Midnight Oil had a spring in her step as she approached the Academy of the Elements, despite being physically weighed down by the copper added to her skeletal structure. Mirror's unfortunate experiences had shown us that we needed to have shielding from EMP around ponies throwing lightning around, and outside of the pegasus guards and weather teams, this was were ponies were most sure to be throwing lightning around. Fossil had to be constantly on watch for stray copper breaking free into her blood stream, or the oxygen radicals it could cause, but it still had enough processing power to help her memory and give her that comforting feeling of being connected to the rest of the kingdom.
Except Mirror. She had to consciously focus on not worrying about him right now. The changelings sometimes liked to think of themselves as interchangeable, but that really wasn't the case, and the half dozen drones trying to cheer her up were helping, but she would easily trade the lot of them for a simple 'hello' from Mirror right now. But he had his own problems to focus on, and she couldn't bring herself to distract him from them. He would be in real danger soon, and she had insisted on not getting the play-by-play as it unfolded. She wanted to relive all the tense exciting memories of it with him, after it was said and done and she could have the assurance that it all would lead up to a happy ending. If it didn't have a happy ending.. she wasn't sure she could handle knowing every detail.
But the turmoil in her heart never reached her face. She was almost as practiced at that as the changelings; perhaps more so as they had rarely been plagued with such worries and doubts. As bad as Queen Chrysalis had ever been, she had never... [Thought thread deleted,] Fossil helpfully informed her, as it followed her standing order not to let her think about Oak Breaker anymore. The dead pony didn't deserve any more thought. He had been a horrible pony, but she had gotten her revenge when she... [Thought thread deleted.]
And so her thoughts snapped back to the present and the future. Both of which involved the squat, stone structure ahead, in the midst of an immense yard. The yard was divided into quadrants, each bigger than an average city block, by stone walkways like the one she approached on. Each quadrant sported a copse of trees in its center, surrounded by a variety of plants, and a large region of grass. Notably, each quadrant appeared to be experiencing a different season, with snow fluttering down on one, a light drizzle on another, bright sun on a third, and the fourth with browned leaves threatening to fall. It was, perhaps, one of the best advertisements the school could manage for their practices. A class was out in the snow of the 'winter' quadrant right now, though Midnight didn't know if they were merely observing or actively managing the weather there.
Midnight strolled into the building, looking like a lost little filly as she took in the sights, focusing on signs. A few hurried looking unicorns brushed past her as she walked, but she ignored them as she finally located the registration office, and headed in.
"Hi! You must be Midnight Oil," the earth pony mare behind the desk said.
"Is it that obvious?" Midnight asked in return, lifting an eyebrow.
"Process of elimination," she said before flipping a sign-in sheet toward her, showing three students due for registration, two already signed in. Midnight added her own signature to the form before receiving a more comprehensive set of paperwork to work on.
"I see," she said as her horn worked efficiently on the forms, wielding a quill with casual ease. "So.. how do I get access to the libraries, by the way? Both here and at the other academies?"
"Oh, you'll be issued a library card with your current rank, which as an excepted student is '1'. Keep in mind that when visiting another academy you are generally considered one rank lower, so you'll be restricted to the rank '0' shelves until you pass the advancement test at the end of the term. That works in both directions: their students aren't expected to have the same proficiency in weather magic as ours. The main archives at the palace don't have the same consideration, but be careful not to bite off more than you can chew. Spells are inherently dangerous if you don't give them the respect they deserve," the mare rattled off from rote memory.
"Okay, thanks. How soon can I get the card?" Midnight asked as she set the finished paperwork on the desk.
"Im-immediately," the earth pony stammered, surprised to see the forms already fully filled out, but a quick check showed it to be fully completed. She dragged out a camera and told Midnight where to stand, before slipping one of the forms into the device and triggering the flash. A minute later a nicely printed ID card automagically issued forth, while a box on the form was burned with a picture of the filly's awkwardly forced smile.
"Great, thanks!" she said, about to run off, pausing only a moment when the mare waved her initial class schedule at her, almost forgotten in the rush.
The first month was devoted entirely to an introductory course entitled 'A tour of the Seasons'. The class rotated between the four yard quadrants from one day to the next, spending four hours outside listening to lectures about the various weather elements needed to make the season complete, followed by meal time, followed by two hours of horns-on experience. By the end of it, everypony was expected to have a basic grasp of every kind of weather manipulation a pegasus could do, done with horn instead of wing, though far from the level of expertise of a weatherpony.
Today, Midnight was already late for the lecture on Winter, where she had seen the ponies gathered before. Midnight slipped into the pack of ponies as unobtrusively as she could, only for the professor to immediately take notice. With only a dozen students in the class including her, it wasn't that easy to go unnoticed. "Midnight Oil! How good of you to join us! In the future, please remember that class starts at eight am, sharp. In the meantime, what can you tell us about snow flakes?"
"That they're all special?" she said sheepishly, then grinned. Just as the prof was about to make a retort she cut him off by continuing. "Each one is a distinctly shaped, yet symmetrical, tiny ice crystal that forms inside clouds at low temperatures, expanding until the crystal is heavy enough that the air is no longer sufficient to hold it up, at which point it descends to the ground. They are still not only light weight, but have a broad surface that offers a lot of wind resistance and causes it to drift down slowly unlike the more aerodynamic liquid droplets of rain. In part this is because it's frozen crystalline form is resistant to deforming so it retains the shape that can catch air like a sail, and even occasionally float upward briefly on a breeze. Whereas liquid water deforms in response to the air pressure to achieve a shape that cuts through the air more easily, and thus drops faster."
Far from being offended, the professor lit up, nodding furiously. "That, my dear ponies, is a mare who is sure to get a weather cutie mark, perhaps even a wintery one!" Midnight sincerely hoped not, but smiled in response anyways. "Now, who can tell me about the difference between snow and hail?"
Midnight abused the advantage of her kingsblood almost immediately, slipping her consciousness away to the new virtual world, Elysium, that Cherry Blossom maintained for them, while her subnet, Fossil, took mental notes for her and held up the façade of a studious, attentive little filly, even answering questions for her.
Midnight was excused from the practical applications part of the day's lectures, as were the other foals that had just started within the past four days. They were instead passed their new textbooks, and encouraged to follow along while the other unicorns began coaxing snowflakes out of clouds of their own. One colt was softly reprimanded for making hail on accident, and then sharply reprimanded for doing it again a few minutes later. And a filly got some extra attention as she seemed incapable of making anything come out of her cloud.
Midnight idly flipped through her textbook as she watched, leaving each page open for several seconds, even though it only took a split second glance to commit the text to memory. She had been a fast reader before, but the kingsblood made memorizing text a truly trivial matter. Processing the information would take longer, but once it was memorized she could do that at her leisure.
"You don't seem to be reading very carefully," the colt next to her noted. He had a snowflake cutie mark, notable for being subtly different from the left flank to the right, something practically unheard of in cutie marks but very fitting for snowflakes.
"I'm just skimming it for now," she lied. "I don't want to miss seeing it in action while I can. I'll have time later to study the text."
The colt seemed to think that made sense. "I'm Winter Dream," the colt offered. "It was Midnight Oil, right? What got you so interested in weather?"
"Right. My mother is a pegasus, a weatherpony. So it's kind of the family business, so to speak. Having more ways to relate to mom is always nice. Despite what the prof says, I'm not sure it's where my cutie mark lies. I'm just really studious. I want to learn all kinds of magic, not just one. What about you?" she asked.
Winter shrugged. "My mom's a pegasus too, but she's not a weather pony. My dad is; he graduated from here. They say they met when he accidently made a rain cloud appear right in her flight path. She got all wet, but destroyed the cloud in the process. They got in a bit of a tussle over it, but obviously they didn't stay mad."
Midnight giggled. "That's one way to get a mare's attention, I suppose."
After dinner, Midnight headed out across the city to one of the other academies, the Academy of Transcendent Flesh. She went in shortly before sundown, finding the library quickly and getting access to their 'rank 0' section immediately. The area wasn't that big, and everything in there was relatively rudimentary, but it was more than she knew about using a horn to alter the body, and she had to start somewhere.
Fortunately, she was left alone, so she didn't have to go slowly. One by one, she pulled books off the shelf, flipping through the pages just slowly enough to get each one flattened open before flipping to the next. Before long she was doing this with two books at a time, one before each big, unblinking eye.
At sundown, she heart movement and quickly assumed a more normal looking mode of reading before the librarian came into view. "Burning the midnight oil?" the elder mare asked.
"That's what I'm named for," Midnight said. "I hope it's alright if I keep reading?"
The librarian nodded. "Be sure to return your books where found them. There isn't anyone to check you out so you can't borrow any, unless you want to sign for them now? The door will lock behind you when you leave, so don't leave any of your belongings. Alright?"
Midnight nodded in return, waiting for the librarian to leave before resuming her rapid reading.
When the sun came up, the librarian returned to find Midnight Oil finishing the last book with a freshly formed cutie mark on her flank. It depicted a candle held sideways with both ends burning cheerily. "Looks like you've found your passion," the librarian said with a sad smile.
Midnight nodded. "I just hope my professor isn't too disappointed," she said as she took her leave.