//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: School 
// Story: Rewritable 
// by Detsella Morningdew 
//------------------------------//

       The next day, I woke up.

I didn't notice the difference.

Well, this is slightly depressing.

I activated Magical Sight. Everything came clearly into view. My room. The ponies already up and about outside. Twilight in the kitchen. Spike still in his bed.

Huh. Where was he yesterday?

And the sun. Especially the sun. Why did Celestia's magic have to be so powerful?

I got up, feeling pangs of hunger. What time was it?

I looked back up at the sun. At least my eyes couldn't hurt anymore.

It was about 9:30.

Seeing through walls was pretty cool after all. If you could still call it seeing.

Nine thirty...oops.

School started at ten.

And it was a twenty-minute walk.

I really hope breakfast is ready.

Well, Twilight was in the kitchen, so it wasn't an unreasonable assumption. It was a good thing she was so good at planning things.

I walked downstairs, and into the kitchen. It was odd for it to still be made of wood. Most wood would buckle with the moisture. But living in a tree that was still alive had its perks.

Fortunately, Twilight was already at the table, eating, and fortunately, had a bowl of...something in a spot obviously set for me. Spike had a spot designed for his small stature.

I sat down, and started eating rather rapidly.

Oatmeal. Nice.

And here I realized another limitation of my new "vision": I had plenty of difficulty identifying objects, especially generic ones.

The bowl of oatmeal could have been a bowl of almost anything; as long as it was uniform and organic in nature, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Ponies I could identify; their unique magical signatures gave them away. Spike had a completely different kind of magic, and, even though I hadn't seen all the different kinds of pony yet, between Twilight and myself, there was a fundamental difference in magic.

But mundane things were incredibly difficult and frustrating. Like oatmeal. Although, it was still delicious. Plenty of brown sugar.

I looked at my "clock" again. The sun was actually rather useful. I was very close. I might have to run to school if I took any longer. And I didn't really know where it was. Twilight gave me directions, but I needed to plan for the "get lost" time buffer. You couldn't be too careful, at least according to Twilight.

"Why do you keep looking at the ceiling so often?"

That took me a bit off guard. "Oh, just looking at the time."

"But there isn't a clock up there," she said, quite confused.

"Well, I can't see clocks anymore. I was looking at the sun."

"How can you see the sun?"

"Well, the magic Celestia uses to move it is quite powerful. And I think it has its own magic, too. Remember, I can see through less magical things. Quite annoying, too. I can see my oatmeal, but I can't see my bowl."

Twilight looked taken aback.

"It's fine. Don't worry. At least I can see to some extent. I need to go now, though. I'll be late for school."

As I was going towards the door, Twilight stopped me.

"Wait. How did you know how I was feeling right then. If I'm right, you can't see facial expressions."

"Emotions have an effect on magic."

"So you're an empath."

"Kind of. I have to be paying attention. And it only works for strong or obvious emotions. So not exactly a superpower, but pretty useful as I can't see any expressions."

"So you can see all of my emotions?"

"Only the strong ones. And if you're worried, it's not like I see anything more than usual. You show everything on your face, anyway."

Twilight looked quite embarrassed at this.

"Well, anyway, I need to go. I might have to run. Otherwise, I might be late."

This snapped Twilight out of it. "Okay, good luck! And don't worry--Cheerilee is a very good teacher. You'll like her."

And with that, I ran out the door.







I was very glad Twilight gave me procedural directions instead of just giving me a visual description. Everything looked so different. I could still recognize places I had seen, but only if I looked closely. I wasn't interested in doing that. Being late for my first day of school would not give a good first impression of me for Cheerilee.

Thank goodness most of the buildings in Ponyville were made of wood.

When I got to the schoolhouse, nopony was there except who I guessed was Cheerilee. Well, I guess I was a bit early. The sun wasn't an exactly accurate measurement. I could only estimate within 15-30 minutes.

"You're early," she said, very surprised.

"By how much?"

"Twenty minutes. I was still setting up."

Oh.

"I'm sorry."

"No, it's not a problem."

I sat down in one of the desks. She turned towards me from her work.

"Oh, you're new."

"Yes. I'm staying with Twilight right now."

"Oh, the one that's staying in the library. I heard she helped defeat Nightmare Moon."

"Yep, that's her."

"What is your name?"

"Umm...Blank Record."

"By the way, why are your eyes closed?"

"Well, Twilight says they're rather creepy when I have them open, so I like to keep them closed."

"Well, that's not very nice."

"No, it's not like that," I said, as I opened my eyes for her. "I'm blind."

She recoiled a bit at the sight, but quickly recovered. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I can kind of see, anyway." I closed my eyes again.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, before I went blind, Twilight was teaching me how to see magic. I got good enough to kind of use it like regular sight."

"But you aren't a unicorn. How can you do that?"

"All kinds of ponies have magic. What I learned wasn't a spell, exactly. It's a sense that all ponies have and can use, but is very hard to use without the right mentality. Almost nopony knows about it. The book I learned it from was actually designed for unicorns. But most of it was trying to explain something simple in a very complicated way."

"I...see. Kind of. How did you go blind, anyway? If you're okay with telling me, of course."

"Yeah, it's okay. Nopony was at fault, anyway. I sort of have a magical problem."

"Like a disorder?"

"Yes, but according to Twilight, she hasn't seen anything this severe. Anyway, my magic is...undirected."

"But that's normal for a filly or colt who is still developing."

"That's not what I mean. You see, there is always a natural magical flow throughout all ponies' bodies. It is the source of energy that all body parts use. For me, my body did not regulate anything. My magic started at my core, and randomly spread from there. All my body parts had to work with was my life force itself."

Cheerilee gasped, realizing now what the problem was.

"Then, when I went to Twilight's library, I studied. For the whole day. At first, I noticed that my eyes were getting blurry, but I just assumed they were tired from all that reading. Then I started practicing my Magical Sight, what I am using now, and I didn't notice the deterioration. When I opened them again...well, you know what happened."

"That's horrible! You don't have to come to school today if you don't want to. I don't want anything else to happen to you on my account."

"It's just fine. After Twilight came back from her trip, and I explained everything, she taught me how to manually control my magic. I won't be in danger anymore."

"Okay," Cheerilee said, still a bit reluctant.

By now, other students were filing in, and Cheerilee returned to the front of the class.

When everypony was accounted for, she addressed the class.

"Good morning, everypony, today we will be welcoming somepony very special who is joining our class today: Clean Record. Clean Record, will you please stand up?"

I stood up, waved at the class, and sat back down.

A hand almost immediately shot up.

"Why was his eyes closed?"

"That, Snails, was because Clean Record is blind."

There was, of course, an outbreak of whispers.

"But he can listen just fine."

The whispers immediately stopped.

And with that, she continued with the lesson.

I noticed that she didn't mention the fact that I could actually see. I guess that would raise too many confused questions. She wisely left that up to me to deal with.

Actual lessons were rather harder than I expected. Not just the difficulty, but Cheerilee used a chalkboard, and while she explained things well enough for me to understand, chalk was not organic material, and neither did it have any enchantments.

At least Twilight planned well. I could take notes easily. Twilight gave me some ink that she had enchanted with a minor "anti-run" spell, so that I could see what I was writing.

As I looked at my classmates, though, I noticed quite a few of them were confused. Confusion was a distinct flavor of orange. Thinking back on our history lesson, I chuckled. Discord would be proud.

I wonder what chaos magic looks like.

Well, I could always visit the Everfree again. According to Twilight, it's full of chaos magic.





Recess was unexpectedly interesting. I didn't expect to have much fun, as most of the fillies seemed to avoid me. But I did notice one filly that was very interesting. Her magic was messed up, too.

Not as much as mine, but it gave me a lot of hope.

I walked up to her.

Better start out with a simple greeting.

"Hello, what's your name?"

"Scootaloo. Wait...how did you do that!"

"Do what?"

"You walked right up to me. Cheerilee said you were blind. And your eyes were closed, anyway."

"Umm, well...I can kind of see, even though I'm blind."

"You're making no sense at all."

"Twilight taught me how to see magic. So I can't see you, but I can see your magic, so that way I can kind of see you anyway."

Scootaloo struggled with this one. "But you're not a unicorn."

"Why does everypony keep saying that? Everypony does magic, it's just different kinds. Pegasi, for example, use magic to fly. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to get almost any lift at all."

Scootaloo saddened. "Well, I'm a pegasus and I can't fly."

"I know."

"You know?!"

"I can't either."

"I thought I was the only one. Wait, how did you know I couldn't fly? You're new here, right?"

"Well, the magic around your wings is improperly shaped. It generates some lift, but not enough to fly."

"Oh. And you have the same problem?"

I laughed. "The magic around my entire body is improperly shaped." I decided to leave out the fact that that was the reason I was blind. I didn't want to panic her unnecessarily.

"I thought I was the only one."

"So did I. It's been nice meeting you. By the way, why do some ponies have spots of magic on their flanks, while some don't? All the adults have them, but you and I don't. What are they?"

Scootaloo thought for a moment, trying to figure out what I was talking about. Finally, she realized what it was. "Oh! You're talking about cutie marks! I didn't realize that you didn't have one, either. I thought I was the only one without one in my class. Now there's two of us!"

"Actually," I said. "There's six of us including me, you, her, her, her, and her." I pointed to each pony.

"Wait, did you just point through the playground equipment?"

"Oh, right. I can see through things."

"That. Is. Awesome."

"Only if I'm looking at things more magical. Like ponies. Playground equipment isn't exactly that magical."

"Anyway, we just have to meet with those others. Could you point them out again?"

I did so, and Scootaloo identified them as Twist, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Dinky Doo.

"Why do you want to meet them so much?"

"Well, I thought for a long while that I was the only one in my class who didn't have her cutie mark. Or his," she corrected, looking at me. "At least, those two made it seem like that."

She pointed at two fillies that, by their obvious attitudes, I knew I wouldn't like.

"They'll be after you soon. I thought it would be great if we could band together, look for our special talents as a group. It kind of hurts, being the only one, and I can just imagine how those others might feel."

"Not that I think about that sort of stuff a lot," she said quickly.

"It sounds like a great idea."

We talked to the others, and three of them seemed interested. Twist declined, saying she was okay whenever it appeared, and she wasn't that late getting one, anyway. Scootaloo was a bit discouraged by this, but quickly cheered up when Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Dinky all agreed immediately.

Apart from getting my cutie mark, it gave me a great opportunity to get to know ponies who seemed to be very understanding, and didn't seem awkward around me. I gave my explanation again to them, and Dinky in particular seemed very interested.

She was very bright. Mentally, yes, but also magically. I wouldn't tell anyone, but there also was a strange tinge to her magic, too. Chaotic, even. Were magical disorders really as uncommon as Twilight thought? Or was this class just a special case?

Scootaloo insisted on a group name, and we decided on the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

It did have a nice ring to it, and it was a lot better than anything I could come up with.

The bell rang again, and we all went back inside.

I never expected this.

I expected to learn, yes, but I never dreamed that I would make so many friends.