The dark shadow loomed over the frightened pony, the sunlight bouncing off it's mane revealing it to be a dark blue.
"Ahhhhhh! Nightmare Moon!" the pale pony shrieked, backing away from the fearful apparition towards her friend. "Lyra, help!"
"Um, Bon-bon, aren't you overreacting a little?" asked her friend, an aquamarine unicorn with a lyre-shaped cutie mark.
The earth pony gave her friend a shocked look; unable to believe the unicorn could be so calm at the return of one of Equestria's greatest fiends. The unicorn looked right back at her, a concerned expression on her face.
"Um, am I interrupting anything?" A new voice inquired. Fearfully, Bon-bon faced the source. Sitting right behind her in the doorway was a cream-colored unicorn mare. What little of her face that wasn't obscured by her long dark blue mane, was covered in shadow.
Lyra decided to defuse the situation and jumped in. "Nope! In fact I think introductions are in order. Bon-bon, this is my new student in magic, Mayberry!"
Not wanting to let Lyra's efforts go to waste, Mayberry offered her hoof to the other mare, hoping to make the best impression she could. "Hello! Sorry for the scare I gave ya."
Smiling her usual manic smile, Lyra introduced the other mare. "And this is Bon-bon, one of my oldest and best friend a pony can have."
The earth pony seemed shaken at best, not sure how to react to this new mare. Anger seemed appropriate at first due to the scare she had been given by Lyra's student, but eventually decided against it. No need to cause strife needlessly.
Hesitantly, she accepted the proffered hoof shake. After a moment they broke contact and Bon-bon started to relax a bit more. Eventually she decided to ask the question she'd asked the other unicorn.
"So, Mayberry, if it's not too personal of a matter, is what Lyra said true? Can you really not use magic?"
Mayberry nodded her head, "Sadly, yes. Up until a few hours ago, I didn't know anything about magic." She briefly considered expanding upon her reasons for that, but decided against it. Hoping Bon-bon would see it as not wanting to talk about something so embarrassing, Mayberry changed the subject, wanting a bit more time to work on her backstory.
"So, Bon-bon, what do you do here anyway?"
It was a rather wimpy attempt on the unicorn's part, but in truth it hit on a subject she sorely needed information on: what jobs were available here.
Lyra had mentioned the Apples, the main family here in Appleloosa was the driving force behind the town's expansion and that they were hiring on new workers to aid with their cider production. The downside, according to Lyra, was the Apple family was one of the oldest pure earth pony family lines and that they were sticklers for doing things earth-pony style. No magic and no flying.
Truthfully, Mayberry wasn't to worred about the no magic as until mere hours ago she hadn't even know how to use magic. Heck she still struggled with the most basic levels of levitation something most unicorns did almost instinctively. What she was worried about is if she might get stuck on one of the very few unicorn specific jobs.
Again, according to Lyra, while the Apples stuck closely the earth pony style, they also weren't foolish enough to deprive themselves of magic.
Mayberry prayed to whatever forces were out there to not be stuck with the Flim Flam brothers. She got along well with them, but unlike Lyra, who was zrazy enough to have guessed at what Mayberry was, she felt they wouldn't likely buy any story she came up with about why she didn't know magic.
Right as Bon-bon opened her mouth to respond, a triangle range out as somepony called. "Come and get it!"
All three ponie's heads turned towards the main mess hall as a crowd of ponies formed at the doors.
"Dang it! I was hoping we could get there before the crowd." Griped Lyra, upset at the perspective wait for food. "Come on, you two! Let's at least get there before that bunch eats everything."
With that, the three ponies exited the cabin and headed towards the large building. After waiting what felt like an age to Mayberry's rather irate stomach, they finally made it inside. It was the typical 'walk with your tray' food conga seen in many cafeterias. The human-turned pony guessed that something's are just universal.
As the line progressed, Mayberry found her tray loaded down with several items. She'd asked Lyra and Bon-bon for some ideas of what to try. Lyra thankfully had the presence of mind not to ask about human dietary habits, something Mayberry didn't really want to talk about since in her human body, meat had been a big favorite of hers.
On her plate, Mayberry had the hay fries she'd gotten before on the train as well as some apple fritters. A daisy sandwich as well as a slice of apple pie and an apple turnover finished off the meal.
Bon-bon had been surprised at the small mountain food heaped onto Mayberry's plate and was even more amazed when the unicorn not only managed to eat it but actually went back for more.
"Where is she putting it all?" Bon-bon murmured in awe as the unicorn helped herself to a similar sized helping. "I'd be surprised if all that doesn't go to her flanks!"
Lyra quirked an eyebrow at the earth pony before laughing. "Nope! It's all going somewhere else. Her horn!"
Bon-bon awarded her old friend with a flat look.
Laughing, Lyra explained. "Today was her first day learning magic, remember? That's never easy and in many ways it's like a pegasus learning to fly. We unicorns use a lot of energy harnessing the magical power that flows through the world."
Bon-bon's eyes widened in comprehension as she caught on. "Oh! So it's basically like magical muscle building! She has to replace all that energy. I guess that makes sense."
"And it'sh making meh eat like a pig," groused Mayberry as she walked up to the table with the tray in her mouth. Bon-bon and Lyra looked up at her, their conversation put on hold.
"I know I told you to not over do it with the magic earlier, but try holding your plate with your magic." Lyra counseled.
"Can I lighten it up a bit first? I don't want to make a mess and I'm still kinda hungry."
The mint unicorn gave the pony equivalent of a shrug. "Sure. Heck if you want, you could try manipulating your food with your magic as well. Most unicorn's do that."
Mayberry started to assume her look of utter concentration until Lyra cut her off. "Also, you need to learn to use magic without looking like you're trying to pass your spine."
"LYRA!" Sputtered Bon-bon after a perfect spit take. Only a hastily summoned napkin, glowing faintly green, saved Mayberry's meal from tasting like apple juice. "Could you be any more crass?"
"I don't know. Want me to try?" The unicorn retorted, her amber eyes radiating innocence.
"No!" Bon-bon would likely have said more if an apple fritter, now brilliantly glowing an icy blue, hadn't exploded showering all the ponies at the table with it's delicious contents.
Slurping her own face clean in the most cartoonish way possible, Lyra laughed at the aghast look on Bon-bon's face and at the sheepish grin on Mayberry's. "Again too much magic being put into picking something up. Let me guess you were trying to grip it?"
Her student nodded, looking as if she wanted to sink into the floor from embarrassment. Bonbon had simply wiped her face clean with a spare napkin, the red cloth covered with bits of apple fritter and was now trying to rake other pieces from her blue and pink mane.
Lyra heaved a sigh. "Well, at least you've seemed to have gotten used to calling up your magic. I'm just glad you were trying to pick it up, and not heating it. That would have ended badly."
Mayberry nodded, her mind vividly called up images of her and the other ponies being seared and blinded as pieces of flaming apple fritter rained down upon them.
Thankfully Lyra interrupted that train of thought before it got to the mess hall burning down and then collapsing crushing everypony inside.
"Helloooo! Equestria to Mayberry! Give it another try, but with less magic."
Nodding, the mare turned her attention towards another apple fritter. Slowly the magical field enveloped the treat.
"ok good, now start lifting it up as you did the pebble."
Under Lyra's guidance, the apple fritter rose into the air. Before Mayberry could start even thinking of floating it over so she could take a bite out of it, a sharp stomping interrupted her concentration. Not a second later, it too exploded showering the ponies with food. Mayberry's face fell, half at her apparent failure and half due to the fact that had been the last apple fritter. She'd grabbed the last two on her second trip since everypony else had already gone through the line.
Bon-bon simply heaved a resigned sigh before cleaning her face and mane up again. Lyra on the other hoof, was quite angry.
"Ok, who's the smartflank that did that?"
The room had already been fairly silent for a while, as the ponies present had watched Mayberry's attempts at magic. Seeing the normally relaxed and happy unicorn's livid face, a multitude of hooves were hastily leveled at the culprit, a weakly grinning and exceedingly guilty looking Braeburn.
Having been found out, Braeburn started stuttering as he tried to explain himself.
"Well… uh, I was just… I didn't mean to … IthinkIleftmyhouseonfire! Gotta go!"
Before the stallion could make a run for it, a green field enveloped him, lifting him off the ground.
"Hey! What's the big idea?"
Mayberry gloomily wondered if she should go for the old "Hay is for horses" joke, before Bon-bon tapped her on the shoulder.
"Why don't you just finish up what you have left before it gets cold."
Not seeing an argument against that reasoning, the dejected mare dug into her food, the especially tasty apple pie and apple turnover helping to lighten her mood a little.
During this, Lyra was busy expressing her displeasure to the captured Braeburn.
"Why in Equestria did you go and do that?" She grated at him, giving him a small shake magically to emphasize her point. "The last thing anypony needs is to be distracted when they're trying to learn!"
"Oh come on! I didn't mean to distract her! I was tryn' to encourage her with some applause!"
"And you could wait to do it afterwards?"
The stallion fidgeted with his hooves for a moment and with sigh, apologized. "Okay, okay. I admit my timing was horrid and that my applauding didn' help none. Could you put me down?"
Lyra gave him the evil eyes before finally relenting and lowered him to the ground. However she still had something to say.
"Ok, but next time could you hold off on any applause or praise until we're done?"
Putting a hoof over his heart, Breaburn promised not to distract them again while practicing and that he'd warn the other ponies to do the same.
The drama finally concluded, the few remaining ponies in the mess hall filed out.
After everypony else had left, Bon-bon, Lyra, and Mayberry started walking towards the door. Lyra broke the silence.
"So, Bon-bon, just so this doesn't shock you later on, Mayberry is gonna be rooming with us for awhile. All the ponies that showed up on the train earlier already had assigned bunks and since we're the only ones with an extra bed open, she's going to be joining us."
Finally having freed her mane and coat from the scourge of apple fritter bits, Bon-bon merely nodded. Seconds later, she asked, "No offence, but you don't have any really annoying habits do you?"
Mayberry thought for a bit and then answered. "It depends on what you mean by annoying. I stay up late and sleep in. I'm by no means a morning person and I don't function too well when I do get up until I get something to eat. I keep my area clean. Oh and I snore under certain conditions. Pretty badly too."
What Mayberry didn't say were some of her worst habits, but now with level of technology demonstrated to her so far, these ponies didn't have to worry about someone watching movies until three and then start playing music pretty loudly at four in the morning. More than a few people had gotten rather mad at her for that.
The earth pony took a few moments to digest that load of information. The only truly bad point that stood out to her was the snoring and the slow to wake up. Bon-bon knew from experience that ponies in Appleloosa were expected to rise early so they could get to work in the orchard, which usually consumed most of the day.
"Ok, aside from the 'getting up late,' you should be fine. Welcome aboard."
AN: This one in and another on the way. The reason why? Because I've been bloody slow on the updates. Sorry about that and thanks for sticking around.