• Published 24th Aug 2022
  • 13,233 Views, 966 Comments

Jumping In At The Deep End - Anotherrandom



A tired interdimensional traveler in the form of an adorable little filly finds a place of respite in the magical land of Equestria. And as boring as it is, boredom is maybe exactly what she needs. After all, nothing ever happens in Ponyville, right?

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Chapter Seventeen: Several Scholastic Shenanigans

It was a lazy morning.

Not in the classical sense of a long, languid sunrise slowly climbing up over the horizon, with nature waking from its slumber and rubbing its sleepy eyes.

No, this was lazy in another sense. The sun rose so fast that the flowers less bloomed and more boomed, sending loose petals flying. Confused roosters scrambled out from their coops to find they'd missed their cue, several ponies went temporarily blind as the huge ball of plasma in the sky suddenly sent beams of light through their bedroom windows, and a very disoriented owl went head first into a tree.

Anon could only guess what was happening, but she would bet that a certain sun-commanding princess wasn't having a good morning.

She is probably looking for stamps…

The filly stopped staring out the window and picked up her pen again, writing some more into her journal. The ink stained the yellowed paper.

Today, I'm officially starting school here in Ponyville.

This is a bad thing and a great cause of concern.

Anon didn't hate school.

From Anon's few hazy memories of it, she actually used to rather enjoy school, so much so that she studied in her own free time. Mostly for the opportunity for… something she couldn't quite remember, but some subjects she used to genuinely love. It paid off in the end - her knowledge of high school chemistry alone had saved her hide more than once.

So no, hating school wasn't the reason she was currently sweating bullets and internally debating the pros and cons of throwing herself out of the window.

The score so far was 3 to 5 in favor of self-defenestration.

I'm going to have to introduce myself in front of the whole class.

That was a problem, and while she was used to having to face quite large problems, most of them were hungry and possessed impractical numbers of teeth. Those problems could be solved with liberal use of explosives, stabbing with the True Spork, or just running.

Anon sadly came to the conclusion that none of those solutions would work for school.

Mostly because of her current lack of explosives.

Shouldn't have used all my thermite at once. And I used my poor can for char cloth already, so I have no more aluminum for another batch…

I never I don't think I've ever given a good first impression in my life and I have a strong feeling this won't be any different.

But hey, what's the worst thing that can happen? It's just some kids. It can't be that hard, right?

I'm going to die horribly, aren't I?

End of entry. Day 1153ish. Signing out and see you soon.

"Springy! It's almost time!"

There was knocking on the door as Anon scrambled to gather some power together and push the diary into the floor.

This was it. She had already had breakfast, done her morning routine, and watched the sun rise in its strange way. Bon Bon had even packed her lunch before going off to work. There was no delaying it.

She was going back to school.

"Come in!" she called out, just as she managed to hide the book, and a wisp of green magic pulled down the handle.

In entered a decidedly excited Lyra, the minty mare dancing on the tips of her hooves, practically bursting with eagerness.

Anon did not share in her enthusiasm.

"Are you prepared, Spring?" Lyra chirped.

The filly wilted, pawing at the floor nervously.

"As much as I can be," Anon said evenly, avoiding eye contact. She did her best to hide just how tight her throat was, or how fast her heart was beating. And for once, she thought she had done a pretty good job at stopping her emotions from seeping into her voice.

Lyra kneeled - the motion slow and stiff - next to her.

But not enough to hide them from Lyra.

"Listen Spring, you're gonna do great," Lyra said confidently. "You're clever and smart and the ponies there are really nice."

Anon still didn't look up. What was she supposed to say to that? Ponies being nice to her was the issue in the first place. She wasn't used to that. It wasn't normal.

Lyra frowned, pursing her lips deep in thoughts before an idea sparked.

"Spring, you didn't brush?" Lyra said. The filly raised a brow. She was fairly sure she did brush; she could still taste the toothpaste in her mouth. "Your mane is a mess."

"Oh," the filly realized, running a hoof through the crow's nest on her head, briefly getting it stuck before she managed to pull it out with relatively small effort and only minor loss of hair. And dignity. "Yeah, it kinda does what it wants to."

Lyra giggled, focusing her magic into her horn as a hair brush came floating from the bathroom.

The minty mare briefly halted, taking a look at the brush, then back at the filly. Anon gave her a confused stare for a few seconds before she realized what Lyra wanted and gave her a nod.

Being brushed by someone else was… strange to Anon. Not bad - the sensation itself was very pleasant - but having someone stand right behind her while she had no idea what they were doing should have made her shiver. Yet it didn't.

There was no gut feeling, no ever-wary voice, even though it should have been screaming in alarm. The instinct that had kept her alive so many times, warning her of incoming attacks and hidden dangers she had no right knowing were there, was silent now.

And it was maddening.

Great, not being anxious is making me anxious now. That's new and terrible.

Lyra moved the brush through her mane, gently untangling the comb-consuming abyss of Anon's mane with practice and precision.

But maybe it's going to be alright.

Lyra stopped to observe her creation, much to the green filly's grumbling displeasure.

Despite Lyra's best effort, the mane was the same messy lump of jutting stands of mane it was before, but she wasn't too upset about that, because she mainly wanted to make Spring feel a bit better.

And definitely not because she'd somehow lost the brush in the filly's mane.

"Now, are you ready for school?"

Anon paused, taking in a deep breath.

She was a jumper. She'd faced dangers numerous and terrible, be they demons, monsters, or dimension-spanning empires, and she had always survived in the end.

What was an elementary school compared to all that?

"Yeah," Anon said confidently. "I'm ready."


I'm not ready.

The Ponyville's schoolhouse wasn't much to look at, even though it was one of the oldest buildings in the town, surviving disaster after disaster - much to the local student body's chagrin. The old, wooden structure had probably witnessed more hard-fought battles than the most hardened and tried fortress. (Mostly battles against algebra, but this was Ponyville so some literal battles weren't out of the equation.)

Anon gulped. The jumper stood at the precipice of doom, hesitation engulfing her every
thought.

I'm definitely not ready.

Twelve or so pairs of eyes all focused on her. The small classroom was almost full, and murmuring chatter attacked her from all sides. The saddlebags on her back suddenly felt like somebody had switched their contents for bricks.

Gold bricks. With some anvils on top.

Anon shuddered. A surprisingly large part of her wanted to run, try to catch up to Lyra, and hold onto her until she stopped shaking.

"Hey! It's you! Spring Break, right?"

But that moment was over fast. The saddlebags' content turned back into her textbook and packed lunch. Her expression became the usual, blank mask of faint disinterest.

She was in control, she was safe - for now - and she recognized the filly speaking at her.

Diamond Tiara gave a curious look to the green filly.

"Your name is Spring, right?" She paused before adding, "Daddy always tells me you need a good head for names in business."

Anon nodded slowly, looking around the classroom. Now that she was in it, she realized most ponies here weren't paying attention to her, content to just mingle with their friends instead.

Thank God children here have the same attention span here they do back on Earth:

Absolutely none‌ whatsoever.

"Yeah, that's me," Anon said, earning another strange look.

Diamond Tiara was smirking. It was the predatory, calculating smirk of someone with a brilliant plan.

It made Anon feel very uneasy.

She looked around her again.

The foals around them weren't ignoring them.

They were pretending to ignore them.

"I get that you're still new here," Diamond said, the smile on her muzzle just a little too wide for Anon's liking. "But stick with me and Silver and it's going to be all good. Right, pal?"

Anon stared blankly at Diamond Tiara's outstretched hoof before she shrugged and took it.

She's like ten years old, there's nothing to worry about.

So why do I feel like I'm joining the mafia?

Diamond Tiara motioned her to a desk - a free one in front of hers ‌and Silver Spoon's.

Strangely, the only free the desk in the room.

Did… did she plan it?

Unfortunately, before she had more time to ponder this curiosity, the school bell began to ring and Anon had to rush to her new, ominous seat.

The teacher - a purplish earth pony mare with a curly pink mane - stood up from behind her desk.

"Good morning," she said, eyes briefly stopping on Anon.

"Good morning Miss Cheerilee," chorused the class.

Cheerilee smiled, sending a quick glance at the attendance list.

The name 'Spring Break' was there, circled in red a few times, with a lot of notes attached to it.

She had been told - and warned - in advance about the presence of a filly from the foster care program. She still had the file that a visiting social worker had provided for her. Everything in it painted a sad story for the green filly's past.

This brought in a dilemma. She thought about talking to her students, telling them to be nice and careful around the new filly.

Of course, no matter how pure the intention, that was very likely to backfire spectacularly. Either it would make Spring feel infantilized and isolated, unable to make any real friends, or the other students would start to resent her for what they perceived as special treatment. Or both, most likely. Forcing foals to make friends - or do anything in general - tended to end with mixed results, and this situation was especially delicate.

Considering that the main reason for Spring attending school was to socialize with other foals her age, doing anything that could possibly hamper that would be counterproductive.

Spring was meant to have as normal schooling experience as possible and singling her out on the very first day would go against that.

Unfortunately, the normal schooling experience meant singling her out on the very first day by calling her to the front to introduce herself.

Cheerilee didn't like it, but it was what she always did when a new student came to her class.

However, doing this did have its benefits - while Spring would likely be uncomfortable being put into the spotlight, she would at least be able to answer some questions and curb some of the excessive curiosity some of her new classmates might have. And if things went on a wrong turn, Cheerilee would be there to step in.

"So, today we have a new student joining us," Cheerilee said. "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

Anon rose from her seat, beads of sweat settling on her brow.

Okay, stay calm. You're prepared for this. Just say your name. Nothing hard about that.

"Eh, hello, my name is Ano-Spring… Spring Break! Yes… that's definitely the name I have. Yup, no other names here…" She trailed off, faking a cough to fill the silence.

God.
Damnit.

She facehoofed before she continued again. It was nice and well that Celestia had provided her with a fake name and identiy and all, but couldn't she have come up with something easier to remember?

"So, I, eh, started to live in Ponyville some time ago."

Over a month now.

It didn't even seem that long. Okay, she had spent the majority of it preparing an ambush for an angry goddess of the night hellbent on bringing the apocalypse, so she had been pretty busy. Even then, this was by far the longest she had stayed in one world, but it didn't feel that way. It had all just passed too quickly.

"And it's… good," Anon paused. "S'good here…"

She trailed off. It was still hard to believe she had stumbled on a place like this. Out of all the places to get stuck in, this was probably the worst. If everyone would just be hostile to her like usual, it would make things so much simpler. She knew how to withstand hostility, but this?

It was so tempting to just stop fighting, to accept this world at face value, and forget. To finally let go of the person she used to be.

But she couldn't. Her sister was waiting for her. Giving up wasn't an option.

"Welp, that's about it. Any questions?"

A forest of tiny hooves shot up into the air the moment Anon asked. A pinkish-gray unicorn filly with a blonde mane stared at her with those unnaturally big eyes.

"You…?" Anon said tentatively.

"Dinky!" the unbearably cute little unicorn said. "Did you really fight off a pack of timberwolves alone?"

Anon shook her head.

Technically yes, she did fight off the pack by sending them to Brazil or wherever that hole in the ground led. (By the sounds that came from it, probably to a nest of giant ravenous woodpeckers.)

But saying that would probably only draw more attention - and she had enough as it was - so she kept it to herself.

"Nope, I ran away. Well, I tried, anyway." Anon said. "Got myself stabbed by a falling tree."

That would be an embarrassing way to die.

"I remember that!" That was… Apple Bloom? Anon vaguely remembered her from the brief time they had visited the farm. "My sister had to clean the cart afterwards 'cause of all the blood!"

Anon tilted her head. She did not know how to feel about the apparently infectious enthusiasm with which Apple Bloom talked about grave bodily harm.

Poor Cheerilee attempted to interject, seeing the conversation take a grisly turn, but she had sadly underestimated the speed with which under-stimulated children latched onto any topic more interesting than class work - which was quite a low bar.

"Oh oh!" a foal with a lisp called out. "Do you have a thcar?"

Cheerilee opened her mouth to jump into the conversation and hopefully salvage it, but Anon interrupted her, pointing at a circular scar on her shoulder.

"Yeah, I think that's the one?" she said hesitantly. "No, wait. That's where I got shot." She ruffled the fur on her forelegs, until she found another circular scar, ignoring a few others. "It's this one… probably. Kinda lost track of them after a while."

The horrified expression on Cheerilee's face was promptly ignored by the rest of the class as the foals stared in awe - to Anon's unending confusion.

To them, scars were cool, something action heroes and dastardly villains had in comics books and adventure novels. A dastardly villain's scars made them look angry and menacing, while the hero's scars made them look rugged and experienced - yet there was a serious cool factor in both cases.

To Anon, it was a very surreal experience, which meant a lot coming from a jumper who regularly broke the very fabric of reality just to hide her diary.

"Did Nightmare Moon do the rest when she foalnapped you?" asked Apple Bloom. "Was it 'cause you kicked one of her shadow thingies?"

How did she know about that?

Anon had to suppress the urge to facehoof.

The chariot flight back from the Everfree after Nightmare Moon was dealt with. It wasn't exactly subtle - large flying objects made mainly out of gold rarely are - so of course it got people talking. And Diamond Tiara, or at least her father, wasn't exactly silent about the fight with the shadow monster, either.

"Some of it, yeah," Anon sighed. "And I didn't really-"

What followed was a torrent of different questions, firing one after another. Cheerilee, who by this point had lost all control of the situation, watched in the same helpless fascination with which one watches a train crash into an orphanage for puppies.

"Was she scary?" piped out a lanky, brown colt in the back, and more followed.

"Did she try to eat you?" "Did she really have a mane made out of stars?" "Did she try to invade your mind, turn you into a mindless zombie, and then invade Equestria with an army of flesh puppets?"

Anon took a step back, overwhelmed.

But she was a jumper. She would not be defeated so easily!

"Eh, yes, she was scary," Anon said. "No, she didn't try to eat me… I think." She turned at the lanky colt. "And yup, she did have a mane made out of stars, or at least it looked that way. What was that last question?"

"What's it like being an orphan?"

The classroom fell silent just for a moment. This sort of silence was normally filled with crickets, but those were sadly unavailable at the time, arriving late because of the morning commute.

Cheerilee took a sharp intake of breath, wincing. The other foals turned on Snails, each with a different reaction. Apple Bloom turned red and fuming. Diamond Tiara shot him a dirty look.

But Anon simply shrugged. Questions like that didn't bother her, not anymore.

She'd had a lifetime of practice, after all. And at least this one didn't sound malicious, but genuinely curious, if a tad insensitive.

"Well, you know how you have parents?" Anon asked casually.

"Eh, yeah?" Snails answered awkwardly, increasingly conscious of the stares boring into the back of his skull.

"Well, now imagine you don't." Anon said. "Basically that."

The reaction from Cheerilee was priceless. Anon couldn't have guessed that a muzzle had the range of motion to express such a wide array of emotions - Cheerilee looked like she was about to scream, faint, and bash her head on the desk all at once.

"But she has two moms," argued Silver Spoon. "I saw her with them."

"Oh! What is it like having two moms?" Dinky asked. "I only have the one, but she's the best!"

Anon froze, mind suddenly blank.

My two whats?

It had registered to her that, on some level, yes, Lyra and Bon Bon were her foster mothers. But what that meant never really sunk in.

She couldn't remember her real parents. That was okay, she remembered not remembering them very well long before she started jumping. Not being able to remember them at all now was to be expected.

They're not gone, they're just… not around right now.

Cheerilee cleared her throat, calming the foals down.

"I think that was enough questions," she said, "Thank you Spring… You can sit back down, please."

Anon blinked twice, realizing she was still up, before she gave a sheepish smile and sat down on the wooden seat.

"Now," Cheerilee started writing something on the board. "Please open your textbooks on page forty one…"


Anon didn't pay much attention in the class.

Learning about the different worlds she had visited was intriguing maybe the first dozen times, but it quickly lost its luster. The rules never stayed the same, so any effort put into really understanding things in one world would just turn out to be a waste in the next. Magic was entirely new, though, and did seem interesting at first, but having to relearn it all over again every time soured Anon on the idea. The only thing she got any good at was picking up on the basics, which were mostly iterations of a few different, but similar enough, ideas.

History was doubly irrelevant. Why learn about a place that she was going to leave in a fortnight? Same with most natural sciences. There were similarities between worlds, but nothing guaranteed, so why put so much effort in for so little gain?

It also didn't help that she couldn't read Equestrian yet.

Bit of an oversight, really.

So she did the first thing that came to mind - using said mind to levitate small objects.

She spun a quill with her magic, while resting her head on her hoof, utterly bored. Sneaky, dangerous questions slowly invaded her thoughts.

What now?

Lyra and Bon Bon - her supposed foster parents.

The fact that Celestia was Bon Bon's adoptive mother was a shock at first, but it made a staggering amount of sense later.

Of course Celestia would adopt someone who can make cake.

It also explained why Celestia was so fast to choose Bon Bon to be Anon's foster parent. She had close knowledge of Bon Bon's character beforehand - or beforehoof, she supposed. And if she one day simply jumped world, well, Celestia could always just explain the whole dimension hopper thing, if she hadn't done so already.

And here laid the issue for Anon.

Does… does Bon Bon know?

Anon hadn't put much thought into it before, but would Celestia tell Bon Bon the truth? Her head told her no, but her gut told her yes, and her gut rarely betrayed her. But if they knew, why would they come to comfort her and hug her when she was scared? Why would they go through all that trouble just to make her feel nice? Why then play the whole pretend family bit?

Or was it even pretend?

Even Celestia wanted a deal first: 'Protect the Element Bearers'. And Anon was okay with that arrangement. It was a good deal. Hell, it would be a lot more off-putting if Celestia wanted nothing in return for, well, generally letting her live. That was just how the worlds worked.

She spun the quill a little faster, the green glow around it intensifying. Turning on its axis faster and faster.

Where does that leave me?

She couldn't jump, so she was stuck for now. For how long, Anon didn't know. Staying in one place was a terrifying prospect. Almost as much as the idea that the feelings her foster parents held towards her may be genuine.

She thought she was playing them, taking advantage of them by pretending. The identity of Spring Break served as a convenient shield.

They didn't like her, they liked Spring, and Spring didn't exist! So they didn't actually like her, end of story!

But that fell apart if they knew. Her convenient excuse would be gone and she would have to accept that there was maybe someone in all the worlds who saw her as theirs. Someone who was nice and good to her for the sake of it, someone who wanted her to feel at home.

But Anon couldn't accept that. They didn't know - they couldn't know.

The quill spun faster and only now did Anon realize the multiple pairs of eyes watching her.

A snow white foal with a curly mane stared at the quill, bright eyes sparkling.

Anon raised a brow, and moved the quill from side to side. The snow white filly's eyes followed it, as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Am I doing something wrong? It's just levitation.

"How are you so good at this?" the foal asked, bewildered. "I've been trying for months and I still can't lift a stupid feather!"

Anon simply shrugged. To her, it was nothing more than imagining the feeling of picking the quill up with a hand, but saying she was using an imaginary limb she used to have probably wasn't a good explanation

"Ahem."

Cheerilee cleared her throat, and the white filly seized up, eyes wide - Anon guessed she wasn't one to break the rules often.

"Sweetie Belle, please do not disturb the class."

The now-identified Sweetie Bell wilted slightly.

"Sorry Miss Cheerilee," she apologized.

"It's alright," Cheerilee said. "But please raise your hoof first if you want to speak. Now, after the reunification the- yes, Sweetie Belle?"

Sweetie Bell pulled her hoof down, only to point it at Anon, the quill still levitating above the table, and the bored jumper fidgeted in place as the attention was once again shifted to her.

"How does Spring do that?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Cheerilee glanced at Anon, who quickly dispelled the levitation, causing the spinning quill to evacuate the building through an open window - hitting a passing owl - all the while Anon gave the teacher her most innocent, if somewhat strained, smile.

Cheerilee, who was gracious enough to ignore the distant yelp of pain and what had to be some juicy swear words in owl-tongue, resisted the urge to sigh.

"I understand young unicorns want to practice their magic whenever possible," she said slowly. "But please refrain from doing so when in class. Proper adult supervision is important when magic is involved."

Anon nodded once, avoiding eye contact, suddenly finding the surface of her desk to be the most interesting and fascinating thing in the room.

"Ehm, yeah, sure," she said nervously.

Cheerilee cocked her head, her teacher's intuition basically screaming at her that there was something she had missed.

Like the paper on the green filly's desk.

Paper covered in writing - a strange, definitely non-Equestrian writing.

The file Cheerilee got was vague in places, but it was clear on one thing: Spring was from a place very far away.

A place where they may not use Equestrian script.

"Spring, you can't-" Cheerilee began but stopped herself.

If her suspicion was true and Spring couldn't read Equestrian, bringing attention to that in front of the whole class would be extraordinarily humiliating. No, this was a delicate matter.

Cheerilee couldn't let a student of hers down. This simply couldn't stand. But she was too busy to tutor a student after school. She would have to find somepony else to help. Spring's foster parents would have to offer support of course, but a more professional tutor would be ideal.

Of course, good tutors weren't just lazing around in every small town, waiting to be picked off a shelf like expired cans of beans. Teaching somepony how to read, quickly, was much harder than it looked. She needed somepony with experience. Somepony who had taught a little one before and had a passion for the subject, maybe even somepony who could help with Springs' apparent knack for magic.

And she already had in mind the pony for the job.

After all, a new librarian had just come to town. And what sort of librarian would allow a pony to be unable to read?