I took a seat up in the front ten minutes before class and waited for the teacher to call me up so I could introduce myself to all the colts and fillies, oh joy. I tapped my hoof on the desk a few times while she silently finished off a few papers. Pretty soon the school bell rang, and everypony was called back in.
“Good morning, class!”
“Good morning, Miss Cheerilee,” they all replied in that monotone unison all classes have. Except me. I was just sitting there, practically scowling away.
“Well, today we have a new student joining us, so let’s have him come up and introduce himself, and then each of you will line up and introduce yourselves!” Oh crud, these moments try my patience so much. I don’t think I can hold it in and if she does ask about my cutie mark, then it’s all over anyway.
I slowly walked up and turned around and spoke while trying to avoid as many eyes as possible, “Hello, my name is Veritas.” My reply was simple because I was trying to see how much she wanted me to say. One glance into her eyes told me she was running on autopilot and it was kind of up to me.
“And where are you from?” she asked in a monotone response. I mean, geez, there’s being bored with class and then there’s just… routine.
“Manehatten,” I replied dryly. Instantly, some faces perked up as the colts and fillies formed a line away from the comfort of their desks.
“Interesting,” she said, but I could tell she did not find it interesting in the slightest. “And what is your special talent?” Now at this she tilted her head to the side and was actually sort of interested in knowing. I don’t blame her, or the curious kids in the class; I mean, how often does a pony have a giant eyeball on their flank? The answer to that riddle is never, except me.
I looked into all of the fillies and colts faces and saw nothing but pure curiosity edged into their brains, especially with Silver Delight and Diamond Tiara. I leaned forward and cleared my throat just as everypony’s eyes had snapped to attention.
“Truth,” I replied simply.
“Uh, what do you mean, dear?” the teacher stammered.
“Just truth,” I replied again, which was the truth. I was not lying to this mare; in fact, I tend not to lie ever. If nopony is able to lie to me, then I figured I should at least return the favor and be as honest as I can.
“Well, alright then,” she replied, looking very confused. The other students also looked quite confused, but snapped to attention at the teacher’s next words. “Children, why don’t you all introduce yourselves to Veritas here?”
Apple Bloom walked up first and began to speak. “Hi, my name’s-“
“Apple Bloom,” I interrupted.
She blinked several times and looked up to the teacher who shook her head a few times, unsure how to respond. She looked down to me and I shrugged. Slowly, Apple Bloom returned to her seat as the next colt walked up. I guess they just figured I knew her. He breathed in but before he could say one word I was there.
“Featherweight.” He stammered out a few syllables but didn’t actually say anything coherent, and the room was so silent that I couldn’t help but groan and spoke up for everypony. “Let me just speed things along here. You are Scootaloo.” I pointed to an orange pegasus who was next in line. “Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Twist, Snips, Snails, and if I’m not mistaken one Sweetie Belle is missing.” I finished and again the room was silent before Miss Cheerilee forced herself to respond.
“Have you met them before?”
“Nope,” I replied while still standing in front of the class. I didn’t mind, when it comes to children you can, for the most part, never see horrible things that they have done because kids don’t do any of that stuff, usually.
“Then how?” She demanded in an authoritative tone. I turned to her with my expression as serious as possible.
“I can see it in their eyes.”
The teacher narrowed her eyes on me for a moment, seemingly lost in thought before realization dawned on her. I had to hand it to this teacher, she knew her stuff.
“True Sight, is it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The teacher frowned for a moment before nodding. “I see... Well, then, I think perhaps it is time for a surprise lesson regarding our new student’s special talent!” She actually grinned at this and would not let me sit down. Good luck, I thought with a roll of my eyes. Not even my last teacher fully understood it. I don’t think anypony did, really.
“Is everypony listening?” They all nodded with eager smiles on their faces, I knew why she was doing this, but it kind of singled me out. Not that I wanted friends… still, what a-
“Good! Now, our Veritas here has a very special gift.”
Gift?! Ha! It’s a curse, you-
“True Sight is a very rare special talent that has appeared on several figures in history, the last of which was over two hundred years ago, at least she was the last reported…” She stole a nervous glance at me and again I shrugged, while avoiding eye contact with every living soul at this point. “A single glance into anypony’s eyes and Veritas here knows everything he would ever want to know about you.”
Instantly, all hoofs in the class shot up straight in the air, I was not paying attention and groaned when the teacher motioned for me to answer them. I looked in her eyes and I saw something I didn’t expect--compassion, of all things. She knew this was best for me and, for once, an authoritative figure in my life did not seem so cold. Still, I wished I wasn’t here. I picked Scootaloo out of random.
“Yeah, so you’re psychic?”
“…Sure, why not,” I replied with a sly smile. She grinned and thought of the possibilities. The rest of the hooves were still in the air. I closed my eyes and then turned slowly to give the teacher a pleading look.
“Alright, two more questions and then we have to move on with today’s lessons,” she said in response to my plea. I grumbled. She could have just said no more questions. Jerk.
“Yeah, you, I guess…”
“So if you looked into the Princess’s eyes, would you, like, know all sorts of government secrets or something?” Snips asked.
“I don’t think I would ever, and I mean ever, want to look into one of their eyes. I’m pretty sure I would go insane…”
“Why?”
“That counts as the second question. Because she has had to kill before. It’s in your history books,” I replied, bowed and then took a seat without skipping a beat. The silence that followed was blissful to me, but awkward to everypony else. To my surprise, the lessons started immediately after. The other children kept giving me nervous glances, but I ignored them. After all, it was nothing I hadn’t gotten before. I did notice that the teacher was purposely avoiding eye contact with me for as long as possible, which in turn led me to guess as to why. It was actually kind of nice to have mystery in a pony. Small as it may have been, it made me feel normal for once. I assumed she was doing it though to keep her secrets from me, but really she was just trying to help me focus on my work, which I was, mostly.
“Now who could tell me the name of the unicorn pony that invented the teleportation spell, perhaps Veritas?” She asked while ignoring the other colts and fillies entirely who had excitedly raised their hooves. I looked up and, to my amazement, her eyes were closed. I smirked and actually chuckled a bit at this. Still with eyes firmly shut, she asked again. “This is not a joke, do you know the answer or not?”
“Star Swirl the Bearded.” I replied with my eyes closed. I knew the other children knew the answer and I wanted to humor her.
“Very good!” She smirked at me and winked. She then continued to teach our history and math lessons with the occasional random question sprinkled in, I got a few wrong and, for once, I didn’t feel like I was cheating. I was actually learning! Not that I needed to learn much, as I was pretty advanced when compared to the other students. That is, with the exception of science. I hated science.
Time flew by and pretty soon it was lunch time, I was overjoyed. As expected, all of the ponies singled me out and left me alone at a bench, and that suited me juuuust fine.
I figured that most of them were in denial, I already saw it in a few of their eyes. Can he really do that? Does he know I have a crush on her? Does he know about… me? I wish I could say no, I wish that with all of my heart and soul. But I did know, I did know who he had a crush on and I can really do that.
“And that’s why you blank flanks will never be as talented as us.” Diamond Tiara finished after I had just finished eating my sandwich. I guess my chewing noises muffled her little speech. I looked over curiously and noticed that the two along with the rest of the class were signaling out the two fillies with no special talent in the class. Of course, bullies. I groaned, hating myself for what I was about to do, but I had enough guilt from not speaking up with Spike and I decided it was worth it.
“Excuse me,” I interjected, which caused Diamond Tiara to meet my gaze. She immediately scoffed but I had gotten everything I needed.
“Oh look, it’s the freak!” she said, causing several ponies to snicker a bit.
“You know, if you would just apologize to the Cutie Mark Crusaders over there, I bet they would forgive you for everything and actually count you as a friend. I know that’s what you want. I know you feel jealous of them for their little adventures and not being forced down by a special talent that’s practically worthless. And I know that you know that they are better ponies than you, so you hide behind your money and your daddy and you use your bullying to make yourself feel better; when all you have to do is apologize and ask for forgiveness and their friendship.” Shocked faces all around, Diamond Tiara’s mind blanked and her blood seemed to run cold right in front of my face. “But you have too much pride for that, huh?” I finished and left for the classroom.
Now, normally this never works. The bully will scoff or deny anything and everything I said. It only took two minutes, however, for me to hear Diamond Tiara break down and cry out in the open, though. I felt… weird. I took a quick glance back and saw Apple Bloom patting her back and Scootaloo trying to cheer her up. I almost smiled. Almost. I knew I had fixed a bully problem, and probably fixed Diamond Tiara for life. The school bell rang again and all the ponies came back in, smiles on all of their faces. Diamond Tiara was quietly sniffling, but a quick glance to her new friends told her that she was okay in their book. Silver Delight gave a nervous smile to the Cutie Mark Crusaders as well.
Diamond Tiara then whispered to me. “Thank you…”
“All I showed you and them was the truth,” I replied, and dove back into my book. Again, the other classmates kept stealing nervous glances at me, wondering if I was going to target them next. Well, I wasn’t. I wasn’t even going to out Scootaloo, who probably had the biggest secret of them all. She was a loner and lived in a club house of all places, without guardians. It wasn’t legal what she was doing, but we did have something in common and it was her secret to bear and not any of my business.
Lessons started again with the teacher ignorant to the new found friendship and crying on the playground. The lessons flew by quickly until finally it was two o’clock and time to leave. And of course, as expected, the teacher stopped me while all the kids got to go home.
“I know this is none of my-“
“Yes, I found a place to live, it’s the cottage just inside The White Tail Woods, I assume you need it down on record?”
“Uh, yes I do… How deep does your ab-“
“Pretty deep,” I cut her off there. “Is that all?”
The teacher sighed and gave a weak smile. “Yes, I’m sorry for outing you this morning but I had to-“
“It was necessary, I understand. If they can’t keep secrets from me, then the least you could do is let them know.”
She frowned. “You know it’s rude to interrupt.”
I smirked. “It’s still fun to do.”
“Have a nice day, Veritas.”
“You too.”
And that was my first day of class. All in all, not bad, and certainly better than my last school. I had already finished my books and the homework the teacher assigned looked like a walk in the park, so I made my way to the library. Again I found Spike shelving books while I assumed Twilight was somewhere else, or upstairs maybe.
“Hey dude, you like those books?”
“Yeah, they weren’t bad… But I finished them.”
“Really? You remind me of Twi, heh… Did you want anything else, or were you just returning these?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll browse for a bit.”
“Sure thing,” Spike said and went back to his shelves.
I sighed and figured a more direct approach might work; well it worked with the bully.
“Hey, Spike?”
“Yes? Wait, how do you-”
“I know a lot of things about you; I also know that you regret never calling Twilight your mother. I can safely say that she wishes you would.”
As expected, just like Diamond Tiara his mind went blank. Then his emotions went from betrayal to anger to pure and utter confusion in a split second.
“I get that a lot, the confusion bit. But just so you know, anytime I look into anyone’s eyes, I can see anything about them and right now I see a pony and a dragon in pain because they both won’t be honest with each other.”
“You have True Sight?”
“Yeah… and I saw both of your eyes.”
“Twilight taught me about it…” he muttered nervously.
“I know she did.”
“What should I do now?”
Spike looked pitiful. In a state of pure shock yet nervous excitement.
I groaned and fought the urge to facehoof; or even better, slap him upside the head. “Where is she now?”
“Just upstairs.”
“Then what do you think you should do, idiot?”
He shook his head and crossed his arms defiantly. “I can’t do that! Nope, too crazy.”
“It is probably the sanest thing I’ve heard all week and trust me; I’ve seen a lot of eyes and a lot of secrets.”
Spike nervously tapped his, claws? I think they were claws... well, he tapped his whatever he had and then, without warning, dashed upstairs in a desperate attempt to force himself to do this. At least, that’s what I got out of the corner of his eyes. As much as I wanted to leave, I had to make sure I hadn’t screwed anything up, so I waited and listened. Luckily, the library was pretty vacant.
“Twilight?”
The rest of the noise became incredibly muffled and I was unable to hear a thing. So I waited patiently for them to be finished. I did, however, hear some crying, so I assumed my job here was done.
And then there was a long silence and yada yada yada, happily ever after for them, whoop-i-dee-doo. I assumed that they were hugging and I actually did feel slightly better. I went to leave but then Twilight the ever-curious had to speak up. “But, what brought this on?” I finally heard.
“Oh, there’s a colt downstairs with True Sight! Remember the book you showed me once? It’s amazing, Twilight!”
And that’s when I slammed the door shut and left in a hurry. Now, with her being the Element of Magic and all, I assumed she could keep up with me and was probably pursuing me now in order to thank me or do tests on me or something. None of those things appealed to me, so I took a few random turns into some dark alley ways. I peeked into the light and, sure enough, Twilight was running around with Spike on her back, looking for a young colt. I caught a single glimpse into her eyes and BINGO she wanted to experiment on me and thank me. Fat chance.
I caught another glimpse into Spike’s eyes and saw a memory unfold before me, a very strong one that was just created.
“Twilight?”
“Yes Spike?”
“There… there’s something I need to tell you…”
“What is it?”
“You see- I- remember the day you hatched me?”
“That was one of the best days of my life, of course I do!”
"It's just... since that day, you've cared for me... I know you've cared for me along with Princess Celestia, but you've always been there for me... you taught me how to read, write and speak... you also taught me how to discern from right and wrong... but most of all, you loved me..."
“Spike… what are you saying?”
“Can I- Can I call you mom from now on? It's started to bother me that I can’t…”
Twilight started to tear up inside and then outside and without warning used a bit of magic to levitate him into the air and brought him in for a bone crunching hug.
“Of course you can! I guess I’ve always kind of hoped you would, too- we’ve been stupid, huh? Not sharing this with each other?”
“Uh… Yep!” Spike said and they laughed together while hugging. “I love you, Twilight.”
Then the memory stopped all of a sudden, like they always do. It’s always the strongest moments, sure I can sense weak ones by the hundred but the strongest moments are always shown to me first. At least I did the right thing…
I waited in the darkness for at least ten minutes before taking cautious steps and looking around. They had vanished and I sighed in relief. I had my adventure books and my homework and some food left for the next few days so I walked the trail home, actually enjoying the tranquility of the forest. My day had to be ruined though when I found my cottage had been broken into. I giggled like crazy when I realized nothing had been stolen because there was nothing to steal--I carried everything I owned on me at all times. I pictured the burglar in question running in and then cursing the world around them when they realized that there was nothing light enough to take.
“Guess that means I’m going shopping again…”
I walked right back into town, feeling slightly annoyed that I would not be getting as much reading done with my homework in the way. I tried looking for a lock store or something, but found nothing of the sort. I had heard that small towns had less crime so it made sense, but obviously there had been some crime.
I figured City Hall might be able to help so I headed there. I found the same secretary looking at me with a nervous smile. Oddly enough, she was not the one who had robbed me. I suppose that was a good thing.
“Yes?” she questioned in a annoyed tone.
“My cottage was broken into; do you know of any place in town with high quality locks?”
“Well-“
I groaned. “Twilight? Seriously, that’s what you think of?”
“I don’t know how you’re doing this, but yes. She would probably be the one to ask.”
This was all the help I was going to get; and a few more glances told me that the mayor was actually busy for once. I groaned and left in a hurry, as if speeding up to the library would get this over with faster. I opened the door and closed it to find Spike once more, only this time he was reading a book. He glanced over and gasped making me roll my eyes quite profoundly.
“It’s you! Uh, can you wait here… I’ll go get Twi!” He was blushing and then he darted up the stairs all the while yelling his new mother’s name. Twilight quickly came down the stairs with a nervous very fake grin on her face.
“Listen, I need your help,” I replied after a short, awkward silence.
“Oh? Well, I wanted to-“
“Thank me and experiment on me, I know. But my cottage was broken into-“ I paused and waited for their gasps to die down. “-and I need something to keep others out. Luckily, everything I own was on me at the time and it’s quite empty in there anyway. So can you help?” Oddly enough, her eyes shut as she began to think, probably a habit but it meant I was kept in the dark until those eyes of hers opened.
Then her eyes snapped open and she grinned.
“Magical locks?” I asked, cutting her off.
“Yeah… you know of them?”
“I do now. True Sight, remember?”
“Uh, how deep does your ability go?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“...Yes?”
“Very deep, I can see memories, emotions, names, dates, thoughts. Nothing is hidden, ever.”
“Must be-“
“I’m fine, now I take it the spell will take a little bit?”
“Hmm?” She snapped out from her thoughts. “Oh yes, you can use the public section while you're waiting.” I noticed she was not instinctively keeping her eyes shut, like that would help at this point. I almost laughed. “How many ponies live with you?”
“Just me,” I replied nonchalantly.
“Uhh…..”
“I’m an emancipated minor. Just let me know how many bits it will cost.“
“Oh, uh-“ She stuttered with her speech but quickly steadied herself. “No charge. It’s the least I could do for helping us with our little problem. Least I can do for a-“
“We’re not friends,” I replied bluntly. “Just let me know how many bits. I’ll be in the public section.” I turned around before she could respond, I could tell that I just said something that pissed her off to no end, but it was true. I had no real friends and I liked it that way. I don’t care if this mare studied the magic of friendship, magic my flank.
I waited for a while before she finally approached me, again with her eyes closed. “Alright, just use a paintbrush to paint over any windows or doors using this magical material that I just enchanted. It’s coded to your magical signature that I gathered when we were talking-“ Clever girl I thought. “Nopony should be able to enter your cottage unless you invite them in, or it’s you alone.”
I looked into her eyes and confirmed this. “How much?” I asked.
“I told you, it’s free.” She was not going to take no for an answer. Oh, I could tell she was insanely curious about me. I almost allowed her to do some insane experiments, almost, but I figured that we had each done a favor for each other and that made us more or less even.
“Thank you,” I replied and placed the material in my saddlebag and then left in a hurry. I couldn’t tell from not being in the library, but I know for a fact that Twilight probably just screamed after hearing a muffled sound.
Painting worked like a charm, when I entered my building I felt this odd magical sense overcome me which showed me that it was, in fact, working. It did bother me that I couldn’t test the dang thing on somepony else but I let it slide and dived into my homework. I thought of tomorrow and groaned when I realized it was only Tuesday and I had three more days of fun ahead of me. I just hoped that I could make it more interesting along the way…