//------------------------------// // The Next Days // Story: The Royal Fillies // by blazikenking //------------------------------// Crystal Daily Tribune BREAKING NEWS Princess Cadence is in the hospital with a serious case of, as she calls it, a broken heart. When asked for details, she couldn’t say anything coherent, so we turned to Prince Shining Armor. “Inova left the house yesterday” the Prince told us. “Ever since Cadence told us she was pregnant again, Inova apparently had plans made to leave. She was very subtle with them, and none of us noticed what she was up to until she pointed it out yesterday. She played a piece on the piano and left while Cadence started crying.” Attempts to ask Cadence about the music were answered with sobs. Our dedicated royal reporter listened closely and was able to make out the word “wedding” from underneath all the crying. Shining Armor was unable to clarify what she might have meant, and staff speculation was everywhere. Cadence’s doctors say that her emotions, which could impact her magic, may impact her unborn foal’s health, though they are unsure how. They remain optimistic though that the foal will be healthy. -Werdfer Word “Inova, take a look at what you’ve done” Ms. Cutter said as she floated over a newspaper article about mom over breakfast. Diamond and I had our leftover pizza, which was still a new experience for me. “Does that make you feel bad?” I read the short, though informative article. “I already feel kind of bad about leaving like I did yesterday, but now I’m feeling worse.” “But you’re not going back on your actions, are you?” “Nope.” “I thought so.” “Also, they didn’t even try to find me to get my side of the story.” “I’m sure somepony will find you and ask about it. Just keep your story consistent and you’ll be fine. I hope.” The next day at school was different than usual. The usual groups were still in their usual places, though more eyes seemed to be on me than usual. Other ponies also seemed to give me more distance than usual. One difference that really stood out was Skyla. As soon as we made eye contact, she rushed over and tackle hugged me. “Inova! I’m so glad you didn’t leave the Empire to go to Griffonstone like we thought you would. Well, I thought you would considering your tastes, and mom and dad couldn’t come up with anything else, so they just went with it, but I’m just so happy to see my sister is still coming to school!” “Skyla” I strained to say. “I’d like to breathe. Please.” She didn’t seem to notice my apparent peril. I could feel my body relaxing under her tightening hug until I was limp. However, the lack of air to my lungs didn’t seem to do much. I could still think and sense the world around me, especially Skyla’s happy chatter at me, but movement was nigh impossible. I think it was a matter of minutes later that I was released and I was able to breathe again. My inhales were rather extended, and for a bit, I just stayed on my back, enjoying the feeling of air going in and out. “You okay, Inova?” Diamond asked me. “Yeah” I answered. “Yeah, I’m fine. I now know what it’s like to have the air crushed out of your lungs, though. It’s not fun.” “No, it isn’t.” Diamond helped me back to my hooves. “Let’s get to our classes.” Health and math went similarly: my classmates seemed to somehow give me extra space while being no further than normal and didn’t talk to me. This really messed with me, since I was the one that my classmates often turned to for help. I still did the work that was assigned. I want to think I handled it alright, but I don’t think I did. I couldn’t maintain my focus as well as usual in magic, and faltered during some spells. One of my classmates, Nightshade, chose to tease me over it. It did not help that she sat with me and the teacher had set us up in teams of two a couple weeks into the school year. The idea was that having one classmate to compete against would motivate us all to do better, and it seemed to be working with Nightshade. It didn’t work with me, since I didn’t really care and was just happy with my own progress. In culture studies, Nightshade’s teasing was close to the forefront of my mind and distracted me from the history of Saddle Arabia. Normally, I’d be paying attention to this, as Saddle Arabians have had to fight to defend themselves from minotaurs in the past, and I found combat interesting for some reason. Most ponies didn’t. I got a reprieve from my less than stellar day with lunch. I met up with Diamond as usual, and aside from eating with her, I also got a hug from her, which made me feel a lot better. After we finished our food, Diamond and I chose to go outside. We chose to do some light exercises before phys ed started and the gravity got turned up. Almost nopony liked the increased gravity the teacher used, but the effects of training under it were already evident. The finals for last semester had the phys ed classes competing against each other, grouped into teams by teacher and hour. All of Ms. Gravity’s classes had the fastest and strongest ponies. Our teamwork was a bit lacking though, and I think that’s because we were more focused on just getting through the class than working together. I felt a lot better after the light exercise. My mind was clearer and I felt like I could take on the world. There was nothing that could get me down, nothing at all! At least until I was reminded that we were wearing weighted vests during today’s class and that our gravity level was going up a bit. Today, we were also playing soccer. I don’t really like playing soccer all that much since I tend to trip over my own hooves more often than not. As a result, I was often a goalie, and today was no different. While the ball was out on the field and not heading my way, I did some wing exercises. I’ve gotten good at keeping them closed in the higher gravity, and I’ve been working on moving them as normal. Ms. Gravity probably took my idle movement and came up with the idea to have the goalies constantly doing light exercises. Honestly, it’s a good idea. Our game ended 0-0, but nobody complained. It was tough, we had fun, and everyone was happy to leave the gravity behind and rinse off. I didn’t rinse off though, since my next class was flight and there was another rinse after that. I flew up to the clouds over the school. If I recalled correctly, we would be continuing practice with transitions between areas of very high pressure and low pressure. That, or manipulation of hail clouds. The flight instructor this year is a little air-headed at times. Turns out today was a surprise review on basic rainclouds and thirty minutes of actual flight. I was glad we didn’t immediately start with flight, since I was still tired from phys ed. I think that’s the biggest obstacle that’s keeping me from the A grades. Early in the school year, I rinsed off after phys ed like normal, and I discovered that that wasn’t a smart move, as the water my fur and feathers held chilled fairly quickly. After a couple weeks of that, I chose to skip the rinse and just came up to the clouds. I didn’t get chilled, but some debris that was on me became rather irritating. I found that preferable to becoming a flying popsicle, and the irritation was always gone before science, so it wasn’t all bad. Speaking of science, it went like health and math: left alone in the crowd of classmates while class went on as normal. I didn’t like that feeling, but at least there was only music left to endure. Music was completely different from what I expected. I was sitting at the piano as usual, my thaumechanical hands on my forehooves, and the class’s attention was on me. Everypony wanted to know what I had played that caused my mom to break down in tears. My answer of ‘the piano’, while entirely correct, did not satisfy them. I couldn’t tell them more since I had no name for the tune I had played, and I wasn’t going to play it for them either. It had hurt me too, and I didn’t want to bring it back up yet. After the buzz of activity around me died down, class finally got on track. The rest of the period felt a bit off-key though. I think the teacher picked up on it too, and we were let out ten minutes early. I waited for Diamond at our usual meet-up spot by the entrance of the school. Normally, she’s the one waiting for me, but today was different. The last bell rang and less than a minute later, Diamond met me, and she was mildly surprised to see me waiting for her. “Have you learned how to teleport?” Diamond asked me. “Nope” I answered. “I got out of music early.” “Oh. Ice cream on the way home?” “You really know how to twist my wing. You know that, right?” I held out a wing and bent it as if somepony was starting to twist it. “Oh, I’m so mean. And to twist your other wing, I’ll buy the ice cream.” I held out my other wing and bent it too. “You’re evil. Just so evil.” Diamond and I were quiet for a bit before we broke out in laughter. For a good minute, we just laughed. After we collected ourselves, we left the school and went out to the ice cream parlor. All day, nopony asked me why I left my family. That did put a bit of a damper on my day, but part of me wasn’t really surprised either. After we got to Diamond’s home, I nearly started to go back to my home, but I caught myself and went inside. The rest of the day was homework, supper, a bit more homework, an evening bath, and bed. Honestly, the day didn’t go as bad as it could have. I was thankful for that at least.