Fast Times at Friendship High (slice-of-life, Equestria)
The School of Friendship – the grand project of Equestria’s youngest princess. A place for children of all races to gather and share perspectives and ideas with each other, thence to take those lessons home so the whole world might become united in genuine peace and harmony. Less publicly, it is also a place for those who once sowed discord to understand and be understood, guided by faculty gently to the light of friendship.
It is a high school all the same, with all that entails.
The last bell rang and the students eagerly began snatching up their books, except for a certain blue-green changeling who did so with a resigned pout. Cliques formed as they did in any school, and one particular group loitered as they rallied in the halls.
“Friday night, my dudes!” Smolder flapped her wings, joyfully stretching them after an eternity in the classroom. “And the weather is finally getting hot, or at least what passes for it around here. Let’s do something cool.”
Their local griffon twitched uncomfortably, flicking sweat from his chest-floof. “‘Cool.’ Yes, let’s do something nice and cooling.”
“Yona agrees.” They started walking, Yona leaving behind a carpet of shed hairs. “Maybe Yona and friends go for swim?”
Sandbar trotted beside her, trying to smile encouragingly while avoiding her scratchy, sweaty coat. “It’s still spring, you know it’ll cool off this evening.”
He gave a weak chuckle, changing the subject with only an attempt at subtlety. “And, uh, speaking of cool, guess who didn’t show up this afternoon?”
Ocellus’ Friday-night pout grew confused. “I still don’t understand. Why would anyone ever want to cut class?”
Gallus and Smolder shared a look before the latter spoke. “Sometimes you just need a break, you know?”
The scrawny changeling sent her a blue-eyed stare of fearful betrayal, and Smolder quickly amended. “Sometimes they need a break, is what I meant. They probably get their own curriculum, being reformed villains and all.”
“If they even are reformed,” Silverstream mumbled. “The sirens came and left before my people took to the water, but we have plenty of stories and all of them are bad.”
Sandbar switched his cajoling smile onto his hippogriff friend. “Come on, Silvy, they’re cool now.”
“‘Cool’ doesn’t mean ‘good.’” Ocellus noted. If she had glasses, she would have pushed them up.
The hall turned, and the subjects of discussion came to sight. Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk – siren students, entered as part of Princess Twilight’s villain reform program. Devoid of their powers, their monstrous forms were lost for the less panic-inducing appearance of earth ponies with sharp teeth and gills. Early wheedling had given them a clothing budget which they cheerfully abused: both favored black leather with spiked hoof-cuffs and collars.
Sandbar stiffened and swaggered as his group approached. So did Gallus and Smolder, though they would have denied it.
“Dudes, I want them to think I’m cool,” Sandbar whispered urgently as he strutted on ahead.
“Why?” Ocellus asked.
“Just back me up.” Sandbar approached the sirens’ bored gossip and gave a meaningful cough.
They gave no sign of having heard, so he coughed louder. They looked to him, and he raised up on his hind legs with a mighty “WHAZAAAAAAAAAAAP?!!”
Aria rolled her blue-shadowed eyes and opened her mouth, but the eyes flew wide as an even louder “WHAZAAAAAAAAAAAAP?!!” rang out from Sonata. The younger siren grinned, mimicking the pose.
Sandbar landed, chuckling and a little unsure what to do now. “Uh… what’s down, cool cats?”
Aria smacked her forehead at roughly the same time Gallus did. Smolder joined in when Silverstream loudly asked where the kitties were.
“Just chilling,” Sonata mused. “We gave ourselves the afternoon off for good behavior.”
“Does it work like that?” Yona whispered.
Ocellus pursed her lips. “No. It does not.”
“It does if you’re smart about it,” Aria said, letting a tight smirk come to her face. “The catch is to be there when Miss Trixie takes roll call, and then slip out at the right moment. Once she gets babbling, the place could burn down around her and she wouldn’t notice. She even talks with her eyes closed most of the time.”
Gallus cocked his head. “Huh… yeah, good thinking.”
He nodded, puffing out his chest a little as Aria’s eyes moved over to him.
Smolder gave a snort. “Whatever. It takes more than that for me to think you’re cool.”
Sonata grinned. “We spent the time skateboarding.”
Smolder folded her arms.
“In the school hallway.”
The young dragon sucked in a hard breath, then gave a very tight nod. “Okay, yeah. You two are cool.”
“You all aren’t too bad either,” Sonata said with a silky turn to her voice. “We got us a little plan for this evening, and you guys are invited.”
“Really?” Sandbar asked with stars in his eyes.
Sonata caught him with a wink. “Totally.”
“Yeah, we love guys who are easy to manipulate.” Aria flicked back her pigtails. “We scored ourselves some… ‘modified’ wagon licenses that say we’re over twenty-one. We’re going to use them to get into an R-rated movie.”
Sandbar let out a nervous whinny and leaned backwards. “You guys are gonna get in trouble if you get caught.”
Sonata prowled to one side of him, letting her tail swish across his leg. “You mean if ‘we’ get caught.”
Aria did the same alongside Smolder. “You don’t have to. If you’re scared, that’s fine.”
Smolder made a show of rolling her eyes. “Scared? P’shaw, not me. I’m in.”
“Same!” Gallus squawked, puffing his chest as hard as he could.
Sandbar stuttered his agreement. The sirens exchanged a subtle nod and turned to the holdouts.
“Yona, was it?” Sonata cooed, curling her tail around Sandbar’s. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Yona stumbled with her words, fretting nervously until she noticed their tails. Her face immediately fell to a stoic glower and a word as heavy as her stomp. “Fine.”
“Fun sounds… fun,” Silverstream said weakly. A nervous chuckle fled her lips that only grew with the grins of expectation from her friends.
Only Ocellus remained, and the shy changeling trembled at the prospect of challenging so many at once. Still, she gave it a go while studiously looking to the ground. “T-Those ratings are there for a reason. There are some things creatures our age shouldn’t be exposed to.”
The sirens sidled up to her, one on each side with Aria taking the lead. “But think of how advanced you’ll be for learning those things before your peers.”
Ocellus’ gossamer ears flicked up at the L-word, and Sonata followed. “Come on! All your friends are going. You want them to think you’re cool, don’t you?”
Ocellus didn’t look up as she mumbled her capitulation. The eight creatures strode from the Friendship School, laughing and chatting with various degrees of enthusiasm as they made their way to the theater.
“Eight tickets to Naughty Pegasus Pool Party 3, if you please.”
Sonata peered over the top of her sunglasses at the pimple-faced stallion manning the ticket booth. He looked down to his workbook with a bored expression, then back to her. “Identifications?”
The sirens hoofed over their wagon licenses with winning smiles.
“Whoa!” He reared back a little upon reading the cards, then passed them back. “Yeah, wow. You two are definitely old enough to watch the movie. Wow. I mean, by like a thousand years, holy cow.”
The sirens stopped smiling, and the worker waved to the other students. “Next!”
“They’re with us,” Aria clarified.
The worker shook his head. “Ma’am, unless they’re old enough too, there is no way they can see an R-rated movie. Not without their parents’ consent.”
Aria grunted. The other students began milling backwards, but Sonata froze in place.
“Yes. Of course.” She said in a shrill voice, then swallowed and grew casual once more. “But. That is fine. Because we are their parents.”
She reached a hoof around and pulled the other siren close. “Aria and I. Are their parents.”
The worker’s eyes moved to the students and back. “A couple of thousand year-old fish ponies are the parents of a yak, a hippogriff, a changeling, a dragon, a griffon, and a pony who grew up around here?”
“Yes.” Sonata said woodenly. “That is exactly correct.”
The stallion stared.
Sonata stared back.
“They are adopted,” Aria clarified while sliding across a fifty-bit coin.
The coin vanished with a speed that should have been impossible for an earth pony stallion. “Eight tickets for the happy family, coming right up.”
The theater was dark, but everyone could hear the crush and snap as Ocellus hyperventilated into a paper bag. “I can’t believe we lied to an authority figure.”
“He was the ticket seller,” Aria grumbled.
Ocellus only breathed faster. “He was entrusted with enforcing government regulations.”
“Mom, can we buy some popcorn?”
“Silverstream, we got the tickets. You can drop the act.”
“Lock tails with Sandbar again and Yona will smash you.”
Sonata turned to the yak behind her. “What?”
“Yona said thank you for letting her have aisle seat. Yona needs space.”
Having spent years as a human, Aria tried to grip her soda cup with hooves before Gallus helpfully reached over and held it steady for her. The lights dimmed, and the tittering, nervous students fell silent as two hours of adult pony entertainment began.
Honestly, neither siren had ever been to a pony film. Such had been invented long after their banishment, and they had not sought one out since their regulated return.
Aria settled back to watch. Naughty Pegasus Pool Party proved vapid and tame at first as young pegasi pranked each other from one antic to the next. Sure they were naked in the pool, but… you know. Ponies. Still, Aria watched with interest, wondering when the movie would start to earn its adults-only rating.
At one particular point, a low murmur went through the crowd. Sandbar giggled fearfully while Ocellus and Silverstream covered each other’s eyes.
Aria blinked, not understanding at all. All that happened on-screen was a fit young mare putting on a swimsuit.
And nothing else. The sirens’ distant curiosity turned to boredom as cuddly love pairings turned to triangles, then non-Euclidean shapes as the brain-dead characters flirted, panicked, and misunderstood from one partner to the next. More pegasi donned swimsuits, and things began coming to a head as the main male and female leads finally confronted the friend who tried to keep them apart.
The mares scuffled, ripping each other’s swimsuits. Smoke flew out as Smolder gasped. Gallus began pressing a tissue to his beak. An indignant pony stormed from the middle seats, grumbling something about the wrath of Celestia.
“Why’d you do this, Butterball?!” the lead mare finally screamed. “I mean, seriously! What the–”
The whole theater gasped.
“HELL?!”
“That does it!” another pony stood straight up and began marching to the door. He wasn’t the only one. “How can they put this in a movie? I’m writing the mayor!”
“And Ponyville has become a home for other creatures, too! Ambassadors and such. They’ll think we’re all savages!”
Ocellus clutched Silverstream, bawling. “I’ll never be pure again!”
Smolder closed her arms tightly. “Putting swear words in a movie, what were they thinking?”
“My mom’s gonna kill me,” Sandbar whimpered.
Chaos continued to drown out the movie, and the sirens could only stare in blank confusion.
Abruptly, Aria slapped her face with a hoof. “Oh, right… Equestria.”
“…The hay are you kids doing here?”
The eight students paused their myriad discomforts to look where the voice had come, three rows below them. Applejack and Rarity stared back with expressions of surprise that slowly morphed to that of their sternest lectures.
“You ain’t supposed to be here,” Applejack said. “We’re gonna need to–”
Aria chucked her popcorn tub at the teachers. “Dudes! Run!”
Rarity set up a wail as greasy kernels found her mane. “No don’t rEEK!”
Sonata followed the attack with her soda cup and began sprinting along with the others, heedless of Applejack’s shout from behind. “Consarn it, you ain’t getting away! Especially you two, I’m calling your mother!”
Shining light of hope that it was… the Friendship School was still a school. Awkward parent-principal conferences were a fact of life.
Twilight Sparkle could not help but try to sugarcoat things. She offered their guest a mug of hot chocolate, but her smile grew pained as the newcomer fumbled it with unfamiliar hooves.
Starlight was a little better with these kinds of things, albeit not by much. She toyed with a desk ornament, keeping her own smile firm and positive. “Thank you for coming. I understand there are… transportation issues. And the whole, ‘changing species’ thing. How are you doing?”
Adagio Dazzle shrugged, awkwardly setting down the empty mug sideways with her hooves. “Honestly, the weirdest part is not being able to take out my phone every fifteen seconds. But let’s cut to it. I got the letter. Anything to add?”
“Not really,” Twilight said. “I’d like to hear your take. We all want your sisters to be able to live with other beings in peace, and I definitely know by now not every villain just needs love and forgiveness to mend their ways. But this is only the latest… ‘incident’ and I’m getting worried.”
Adagio laughed abruptly. “God, it’s weird sitting around a table with you. The last time we met was the Battle of the freaking Bands, and that was like a million years ago.”
“But, like…” she fumbled with her thoughts, squinting and rallying. “That’s kind of where I’m looking at this from. Five years ago we were trying to ravage that world so we could break into this one. I could talk about the history and line of thinking that made us do that, but I’m not gonna claim it was anything but evil. These days, though, they’re busy sneaking into R-rated movies and putting laxatives in the school counselor’s coffee.”
“Hot chocolate,” Starlight corrected, wincing and clenching a little in memory.
Adagio moved her hooves like they were balancing something. “Isn’t that just a world of difference? You said it yourself, not everyone’s down with a hug and pat on the head. Their worldview needs changing, and I think it is. The old us would never have bothered dragging kids along with our schemes, and we definitely wouldn’t have accepted any kind of authority at all. They’re not being bad villains, they’re being bad kids. That comes with a way smaller body count.”
“And its own share of questions,” Starlight said. “You all are over a thousand years old. How can those two be so juvenile?”
“I might’ve hopped on the good-guy train earlier, but I’m not much more mature.” Adagio shrugged. “My guess? We never grew up. We knew how to take everything we wanted or needed and never made friends with anyone else, so all the usual little things about ‘growing up’ never happened to us. We were spoiled, super-powered brats until the Band Battle happened and all of a sudden we needed groceries and tampons.”
She looked out the window, and the others followed her gaze. The sirens chased each other in the school pond, mischievously flicking water at those who wandered near until a panting, yak-sized projectile hurled herself in alongside them. A few of Yona’s friends had also gathered, with extra ice treats to share.
“Isn’t this okay?” Adagio mused. “They’re boundary-pushing, goth-phase little twerps with no idea where their lives are going. Let them be that, while they figure out the rest.”
“They still have super-detention for that stunt at the movies,” Twilight said primly. But she softened, and traded a wry glance with Starlight. “Maybe… maybe we should make it clear it’s because they pressured others into it. A little learning experience, that there are ways they can express themselves without hurting others.”
Adagio shrugged, and flicked back her curls. “Whatever you say, Principal. All that psychology and reformation stuff is your department.”
“And you have your own, on the other side.” Twilight sighed, but gave her a pleasant smile. “You made a good point, and I won’t keep you longer. Do you want to visit them while you’re here?”
Outside, Sonata had crammed three popsicles in her mouth and now flopped on the ground clutching her head, ministered by a sympathetic Ocellus. Aria lounged at the water’s edge and chatted with the others.
“Nah, I don’t want to interrupt.”
“They won’t think you’re interrupting,” Starlight said.
“Okay, fine,” Adagio grumbled. “Just for a little while.”
“She has a nice smile,” Twilight stage-whispered to Starlight.
“I’m not smiling! Geez.” But Adagio laughed as she said it, and sauntered from the office. The ponies watched through the window, grinning with quiet joy as she approached the students.
Their expressions faltered a little as Adagio threw Sonata back into the pond, then dunked Aria’s head beneath the water. But as the sirens fought back, their laughter could be heard from inside.
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Nice to see the other sirens are getting along. And that Equestria is still a massive sugar bowl XD
nice work
They should take them to an Earth R-rated film. They won’t give a shit anymore after that.
If a PG-13 movie is R in equestria they're just adorable. And a thousand years old couple of goth brats taking innocent ponies to such a movie is hilarious
I agree with Adagio. Delinquency is definitely a step up from wanting to takeover Equestria.
Halfway through you kept calling Smolder "Ember".
Students don't give a shit?
Because they aren't as enamored with scholastics as you are.
Oh I'm sure.
They will never think that, my guy.
This is going to go swimmingly.
Huh. Well played.
Methinks you mean Smoulder. EMBER is the Dragon Lord.
Same here.
Peer pressure.
And he believes they're 1K plus years old, why? Then again, with the Princesses and Discord around...
This guy is either going to completely believe them, or not believe them for a second.
Ah.
Ah, i think I see where this is going. Also, it's still Smoulder, not Ember.
Ah, I see.
I was wondering where you were.
... I, suppose so.
Simple. Mind control. They could get anything and everything they wanted just like that. Little to no struggle.
That.
I like this.
Man... all this talk about how calm an Equestria Rated-R movie (which requires you to be at least 21 to view, mind)... I'm trying to imaging exposing them to an Earth NC-17 film... Or worse, when it comes to bringing over a DVD copy... How about an Unrated Edition?
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Oopsy poopsy. Think i got em all fixed now.
Best part is that no one questioned Rarity and Applejacks presence. Nope, never happened!
Given that cattle are sentient in Equestria, this may be the most questionable & sinister line of the whole chapter.
*Gasp* Swearing and bikinis?! Is this was Equestria has devolved to?! Why I never, fufufufufu...
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Heck. I dunno. They make their leather from compressed plant matter or something.
...wait, so nobody's going to question what Applejack and Rarity were doing together at the porn movie? Nobody? Not the sirens, or Twilight, or the people in the comments below?
I thought for sure the kids would try and strike a deal with them. "You ignore the fact that you saw us and we'll not tell the others that you were here" sorta thing. So Fluttershy wouldn't faint, and Rainbow Dash wouldn't die of laughter and hold it over their heads for the next million years, and Twilight wouldn't have to give the two lectures on setting "appropriate examples" and the entire student body wouldn't find out that two of their professors were at a porn fick together, that sorta thing.
Who knows what Pinkie's reaction would've been.
See also Discord.
And yeah, the thing about moving from extreme evil to socially acceptable behavior is that there are other stops along the way. Brilliant interlude, especially what constitutes an R rating in Equestrian cinema.
Glad I finally picked up this anthology. Looking forward to more.
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My headcanon is that cattle are incredibly generous with postmortem organ donation for cultural reasons. Yes, including their skin. It's not like they're still using it.
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One of Equestria's earliest and most awkward friendship lessons.
"We can't wear these!"
"Why? We've been trading them to you for centuries."
"We didn't know leather is dead flesh!"
"They are the gifts of our ancestors. They give us hats and clothing that we might be protected."
"You have fashion shows with them."
"Our ancestors would be proud to be viewed with such appreciation."
"Yeah, you're being awfully insensitive about our culture."
I mean, yellow fish-horse isn’t wrong. I’d take juvenile delinquency over blatant mind-rape any day of the week.
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Makeing leather like a thousand times more expensive. How ever fake leather existing makes sense too, and to answer how? Alchemy. Another possibility, it's not cow leather.
Well, whaddya know. Right when I’m able to catch up on this story, I find that the goofy antics were inspired by my suggestion. And it includes some h*cking gnarly pony swears!
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Considering their mishmash of technology and equines are herbivores, I find that it’s extremely probable they use some kind of fake leather. (Which is honestly what I prefer to use irl too, unless I have to settle for the real deal.)
Since both parties are sapient, it avoids a lot of Burke and Hare-type implications.
This at least imo, could be one of the reasons why Starlight in canon has never clicked with me. She is kinda entitled and childish from years of her father coddling her. Heck, she barely even got punished for all she did.
But I digress, back on topic
I like the Dazzlings more in this aspect because they found a way to move on with their lives. It’s hard don’t get me wrong, but they moved on.
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Yeah, it took me a while to warm up to Starlight, too. Where and Back Again rubbed me wrong for several reasons. :p
Daaaaawww, that was sweet. And yeah, being a couple of juvenile delinquents who play pranks and sneak into the most adorable R rated movies is a huge step up from attempted world domination via mind control and attempting to summon ancient gods of destruction.
I'd more have a talk with the young six about not giving into peer pressure then anything else.
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Too much of a side story to a side story for here, but seeing the student 6 slowly befriend the delinquent quasi-reformed sirens and even learning a couple of their own lessons from them (sometimes it's okay to think of yourself, and so on) would be an adorable read.