An Earthling Earth Pony at Celestia's School of Magic: Year One

by Halira

Chapter 7

I caught up to Bright in the hallway right after class with Miss Raven ended.

“Hey, why were you sitting with Red instead of me?” I asked, feigning offense.

He blinked and rubbed the back of his head. “Ya see…ya was late gettin’ ta class, and Red didn’t want to sit next to his there no-good sis. He ain’t half-bad, for one of them there nobles. If ya’d been there on time, ah’d have sat next ta ya for sure.”

I cuffed his shoulder gently. “I’m just pulling your tail. I know I was late both times, and can’t blame you for not saving me a seat. I can’t blame Red for wanting to escape Prim when he can. Sharing a room with her must be miserable.”

Bright looked relieved as he nodded. “Yep, Red was tellin’ me all ‘bout how she always lorded over him that she was the primary heir to their family estates, and he’d only get the leavins’. She seems to think she’s better than her brother just as much as everypony else.”

“I’M GOING TO FRY PRIM’S MANE!”

We turned to see Hannah marching down the hall, horn lit, dragging the struggling form of Summer behind her.

“Hannah, don’t do this!” Summer cried, trying to get a grip on anything. “It will be okay. I can take care of myself.”

“She threatened you. That is not okay!” Hannah growled.

Bright stepped in Hannah’s way. “Whoa, missy! What’s goin’ on?”

“It’s not that big a deal!” Summer insisted, looping both her forelegs around a nearby bust of Starswirl the Bearded while still floating in Hannah’s magic. That probably wasn’t a good idea. If Hannah started pulling her along again, it would just topple and break the bust.

“You didn’t get this mad about her getting on my case or when she mouthed off before,” I said.

Hannah finally dropped Summer, who landed on the floor with a thud but who didn’t seem to mind the sudden crash landing.

Hannah grit her teeth. “That was just mouthing off like the spoiled brat she is; this was a threat! I’m going to teach that stuck-up priss a lesson she’ll never forget!”

I frowned. “That’s not a good idea. Her magic is stronger than yours, and since none of us are trained in combat magic, she’d win any fight through brute magical force. The only pony in class who could beat her is Summer.”

Summer stood up and shook her head, making her lion-like mane flap everywhere. “I’m not fighting her. I’d get in trouble, and none of you are either because I don’t want you to get in trouble. My village leader told me things like this might happen, and I can’t let ponies like that make me feel afraid or angry. I have to be brave and not let her get to me. She’s just trying to scare me.”

“She’d be expelled for sure if she hurt Summer. Ah don’t think Prim would risk that,” Bright said, sounding confident. “Summer’s right; it’s all talk with no action.”

“What exactly was said?” I asked.

Summer looked down. “Nothing specific. She just said that if I didn’t go home, bad things would happen to me.”

“See! That’s a threat!” Hannah said in outrage.

“A pretty vague one,” I countered. “I don’t think any of the teachers would accept that as justification for trying to fight Prim. We could just go to Headmaster and tell him…or one of the other teachers. Miss Raven has to still be close by.”

Bright frowned. “Ah ain’t sure. Bein’ honest is all well and good, but tattlin’ ain’t a good look either. Ah got in trouble before for bein’ a tattle, and ah learned mah lesson. Maybe if Prim said she was goin’ to do somethin’ in particular, but what she said ain’t got no detail. Ah ain’t tattlin’t that somepony has bluster. Ah don’t want that kinda label.”

Hannah stood up straight. “I’m not just letting this go. If you don’t want to say anything, that’s fine. I’m not putting it on you, but you can’t stop me from doing something. I won’t fight Prim–you’re right, that could only go badly for me. I’m sure the priss has gotten at least some private magical tutoring, so she probably knows more than me besides being stronger, but I am going to go straight to Headmaster and say something. I can’t let her think she can get away with threatening my friend. As someone who wants to join the royal guard to protect ponies, I think you can understand that.”

Bright and I looked at one another and then back at Hannah.

“We’ll walk with you to Headmaster’s office,” I said. “We can’t confirm she said that since we didn’t hear it, but we can say she has been disrespectful to other students and insulted Summer for being a kirin. Those things we heard.”

“If we’re asked ‘bout it. That would be answerin’ a question, not tattlin’,” Bright reasoned.

“Just don’t tell my mom. She can’t find out,” Summer insisted.

Hannah looked at Summer. “Why? Shouldn’t your mom be allowed to know that you are being picked on and threatened? It isn’t good to keep that kind of thing from your parents.”

Summer shook her head vigorously. “No! She can’t control her temper as well as me. If she heard Prim threatened me, not even her kitten would calm her down. She’d burn down the dorm building in her rage and get fired! I can’t let that happen.

I didn’t want her mom to get fired, but even more than that, I didn’t want her mom burning down the dorm building, maybe with me in it.

“We won’t tell your mom,” I assured her.

“But what if Headmaster does?” Summer asked worriedly.

Bright shook his head. “Ah don’t think he will. He like as not won’t remember she even is your ma.”

Hannah nodded. “He does seem to care very little about our personal details, even our names. I doubt he’d bother to remember who our parents are.”

“He might not even care when you report this,” I cautioned.

“I’m still going to try,” Hannah insisted. “Let’s go.”

It only took us about two minutes to walk to the Headmaster’s office. When we arrived, the door was cracked open, and voices were coming from inside. We paused outside the door to listen.

“Headmaster, I must insist you do more to secure that staff. It is one of the most powerful artifacts in the realm, perhaps only surpassed by the Crystal Heart and the Sunstone. It shouldn’t be so carelessly left lying against your chair.”

“Correction, in my hands, it is stronger than either of those objects,” Headmaster replied to whoever was speaking to him.

Hannah went wide-eyed as we continued to listen. She was at this school to learn about artifacts, right? I suppose knowing that Headmaster had an extremely powerful one that he carried around with him impressed her.

“All the more reason it should be secured!” the other speaker continued. “You use it in substitution for a horn, but such an item could wreak untold havoc if the wrong individuals took control of it.”

“Did I not say it is only that powerful in my hands? Its power is a small fraction of its full capability if used by anyone else. You pay as little attention to what is said as the students,” Headmaster said in a bored tone.

“That isn’t confirmed. It is a completely undocumented artifact, and what little is known about it is from my limited observation. If you would allow me to better study it in a secure-”

“You tire me, Neighsay. The staff stays with me. It is an extension and enhancement of my power. I will not be parted with it so you can do experiments.”

Neighday snorted loud enough to be heard in the hall. “Hear me, Headmaster, I will not be the only one to notice the staff's power level. There will be questions asked. I question where such an object could have come from. That is no work of Earthlings, and there is no record of such a staff in Equestria. It shows up in your possession, yet we know nothing about you, not even your name. Who are you?”

“What’s it matter who I am?”

“Every member of the faculty has a documented history except you. Humans that have immigrated to Equestria and been granted citizenship are few. That Newman woman even has a well-documented history, but for you, there is nothing. It is as if you appeared out of nowhere. Are you a changeling?*

“No, Neighsay, I am not a shapeshifting insect. The princess knows my identity and has put her faith in me. That should be enough for you. You are distracting me from reading reports. Be off with you.”

Summer started to say something, but Hannah put a hoof over her mouth. Neighsay must have been leaving because we heard hoovesteps from within the room coming in our direction. We all quickly backed away from the door.

Neighsay exited the room and glanced questioningly at us as he did so.

“Are you foals eavesdropping?” Neighsay asked, sounding annoyed. "It is a poor habit, a sign of delinquency. What is the meaning of this?”

I thought of an answer fast. “We needed to talk to Headmaster, but we wanted to wait until you were done talking about whatever you were talking about because it would be rude and disrespectful to interrupt.”

Neighsay sniffed. “I suppose that is so. Very well, your actions are forgiven, but don’t make a habit of listening into private conversations.”

“The door was cracked, so it can’t have been that private,” Bright muttered.

Neighsay raised an eyebrow at him. “You are Applebloom’s nephew, are you not? You are to write for me a hundred times; I will not contradict my elders, and turn it in to me by the end of the week.”

Bright looked annoyed but sighed and nodded. “Yes, professor.”

Well, at least it wasn’t just me and Prim getting into trouble.

Neighsay smiled. “Very good. Hurry about your business. You may be on a free period, but it won’t last forever. You do not want to be late to your next class.” He then turned and walked off down the hall.

“Not sure ah like him,” Bright muttered.

“You’re just mad you got in trouble,” Hannah replied.

“Yeah, that’s so,” Bright agreed. “Let’s get this over with before some other professor takes offense at us bein’ here.”

We shuffled into the room, with me knocking on the door as we did. Headmaster was at his desk, staff leaning against his chair, reading reports. He did not look up at us as we entered.

“So many interruptions,” Headmaster said, sounding bored as usual. “Earth pony, kirin, whatshername, and whatshisface, what can I assist you with? Make this brief; I am a busy man.”

Hannah strode forward, dragging Summer along once again. “Headmaster, sir! My friend Summer was threatened by one of the other students!”

Headmaster finally looked up from his work towards the pair. “Threatened, you say? Who is Summer?”

“I’m Summer, Headmaster,” Summer squeaked. “Hannah is making a much bigger deal about this than she needs to.”

He looked at them consideringly. “Perhaps. What was the nature of this threat?”

“Prim told Summer that if Summer didn’t drop out, something bad would happen to her!” Hannah announced.

Headmaster gave them a half frown. “Who is Prim?”

“Prim Tape, she’s the rich filly who you declared was starting at number thirty in our class,” I informed him.

Headmaster pulled out a scroll and looked it over. “Ah…that one…I see–more potential than the majority of the students in your class if she applied herself, but she has so little discipline; how disappointing. I’m not fond of people making threats, even vague ones. In fact, I take great personal offense at it. I will have her brought to my office and give her a stern talking-to. Do not worry about the issue anymore. You may leave now.”

We’d figured out by this point that being dismissed by Headmaster meant leaving immediately, so we hurried out the door.

“That went better than I expected,” I said. “I didn’t expect him to care.”

Hannah nodded. “I was right to insist on talking to him. What do you guys think about what Neighsay was saying before? I kind of figured that his staff was some sort of magical artifact, but I never imagined that it would be that powerful.”

"He said it was stronger than the Crystal Heart or the Sunstone,” Summer said. “I’ve heard of the Crystal Heart, and I know it is really powerful, but I never heard of the Sunstone.”

“I have,” Hannah replied. “I’ve read about every famous artifact. The Sunstone is what moved the Sun and Moon in ancient times before Celestia or Luna were even born. The old unicorns broke it and were forced to move the Sun and Moon themselves until Celestia and Luna came along.”

“So that shiny stick has more power than the thing that moved the Sun and Moon?” Bright asked in disbelief. “Seems mighty dangerous to have just laying around.”

“And nobody has ever heard of this artifact before now, and it just shows up with Headmaster, who nobody knows where he came from,” I added in.

“So, it has to come from Earth,” Summer said.

Hannah shook her head. “The cost to make something like that would be astronomical. It takes a lot of money and effort to make thaumically active materials on Earth, and they tend to be less efficient than Equestrian materials. You have to have big crystals to hold a lot of power on Earth because of that inefficiency, and if that thing is as strong as Neighsay says, Earth wouldn’t be able to make it on such a small scale as a staff you could carry around. It would be a huge thing that nobody would be moving around. Even in Equestria, it would be extremely difficult to contain that level of power in native materials, and it would take a truly exceptional mage to figure out how to do it, like Princess Twilight level–and she thoroughly documents everything she does. Plus, how would Headmaster end up with it?”

“We can’t know that without knowing who he is,” I said. “I never heard of any powerful human mages. A few humans have strong magic, but that magic always does one thing or a range of things–like superpowers. I know a famous illusionist human, but that’s all she does and can do: illusions. She can’t learn to do anything else with her magic; that’s all it can do. So, they don’t have mages.”
.
“But Headmaster is supposedly a full-fledged mage,” Hannah said. “He said the staff is explicitly tuned to him. That indicates someone made it for him since he can’t do his magic without it. That leads us back to asking who made it.”

“Celestia?” Summer suggested. “She’s the one who appointed him, and she’s really powerful–powerful enough to make something like that. She’s also got a motive to do so. She needs a powerful mage leading the school, and she wasn’t satisfied with the mages she had.”

“Maybe, still seems strange,” Hannah said with a shake of her head.

I looked around for a clock but didn’t see any.

“We should head towards the next class,” I suggested. “We don’t want to stand around too long and be late, and we aren’t going to figure out the secrets of Headmaster standing here talking about him, but let’s make that a goal before we graduate. We’re going to discover who Headmaster really is.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Bright agreed. “Next class is Elementary Defensive Magic. Ah’m lookin’ forward to it.”

I blinked. I knew that was one of the courses I was having substituted out for the moment. That meant my first substitution class was coming up. I needed to look at my revised schedule and determine what I was taking.

I pulled the appropriate scroll out of my saddlebag and unrolled it on the floor to read.

Introduction to Artifact Safety with Professor Neighsay

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Currently, unless and until stated explicitly otherwise, Im going to consider the Headmaster as a certain Equestrian super powerful entity who doesnt want to cause death, destruction or trauma.

If you consider such a list of available entities, he would be pretty much at the head of the queue?

To build structures capable of handling a tiny fraction of that kind of power without melting its surroundings means not just placing atoms correctly, which humans have heavy engineering specilising in, but nudged patterns of atoms which is so ficcult to do reliably its only used in critical parts of CPU construction. And maybe some other extremely esoteric particle research and high energy physics.

[harts fire]

i see Neighsay is still sticking his nose were it does not belong.
but he is a raging asshole with a bigger dick attached.

really liking this story .

[AvoidingFever17]

Neighday snorted loud enough to be heard in the hall. “Hear me, Headmaster, I will not be the only one to notice the staff's power level. There will be questions asked. I question where such an object could have come from. That is no work of Earthlings, and there is no record of such a staff in Equestria. It shows up in your possession, yet we know nothing about you, not even your name. Who are you?”

...that aint good
Well then

[AvoidingFever17]

11846805
True
Discord would be very likely but who knows?