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Chapter 1, Welcome to Celestial Academy1,769 words
Chapter 2, First Day2,510 words
Chapter 3, Many Much Reading2,110 words
Chapter 4, Twilight Trying To Be Sneaky1,679 words
Chapter 5, Studying and Creeping and Bullying2,155 words
Chapter 6, Runes1,838 words
Chapter 7 - Dropping Those Eaves2,545 words
Chapter 8 - Kindness3,435 words
Chapter 9 - What Happened Last Night?2,199 words
Chapter 10 - Laughter4,598 words
Chapter 11 - Heartbeats4,278 words
Chapter 12 - Lullaby4,255 words
Chapter 13 - Are You Still Sleeping?3,324 words
Chapter 14 - Discord Trying To Be Sneaky1,820 words

Chapter 5, Studying and Creeping and Bullying

"Professor Discord!" Twilight said in a singsong voice as she entered the classroom later that day. "Have you made a dent in that paperwork yet?"

He looked up from his desk with an annoyed look on his face. "If you're going to be in here, you're going to have to shut it."

Twilight took a desk at the front of the room. "Yes sir, Professor Discord!"

"Must you always act so happy?"

"Yes. Yes I must. Especially when studying!" She opened some books in front of her.

Discord watched her out of the corner of his eye for a moment and saw her slip a little journal from her bag. She quickly concealed it behind the bigger textbooks.

What's she hiding? he thought. He remembered overhearing her in the library, but decided that he didn't care enough to do anything about it.
Her eyes didn't move very much as she wrote some things down. They jerked up towards him and flew back to the page when she saw he was watching.

Discord looked back down at the paperwork stacked neatly on the table. Too neatly. With a quick sweep of his tail he scattered the stacks all over the desk, most the paper falling on the floor. Twilight looked up in surprise at the commotion and he smiled in satisfaction.

"That's better," he said.

"What are you doing? How are you going to able to do all that properly now?" Twilight nagged loudly. Discord scowled at her. That high-pitched, whiny tone that mares got sometimes was one that he had always hated. She said, "Oh, right. Shutting it." She looked down again and started scribbling:

Seems to have a distaste for neatness.

Half an hour later, Twilight looked up from an Alchemy book she had unintentionally gotten sucked into to find Discord napping, his head resting on the nest of pages littering his desk. She took the opportunity to observe him closely.

Twilight noticed his eagle arm dangling off the side of the desk. She looked intently at his face, making sure that he was sleeping. As quietly as she could she tiphoofed to the desk to get a closer look at his talon, becoming as still as she possibly could. She suppressed an intake of breath.

There on his palm was a tiny swirling rune, glowing with the tiniest pink aura. Twilight stared at it, memorizing the shape, color, and orientation on the claw.

She leaned forward slightly to look at it closer, but suddenly Discord's fingers twitched and he closed his claw into a fist. Twilight looked up to see Discord scowling at her and she scrambled for some kind of excuse.

"I'm sorry," She began. "I thought I saw something-"

"There's nothing to see Ms. Sparkle," he interrupted. "I think you've studied long enough, don't you?"

"I,uh...No sir." His ears twitched at her response.

"No?" He said.

"No. You see-" She trotted back to her desk. "I just got to the most fascinating chapter in my Alchemy textbook a-and I'd like to finish it." She looked down at her book and said no more. Discord rolled his eyes. She wasn't going to leave him alone for a while.

Fine, he thought. If she wants to waste her time, let her. Nevertheless, he closed his eagle palm into a tight fist and kept it close.

The sun sank lower and lower in the sky. The two creatures sat in silence in the classroom as the windows grew yellow, then orange, and finally began to sink into a reddish hue. At this point Discord finally got up, cried "THIS IS SO BORING," and snaked through the air and out the door. Twilight's gaze followed him until he disappeared around the corner.

He had picked his way slowly through the papers, throwing the ones he finished to one side in a pile. Twilight began packing away her things. As she was leaving the room, she paused. She looked back at the pile of papers and thought for a moment about tidying them up. Discord's messiness had been bothering her the whole time.

Her horn illuminated, but she stopped herself, letting it dim again. "No," she said. "He likes it that way." She turned and left the room.

The hallway was deserted, as was the rest of the area. As she made her way down to the dining hall, though, she started to encounter more and more ponies. Soon she was surrounded with loud students, all of them gabbing with gossip or giggling. She noticed many of them glance at her and laugh to each other as she passed. She rolled her eyes and took out a book to flip through as she walked. If they had something to say to her, she wondered, why they didn't just say it?

But she wondered too soon. Suddenly a white form stepped in front of her and Twilight collided with a mare. She stepped back and recognized Ruby Spice.

Her appearance fit her name perfectly, but Twilight saw that even though her mane and tail were deep red, her eyebrows were brown. Mane dye. Her white coat also smelled faintly of bleach, her eyes were laden with black mascara, and her ears were studded with red ruby earrings.

Ruby must have had an expensive lifestyle. Twilight glanced at the other mares standing around and saw that they didn't appear to be much different from Ruby.

"Pardon me," Twilight said. "I didn't mean to run into you."

"Watch where you're going, Fatflank!" Ruby said loudly. Twilight's ear twitched in surprise at the sudden insult, and she heard subtle giggling around her. She took a step back and tried to go around Ruby, but she blocked Twilight's path again. "Watcha' readin' Scholarship?"

"Would you stop? My name is Twilight Sparkle-"

"PFFT!" Ruby lashed out a hoof and Twilight's book went flying. It landed with a thud a distance away, the pages folding uncomfortably against the stone floor.

"Hey!" Twilight cried. She tried to scramble for the book but several ponies blocked her. She suddenly became locked inside a circle of students with Ruby. They were all watching her, smiling with excitement.

"Come on Scholarship," Ruby said, her horn illuminating with a reddish pink hue. "You think you're the best at magical arts, huh?"

"What? No I-"

"Let's see how good you are at destruction magic!" Her horn grew bright and Twilight could feel heat coming off of it in waves. There was a burst of flames, and a little orb of fire burned above Ruby's head.

"Wait, hold on a second-"

Ruby reared in the air and sliced her horn through the air like a blade. The fireball flew from her and hit Twilight squarely in the face.

Luckily, Ruby's destruction magic wasn't as impressive as she thought it was; when it hit Twilight it flew apart and the flames sputtered out. Twilight felt little more than an extremely hot burst of air.

She stumbled back, mostly from the surprise of the blow. She looked up and was immediately hit again by another poorly summoned fireball. Then another, and another, and another. The bombardment continued, and even though it didn't hurt very much, it was very annoying, like being constantly hit with a pillow at a slumber party. Twilight tried to reason with Ruby.

"Would-OOF-you-GAH-AH-RUBY-OOF!" Twilight slipped and fell, and she heard a fresh round of laughter from the wall of students around her. Why did they think this was so funny?

With the continued bombardment of Ruby's spell interrupting her and the chanting of all the ponies around them, no pony heard Twilight say anything at all.

"Just-OOF! Would you-STOP!"

Twilight's horn burst with a blinding white light. Without meaning to Twilight summoned protective icy bubble, and she was suddenly safe behind its walls. Through the pale blue sheen she heard the crowd groan and jeers of "That's not fair!" "Coward!" "You can't just hide!" "Show off!"

Ruby smiled cruelly and approached the bubble. "You think you can hide from me in there?" she said. She stepped close to Twilight's defensive spell and shivered when she felt the coldness coming from it. "Only a coward hides from a battle, Scholarship! Coward! Coward!"

The crowd joined in until Twilight was surrounded by the word. She scowled and thought about what to do. She certainly wasn't going to sit there and listen to all this nonsense.

The bubble suddenly dissipated and Twilight ran. She picked up her book with magic and plowed through the line of ponies. They hadn't been expecting her sudden flight, so she was able to get free easily.

Her hoofsteps echoed on the stone as she ran away, as did the cries of "coward" that continued to ring at her retreating shape.

Twilight sat in the dining all with a book open beside her, as always. That way she didn't have to look up at anypony and no pony would bother her. And she liked to read, so it was a win-win.

As she munched away at her dinner she heard a large group of ponies come in. They were making a racket with all their loud gossipy voices, and Twilight couldn't help but glance up. It was Ruby Spice and her group of friends. She ignored Twilight completely, and Twilight immediately lowered her eyes back to her book.

Behind her, Twilight heard two mares talking. "Oh, there's Ruby Spice," said one.

"Did you go to the party she had last night?" said the other groggily.

"No. You did, didn't you? I can tell."

"It was awesuuuum...I'm still hung over though."

"Jeeze, what did she give you?"

"I don't know...but it was awesome."

Twilight rolled her eyes. She didn't understand what was so appealing about parties like that.

A young unicorn colt was exiting the restroom when a bucket full of jelly landed on his head. He yelped in surprise, and heard chuckling from somewhere above him.

"Featherwing is that - oh," his voice hardened. "Professor Discord."

"And a fine day to you, Mr. Frost. How are you liking your grape jelly?"

Frost merely grumbled in annoyance. Normally he'd punish anypony that tried to mess with him, but he couldn't exactly start yelling at a teacher, let alone that Discord guy.

"Oh fine, be like that! And I was going to offer you some toast to go along with it!"

Not willing to bear any more humiliation by the professor, Frost ducked back into the restroom to wash off of the sticky purple mess on his head. Discord left his perch near the ceiling and snaked down the hall laughing. It was nice to pull of a little prank on the students now and again.

The glee of the moment never lasted long, however. Discord was soon overcome with the familiar boredom and tiredness that had plagued him ever since he came to Celestial Academy. He sighed, simply too tired to feel sorry for himself at the moment. He considered going to his chambers and trying to rest-

"Whoa, whoa, what was that?" He said.

Discord stopped midair and backed up a few feet. There was something on the ground. Or rather, there had been something on the ground. A spell. He could feel the remnants of it as he passed by.

"Hm." He grumbled as he lowered himself toward a spot in the middle of the hallway.

There was a tiny buzzing in the air, nearly unnoticeable even to him. When he touched the spot on the stone floor, Discord could feel a slight chill. A temperature-based defense spell had been cast there recently, but by who?

It couldn't have been one of the teachers; even if one of them was demonstrating a combat spell they wouldn't have done so in the middle of the hallway. But what student could be capable of conjuring a spell of that strength?

"Actually," he mumbled to himself, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly. He could think of only one.

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