//------------------------------//
// 3 - Mid Afternoon 
// Story: Luna's Center For Kids Who Can't Magic Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too 
// by lunabrony 
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	"Gather around, children!" Luna called, as she and Fireball emerged from the padded room. Under normal circumstances that arrangement would have been wildly inappropriate, but here it was standard procedure. Especially with Fireball being new to flight, she didn't want him to hurt himself while trying to fly and then wind up with herself on the receiving end of a lawsuit wrapped around negligence. That just wouldn't do for her image.

Clover and Ocean, who had been watching Celestia in her dragon persona sitting on her hind legs and juggling a multitude of brightly colored plastic balls, suddenly cheered with such wild ferocity that the daylight horse yelped with surprise, losing her balance and allowing the plastic spheres to go clattering to the ground. She glared at Luna once more, but there was love in that gaze despite her annoyance, and she said nothing this time.

Fireball ran to join his classmates, excitedly regaling them with tales of his flight, which somehow now involved flaming hoops of fire and a giant monstrous golem. Certainly a far more exciting version than his brief lift off the ground. 

Celestia sat off to the side now, having wriggled out of the dragon suit and appearing much more properly regal, sitting straight up with her hair flowing majestically off to the side. She seemed wildly amused by Fireball's tale, and was watching her sister with great interest. Perhaps if only to see what would come next.

"Next we're going to do a bit of learning," Luna said. "It's time for math."

All three children groaned perfectly in unison.

Luna brought them forth to their desks, and when all three were seated, her horn lit up with a brilliant blue aura and wooden structures unlike anything the three had ever seen before appeared on their desks. Clover looked disgusted and poked at hers with a foreleg as if it were covered in crawling insects. "We're supposed to do math on THESE? What is this?"

"This is an abacus," Luna said, sitting before them. "They are the top of the line, state of the art instruments of choice by up and coming mathematicians, and a wonderful learning tool."

Celestia coughed loudly. Luna ignored her.

These in particular were simple tools, little wooden structures about a foot in height, and a foot across. There were four rows in total, each row containing ten bright red beads. The children all looked at the devices as if they were covered in molasses. Next to each abacus lay a pile of rubber bands.

"Uhhh... these are state of the art?" Ocean Breeze asked, suspiciously.

"Yes indeed!" Luna confirmed. "Now we only have half an hour allotted for math, so let's move right along. The first row is singles, the second row is tens, the third is hundreds, and the fourth row is thousands."

Ocean Breeze, who had never been the brightest of ponies, scoffed incredulously. "That's ridiculous, there can't be thousands of beads on that little frame, not even magic can displace physics. I call shenanigans."

"Ocean, that's not-"

"Shenanigans!"

Celestia facehoofed off in the corner. 

"No, Ocean," Luna said. "It's not about how many beads there are, it's about the math. That's the point. Now, for instance, can any of you, tell me how to count to fifteen on an abacus?"

Ocean and Fireball stared at the devices with absolute confusion and indifference. Clover, however, was working on her abacus already, moving beads around with surprising, intelligent speed. "Done!" She announced!

Luna came over, looking from the abacus to the filly who was using it. "Very good. Can you show your work?"

"Of course," Clover said, and gestured to the beads. On the first row, the beads were separated in half by one of the rubber bands, half on top, and half on the bottom. "Here's five," she said. In the second row, the tens, a single bead was separated, one on top, and nine on the bottom.  "And here's ten. Five and ten are fifteen."

"Excellent!" Luna exclaimed. Clover looked pleased. Luna's horn lit up, and a gold star appeared out of nowhere, attaching itself to Clover's chest with a harmless tacky side. No pins or pricks required.

"Hey, I want a gold star!" Ocean Breeze announced.

"Then you have to actually be useful," Fireball said. Ocean gasped, and tackled him to the floor, the two bucking and rolling around on the ground.

Luna narrowed her eyes at once, and pulled the two apart. "Since you are so eager to learn, Ocean, then you can have the next individual lesson. Clover, Fireball, you can take this time to yourselves to nap or play quietly. Celestia will oversee you while I work with Ocean."

"Yay!" Fireball and Clover seemed to be pleased with the idea of having some one on one time, or two on one time, with Princess Celestia herself. It wasn't as if this was a private or gifted school, these three particular children had been randomly selected from hundreds of applicants to compose Luna's very first class. If things went well, a full sized class would be chosen the following semester, each 'class' lasting only half a school year.

Ocean grumbled, and Luna nudged him. "Come on, little one. It's time you had your lesson." Ocean grumbled, but followed along, and Luna glanced at the sundial again as they passed out of the main room. Just around noon exactly, the math lesson had taken about half an hour. Right on schedule.

Luna led Ocean Breeze down the hallway to a brightly lit, sunny room filled with plants and seedlings, a small garden of sorts, with more pots in planters along the windows. The wallpaper was tacky, a pale blue superimposed with repeating patterns of pineapples.

"What's this about?" Ocean asked, not the most polite of children. "I hate plants, they're stupid."

"They're mostly for decoration," Luna said. "But you shouldn't hate plants. They provide us with many wonderful things. Like flowers."

"I hate flowers too. They're girly. I wish all the plants would die," he said. "They don't do anything."

Luna smiled still, patient as ever. "If all the plants were gone, all the life in Equestria would die out without the oxygen that plants create. Did you know that? It's part of why it's very important that we take care of the trees. They don't look like they're doing much, but they're keeping us alive. It's called photosynthesis, which is a very big word and not a lesson you'll need to worry about for some time yet, but it's important that you know that."

"Oh," Ocean said, looking doubtful now. "Well I guess they can stay then. So what are we doing here? You can't teach me anything."

"Oh?" Luna mimicked. "And why is that?"

"Because I'm an earth pony, and my father says that Equestrian economy is controlled by unicorns while the weather is controlled by the pegasi, leaving the earth ponies to do all the grunt slave labor. He says we're a minority."

"Is that right?" Luna asked, frowning. She made a mental notice to scold Ocean's father for surrounding his colt with a negative environment. No child needed that. "Well he's wrong. You may not believe me, but he's very wrong. Earth ponies can do many wonderful things. Maybe you can't teleport or do magic, but because you do not rely on those things, that makes you all the more special. Equestria owes its beginnings to earth ponies, did you know that?"

Ocean shook his head. "So, like, there's more to us than just being used for slave labor?"

"Yes," Luna agreed. "And I don't want to hear you talking like that. Come over here." She gestured for him to join her, where she was standing by an empty flower pot. "This bag of seeds here represents all ponies. The seeds all look the same before they have been nurtured and loved, but there are actually several kinds of seeds here that will grow into many different things. Go on and plant it in the dirt."

Ocean hesitated. "I'll get dirty."

"Go on," she said again, a bit more firmly.

Ocean did, and reluctantly planted the seed in the dirt. He patted it down with his foreleg, looking up at Luna again, who nodded, then he took a small cup of water that was nestled among the materials and poured it over the dirt. Nothing happened for a moment, then the tiniest little green stalk, only half an inch in height, grew and unfurled from the dirt.

"Hey!" Ocean exclaimed suddenly, his eyes bright. There was an excitement in them that Luna had not seen until now, and suspected that his father had never managed to light. "I did that! Did you see that? I did that!" He caught himself, and quickly tried to return to his old habit of crotchety indifference. "I mean... whatever. It's still stupid."

Luna just shook her head. "There is nothing stupid about nature, Ocean. It's a necessary part of life. Perhaps you might not be destined to work the earth, you may grow to be a banker or an amusement park ride attendant for all I know, but it is important you understand the value of life."

"Okay," he said slowly, looking down at the sprout, then back up at Luna. "Can I do another one?"

Luna smiled. "Of course you can, Ocean. Of course you can."