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// XI. Indiscretion 
// Story: Memoirs of a Magic Earth Pony 
// by The Lunar Samurai 
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	The emotion I felt as I walked out of that room was the second most intense sense of regret I would ever have. All of those pages lost, all of that organization ruined, all of that work destroyed due to my inability to discern what would happen if I opened that window. It stung deep into my soul, that feeling of despair. Images of those pages falling into the sea of clouds so far away flashed into my mind as I glided through the library. I had been spared from the wrath of my professor, but part of me wished I would take the full force of his disappointment. Surely he was upset, but he hadn’t showed it. As my mind began to replay those torturous images, I began to want my own retribution. My mind started focusing on every problem I caused.
It hurt me in a way that I cannot truly describe. I remembered the pages and the chaos. All of the destruction that had been caused by my stupidity. Despite my excitement over the past few days, that still small voice returned to my mind, urging me to hate myself once more. What were you thinking? it asked as I left the library. Why do you have to be so stupid?
I was too defeated to stop its harassment. Everything it said was something that I truly believed. I was in mental anguish and I was starting to let myself slip into the same mindset I had fallen into so long ago on the second day.
I stepped into the post office and took in a deep breath. The smell of paper reminded me of the other half of my persona, the one that Evenstar, Spark, and many others had come to appreciate and applaud. My determination quickly choked out my sadness and my focus narrowed to the small metal panel addressed to me. There was something inside of me that believed the letter was already there, that the council had heard my request and had answered it with a resounding acceptance.
You couldn’t possibly have been accepted by the council after what you did.
“No,” I whispered beneath my breath, “I can’t give up because of one mistake.”  Hearing the words somehow forced the rising doubts in the back of my mind to quiet themselves for a moment. I could feel a battle for my future beginning to form in the chaos of my mind.
Just give up. It’s not worth it. You’re going to hurt everypony. Every statement was true, every piece of information that quiet voice whispered was without flaw. I couldn’t stop it now, it was growing louder with each passing second.
Come on, just give up. Go back to your dorm and study for your next class. Life in cereal production has more to offer than this impossible dream you’re chasing. You don’t belong with their kind, with the rest of the unicorns who have magic, you are meant to farm.
My eyes began to fill with tears as I slowly walked to the wall of PO boxes. “5129” I whispered as my hoof hovered beneath the engraved plate. “It’s here,” I told myself, trying to grasp that faint shining point of hope in my future. I knew the light was ther was there, but I was having to strain to see it. Both Evenstar and Spark had told me in their own way that something was amiss, and I knew it. This was a challenge that others had faced and failed.
You aren’t different. You are in this for yourself, you just want fame, you just want something for your own validation. You should leave. Just walk away.
“I…”
Listen, you’ve got a future ahead of you, one that is secure and bright. Sure you may not be extremely fulfilled, but you’ll be secure, rich, and safe. That’s what you want right? to keep us safe, that’s your dream. That’s the whole reason you’re here, the whole reason you decided to attend university. You wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself, something greater than you can imagine, and you have that. You have a future in agriculture, one that will grant you security and happiness.
Fighting what I had been told all of my life was difficult enough. I was challenging the very status quo of the society I had grown to be a part of. But fighting myself seemed impossible. That still small voice in the back of my head screamed louder than any professor ever could. I didn’t know what was about to happen, what I was about to start, what kind of world that I was about incur the wrath of. That terror, that lack of knowledge, struck me deep to my core.
Stop.
My hoof came to rest on the small dial beneath the plate 5129. I took hold of the knob and turned it to the first number.
What are you doing?
I stopped at the first digit, and began to spin it the other way, seeking out the next number in the sequence.
No! You’re trying to pursue a life that isn’t your own!
I spun the dial to the third number and paused. All that was left was one more turn that would open the box. 
STARSWIRL!
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing tears down the side of my face. It was time for me to start making changes in my life. It was time for me to take control. I was going to pursue my life the way I wanted to, the way I had to. With one quick twist, I pulled the door to the box open.
The voice was silent.
There, in the box, was a letter. I quickly grabbed it and hurriedly shut the small metal door. This was it, this was my time to change my life.
The letter was from the council. Immediately I tore into it, trying to quickly open envelope open without damaging the letter inside. Now, if you’ve ever tried to open an envelope with hooves, you know that it can be quite a challenge. When you’re excited, it’s even more so. As I stood there, struggling like and idiot to open my letter, a soft voice called my name.
“Starswirl?”
“Huh, what?” I asked as I pulled my attention back to reality. Had I been paying attention, I would have recognized the voice. It was Amethyst.
“It… it looks like you could use some help,” she said as she gestured toward my crumpled envelope.
“Uh…” I started as I held the envelope out to her, “sure.” I wanted to say more, but there was a pain in my heart as she lifted it into the air with her magic. Part of me wanted that so desperately, to be able to use such a power.
“It’s from the council?” she asked as she smoothed out the wrinkles and began peeling back the top flap.
“Yep,” I quickly responded. I was in a social setting, I couldn’t let myself drift into my thoughts any longer.
“I wonder what it is?” she whispered as she stopped at the official wax seal. “Oh… uhh…”
“Go ahead and break it,” I said as I gestured toward the seal. A spark of confidence rose in my heart. “If I tried to, I’d destroy it.”
She smiled as she carefully tore through the wax and opened the envelope. The care she gave as she withdrew the page was reassuring. It was almost as though she knew the gravity of the situation as much as I did. As the letter unfolded in her purple aura, I thought for a moment that there had been a mistake. It was blank. Then, as I looked to Amethyst, I noticed her eyes were scanning across the page.
“Uhhh,” I started as I reached for the page. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew I wanted to read the letter.
She gasped. “You got in!” She exclaimed. “That’s awesome!”
Immediately I was both excited and saddened. Thanks for telling me. “Can I see?” I asked, trying to keep my irritation as masked as possible.
She froze, her cheeks growing bright red. It looked like she suddenly realized what she had done. “Oh,” she said as her face fell. “Sorry… I just…” She gave the page back to me and quickly turned to leave.
“Amethyst?” I asked as she started trotting toward the door. I could tell she was flustered with herself. “Is something wrong?”
She paused for a moment before turning to face me once more. The redness in her cheeks had subsided a bit, but I could tell she was still embarrassed. “I’m… I’m sorry for reading your letter… I…”
“It’s alright.” I think it was my tone, not my words, that brought a smile back to her face. Silence filled the room as I looked over the letter. There, on it’s surface, were the words that I had so desperately wanted to see.
The council has reviewed your request for a major change to ATM and has decided that a presentation will be in order. You will be expected to meet us in the Assembly on friday afternoon at 4:00 PM sharp. We are interested to hear your case and only wish the best for your education and the school.
A smile filled my face as I took in the words on the page. This was it, the last part of my old life and the beginning to a bright future.
“Well,” she muttered as she started to the door once more. “I’ve got a lot of work to do for Evenstar’s class.”
My ears perked up. “Wait, you’re going to go do your Advanced Theoretical Magic homework?”
“Yeah. Evenstar gave us a pretty difficult assignment for next week.”
“Oh really?” I said as I placed the letter back in the envelope. “In that case do… do you mind if I join you?” I wasn’t sure if I was being too forward or not, but I knew I wanted a chance to learn.
“Study with me?”
“Well… yeah. I’m going to be attending your class from now on, and I’ve missed a few. Maybe you could fill me in and help me get up to speed.”
She paused as a small smile spread across her lips. “Alright,” she said as her head began to nod. “Sure. All of my stuff is in my room in East Hall…” her voice trailed off.
“Is something wrong?”
“Is today wednesday?”
I thought for a moment. Time had gotten away from me in the past days. “No, it’s Thursday,” I said after I remembered what class I was supposed to be in.
“Oh, alright. We can’t have visitors on floor on Sunday through Wednesday.”
“Why not?”
“The school wants us to study instead of socialize during those times,” Amethyst said as she started toward the door. “I see why they do it. All of the ponies that live in East Hall are in some form of advanced course sequence. We work a lot and other ponies on floor can get very distracting.”
She opened the door and gestured for me to exit. A cool breeze rolled into the room and whipped through my mane. Yet again, the world was changing from the livelihood of summer to the stillness of winter. Amethyst followed me out of the post office and walked by my side toward the dorm. East Hall was on the other side of the campus, and while the university itself was relatively small, there was still a few minutes to enjoy the high altitude weather.
The trees had all but lost their leaves by now, their remnants littered the ground as small specks of brown in the grass. The air was cool and clear, just barely letting the moon above show itself through the blue haze. If we had been in Evenstar’s office, we would have been able to see all the way to the horizon.
“So,” Amethyst started, pulling me from my thoughts. “What have you been doing? We’ve missed you in class.”
The conversation took me by surprise, but the thought that the rest of the class missed me was something I absolutely was not ready for. “Oh… I uhh… wait. You guys missed me?”
“Yeah…”
“Why?” I never expected a group of unicorns to lament my absence.
“Well… When you showed up, it reminded us how special we really are.”
The statement was so nonchalant that I didn’t pick up on its implication until I ran it through my head once more. As I started processing what she had said, I saw her face fall.
“I mean… it reminded us about how special magic is,” she said, trying to backtrack on her statement. “Like, seeing an earth pony with such a fascination in magic was… well… inspiring for us.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I said. I quickly began to realize that I wasn’t as accepted as I had thought.
She must have picked up on my tone, because she tried once more to rephrase her statement. “I dunno, it’s hard to describe. We don’t see many earth ponies around, and we’ve never actually seen one in our classroom. I guess that took us by surprise at first. But… when you… when you talked about your world…” She paused, presumably to find the words to say. “When you talked about your world, you reminded us of what we’re really doing. Like, we’ve been working with magic for so long it’s become stale. To see somepony else so wholeheartedly pursue it, we’re all so inspired by you. It’s like, we’ve been doing things that nopony else is, developing spells on a research level and it became so routine that we… we lost sight of the impact we’re making. Maybe one day the force field spell I created will be used for something. I mean, we’re literally changing the world, trying to create things that have never been done before. That’s never supposed to get old. I… I don’t really know how to say it, I’m not very good at explaining things sometimes. Do you know what I mean?”
I tried to wrap my head around the disjointed statement, but I knew, somehow, exactly what she was trying to say. In my enthusiastic ignorance I had reminded a group of the wonder that their work inspired.
That convoluted statement from Amethyst was the first time I truly realized what kind of an impact magic could have, what kind of impact I could have. That power, that ability to change the world and it’s inhabitants, was beautiful to me. I realized that, despite my own desire to perform magic, I could have an impact on the entire world if I tried. I never considered that my drive could make such a difference, be such a powerful force in the world.
It was then, through a simple conversation with Amethyst, that I realized how bright my future could become. In that moment, I silenced that sickening voice in my soul that told me to be complacent. I wanted greatness, and I was going to have it.