“Was it a nice night for you?” Sumac asked Cinnamon, who seemed rather relaxed as he sat beside him on the steps to Twilight’s castle. The morning was a bit cooler than usual, or it felt that way to Sumac. Autumn drew ever nearer, and while it was not yet cold, it was clear that the long, extended summer was now over.
Cinnamon nodded, but said nothing. Something that was almost a smile was on his face, he sat facing the sun, his eyes squinting, and the faint breeze blew through his mane. His ears twitched with every sound he heard as ponies moved through the town to go to the market, but he didn’t appear to be as jumpy as usual.
“It’s Wednesday,” Sumac said, trying to start a conversation. “There will be magic lessons this morning and archery for me this afternoon. I can’t wait for archery.” The colt smiled and thought of spending a few pleasant hours trying to learn a new skill. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were going to be great days. Mondays and Fridays, well, Sumac wasn’t so sure about those yet. Friday was good because that was the last day of school for the week, so it wasn’t too bad, but he wasn’t sure what he would do on Friday afternoons. As for Mondays… who liked Mondays? Nopony, that’s who.
There was no reply from Cinnamon, who seemed to enjoy sunning himself.
It seemed that Cinnamon was the quiet sort, so Sumac gave up. It was probably just nice for him to have somepony to sit with, so Sumac allowed himself to be content with that. What Cinnamon needed was a friend and little Sumac was beginning to understand his purpose here at Twilight’s school. Exceptional foals sometimes had exceptional problems, Sumac knew that he most certainly did, and this was a place to help with those problems. Or something. Sumac was still a little fuzzy on the whole thing, but he tried to understand.
Hunched over his desk, Sumac kept to himself, stayed silent, and kept his eyes focused on his textbook, worried that he might attract the attention of Olive. She was sitting in the front of the class, close to the teacher, and sure enough, she was a smug know-it-all. Beside him, Strawberry Hearts was also slumped over her textbook, trying to understand the lesson.
Cinnamon was chewing on his pencil, lost in thought, he was half-in and half-out of his book, alternating between reading and looking up at the chalkboard. Sitting between Cinnamon and Sumac, Tinder stared up at the chalkboard with a dull, vacant stare, understanding nothing.
Behind Tinder, a green filly named Gentle Melody took aim with a plastic straw and fired a spitball right at Tinder’s tender ear. There was a muffled yelp from Tinder, who reached up and rubbed his tender ear with his hoof. The teacher, a mare named Miss Weathervane, turned her head and gave the entire class a stern glare, as she did not know what was going on, but knew there was trouble.
When the teacher turned away to continue writing on the chalkboard, Gentle Melody took aim once more, took a deep breath, and fired. This time, she got Tinder’s other ear, and before Tinder could even turn around, the straw had vanished. She gave the colt in front of her a sweet smile as he glared at her, rubbing both of his ears, and she batted her eyelashes at him.
Tinder it seemed, was playing with a different sort of fire, one he did not yet understand, and it was no less dangerous. Scowling, his lip curled away from his teeth in a snarl, he turned his back to the filly behind him, and he tried to rub away the stinging sensation in his ears.
“Okay class, who can tell me the source of all magic?” Miss Weathervane asked.
Blinking, Sumac looked around the classroom. He knew the answer to this question. Nopony else seemed to be raising a hoof or making any sort of effort to be called upon. He glanced at Olive, expecting her to answer, but she was absorbed in her textbook.
Moving with some hesitation, Sumac raised his left front hoof a little.
“Wonderful, Sumac, could you enlighten us?” Miss Weathervane gave Sumac a broad smile of approval as she stood in front of the chalkboard.
Feeling nervous, he cleared his throat, and then Sumac said, “Magic comes from ley lines. It’s a finite resource, meaning there is only so much of it available to use at any given time. It rises up from the ground and spreads through the air and water. Some ley line intersections are dangerous.”
“Correct.” Miss Weathervane gave Sumac a nod and looked around at the rest of the class. “And can anypony tell me the names of the two ponies who are most knowledgeable about ley lines and their features?”
Nopony raised their hoof. Sumac suspected that he knew, he had a hunch, because he had met them, but he wasn’t one hundred percent certain that they were, in fact, the most knowledgeable ponies on this subject.
The teacher let out a sigh and set down her chalk on the tray. “The foremost authorities on ley lines are Tarnished Teapot and Maud Pie. Their hard work and study have revolutionised our knowledge base and what we know about magic. Maud in particular has shown us that rocks act as batteries, storing up magic and releasing it in a slow, steady flow that makes it safer for all of us, and Tarnished Teapot has shown that certain plants, poison joke in particular, are nature’s way of regulating dangerous levels of magic and filtering it so it is less dangerous to living things. There is a vast, amazing magical ecosystem that we are only now beginning to understand and appreciate, thanks to the hard work of those two, who have dedicated their lives to studying and understanding this subject.”
Sumac could not help but wonder where his magic came from. Did he act as a battery? Was he storing up magic right now and did zap apples help him release it? He had questions, big questions, but not the sort of questions he could ask in this class.
“While this is a class dedicated to the study of unicorn magic, all ponies have magic. The earth ponies and the pegasi have their own special magic and they too, draw power from the ley lines, but not in the same way that we do. Much of their magic is passive, for the most part, though there are exceptions.” The teacher cleared her throat and focused her gaze upon Sumac. “You there, you are friends with Pebble Pie… she has the extraordinary ability to make rocks talk. Have you seen this?”
Sumac, who had in fact, seen a demonstration of Pebble’s magic, nodded. Rocks didn’t have much to say and they were kind of stupid, all things considered. The stone that Pebble had spoken to had been rather antagonistic. It led to a conversation where Pebble had accused him of flirting with her and Pebble’s admission that she hated rocks.
“And you,” Miss Weathervane said to Tinder, “your brother, Flint, has strange wings that we are still trying to understand. He can’t fly with them, but he can create fire.”
“And then there is Pinkie Pie,” Sumac blurted out without permission to talk.
“Yes,” Miss Weathervane replied, and then paused for a moment before continuing, “there is Pinkie Pie. She is quite exceptional, but all of the Pie sisters have shown signs of unusual magic. The rock farm they grew up on is an unusual place, it is a nexus intersection with an impressive, but not too dangerous, amount of magical radiation.”
Looking at the teacher, Olive raised her hoof and waited. When Miss Weathervane nodded, Olive asked, “Why is it that earth ponies are more resistant to dangerous background magical radiation?”
“We don’t know,” Miss Weathervane replied, shaking her head and frowing. “It is a great mystery. It is being studied and many believe that it is just because earth ponies are naturally hardier than the other tribes. For others, folk wisdom is not enough and there are those who seek real answers. But for now, we don’t know. Everything is speculation.”
Without raising her hoof, Strawberry Hearts said, “Since ponies control the environment, it seems we also can control the distribution of magic. Since magic comes up from the ley lines and seeps into rocks and water and stuff…” The filly paused for a moment to think and her muzzle scrunched. “Pegasus ponies manage the rain and I wonder if the pegasi think about where they draw their water from. Some water is more magical than other water, and I wonder if anypony is taking this into account.”
Miss Weathervane adjusted her reading glasses and nodded. “Actually, we are. This is a recent realisation of this problem. After the eruption of Mount Maud several years ago, the Ghastly Gorge is no longer used as a water collection point, and the Froggy Bottom Bogg as well. The magic levels in the water are unstable, hazardous even, and we are still trying to understand what will happen to the Froggy Bottom Bogg and the surrounding environment. One of Equestria’s largest and most important aquifers lies under the Froggy Bottom. It’s scary, not knowing how this will affect our future.”
“How do we fix this?” Tinder asked.
“We have to learn how to live with nature and magic without disturbing it too much. Mount Maud is an unusual case study. We’re learning more and more that while we ponies have a huge influence on nature, we do regulate the weather and the seasons, there is a lot that is beyond our control. We’re agents in a much larger system and we’re not in as much control as we think we are. There is still so much we don’t understand. We don’t know how to fix this, not yet, but effort is being made to understand it.” Miss Weathervane glanced up at the clock and smiled. “It is almost lunch time. I’m glad we had this discussion. I like to have students who are eager to learn and ask questions. Before class is dismissed, I have an assignment for each of you. I want you to come up with one question, a good question, about magical environmentalism, and when this class meets up again, we’ll take turns asking questions and discussing them. Sound good?”
Most of the class nodded, but there were a few groans.
Miss Weathervane pulled off her glasses, folded them, and placed them into a wooden case. She snapped the lid shut and tucked the case into her bag. “Class is dismissed. Have a nice lunch and keep asking questions about the world around you!”
“Hey, you!”
Sumac froze, terrified and paralysed with fear. He gulped, and then his eyes darted around, trying to see if there was a teacher or an adult somewhere nearby. For whatever reason, Olive had decided to mess with him. He felt his mouth go dry.
“I see you’ve finally decided to join the rest of us and get a cutie mark. Good job, loser.”
Olive moved in front of him and Sumac looked up. She was quite a bit bigger than he was, well over a head taller, she had far more muscle, more mass, more bulk. She wasn’t fat, not at all, she had it all. Brawns and brain. She was built like an earth pony. He found himself hating her and recalled how she had tormented Pebble. He also thought about Olive’s awful insinuation about Applejack and Big Mac.
“You know, for an Apple, you’re actually pretty smart. I hate to say it, loser, but I was impressed today,” Olive said to Sumac.
Eyes narrowing, Sumac was gaining his nerve as his anger simmered. His fear was retreating, replaced by slow burning rage. Already, he was wondering if he could give Olive the sound thrashing that she deserved. Maybe with some zap apple jam…
“I was thinking, since you’re so smart, that you should help me with my homework. My parents don’t know anything about magic, and I’m sure you wouldn’t mind doing my homework for me—”
“Get stuffed, Olive.” Sumac was rather surprised by the words that he had just said. He felt his jaw clench. He had no idea where those words came from, they had just slipped out. He couldn’t help but feel that his mouth had just betrayed him.
“What did you say to me, you little scrub?” Olive asked as she invaded Sumac’s personal space.
“Are you as deaf as you are ugly?” Sumac replied.
Olive drew herself up to her full height and towered over Sumac. She glared down at him, her eyes gleaming with what could only be described as amused anger. She lifted up her left front hoof, reached out, and gave Sumac a hard shove.
“You have a smart mouth.” Olive gave Sumac a second shove, and a cruel laugh slipped from her lips. “You’re a funny little colt, did you know that?”
“With how you look, you could be mistaken for a funny looking colt,” Sumac said as other foals began to gather around he and Olive.
“Oh, you are funny,” Olive said as she gave Sumac a hard shove yet again. The amused look of anger was gone, and now there was only anger. Her eyes narrowed as her horn ignited. “I’m a filly!”
“I bet the doctor had to check twice, no, three times, just to make sure.” Sumac felt a rush of adrenaline and he felt jittery all over. He had struck a nerve and he knew it. Olive was no doubt insecure about her looks, as fillies tended to be.
“You scrawny little turd sniffer, I should pound you into the floor!”
“There’s a reason you are an only foal… I bet your parents were too scared to try again!”
The corner of her eye twitching, Olive bellowed with rage, and she was unable to form any sort of comprehensible words. She grabbed Sumac in her telekinesis, twisted him around, slammed him down to the floor, and twisted his forelegs up behind his back. She began to apply cruel pressure, and the foals who had gathered to watch did nothing, frozen in fear.
Olive applied enough pressure that something in Sumac’s right foreleg popped, an awful sound, and he cried out, gibbering in pain. She applied slow, steady pressure, and ground her teeth together, the corner of her eye still twitching from her rage.
“Beg for mercy,” Olive demanded in a gruff voice.
“No!” Sumac’s voice was a pained, shrill squeal.
“Beg for mercy, loser!” Olive applied more pressure and there was another pop, this time from Sumac’s left front leg. Her ears twitched and she giggled in sadistic glee as Sumac cried out once more.
Sumac, reduced to tears, was unable to even talk at this point. He was certain that his front legs were going to be twisted right out of their sockets at any minute. Stars swam in his vision.
“I had to do this to my father to teach him why he can’t punish me or tell me what to do,” Olive said in a low growl into Sumac’s ear as she stood over him. “He had to learn who was in charge… and so do you… now say mercy!”
Humiliated, Sumac yelped, but even if he wanted to say something, he couldn’t. The pain was just too much. He squirmed, writhing in agony, and he realised that at any moment now, he was going to wet himself—the pain was that bad.
“That’s enough.”
Sumac felt the pressure increase even more for a second, and then it was gone. He whimpered when he was let go and he lay on the ground, unable to move, and unable to see because of all the tears clouding his vision.
“Olive, I want you in my office, now.” Twilight’s voice was cold and had no emotion. No anger, nothing at all. It was cold and devoid of any feeling. “Don’t even think of defying me. Now go. Not one word… not one single word. Follow Starlight and do as you are told.”
Blubbering in pain, Sumac curled up, or tried to, but he had trouble moving his forelegs. It was agony just trying to unkink himself. He felt a soft, gentle touch upon him, and then he was lifted in magic.
“Hang on, Sumac, let’s get you to the infirmary,” Twilight said in a soft voice as she pulled Sumac closer to her. “Try not to move too much. Just be still. Everything will be okay, I promise.”
As Twilight carried him away, Sumac, unable to hold it in, let everything out, and his bawling echoed through the hallways. Perhaps antagonising the bully had been a bad idea. His whole body burned with pain, shame, and humiliation. He wanted to go home and he wasn’t certain how he was going to be able to face his classmates after this.
More than anything, he wanted Trixie to comfort him…