Classroom of the future

by Paradise Oasis

Mare out of time

Mare out of time

"A THOUSAND YEARS?!? I'VE BEEN GONE A THOUSAND YEARS!?!"

Cheerilee just stared at the other two mares, wide-eyed and dumbfounded. From any other pony, she would have taken this as a joke... but the dead serious look on Applejack's face, told her this was the real thing.

"I'm sorry, Miss Cheerilee." Glory said in a sympathetic tone. "I know this must come as a shock to you."

"What did... how... what...." the earth pony teacher sputtered out, unable to form a coherent sentence. Her eye was twitching, and from the sound of her breath, she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Okay, Cherilee, CALM DOWN" She thought to herself. "You live in a world of unicorn magic... these kind of things don't happen very often, but they DO happen." She calmed her self down, and took a deep breath. "If I'm in the future, obviously I was under a freezing or suspended animation spell of some sort. Clearly, it wasn't a sleep spell, or I would have awoke to a stallion kissing me on the lips." She blushed a bit at that idea, not entirely disliking it. "I'd best ask these two some questions, and get some information on what's going on."

"W-what happened to Ponyville?" Cheerilee asked nervously.

"Destroyed and abandoned." Applejack replied sadly. "Goblin attack... five hundred years ago."

"Equestria?" Cheerilee asked, the tension she felt rising.

"Fell during the Grogar wars." Glory replied. "We live in the Ponyland confederacy now."

"The two Princess sisters?" Cheerilee asked, holding on to her last sliver of hope.

"Long since passed away." Applejack answered. "Ponyland is ruled by the six princess ponies now... Luna and Celestia's descendants."

The earth pony teacher absorbed blow after blow, as they told her more and more of what had transpired over the past thousand years. They only told her bits and pieces, of course, but it was enough for Cheerilee to piece a sketchy timeline of events together.

"So ponies live in a dark age of ignorance and superstition now?" Cheerilee replied nervously. "Lovely. If I try to teach somepony something, I'm likely to get burned at the stake."

"Hey, it's not all that bad!" Glory grumbled. "Anyway, we're here!"

The three Ponies had been trotting through the castle the entire time they had been talking, and they had arrived at Bow Tie's room. Glory knocked on the door with her hoof, and a blue earth pony mare answered.

"Oh hey girls." Bow Tie greeted them. "What's up? And whose your friend here?"

"Hey, Bow Tie." Applejack greeted her. "Bow Tie, this is Cheerilee. She needs a tail bow."

"Hello, Miss Bow Tie." Cheerilee greeted her. Looking over this new pony, the teacher could see all sorts of ribbons and laces tied all throughout her pink mane. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The moment the blue earth pony saw Cheerilee's bowless tail, Her eyes went wide, and she felt her cutie mark tingling.

"You came to the right place, Miss Cheerliee! Bows and laces are my specialty!" She quickly yanked the surprised teacher into the room, and set to work tying ribbon after ribbon on her tail. "No, this one isn't the right color.... no, this one's too small... Ah! How about this one?"

"Is this really necessary?" The bewildered Cheerilee asked, her tail all tied up in bows and strings like a Package.

"We all have to wear these things now." Applejack sighed. "Unless you want Moondancer and the other moms getting you charged with indecent pony exposure."

"Modern pony customs are ...odd." Cheerilee replied, shaking her mane.

"There we go, that's perfect!" Bow Tie exclaimed.

The earth pony teacher soon found a huge white ribbon tied into a bow hanging from her tail. The bow was bigger then her tail, and drooped as soon as Bow Tie tied it on.

"Hm, that does look kind of nice." Cheerilee noted, looking at her reflection in the mirror. "This might not be so bad."

"Thanks, Bow Tie." Applejack told her. "C'mon, Cheerilee. Let get you to a room where you can get some rest, and absorb everything that's happened to you."

"Wait, don’t I have to pay her for this?" Cheerilee asked, pointing at the bow. "How many bits do I owe you?"

"Pay?" Bow Tie asked, confused. "Bits?"

"Barter System, Cheerilee." Applejack told her. "Nobody uses bits anymore."

"You mean nopony, Applejack." The earth pony teacher corrected her. "Proper usage of grammar is important, even for adults."

"It seems we have a lot to talk about." Glory told her, as they led her out of the room. "But we'll get to that tomorrow, when you have your audience with Queen Majesty."

....

The next day, Cheerilee was outside the throne room, nervous as a fifth grade filly before her math test. "Okay, keep it together, Cheerilee. If you want to get some kind of role educating in this new society, your going to have to make a good impression on the ruler."

In truth, once she had gotten over the initial shock, Cheerilee wasn't that all depressed that she had ended up in this future time. Most of her family had passed on, and her teaching career had been on the rocks in Ponyville. The district had hired two new teachers, and one of them had been begging for a transfer to Ponyville. It was only a matter of time, before the teacher of the students who freed Discord was handed her pink slip.

So it was far better for her to be here, in a barbaric future where a teacher could be of use, rather then wasting away in Ponyville, with her inability to use her special talent slowly driving her insane. She would teach the colts and foals of this primitive world, and help them bloom into the best students they could be! It was then that Applejack motioned for her to come in. Cheerilee took a deep breath. Here goes!

She held her head up high, and walked into the throne room. As she came before the ruler of Dream Valley, the teacher pony kneeled.

"Your Majesty..."

"Queen Majesty." The white unicorn gently corrected.

"Forgive me, Queen Majesty." She caught herself. "My name is Cheerilee, and I am a pony from what you and your subjects call the age of Equestria. Though magical means, I have ended up in a time and place not my own, and seek to make a new life for myself in a world I do not know." She looked up at the Queen. "My special talent is teaching and educating, and I humbly offer my services as such to you and your kingdom."

"Cheerilee of Ponyville." Queen Majesty spoke, looking the pink earth pony over. "You come highly recommended by Applejack as an educator of young ponies. Tell me, would you accept a position as the royal teacher of the Dream Castle schoolroom?"

Cheerilee's heart almost leaped out of her chest! A position in the royal household-! She tried her best to hide her excitement. "That would be most acceptable to me, your highness."

"Cheerilee of Ponyville, repeat after me..." The queen extended her hoof to the kneeling earth pony.

Cherilee was confused for a second, then it struck her- "Of couse! A feudal oath of loyalty, making me a vassal to the queen! How wonderfully medieval!" For a teacher, who had studied and taught about the pre-classical era, to actually live in a new feudal period was an unexpected experience! Cheerilee took majesty's extended hoof into hers.

"I, Cheerilee, do hereby swear my loyalty and my life, to Queen Majesty of Dream Castle." Queen Majesty continued. "Forsaking all other oaths and promises, I will serve and obey my Queen in all reasonable commands given. Furthermore, I swear loyalty to the Dream Valley herd, treating all stallions and mares as if they were my own brothers and Sisters, and all fillies and colts as if they were my own children. To to this oath I bind all generations of my house to come, per the judgment of their own personal conscience. To all of this I swear, by the mane of the great Horsemaster."

Cheerilee thought for a moment... she had been raised a free pony of Equestria! To swear away her freedom like that!... But then, she thought about the time and place she was in... and realized how different life was going to be from now on...

The earth pony teacher repeated. "I, Cheerilee, do hereby swear my loyalty and my life... to Queen Majesty of Dream Castle....."
...

"You hear the news, Baby North Star?" Baby Glory asked her friend. "Majesty's got a new teacher for our class."

The three fillies were at Dream Castle's ice cream place, the Satin Slipper Sweet Shoppe. Baby North Star and Quackers were getting the latest news from the royal court from their friend.

"I herd she a reel toughie-QUACK!" Baby Quackers continued, sipping her milkshake. "We not bweak her like teh uthers- QUACK!"

"Girls, whoever this new school mare is, she's just another teacher." Baby North Star ate the cherry off the top of her chocolate malt. "Like all the rest, her sanity has limits. And like all the rest, we'll find those limits. I give her two weeks."

The three of them clinked their glasses together, toasting their success.

"Scoops! Another round of milkshakes over here!" Baby North star yelled to the shop owner. "We're celebrating the next teacher we're gonna school!"

...

In the classroom, Applejack and Cherilee were preparing for her first day of teaching the next day.

"My, you certainly have some quaint beliefs about the nature of the world in this era." The pink earth pony noted with a chuckle, looking at a model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. "Our planet going around the sun, the moon orbiting our world... really now, Applejack?"

Applejack winced. "Princess Luna and Celestia don't raise the sun and moon any more, Cheerilee." She gestured towards a book on Astonomy on the shelf. "You'd better do some reading up on things."

Cherilee opened up the science book, and flipped though it. As she read several pages, the pink earth pony turned pale. "Okay, I'm not going to be teaching astronomy for awhile." She put the book down. "Have the students taken a field trip to the weather factory in Cloudsdale yet, to see how weather is made?"

"Pegasus don't make the weather anymore, Cheerilee." Applejack corrected her. "Nature controls itself now."

The pink earth pony rubbed her forehead with her hooves. "Oookaaaay.... that's another thing I'll have to study up on... along with politics and economics. At least I can still teach them writing, arithmetic, grammar, and Pre-Ponyland history."

"Cheerilee, shouldn't you wait at least a month, and study up a bit more on how the world's changed?"

"NO! These students have to LEARN!" The stress of all the shocks she had absorbed in the past few days, was starting to gnaw at her sanity. "I will bring light to there lives, and my class will be an experience nopony will ever forget!"

Comments

[greymobgone]

Just as I expected, Cheerilee needs to teach, but her information is dusty. Comedy will ensue shortly. Pinkie! We need popcorn! The extra large bag this time!

[ianmoone]

Because a bow in the tail totally makes them not naked:

I look foward to seeing how what is technically a more civilised lady from a thousand years ago deals with these more primitive ponies from the future.