Anthology of Graybles

by Str8aura

New Kid (OC; Slice of Life)

"I'm sure you'll come to like it here. It's not bad, for a school."

Schlangenfutter listened intently, keeping a neutral expression that was easily overlooked when such other things as his ditzy fluttering in wide circles around his guide, like he was caught on an endlessly powerful breeze, could be observed instead. He blew some yellow hair out of his face, considering taking a break by landing on top of his guide's head and resting his wings, but figured that wouldn't be the best first impression.

Dixie watched him as he careened wildly through the air around her, biting her lip and trying to remain half as stoic as the breezie was with hooves off the ground. Hooves? Feet? Hands? She wasn't sure, and at this point she was afraid to ask. Breezies were still relatively new to her, as was observing them as more than a simple yearly phenomenon.

"Six periods, a lunch, and some physical education. Each period is about 45 minutes long, Lunch is about thirty, and you have about five minutes to cross classes. I'd... Recommend getting a friend's help with that."

"Acknowledged."

Dixie stifled a laugh, turning away to hide her amusement at the tinny accent with twice the squeak of a rusty Belle and three hundred times the seriousness. If a stereotypical yes man inhaled helium before screaming at a colleague a building away, they might sound similar to Schlangenfutter's serious voice. To another breezie, he would probably sound like a reverse Invader Zim impressionist at his current octave.

"Don't ask about the 19th story, bring your own lunch, ignore any mooing you might hear when you're alone, and.... I think that's pretty much it. I'm excited to get to meet y-"

Dixie stopped herself as they reached a T Junction, turning right to see the hallway they faced ending in a portal to an endless void slowly entropying the lockers around it. Floating in the void, a massive multi armed being of metal and flesh, faceless and hairless, using four of its arms to grapple onto the school and the entrance into our reality, desperately fighting to keep from being trapped in the hell that it resided in.
With its other arms, it waled and walloped six students forming a barrier in front of it, lashing out to push it off the school. A glowing purple thaumic shield, maintained by a translucent archalicorn in the form of Princess Twilight herself, protected the six students from the beast's blows while they took any window of opportunity they could to land their own, biting, clawing, igniting, smashing, and bucking every opening they could get their limbs on.

"Ooh, almost forgot, that happens too sometimes." Dixie kicked herself for forgetting, suddenly jetting out her forehooves to catch Schlangenfutter as he finally dropped out of the air.

"...Okay. Do they... Need any help?" He contemplated, before drawing out the question from his lips slowly and carefully. He had spend barely a week out of his home village, and he wasn't about to make a fool of himself by not knowing about the... Annual hostile dimensional takeover, or whatnot.

"Nah, they're fine, just stay away from the Tear. The void back there isn't pretty deeper in."

Dixie graciously deposited Schlangenfutter on her back, trotting on the same hallway and racking her brain for what she missed.

"Ooh, that reminds me, we are situated rather close to a magical forest filled with monsters and stuff, so we occasionally do get stray beasts coming in. We normally just call one of the new element bearers, or teachers, or headmare, or Louis the Yard Teacher."

He nodded. "I'm cool with that. My old village was always being attacked by birds or frogs or... Well, snakes obviously." He added the last part, pointing to himself

She didn't bother to ask why that was obvious. "Cool, that should prepare you for the school sized space bears. Speaking of which, what was your village like? Aren't they like, in liminal spaces and stuff? Ooh, have you ever met a Fae? Or an Alp Luchara? Kitsune?"

"Yes, no, no, and no. They're like... Only accessible through tiny doorways and stuff. Err, are there any school events I should know about?" He quickly added upon confronting the fact that even he had no idea how it worked.

"Besides our standard holidays, not really. We used to have an annual event called the 'Friendship Games' with our rival schools, Blackwell and Hope's Peak, but when they realized the next generation of element bearers chosen by a magical tree that kept the school alive and fought back the Everfree Forest went to school here, they decided to stop being rivals."

"Right. Hate it when that happens." He didn't bother to ask how one fights a forest.

"Speaking of holidays, I assume you have different ones?"

"Just one, actually. A holiday around October that celebrates surviving another year being the weakest sapient species on the planet. We call it the futility festival."

"Shouldn't that be around the end of the year?"

"It is. We've never had to rearrange our calendar because none of us lived in Roam." He replied matter-of-factly, sticking out his tongue sarcastically.

Dixie nearly had a heart attack as he did, "SWEET CEL- Sorry! I didn't expect you to have such a long tongue! That kinda freaked me out!"

"No offense taken." He took a second to roll it back into his jaw.

Dixie stared at him curiously, before releasing a small chuckle.

"You're an odd duck. I think you'll fit in well here."

Author's Note:

Text Prompt: A breezie joins the School of Friendship. (Nitro_Indigo)

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

For the record, I caught that Wayside School reference.

[Casketbase77]

Obviously I immediately love anything Breezie-related, so I’ll try my best to judge this one objectively.

This fish out of water is double sided, with Dixie as the audience surrogate instead of Schlangenfutter. I’ve said before that unique POVs can make even a mundane premise interesting. And you do not write mundane premises.

The “new element bearers” line really piqued my curiosity. Then a deadpan Sideways Stories From Wayside School reference followed it up. You spin some heavily contrasting yarns.

Shlangen makes a good straight man. Makes sense, since that was Seabreeze’s role in the featured episode. I like to portray Breezies as excitable, wide-eyed tourist types, but as your narration note, an exchange student needs to be cool and collected.

Aaaand we finish on an absurdly high brow joke about the Julian Calendar. Or whatever horse related pun Equestria would have on the word “Julian.”

What can I say? It’s a Str8aura Snippet. Barely acknowledged eldritch entities, pop culture nuggets more esoteric than the second page of Google, and alternating dry and derpy humor that keeps the reader on their toes.

From a literary standpoint, Holes is better, but to me Wayside School will always be Louis Sachar's best creation. It's so goddamn funny. And for the record, I had 2 references to it.

I can't tell if my predictability is a good thing or bad thing, and the answer worries me. At least the lack of mundaness is something you point out.

My sincere apology for the half assed german name. I really could've done better with that.

Full disclosure: I have never seen nor read Holes. It’s like Doctor Who or Ghostbusters: I clearly missed the boat a long time ago, and experiencing it at this point would just embarrass me.

I dunno where this came from, but I’ve always thought Breezies were Swedish. Then again their homeland’s name is a pun on Brazil so who knows what they are at this point.

As for the formulaic thing... You’re not the only one who worries about the stagnation of self. My last two Snippets were very similar to one another, right down to the protagonist being a self-conscious artist who learns some self worth after a friend walks in on them. The reason I’m making the next Snippet the Season Finale is because I know when to take a break.