Academy

by Terrasora

Chapter 4

Orientation week proved to be something of a trial for Twilight Sparkle. Her dorm room was, thankfully, in one of the corners of Star so she hardly ever had to deal with ponies passing in front of her door and making unnecessary noise. It did happen every once in a while, but it normally passed after a few moments. There were, however, a few times where Twilight's door was besieged by the poniefied battering ram that was Pinkie Pie.

At first, Twilight had attempted to ignore the mare, making full use of the earplugs she had brought over from Canterlot and reading whatever book she happened to be reading with a particular intensity, but Pinkie Pie was unrelenting in her assaults. The only way to appease her, as Twilight quickly learned, was to open the door and talk to her. Surprisingly enough, Pinkie never forced Twilight out of her dorm room, only asked whether she'd like to help Pinkie bake or take a tour of campus or walk through the stalls that various student groups had set up out on the Sea. Twilight would decline. Pinkie Pie would ask if she was sure. Twilight would say that she was sure. Pinkie Pie would respond with a cheery "Okie Dokie Lokie" and bound away from Twilight's room only to return the next day and go through the entire routine once more.

Twilight, meanwhile, would sit in her room and read or otherwise try to ignore the internal roller coaster she was riding. There were times when she could sit for hours and study the magic that permeated Star and the Academy in general, uncovering things she hadn't noticed before and realizing that she hadn't even scratched the surface of the layers upon layers of enchantments placed on the school. Other times she would think of her home in Canterlot, of the family she'd had to leave behind without so much as a goodbye and the mentor who had sent her away in the first place, and she'd feel herself fill up with loneliness and sadness and just the slightest bit of anger. Then Twilight would reach out with her magic and float a book, sometimes at random, sometimes not, out of her poorly stocked bookcase and lose herself in the words until the loneliness and sadness and anger receded. They too would return the following day.

The worst parts of the week were meal times. The dining hall in Star served breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a few hours every day, so if Twilight wanted to eat she was forced to interact with other ponies. She cheated slightly by showing up early to breakfast while most other students were still sleeping, having her breakfast before the dining hall got too full, and stowing away a few apples to eat later on. She was, in this way, sometimes able to skip lunch entirely. Dinner was another matter entirely.

The dining hall filled up quickly during its evening hours and stayed full for the three hours when it was open. Twilight, unaware of this on the first day the dining hall was open, walked into a hall positively teeming with students. Gritting her teeth and cursing her hunger, Twilight shoved her way towards the food, disregarding the chefs taking orders in front of warm stoves and making a beeline for the already prepared cold salads. She swooped up the first fruit salad she laid her eyes on and rushed towards the eating area.

"Twilight, dear!" Rarity called, waving from a nearby table.

Twilight Sparkle cast a quick glance around the eating area and, mentally resigning herself to having an eating companion, painted a smile onto her face and joined Rarity.

"I'm glad I found you, Twilight," Rarity said. "I thought that I would have to eat alone this evening."

Twilight shrugged in reply, stabbing a fork into her salad and delivering a slice of cantaloupe to her mouth.

"How has your first day on campus gone?" Rarity asked. "I haven't had much time to explore; unpacking has been such dreadful work. Another hour or so should do the trick. What about you?"

"I finished pretty quickly."

"How fantastic! I was never quite able to wrap my head around the concept of 'packing lightly'," said Rarity with a small laugh, "though I'm sure that it's freed up a fair amount of time. Have you gone out to the Carnival yet?"

"I haven't left Star."

"Ah." A pause. "Yes, travel certainly does take a lot out of a pony, doesn't it? I myself am planning on at least eight hours of beauty sleep once I finish unpacking. Would you like to head out to the Carnival with me tomorrow?"

Twilight, chewing through yet more melon, shrugged again.

"Well if you find the time, I'll be out there for most of the day. I'm sure that there's a few theater groups who could use a new costume or two. Have you thought of any groups you'd like to join?"

"I haven't really thought about it."

"You seemed to have quite some knowledge in magic. Have you thought about joining one of the Teams?"

"The Teams?"

Rarity nodded, evidently delighted that Twilight was actually taking part in the conversation. "I don't know the specifics, but there are competing teams on campus. I think there's four for each pony race, so twelve total, though I suppose you'd only concern yourself with the unicorn teams. I believe they're the Meadows, the Comets, the Swirls, and... the Clovers! Yes, that's it. They all have a booth out in the Carnival."

"And... What do they do?"

"Exercise their magic, I suppose. Compete against each other. I'm not too familiar with it; it's not really my forte."

"I see."

The rest of that dinner passed in polite, if a bit one-sided, conversation. Twilight did not venture out into the Carnival with Rarity but when dinner arrived the next evening, Twilight found herself with an eating companion once again.

***

The final day of Orientation week began with a note slipped beneath Twilight's door.

"Dear Twilight Sparkle," it read. "I trust that you've made the most of Orientation and have already begun making plans for the rest of the school year outside of whatever classes you choose to take. Unless, of course, my first impression of you was correct and you did nothing of the sort, which is also fine in its own right. Whatever the case may be, our advisory group will be holding its first official meeting in room 3-777 of building Platinum at 5:00 this evening, though I am sure that at least one of the three second-years have already informed you of this meeting as I instructed them to do. It is not through lack of trust that I send this note to you in the dead of night, but through my own paranoia and attention to detai1. Best wishes, Professor Pen Umbra."

Twilight read the message, then turned the card onto its back. Nothing written there, save for what seemed to be a serial number: VXTYIQWIL-6.

Twilight yawned, carrying the note to her desk and extracting a quill and inkwell from one of the drawers. She made a few quick marks on the back of the card, gave everything a once over to make sure hadn't made a mistake, set the quill aside, and headed down for breakfast.

***

"Are you ready to head out, Twilight?"

Twilight blinked, glancing around her dorm room in confusion, her copy of Daring Do and the Masked Thief of Marapore still floating in the air before her.

Rarity knocked on the door, and her voice floated through once more. "Are you in there, dear?"

"I'm coming," Twilight called, reluctantly stowing away her book. She ran a hoof through her mane, more out of habit than out of any actual attempt to tidy it up, glanced at the note Pen Umbra had left her, and exited her room.

Rarity greeted her with a smile, leading the way as they walked down the hall.

"Are you sure that I can't convince you to actually visit one of the Carnival's booths?" Rarity asked. "We'll have to cross the Sea anyway."

"We'd be late if I did."

"Oh come now, one or two minutes won't make any difference."

"It's the difference between being on time and being tardy."

Rarity waved to the pegasus working at Star's front desk as they passed. "It's an advisory meeting, Twilight, not a class. We could spend a full ten minutes at the Carnival and nopony would actually care, least of all Professor Umbra."

Twilight squinted slightly against the first proper rays of sunlight she'd seen that week. "I'd care."

Rarity huffed in equal parts amusement and annoyance. "It's the last day of the Carnival and this is literally the first step onto the Sea you've taken since we made it to campus. With all due respect, you're doing this wrong."

Twilight shrugged. The first booths of the Carnival came into focus, painted every color of the rainbow and plastered with photographs of smiling students. Those same students stood behind the booths, chatting with each other or with the first-year students who scurried around the booths like worker ants.

"If something catches your eyes, we're immediately stopping and I'm forcing you to talk to them," Rarity promised, leading the way into the Carnival.

The Carnival was aptly named. Ponies weaved in and out of booths, conversing loudly with their friends and clutching bags full of buttons, candy, and whatever else the student groups had decided to hand out to potential recruits. The booths were arranged in orderly lines, forming clear paths and intersections, but the sheer mass of bodies in those paths forced Rarity and Twilight to weave in and out of the crowds in order to make any progress. This also made it nearly impossible for Twilight to actually follow Rarity.

"Twilight?" Rarity called. "Twilight, over here."

Twilight spun in place, trying in vain to locate the other unicorn.

"Pardon me, excuse me. Twilight! This way!" Rarity materialized out of the crowd, sticking close to Twilight and forging a path. "Here we go, we wouldn't want to miss it."

"Miss what?"

"Ah, here we are." Rarity came to a sudden halt, forcing Twilight to stop with her. They had somehow forced their way to the front of a thick crowd of ponies forming a loose circle. Unicorns wearing a deep purple, almost black, uniform stood at the inner edge of circle, standing at regular intervals and keeping the crowd in check. Another pony, wearing the same uniform and a visored helmet of the same color stood in the center of the circle.

"Rarity, we're going to be late."

"We'll be fine. I'll take full responsibility."

Black boxes stood at opposite ends of the circle. Two unicorns stood by each box, one of them watching the crowd, the other casting some kind of magic. Twilight only watched them for a few seconds, however, as the casters finished their spells and stepped away from the box, nodding to the other ponies. The nod rippled down the uniformed unicorns. They all began casting, their horns glowing with their respective aura colors. A transparent bubble formed at the edge of the circles, slowly building upwards until it formed a complete dome separating the crowd from the unicorns.

A pause.

The black boxes exploded, sending porcelain disks flying inwards, converging on the helmeted pony in the center. Twilight began to cast a protective spell out of reflex, but the helmeted pony was faster. A line of fire burst into existence by the pony, whipping around and burning the disks as they flew towards her. After a second or so of activity, the whip came to a rest, then burned out entirely. The transparent shield came down and the crowd immediately stamped their approval.

Twilight kept her eyes fixed on the helmeted pony. The helmet was enveloped in a light blue aura and pulled off of the pony, revealing a golden mare with a red and yellow mane and a very self-satisfied smile.

"That's Sunset Shimmer," Rarity explained. "She's beginning her third year, but I've heard that she's already the Swirls' best caster."

"That was very impressive," Twilight admitted, her eyes still on Sunset Shimmer. Sunset, on her part, was looking around the crowd, accepting their cheers with a proud look. Her eyes met Twilight's and held there for a time. Twilight looked away and, when she looked back, Sunset had moved on to another part of the crowd.

"Well?" Rarity asked. "Did this peak your interest?"

Twilight shrugged. "I'm not good with teams. We're gonna be late." She turned away, heading across the Sea and towards Platinum.

Rarity rolled her eyes, then followed.

Author's Note:

Written with the belief that most people read with Fimfic's default settings.

Comments

[Twilight978]

Typical Twilight no matter what can't be tardy for anything

[dragonjek]

Ah, Twilight. You beautiful, wonderful shut-in.
Just be sure to go to dinner at the last 45 minutes or so. They won't kick you out until you're done eating, there will be fewer people there, and even if you are trapped in conversation you will have a way out provided to you quickly enough.
...
No personal experience there at all, nope. Not me.

Hm... I wouldn't expect her to be so opposed to attending the Carnival, although her mood is pretty bad. If it weren't for that and the large crowds, such a collection of magical... stuff would probably be fascinating.
Although that's really just speculation--I suppose we can infer a bit, but you haven't actually told us what the Carnival is, whether it's student-run or not, why it's happening, etc.

What's the passcode for? I didn't see anything in the message that suggested why it might be needed. Does he code-key his door or something? He did say he was paranoid...

Was Sunset Shimmer Celestia's apprentice here, too? If so, that might be bad for Twilight's self-esteem; unless Sunset left Celestia's teachings of her own accord to continue at the school, knowing that another of Celestia's students got dropped at school and forgotten would have to really hurt.
Of course, if Sunset was her student here, Celestia definitely wouldn't have forgotten her. But considering that Twilight had never even heard about her before, it is reasonable to think that Twilight would think the worst. Added to that... it sounds like Twilight's been Celestia's student for some time (Shining Armor hasn't had nearly enough time to have already reached Captain if it's only been 2 years since her apprenticeship began), so that would mean that Celestia had held a secret second student...well, secret from her. A secret first student, really--she's the second.
That could be... painful.

But you've quite firmly set this into AU, and hopefully she's just a brilliant, possibly noble student (hah! "just" brilliant!). I wonder how good she is as friend-ing? It would be interesting to see a reverse of their canon relationship, with Sunset pulling Twilight into the light of friendship instead.

Will we be learning any of the magical secrets of the dorms? We've seen a little passive stuff, but will Twilight's study of Star allow her to do... I dunno, special magic things? To do special magic things while in the dorms? Like go directly from one room to another without going through a hall, or unlock a locked door, or make a door to any room in the building appear in a hallway, or reshape her room to her liking, or bring food directly to her room, or summon a golem to clean up for her, or magically connect her bookshelf to the library, or make the door to her room disappear so annoying pink ponies can't find her?

[Dustchu]

Oh Twily, you silly poni you.
Nice chapter! :D
And an awesome update.