and came to the realization that even without the words she was about to say, she would be accepting. “That sounds great. How about we meet at eight on Tuesday? Think you can make it?” She gave me a small smirk. I know I should have realized that she would take charge, sometimes I felt a little like a doormat to others, but for once I was really glad she had. “I will be there, until then.” She gave me a smile and I felt my heart flutter, this night was going great for me. With that I headed across the hall to my room, not breaking eye contact until she had closed her door to her room and I had entered my own. Once I was safely within my own room I felt like shouting out my success. So I did. “YES SHE SAID YES. THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!” I really wish the night had ended at that moment instead of continuing. It probably would have saved me a lot of grief. ____________ It was almost an hour after I’d asked Diamond for a date and received her affirmation. I had just realized that I had yet to tell Luna about my success. She’d helped me practice for the big moment; I suppose I owe it to her. Standing up I trotted out of my room, heading towards the throne room, Luna should be in there performing her Royal duty of running the Night Court. Well as long as she wasn’t goofing off. Although it would be understandable, I don’t think I’d ever seen a single pony actually attend her court. I once asked an aristocrat why, and the most they could tell me is that they preferred sleeping to politics. I think I understood it at that point. While my mind had been on thoughts of Luna’s position my hooves had been on thoughts of the throne room, I had trotted there on automatic and it was only when I ran into the door that I realized I had arrived. I needed to stop running on automatic, I keep crashing into things. I started to push open the door to the throne room when I heard Celestia’s voice coming from behind the door and stopped. I took a peek through the gap I had created. What can I say, I was curious. Why Celestia would still be up at this hour? “Sister stop hitting me with that pillow, it’s getting rather tiresome.” I heard Celestia groan. Through the small crack I was looking through I could see that her pastel rainbow mane was in disarray and Luna, her starlit blue mane in just as much of a mess, was swinging a pillow she held at her sister princess. “I’m serious, stop it or you know there will be consequences.” Consequences? For hitting her with a pillow? I never would have thought Celestia would do a thing like that. “SISTER, THOU WOULD USE THE SACRED ARTIFACTS FOR SUCH A PETTY DEVIENCE?” The look Luna gave her sister would have almost appeared hurt, if she hadn’t been smiling so widely. I had to wonder what she was talking about, what sacred artifacts? “If it keeps me from getting ruptured eardrums maybe I will.” Celestia stated, glaring back at her younger sister, “I mean honestly why do you insist on talking in that antiquated manner? We haven’t used that voice in eons.” “THOU BET US THAT WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO USE THIS VOICE ON A CONTINUAL BASIS. WE SHALL CONTINUE UNTIL SUCH A TIME THAT THEE GRANTS US OUR PRIZE.” Luna bellowed at Celestia, looking exactly like the goddess that she was to many, “THOU DOST REMEMBER THE PRIZE DEAR SISTER, DOST THOU NOT?” “Um… no. I don’t even remember that bet, when did it happen and what was the prize?” Celestia appeared puzzled at the implication. I’m going to go ahead and make the guess that she didn’t remember making any such bet and no, I cannot read minds right now. “WE WROUGHT THIS BET TEN MILLENIA AGO AND THOU PROMISED US ETERNAL NIGHT. WILL THOU DELIVER OR SHALL I CONTINUE TO USE THE ROYAL TONE?” Luna was still smiling at her dear sister. I remember Luna telling me about this prank. She thought it would be funny to try and trick her sister into thinking that she was going to bring about Eternal Night. The whole Royal Voice thing was another one of her pranks; she enjoyed using it and seeing what ponies’ reactions were. She didn’t get to have much fun when nopony else was awake at night. “Sister, how could I possibly do that, you know that all our little ponies would die. How could you ask me to do such a thing?” Celestia looked worriedly at her sister, “I don’t remember you ever saying something like this before.” “WHY DOST THOU CONTINUE TO PLEAD THY CASE, THOU HAST LOST DEAR SISTER AND THOU MUST MAKE HASTE WITH ACQUIESCING TO OUR DESIRES OR WE SHALL CONTINUE TO TALK IN THIS MANNER FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MILLENIA. THOU WOULD NOT WISH ‘OUR LITTLE PONIES’ TO SUFFER THAT WOULDS’T THOU.” Seriously this was way too easy. Luna’s sister was so easy to play. Luna hadn’t been doing this for long, at least that’s how it would probably feel for an immortal Alicorn. While it would be nice for the night to last an hour or two longer so she could go and talk to some of her subjects, she told me she hadn’t had a date in millennia, she wouldn’t really ask for it. The death of so many ponies would be way too hard on Celestia and Luna as well. “NO, IF YOU SHALL NOT GIVE UP THIS FOOL HARDY BET THAN I SHALL HAVE TO PUT YOU IN TIME OUT. YOU WILL BE SENT TO THE MOON FOR THE NEXT ONE THOUSAND YEARS.” I saw Celestia shouted pulling out set of six magical artifacts, each a different color; I have no idea what they are, but they look really cool. I could see energy starting to build up within them right before it fired a beam of rainbow energy towards Luna! I tried to rush towards Luna, perhaps to block the beam myself, but I couldn’t get the door to open quickly enough, it was far too heavy. By the time the gap had widened enough so I could fit through it the Rainbow Energy had already reached Luna. “NOOOOO, WE DOST NOT WISH TO BE PLACED IN THE ‘TIME OUT’ AGAIN, TIS NOT FUN.” Right after she finished her statement, the magical energy struck her and she disappeared; I suppose she was sent to the moon. Wait, hold on… This was not happening, my teacher had not just been sent to the moon right in front of my eyes by her sister. I needed to get out of here. I would not stand for this, even if this led to a thousand years of peace due to lack of ruptured eardrums I would not allow this to stand. “My, My, I don’t think I can allow you to leave knowing what you do…” I began to gallop faster, but I didn’t get far before I felt Celestia’s magic hit me in the back followed by the sensation of falling unconscious, “We’ll just have to take that memory away won’t we.” ______________ I awoke from the nap I had decided to take an hour after receiving Diamond’s answer and reading through a book I had grabbed from the library titled The Best Date: How to Make Your Mare Happy. I was going to make sure that I gave Diamond a perfect date no matter what I had to do. I’d just finished reading the final chapter in the book and was about to go through it a second time. I had to make sure I had found all the little details that seemed to abound in the book. I was going to have a hard time remembering which fork was used for the salad. Another fifty-nine minutes came and past while I was rereading the book, it had now been an hour, fifty-nine minutes, and twenty-seven seconds since the mare of my dreams had accepted my advance. I think most people would think it rather strange that I had been counting the seconds, but I didn’t care. At the moment I only care about a singular pony and I was making plans for my time with her. Unfortunately, life happens while others make plans and life decided it would happen to me at the worst possible moment. I felt a little twitch behind my earlobe and my tail made some twirling motions, the tip ended up pointing directly at me. It’s rare that I get feeling like this, but they do happen. My sister was better at understanding them than I am; she always knew exactly what they meant. I could never really understand them, but whenever I got these feelings something bad happens to somepony. As such I’ve never really come to like them much. I decided to ignore the twitching. It was unlikely that I would be able to do anything about it anyway. It’s unhelpful to know that something bad is going to happen, but have no idea where, when, or to whom it was going to occur. Once again that was my sister’s talent, my mother was also better at it, in fact all the mares in the family were better at it than any of the stallions in the family. I began to feel odd, my hoof felt like it was asleep even though I hadn’t been sitting on it; I tend to walk about while reading. I tried moving it around a bit, still engrossed in the book, but the feeling didn’t go away. In fact it just spread to my leg. I wasn’t able to keep my mind in the book any longer; the feeling was starting to worry me. It almost felt like my leg wasn’t even there anymore, like it had been disconnected from me. Turning my gaze to my leg, I saw it was turning a stone grey color and was quickly spreading farther up my leg; I had lost any feeling in those grey parts. I was worried; I don’t think I’d ever seen such a thing before. Unfortunately I have the bad habit of staying calm when I should be in a panic over things like this. It’s possible that if I yelled out and screamed instead of calmly trying different spells to get rid of the grey I might not have to deal with the problems that would come later. The grey color continued to spread no matter what I tried, including flesh from stone spells. Nothing I did slowed down its spread, instead it seemed to merely grow faster and faster. It was up to my neck at this point and I was finding it hard to breath. Of course it was only now that I decided screaming for help would be a good idea, but the grey stone had already reached my mouth; I wasn’t able to utter a sound. My last thought before the stone covered me and I knew no more was that I should have left a note for Diamond. Author's Note: I reworked this chapter mainly to make it so that it always be in the first person instead of changing randomly in the middle. It simply flows better. It won't affect the plot in any manner whatsoever. Edit: I would like to thank ThunderDash for helping me clean up this chapter and subsequent chapters.