Equestria Digital

by DeltaChevron

School Days

Friday morning dawned brightly with the sun shining brightly and Amethyst Rose saying something about school. It was Friday; I didn’t have any classes scheduled on Friday. Actually, I don’t think my college even offered Friday classes, my networking professor said something about no one being able to focus. I simply groaned and rolled over burying my face into the pillow to blot out the light. The blanket was pulled from atop me as the pillow yanked from under my head. I blinked blearily as my eyes caught sight of what my right paw held. It was a hair ribbon made of black silk and long enough that I could use it to style my ears. Well, not the weirdest thing to happen to me in the last seventy-two hours.

They thought I was a child and I had reinforced that idea with my actions, so it only made sense for me to go to school like all the other children. I rolled off of the cushion and made it up the way it was when I came in the previous night. I put my bag in a corner of the room and examined myself in the mirror. I stuck my ears back and then pulled them into something resembling an upside down top knot which I tied off with the ribbon. I smoothed down the messy patches of my fur and followed Rosy to the dining room.

It was just the two of us as Grey Main served oat pancakes with thick syrup for breakfast; thankfully there were forks. We had to eat quickly because apparently I had slept in a bit too much. We were each given a cloth bag with an assortment of foods and a sealed bottle for our lunches. I opted to carry mine rather than have Rosy stuff it into her surprisingly full saddle bags. As we were leaving he gave me a note for the teacher explaining that I would be joining the class.

It took us twenty minutes of quick jogging/trotting to make it to the school building. The school was actually comprised of five buildings constructed from bright red bricks. We made our way to the fifth building and went down the main hall. Our classroom ended up being the third left. It was a pretty basic room about thirty desks, five or six windows, blackboard and teacher’s desk at the front where we came in. The teacher was a young, purple eyed, earth pony mare whose fur and mane were a bright orange. Her cutie mark showed a blue addition, subtraction and division symbol arranged in a neat square. I handed her the note and she introduced herself as Highlighter and told me just to sit where there was space.

I snagged the desk to Rosy’s left and set my sack lunch carefully on the floor beneath me. This was definitely elementary school. The letters of the alphabet bordered the wall just below the ceiling. A red trimmed bulletin board on the wall opposite the windows had a few book reports tacked to it, likely the best ones from the class. I didn’t have much time to think about it before a bell rang and fillies and colts flooded into the room. We ended up having almost fifty ponies in the room.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I turned to the source of the snobby voice and was unsurprised by what I saw there. The voice had come from an earth pony filly with a pure white coat. Her blonde mane and tail were both done up in a series of stylish curls. Her cutie mark was a jewel encrusted egg of some sort. She glared at me, her blue eyes a mixture of shock and disgust as I sat there in what I now assumed to be “her” seat. It was clearly time to put my higher intellect to good use, trololo.

“I’m sitting.”

“I can see that,” she practically seethed at me “why are you sitting there. You should be on the floor with the rest of the…visitors.”

“I have a preference for chairs as opposed to the ground, but you’re welcome to assemble there. Incidentally I am not a visitor; I’m living in the company of Amethyst Rose and her relations until such an opportunity arises that I may find a domical within which to dwell alone and manner in which to raise sufficient currency with which to provide for myself. As such I am technically a new occupant to their domical.”

I could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she tried to make sense of what I just said.

I was rewarded with a rather satisfying response of “Huh? What did you just say to me?”

Maybe this could be fun “It has now been made abundantly palpable to me that your skills of deduction, in conjunction with your terminology, are at a deficit when compared to mine.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re…you’re a rabbit!”

“Technically factual but by the same vein it is also partially invalid. My characteristics originate mutually from canidaes and lagomorphs. Not that I can plausibly infer that you presently comprehend the preponderance of the plethora of words I’m using.”

“Spuh?” was her rather intelligent response

“Golden Wonder, you chose to come in when you did with this many ponies in class the desks are first come first served. Now stop bothering Inaba and take your seat on the floor.” Highlighter said

Golden Wonder muttered under her breath as she sat down by somepony and shot a glare over at me. The lesson started and I quickly became bored. As it turned out the desk was a lift top style and inside I found quill, ink, and paper which I pulled out. I began crunching rough estimates for my speed as Antylamon, the numbers I came up with were a little shocking especially if my idea of the distances were correct. I crunched the numbers again and got the same result. Someone cleared their throat and I looked up to see Highlighter staring at me expectantly. I glanced at the board and saw a basic algebra problem of solve for x, it was easy.

“X is 2.”

“Huh?”

“That’s the answer…you did want me to answer the question right?”

“Yes, for a moment there I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

From math we moved on to language arts, specifically grammar. Yuck, I hate grammar. Luckily the rules were all the same so it was more boring stuff. We were given worksheets to fill out as homework at the start of the grammar lesson. While Highlighter went over the lesson I went ahead and filled in everything on the sheet with correct answers. I folded up the completed worksheet and put it between the ribbon and my ears, then pulled out another blank sheet and began to doodle. I was never much of an artist; everything I drew ended up looking blocky and never came out the way I wanted it to. But this it was like someone else was drawing through me.

The creature I drew had long arms that would reach nearly reach the ground if it hunched its back. The forearms were thick and curved back past the elbow a bit. Its hands had two large fingers and a thumb all tipped by a short claw. Its feet split into a pair of clawed toes with a third toe at the back of the foot. The legs resembled the hind legs of a dog. It had a fox like head, short muzzle with a mouth full of sharp teeth, almond shaped eyes, and large ears. It had a thin waist and something that resembled small featureless breasts. It had a long bushy stream of hair pulled and tied back into a massive bushy pony tail by a black ribbon. Its tail was equally bushy but lacked any sort of tying.

It was looking into an ornate mirror where the blurred image of what I recognized as a human girl could be seen. There was something scrawled across the top of the mirror. It took a few minutes before I could make out that the word was Jabberwocky. That meant the girl would have to be Alice. The picture gave me an odd feeling, one I couldn’t place, like a mixture of hope, anxiety, despair, and happiness. I put it with the worksheet as the bell rang dismissing us for lunch.

“Inaba, please stay. I’d like to speak to you for a moment.”

Golden Wonder smirked at me as she left the room. I stopped next at Highlighter’s desk and waited for her to speak.

Highlighter smiled “Don’t worry you’re not in any trouble. You solved that math problem very quickly and don’t think I missed you finishing the grammar homework before we were even five minutes into the lesson. Can I see your picture?” I opened for her to inspect “Wow, if you were a pony your cutie mark would definitely be something art related.”

I shook my head “No, my paws may have drawn it but it wasn’t me actually doing the drawing.”

She winked “Don’t count yourself out. I never thought I’d ever become a teacher and look at me now, teacher of the year four years and counting. Now, about the other reason I wanted to speak to you.” Her expression became serious “Be careful of around Golden Wonder. Her family own one of the most important potato farms in the country and her mother, Home Guard, has a place on the city council and could make things very difficult for you.”

I put the drawing away “Thank you for the warning. I’ll be certain to keep it in mind should I need to…take action against her again.”

“Good, now I’ve taken enough of your time, go out and enjoy your lunch.”

It was easy enough for me to find Rosy once I was outside. Just about everypony seemed to be avoiding her, except for one. She was a pegasus pony. Her periwinkle mane and tail were both cropped boyishly short and the color was just different enough to tell them from her powder blue fur. Her cutie mark was two red comas separated by a small space. Her green eyes looked up as Rosy shouted for me to join them.

She was introduced to me as Mist Wing, the only student willing to be friends with a pony who hadn’t earned their cutie mark. At first she seemed a little leery of me. I soon learned that her recently discovered special talent was making drizzle, mist, and other forms of light rain. She didn’t seem extremely thrilled by it, saying it wasn’t as flashy as she had hoped for. She warmed up to me after I told her I liked drizzle better than thunderstorms because I could go out and play in it when the weather was warm.

We had only been given about thirty minutes to eat lunch. Almost like high school except at my high school you only had twenty minutes to eat. If you brought your lunch you’d be okay, otherwise you’d likely spend ten minutes waiting in line for your food. We got back to the classroom early and were able to get seats near each other. While we waited I helped Rosy and Mist Wing make sense of the grammar worksheet’s problems.

They managed to finish about half of it before lunch ended and everypony came back in. As class continued I learned that Mist was supposed to be sleeping over tonight and that it had been planned out earlier in the week. Over the course of the next few hours we were given three more worksheets to do as homework before the bell finally rang for dismissal. We had made it about halfway to the house before I finally figured out we were being followed by Prince Blueblood. His guards made him hard to miss as he tried to hide behind a corner.

“You two go ahead to the house. I’ll meet you there, okay.”

“You sure Inaba? You might get lost.” Mist said

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ve got a good memory.”

“Alright, but if you’re not there in an hour we’ll come looking for you.”

I nodded “Fair enough.”

After they were out of ear shot I spoke up “I see you hiding there Blueblood.” I heard a scuffling noise “I can hear you to. Why don’t you come out here so we can talk to each other face to face?”

“Very well, I suppose I can oblige your request. My orders are simple; you will not go near my little filly or my family ever again. In exchange you will be given a generous weekly stipend of 200 bits with which to meet your personal needs. If you refuse”

“I do,” I cut him off “you have neither the right nor the privilege to demand any such thing from me. From what I heard last night they aren’t yours in any way shape or form.” I did my best to look menacing “Know that I am much more than I appear. Even as I am now I could easily kill you, not that I want to. But if you try and have me arrested on trumped up charges, I won’t go quietly. If you want what’s best for them you should try being a better pony than you were at last year’s Grand Galloping Gala, the way you treated that unicorn was selfish and bordering on the criminally cruel.”

“H…how do you know about that?!”

I tapped my ears “I hear things and you yourself just confirmed it.”

His guards took a fighting stance “You will keep that knowledge to yourself commoner.”

“What seems to be the problem here?” from my left came five ponies, all members of The Marshalls.

“No officers,” Blueblood quickly replied “this commoner was just about to apologize for slandering my good name.”

Their leader arched a brow “From what I heard you should be the one apologizing. After all you were just threatening a member of The Mancers.”

Blueblood and his guards paled before beginning to apologize profusely as they beat a rather hasty retreat. They were barely out of sight before I started giggling at their antics. When I was sure they couldn’t hear me I started laughing in earnest. It took a few minutes for me to calm down enough to catch my breath. The Marshalls explained to me that I had actually been made a member of The Mancers by Sunny Smiles and the paperwork was already finished. They had sent them to keep an eye Prince Blueblood in case he tried to do something stupid, which he did. I took note of their names so I could recommend them for some sort of commendation or something.

Grey Main opened the door to the house as I got there and directed me to the study where Rosy and Mist where waiting for me. He said he would be along shortly with snacks and also congratulated me on being made a member of the prestigious group known as The Mancers. Honestly did all the adults know and just forget to tell me or something?

---

Next chapter we get to see The Mancer's vault which is full of strange, wonderful, and very dangerous things that have not been classified as more dangerous than Discord. Though a few of the things probably should be.

Comments

[Mythical_Elemental]

The high school the story says is way different at just lunch. 40 or 50 minutes of eating. Try sitting out that long not eating.

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

Is it safe to say that going back to Elementary School is a bit of a blast from the past for Inaba? A nostalga attack?
Confusing people with big words: always fun.

[Cystenian Remir Rhys]

Canidae and lagomorphs, indeed. Confusing spoiled children is always great.

[DarkParable]

1094804 With how large my highschool was and how slow the line moved we usually got around 10-15 minutes to eat, though that depended on which lunch you had. There were three different ones. First lunch was always packed so full of freshman it wasn't funny, second lunch was almost always nearly empty, mostly because very few people had that particular block. Third lunch was sort of the middle ground, most of the older students had third, so... Meh. Large student body in a small-ish lunchroom. Never a good thing.