Moments of Peace?
"Hurry up, the play in the city theatre is starting in half an hour!" a cry rang over the many heads in the school foyer.
Fillies and colts squeezed past each other, looking for the rest of their classmates. Teachers ran around, trying to herd their entrusted classes together. It was the purest example of Brownian movement.
"Okay, is everypony here?" Fluffy Cotton called, failing to count her unruly students for the fifth time.
"Fleur, please don't use the perfume anymore. We don't want the actors nor your classmates to get nauseous." A thick pink mist lingered around the mentioned filly, most of the ponies quickly scampering out of her way.
An annoyed stallion grumbled, yelling over the ruckus, "Who went to the toilet again?"
"Leave the geologist's hammer here, you won't need it in the theatre!"
"You need to open the zipper of your jacket before you stick the wings through! Don't pull back now, you'll pluck your feathers out!" another mare scolded one of the colts.
More shouts filled the room till somepony finally opened the door. The mob of colorful bodies in fancy dresses flowed out like a tide during a solar eclipse. Smaller groups of students separated from the main stream eventually, their teachers dragging them to the city.
"This seems to be the last class," Gauge mused from the window, looking out at the long snake of students meandering through the streets. "I just hope they won't stop Canterlot traffic altogether again... Not looking forward to dealing with the complaints."
"Finally some peace," Globe-Trotter chimed from behind him, hindhooves on the table.
"Rubicon probably wouldn't approve of that... watchin' over your class in there instead of you, Chart."
"He wanted to go, I didn't. And I reckon it was you who assigned them to him." Chart chuckled, reclining in his swivel chair with the Canterlot Courier in his magic.
"At least Fluffy had a reason to hide the sorry bare flank of hers under a dress..." Gauge sighed, sitting down to the loads of paperwork on the table.
"Good morning, gentlestallions." An elder pegasus mare entered the room, nodding to her colleagues. Miss Cheerilee followed in her wake.
"Morning, Spring, Cheerilee," Chart Globe-Trotter called, glancing from the newspaper. Spark Gauge apparently didn't notice anypony, his eyes twitching between two documents on the table.
A colorful smear zigzagged through the room, leaving two steaming mugs on the table for the newcomers to enjoy. It left just as quickly as it appeared.
"What was that?" Cheerilee sat down dumbfounded, her frazzled--or styled--mane looking even worse for wear than a few moments ago.
"Our secretary's little niece. She sometimes stays in Canterlot with her aunt and often helps her out here. Truth be told, she's a really fast flyer," Chart said, ruffling his newspaper. Gauge groaned from behind the mountain of paperwork at the disturbance.
"Oh..." Cheerilee took a sip from her mug, grimacing at the taste.
Spring on the other hoof ignored the coffee altogether, her wings fidgeting with the clasps of a violin case on her back. When she finally pulled the instrument out, she propped it up against the ground instead of properly placing it against her neck.
"Seems like they invented a spell that allows anypony to come up with a square root of any number. Isn't it weird?" Chart folded the newspaper, throwing it away. "What should I do if somepony uses it during a test? Uh, Spring?"
"You know, Mathematics isn't my subject and nor is Geography. Do you use square roots in Geography?" the mare said, fighting to keep the instrument upright.
Chart cocked his head, running a hoof through his perfectly groomed mane. "No, not really... but what are you doing?"
"Oh, this?" she motioned to the poor violin. "One filly in my class, Miss Philharmonica--no wait, Miss Melody, I think her mother got married again--has troubles standing on her hind legs when she's playing. Oftentimes I catch her leaning on the instrument like this. So, I wanted to try how the tune will change when a pony plays a violin like a cello."
Cheerilee mumbled something to herself, browsing through a notebook in her hooves.
Spring took the bow, gently drawing it across the strings. The only result was an earsplitting screech. All that followed was awkward silence and another screeching as Gauge ground his teeth.
"Maybe it's just out of tune," the elder mare offered, Chart giving her a sympathetic smile while Spark just grumbled something.
"Ms. Symphony, what was the sentence you used at the beginning of your lesson?" Cheerilee chimed in in the following silence, eliciting a resignated sigh from Gauge.
"'Let's quiet down please, we have a very important lesson to get to, thank you...' Though why do you ask? And Cheerilee, you can call me Spring too." Spring turned to the intern with a motherly smile.
"Uh, okay. Well, I thought it'd be a good idea to jot down the quotes teachers normally say and the following reaction of students... So I’ll know what phrases to use when I start teaching myself." The intern rubbed the back of her head.
"Hm... interesting. Though coming up with your own style is better, but I can see where you are going with this." Globe-Trotter rose from his seat, glancing over her shoulder. "What do you have in there already?" He gave her a warm smile and motioned to her notebook.
"Oh, just a few sentences from Fluffy Cotton's lesson. For example..." She skimmed through the many pages filled with her mouthwriting. "This! 'That's a sweet shmoopy-doopy sweetie-weetie adjective." The young earth pony raised her head, grinning expectantly.
"I have to take you to one of my Physics lessons." Gauge sighed, rubbing his temples. "Force and energy conversions can't cause that much harm." He glanced at the documents before him, giving up any hope of finishing going through them today.
“Um, Mr. Gauge?” The secretary appeared in the portal to the room, leaning on the doorframe. Her chest heaved up and down rapidly.
“What is it?” Spark grumbled, picking up his empty mug. “By the way, Scribble, can you be a dear and brin’ me one more coffee?"
"Sure, Mr. Gauge, though..." The mare turned pale, her eyes ticking from side to side. “Though...”
"Though what?"
"I just got the news that the school inspection is coming!" The mare collapsed to the floor, a letter fluttering in her wake.
Spring Symphony let out a gasp, Chart just raised his head and Cheerilee was too preoccupied with her notebook. “Great,” Spark commented, picking up his empty mug. “So I have to brew it myself. Anyone else wants one as well?”
Stats
Page generated in 0.114 seconds
Total duration
1,063 users online
1,860,266 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Report Card
Lack of typos.........................................A+
Good Grammar.....................................A+
Was a little out of place at the start, wasn't sure what was going on. But I gather the classes are all off to perform in a public theatre performance. Nice fluffy bit of down time for the remaining teachers to un-frazzle their nerves, a real slice of
life...tedious existence!?!Now for the serious bit! Is Scribble's niece Rainbow Dash, Is Dash really a family name reflecting punctuation '-' and not a speed reference? Is Scribble a surname or given name? Former might mean surname is Pad, Note or A-lot. Or the latter and given name Messy, Tidy or Hasty.
Thanks for another fun chapter.
7731038 Thank you for such good grades!
Well, they are actually going to see a play, not to perform. School trips to theatre are common in my home country (Czech Republic), and I kinda didn't think about others... I'll make sure to include a few more sentences to clarify what's going on
And oh, I didn't even think about the '-', I just wanted to have another pony delivering the coffee and Dashie somehow found her way there... But from now is that my headcanon!
Hm, haven't though about her name yet, but I guess I'll go with Scribble Colon.
It might seem insane, but I'm usually making their names on the fly. This whole story is sort of surprise from me, because it started just like a mere experiment and now it seems to have its own plot.
Thanks once more!
7731094 Scribble Colon, I like it, keeps the punctuation tradition together in the family.
7731124 Yep! I need to draw or write something about Rainbow Dash and punctuation
7752988 I wish you iron nerves then
Can you please explain? Is this an idiom? Since the longest eclipse is only about seven minutes and change, you won't notice much actual change in the tide level in that interval. Naturally, the tide level experienced during eclipse will depend on where you observe from: right underneath it versus towards the terminator; but again whatever level it is you won't see it change much during that time.
10519376
Heh, my bad for not specifying the location of the tide and such, I was hoping nobody will dig around in it that much. This story was mostly me messing around with various headcanons and other silly things, this one here refers to the idea that Equestria can only* experience spring tide during (and of course, a while before and after) solar eclipse when Celestia and Luna bring the Sun and Moon into the position for some reason, plus given the two control the celestial bodies, the eclipse can last however long they need it to. I know that a lot of people back in the day liked to include in their works the dark detail of extreme tides destroying coastal cities when the Moon eclipsed the Sun during Luna’s transformation into NMM. This is mostly a nod to that, but I agree it could have been worded better.
*Depending on where the Sun and Moon go when they are not visible overhead. Equestrian astronomy is a mess, we don’t even know if their Earth is a normal round planet (the only indication we have is the presence of a globe in one episode).