Dreamstrider

by OkemosBrony

Chapter 3

I wake up to my alarm clock ringing. It’s just like home, but this time, the sound echoes throughout the room, making it even louder. As quick as I can, I throw the covers off me and slam down on it, silencing it.

For a split second, I forget where I am, but then I look around and remember: I’m in Canterlot now. It feels like a dream, because I don’t think it’s hit me yet. Like, it’s so weird that my mind is ignoring it and telling me that it’s not weird.

“I’m in Canterlot now,” I whisper to myself. “I’m about to start school at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” It makes me believe it a little more, but not a lot.

When I hop out of bed and onto the floor, a shock goes through my body because the floors are so cold. They’re brightly polished white marble, completely different from the carpet we had at home.

After rushing onto the small circular rug in the center of the room, I look around. It’s a huge room, and my suitcases are in a corner next to the dresser. There’s nothing personal in the room; it’s just big and empty, not welcoming at all. I guess that’ll change when I unpack after school, but I still don’t think it’ll feel quite like home.

I guess I’ll figure that out later. I exit my room into a massive hallway stretching in both directions. Where do I go? While I’m wondering this, a white unicorn Royal Guard walks up to me.

“Good morning, Miss Aurora,” he bows. Fancy. “If you would, follow me please.”

I follow him as he starts walking through the castle, trying to notice some of the things we pass on the way. Suits of armor, sculptures, paintings, all sorts of things. It’s really weird, because I’m used to seeing these things in a museum. Not in what I guess is my house now.

When he gets to a large pair of wooden doors, the two unicorns on either side light up their horns and swing them open to reveal a huge banquet hall with a long table in the middle. The other unicorn steps aside, then points in the room. “Princess Luna is waiting,” he says, bowing again.

When I walk through the doors, they close and Princess Luna looks up. “Come, sit with me,” she says, pointing to a place set across from her.

When I sit down, I look at everything in front of me: all sorts of fruits, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, juices, jams, a teapot, and some things I don’t even recognize. “Overwhelming, isn’t it?” she laughs.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Try the cranberry juice,” she says as she takes a sip of her tea. “It’s very rare, and it’s absolutely divine.”

After I finish loading up my plate with food, I look at the juice pitchers and grab the one she’s pointing at. I pour a little and try it, but it tastes really weird. It’s juice, but somehow it tastes dry. And it’s really sour, too.

“I can tell you don’t like it,” she laughs. “Just by that face. It’s not for everypony. Don’t feel bad; they know we can’t finish everything they put out.”

“Then why do they put it out?” I ask as I pour myself some grape juice, something I know I’ll like.

“Comes with being a Princess,” she laughs to herself. “No matter how hard Princess Celestia and I try, they never listen to us saying we don’t need such lavish treatment. We find our ways to have a little bit of fun with them, though. Maybe one of these days they’ll pick up on the hints.”

“Where is Princess Celestia?” I ask, mouthful of food. Oops. Not very lady-like. Mom would probably be having a fit if she heard I talked with my mouth full to a Princess.

“In her wing of the castle. I offered to have her come eat with us this morning, but she said she was busy today.”

“Her wing?”

She nods. “We each have our own wing of the castle, although it’s not a strict ‘this is my side and this is yours’ system. We both welcome each other in our respective wings, although we each have our separate one for our advisors and work space.”

“Where’s the Dreamstrider office?”

“In my wing, of course. I will show you it later today, after school.” She smiles widely. “Speaking of…”

“What?” I ask, remembering this time to finish my food before asking.

“Excited?” she asks.

“Kind of,” I admit. “I’m really nervous, though. I don’t know anypony there.”

“Nopony will,” she says. “You’re an incoming class to the school. You’re going to be as new as everypony else there.”

“I hear there’s an entrance exam, though,” I say as I put my fork down on my plate. “And I hear it’s really hard. I never did anything like that, and they all had to.”

“It doesn’t mean you won’t be able to keep up with them,” she says while shaking her head. “You may have to work a little harder than them, but you’ll be able to keep up. Anypony can learn anything if they try hard enough at it.”

“I guess. But they might look down on me if I don’t get it.”

“That is a risk everypony takes in everything they do,” she says, bring her teacup close to her mouth. “It was a risk you took going to school back home. The only difference now is that it’s here, not there.”

“I knew a lot of the ponies at school, though. And I knew I was smart there.”

She smiles, then takes a little sip of her tea. “But at one point, you did not know those things. You had to go there and find out you could learn and that they wouldn’t judge you when you were incorrect.”

Huh. That makes sense, I guess. “What will we do there, do you know?” I ask her. I’ve never really been to magic school before. I mean, I went to magic kindergarten, but that was with two other unicorns in an empty classroom at the middle school over the summer. And we just learned basic things, like how to cast simple spells like levitation.

“The first two years are mostly introductory theory and intermediate spells,” she says, now looking through a small wooden box full of different teabags. “You’ll likely do fine, because while they’re rigorous, they’re designed to be able to be done by somepony whose special talent is magic.” She points to my flank. “While it is an atypical type, your special talent definitely is magic. After the two years is when ponies start learning advanced magic regarding their talent, but you won’t be going to the school then.”

I smile a little. That made me feel a little better.

---

I’m not really sure what I expected of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but what it really is definitely exceeded that.

While not really flashy, the school still is impressive, with big towers looking out over the city of Canterlot. The whole school is purple, something I didn’t really expect. But it looks nice. I don’t know why, but it looks like it should be focused on magic. It just does.

“This is where I let you go,” Princess Luna says, looking down at me. When I turn to look at her, I can see some ponies pointing at us and whispering. It’s a little embarrassing, and I start blushing. “I shall see you later today.”

“Okay,” I say, eager to break away from her and avoid having everypony look at me. “Thank you for walking me to school.”

She gives me a quick nod, then spreads her wings and takes off. I can see her fly towards the school, then around it and back towards the castle.

While they’re all looking at Princess Luna fly over the city, I quickly dash into the school and look for my classroom, number 34. When I get in, a mare wearing glasses and her mane in a bun looks down at me.

“And what’s your name?” she asks. She doesn’t sound excited to see me, but at the same time, she doesn’t sound angry. She sounds like she’s just asking me because she has to, not because she really wants to know.

“Uh, Aurora Borealis,” I answer, looking around the room. All the desks in the room are separated into groups of four, with all the desks in a group facing each other.

“You’re in that group, right there,” she says, pointing to a cluster of tables where a filly with a light blue coat and frosty white mane is reading a book all by herself.

“Thank you,” I say nervously as I walk away and start going towards the other filly. I hope she’ll be nice. I don’t want to be put in a group with anypony mean.

As I get close, she turns to look at me and smiles broadly. “Hi!” she beams, sticking a hoof out at me. “I’m Glacial Tome!”

“I’m Aurora Borealis,” I say as I shake her hoof. “But you can just call me Aurora.”

“Where are you from, Aurora?” she asks as I take a seat and put my bags down.

“Coltlumbus,” I say. “How about you?”

“Vanhoover!” she says proudly. “I’ve never heard of Coltlumbus. Where is it?”

“It’s east of here, between Fillydelphia and Canterlot. It’s kind of small, and there weren’t many unicorns there.”

“No unicorns?” she asks. “Sounds weird.”

“What about Vanhoover? What’s it like?”

“It’s awesome!” she says, throwing her hooves in the air. “There’s always so much to do!” Bringing her hooves down, she points at my Cutie Mark. “So what’s your special talent?”

“Dream magic,” I say. At least, I think that’s the correct term for it.

“Cool,” she says, staring at my Cutie Mark a little longer.

“What about you?”

“Ice magic!” She quickly turns to the side and points to her flank, where a large white snowflake is present.

“I didn’t even know there was ice magic,” I tell her. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know you could classify magic. I just always thought there was just magic. I guess mom and dad’s special talents aren’t magic and neither are Snowy or Dew Drop’s, so there was never any reason to me to know that.

She nods. “Yeah, my whole family’s special talent is ice magic. Well, my parents and their parents and so on. None of my sisters’ special talents are ice magic. And our family’s always been part of the Ice Magic Institute, which is why we’re in Vanhoover. It’s a very long line of ice magicians.”

Wow. A whole line of ponies, focused on one type of magic? Sounds...interesting. I guess she always knew what her Cutie Mark was going to be.

“What about you?” she asks. “Is your family all dream magicians?”

I shake my head. “None of them even have a special talent in magic.”

“Really?” she asks.

“Is everypony in your family at least some kind of magic?” She nods. “You said something about sisters?” I ask. Maybe being the youngest sister is something we can talk about. I also never really knew too many youngest ponies back home, so maybe she’ll help change that.

“I’ve got four older ones,” she says.

“FOUR older sisters?” I ask, making sure I heard her right.

“Yup! What about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

“I’ve only got two older sisters.” I smile at her. “It’s nice to meet somepony who’s also the youngest, especially the youngest of a lot of sisters.”

“I know! Almost everypony I knew back at home was the oldest foal or an only foal!”

“Hey, me too!”

We keep talking about ourselves for a little while, and when the other two ponies in our group come in, we hardly even notice them because Glacial Tome keeps talking. She seems really nice, though, so it’s good to know I’ll probably be able to make a friend.

When the bell rings, the teacher gets up to the front of the class. “Attention everypony!” she announces. “For the first few minutes, please talk with the other members of your group and get to know them, because you will be working with them for likely the rest of the year. In that time, please come up with a team name which you will use.” She goes and sits down at her desk, and we all turn to look at each other.

Glacial Tome asks the same questions she asked me to the two colts that are now sitting with us. The first one, with a light brown coat and dark brown mane quietly said his name was Dusty Stone, or something like that. His Cutie Mark is a twisted-looking tree rooted on top of a rock, which I wouldn't have guessed was represented magic, but I guess it does.

The other one’s a bright reddish-pink with a light blue mane about the color of my coat, and he says his name’s Arcane Force and he’s from Canterlot. He mentions something about training in magic, and he and Glacial Tome go off talking about some magic stuff I don’t even recognize. I look over at Dusty, who either doesn’t care or is ignoring them. It could be either, from what I’ve seen of him.

“Weren’t you the one that Princess Luna walked in with?” Arcane Force asks me after a little while of me zoning out on their conversation.

“Wait, really?” Glacial Tome asks. “That’s soooo cool!”

“Yeah,” I admit, and they all just stare at me, speechless.

“How do you know her?” Glacial Tome asks. “I thought you said you weren’t from Canterlot?”

“She’s...teaching me dream magic,” I say. Glacial’s mouth just drops in shock.

“I’ve never heard of dream magic,” Arcane Force says, tilting his head.

“Neither had I, until Princess Luna told me about it. Said I was a Dreamstrider, and so was she.”

“That’d be a cool team name!” Glacial says, putting her hooves on her desk. “‘The Dreamstriders’. It just sounds magical!”

“I like it too,” Arcane Force agrees.

“Alright everypony, please listen up!” the teacher says as she walks to the front of the class, grabbing a piece of chalk in her magic and drawing things behind her while she speaks. “My name is Miss Misty Sparks, and I will be your teacher this year.” When the chalk finishes drawing, she puts it down and walks next to the board. “Who can tell me what these are?”

Glacial’s hoof shoots up, and Miss Sparks points to her. “Would you please share your name and your answer?”

“I’m Glacial Tome, and those are charm runes!” she says excitedly.

“Very good,” Miss Sparks says, writing ‘Charm Runes’ above them and underlining it. “As you may be able to guess, these are how you cast charms, by using some combination of these runes. Does anypony recognize any of them?”

A few hooves, Glacial and Arcane Force’s included, go into the air. She calls on them, and they all say their name and point to a specific rune and say a function, like Subtlety or Foresight.

Glacial keeps her hoof raised even after she’s called on, and Miss Sparks looks around the room for any more hooves that are up. “Glacial, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but does anypony else know any of these runes?”

I wish I could say I did, but I don’t. We weren’t taught about charms in magic kindergarten. I’m not sure my teacher even would have known all of them.

When nopony else raises a hoof, Miss Sparks calls on Glacial, who fills in the names of every other unmarked rune. When she’s done listing all them off, all twenty runes on the board have a name below them. She must really know magic, I guess.

“Now for a little exercise,” Miss Sparks says, levitating a small stack of papers off her desk and passing one to each group. I take ours as it comes to us, and I can see all the runes with their names and a blank line near them. On the bottom half of the sheet is a list of effects, ranked A through T. “You will not be graded on this, but the group that gets the most correct will get one point.”

“Do you know any of them?” Glacial asks, looking at the sheet.

“No,” I admit. “I’ve never seen charms before.”

Arcane Force looks at me a little weirdly, but Glacial just takes the paper in her magic and starts filling them out. I try to look at some of the letters she’s writing in, but I can’t see what rune does what.

“There you go!” she says, turning the paper back towards me. If she’s right, then that’s what they all do. Some of them make sense, I guess; Cleansing removes magic, Calm settles things, but I don’t even know what most of the words labeling them mean. I don’t even know what Clairvoyance or Augmentation mean, but I might be able to guess based off what their runes do.

“So you’ve never seen runes before?” Glacial asks.

I nod, not wanting to admit it again. She smiles, then points at the shape at the middle of one of them, the Fortitude rune. “That’s what you’re supposed to with your magic to make it work.” She places her hoof on it and traces the shape. “And you move it in that direction.”

That’s nice of her. I try and practice moving some magic around without actually casting, and I think I’m starting to get the hang of it when Miss Sparks comes around and starts collecting the papers. I go to write my name down, but I see Glacial already has. She really is on top of everything.

Maybe having to go to Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns won’t be so bad.