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

by Halira

Chapter 13

I woke up in a bed, but it wasn’t my bed. There was a pale blue curtain around it. Was I in a hospital?

The curtain drew back, and Headmaster stepped through.

“You’re awake. Good,” Headmaster said as he took a seat beside the bed. “You’ve been out for nearly five hours, the longest. How are you feeling?”

“A little headache, but not too bad, I guess,” I replied. “What happened?”

“You had a surge. It exhausted your magic reserves, which in turn exhausted you. You were taken to Canterlot Hospital, but the student with an unhealthy obsession with the Princess of Friendship alerted me to what happened. I had you transferred here to the school nurse’s office once I convinced the doctors you would be fine after resting here.” Headmaster answered.

My headache was minor, but I did want something for it. “Where’s the nurse?”

“I’m the nurse,” Headmaster replied. “I’m going to give you a few pain pills. You may take one as needed for pain once per four hours. Make sure you snack on something right before you take them. I have some apples here for this one. I doubt you will need more than one. If it persists, don't hesitate to get in touch with me. What you primarily need is rest. Under the circumstances, you and the others are excused from class tomorrow to rest. I will alert your teachers, and you shall not be penalized for the absence.”

I hadn’t noticed that there was a side table, but it had a bowl of apples and a jug of water. Headmaster picked up an apple from it and handed it to me. I grabbed it with my fetlock and now noticed how weak I felt. I’d really used up all my energy.

“I never heard of anyone but newborn foals surging, and they don't get like this because of it,” I said as I looked at the apple.

“It is uncommon but not unheard of. Newborns don’t suffer for it because their bodies haven’t fully established the various passive spells that are always active that come with maturity. In fact, if you were just a year or two younger, this might not have exhausted you either, but you are old enough that the spells maintaining your earth pony strength and your ties to your cutie mark need a regular flow of power, so you suffer when that is suddenly disrupted,” Headmaster explained.

“My ties to my mark were disrupted?!” I asked in horror as I tried to lift the covers to look at my flank.

He put a hand on the covers to stop me. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t take that much power to maintain that, and your mark has its own reserves separate from yours that typically kick in if something like that happens. Its first priority if something jeopardizes the connection is to restore the connection. It will do this even if completely severed. It knows where it belongs and devotes all power towards staying or returning there. This is also why rehumanization spells never worked on transformed that got their marks; the marks would fight back against any spell that tried to take their place away. Your mark is fine, and your strength will fully recover in a few hours. You should eat; that helps with the process.”

I took a bite of the apple. I didn’t have a lot of appetite, but he did say I needed food and rest and that the pain pill, which I very much wanted to take, needed me to eat first. It occurred to me that I might get very tired of apples by the end of the semester, considering how many Professor Applebloom ordered that still needed to be eaten.

Another thing occurred to me, and I had a sinking feeling. “You said I was the last one to wake up. Did my surge hurt anyone?”

“No, you didn’t hurt anyone; you just weren’t the only one who surged,” Headmaster explained. “The kirin filly and your friend, who seemed far too concerned about whether this would be able to earn her profit in the future, both surged at the same time as you. On campus, your roommate, the Apple colt, surged while doing a workout with two other students and ended up putting a large weight through a wall with his levitation before he passed out. There may have been others, and I’m confident there were, but they were elsewhere in Equestria or managed to go unreported if they were here.”

“Why did we all surge?” I asked, confused. There had to be a reason we all surged at once, some trigger.

Headmaster seemed to weigh whether to say anything for a moment. “I’m sure you’ll hear about it soon since everyone saw it. There was a massive sonic rainboom. Rainbooms are typically the result of Rainbow Dash, but this was the result of some colt. It may take a decade or more, but it would seem Miss Dash has some up-and-coming competition. The rainboom in itself was a surge, and the phenomenon has been known to trigger surges in others before. I don’t have any further information about the colt as of yet, but Princess Celestia is looking into it,”

“Oh,” I replied. Not sure what to think of that. “Why’d I wake up last? Was my surge worse?”

Headmaster sighed. “You ask an excessive amount of questions. The others were not so inquisitive. Your surge was not too bad, as it didn’t do any damage to anything. The kirin, Summer Blaze, had it the worst. However, you have your earth pony strength that is always passively on. Your surge sapped that, leaving you far more exhausted as a result. It should recover by morning.”

“You remembered Summer’s name!” I gasped. He gave me a dirty look, and I flinched. “Sorry. You just never seem to know students’ names.”

“I am a medical doctor by trade. I always remember a patient, Turnip Jones,” Headmaster replied flatly.

“Oh.”

I think that was the most concrete information about the Headmaster’s history anyone had gotten. Yet it raised even more questions. Why was a doctor put in charge of the school? What was a doctor doing with a superpowered magic staff?

He frowned at me. “I see the questions forming in your head and will tell you now you won’t get your answers beyond this—I was not the first, second, or even fifth preferred option to run this school. However, those who were preferred were either busy with other things or refused the job. I was recommended by two of them and coerced into taking the position. That doesn’t mean I take this no less seriously or will be neglectful in my efforts to restore this school to its former glory. I was given a task, and I intend to do it.”

He set a handful of pills down on the side table and stood up.

“I recommend you eat at least one more apple and take a pill. After that, you are free to return to your dorm. Your saddlebags are at the foot of the bed. Don’t push yourself too hard. You still need plenty of rest. If your lack of strength or headache persists, or if you have any other health issues, you know where my office is,” Headmaster instructed. He then turned and left.

---

“Oh! You’re finally back! Miss Pretty Purface was getting so worried!” Spring exclaimed as I entered the dorm building.

“Mew!” Miss Pretty Purface echoed from somewhere in the mass of Spring Fling’s mane.

I still felt weak and didn’t look forward to climbing all the steps to my floor, but I’d manage it. I smiled at Spring.

“I’m okay, just tired. Is Summer alright? I was told she surged as well.”

Spring’s ears sagged. “She’s upset. What happened wasn’t her fault. Nopony could have anticipated something like that happening, and nopony got hurt. Yes, there was some damage—”

“Damage?” I asked in shock.

“Oh, you must have already passed out by then,” Spring said dejectedly. “Summer ended up burning a few trees and some grass. The pegasi and the unicorns were able to get the fires out before they spread. It really shook her, though. She was the first to wake back up, and she woke up to seeing ponies putting out the aftermath of her surge. I didn’t see it, but I was told it was big. I’ve tried to comfort her and tell her it's not her fault, but as soon as I brought her back from the nurse’s office, she locked herself in her room. I didn’t want to make a scene by forcing my way in. She’d be mad at me if I did that. She needs rest anyway, and I’m trying to give her space. My husband says I need to let her set boundaries, and I’m trying to do better with that.”

“I’m sure she knows you are trying, and there’s nothing wrong with worrying about your kid. I know she worries about you, too,” I told her.

Spring sat down, and the kitten jumped out of her mane and started rubbing against her.

“I know,” Spring said, sniffling and petting the adoring kitten. “But she’s getting older; she’s starting to transform from my little filly to a young mare. She’s thinking more complex thoughts. Her tastes are getting more sophisticated. She doesn’t depend on me as much anymore. Sometimes I feel like she goes out of her way to show how independent from me she is, and I respect that, I do, but I still see her hurting and all this pressure she’s under, and all I want to do is hug her and tell her everything will be alright, and have her believe me because she’d never believe her mommy could be wrong. In a few years, it will be me going to her for all the answers and reassurances. I’m just a simple village kirin; she’s the smart one attending this big school. She already knows more arithmetic and things from books than I do, my smart little filly.”

Oh, boy…I had no idea how to deal with this. I just wanted to go lay down…well, lay down after I checked in on my friends to make sure they were okay. This sounded like stuff Spring needed to talk to another adult about, preferably an older one who had gone through having their kids grow up. Was there a faculty member I knew had kids? Probably multiple, but I was sure Professor Applebloom had grown kids. This sounded like a good problem for Professor Applebloom to deal with, not me. Why was she venting to me?

She lifted Miss Pretty Purface back into her mane and stood up. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be venting to a student. I’m just worried about my daughter. She’s probably been worried about you. Maybe she’ll talk to you. If she does, can you try to reassure her that everything will be alright?”

I smiled again. “Yeah, that’s no problem. I would have done that anyway.”

She nodded. “Thank you. Lights-out has been pushed back an hour for your floor since I know everypony has been worried about their classmates. Do try to keep the noise down. The rest of the dorm is trying to sleep. I’ll be making my rounds up there right before the extended lights-out time to make sure everypony gets to sleep.”

“Mew! Mew!” Miss Pretty Purface declared.

She started to turn to go down a hall but paused. “Oh! And tell her that I am very proud of her for getting her cutie mark. It is very rare for a kirin to get a mark. I guess that kind of magic is just weak in our tribe, but most of us go our entire lives without one just fine. She is so special for getting one, even if the circumstances were scary.”

I blinked. I rarely paid much attention to ponies’ marks unless I saw them regularly, so I hadn’t even noticed that Spring and Summer didn’t have them—although Summer must have one now. I rarely thought about my own, which was a pair of quotation marks around a few letters with gaps between them. I honestly had no idea what my mark meant, though I never admitted that to anyone. Whenever anyone asked, I just told everyone that the meaning of ”Rd Bn Te Ls” was a secret only I knew. I considered dozens of things the mark could mean, but nothing ever seemed to line up right. The local CMC branch back home thought it was fascinating since letters, while not unheard of, were still rare in cutie marks. I really should start paying more attention to others’ marks.

Still, if I was going to encourage Summer, her new mark probably was an excellent place to start. We needed to impress Headmaster, and a kirin with a cutie mark certainly sounded impressive.

“I’ll be sure to tell her that,” I assured Spring.

Comments

[Numinos]

Oooh, a puzzle!

[Booster Spice]

The Headmaster is now played by Richard Picardo?

I dont think the quote is Road Best Traveled Least?

[monkeymaster1992]

I think his cutie mark stand for read between the lines

[AvoidingFever17]

“My ties to my mark were disrupted?!” I asked in horror as I tried to lift the covers to look at my flank.

...I've never heard of something like that!
Losing or even Disrupting a tie to a mark?
...only ONE pony has done something similar
And i know she wouldn't do anything like that anymore
So what caused this?

[AvoidingFever17]

He put a hand on the covers to stop me. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t take that much power to maintain that, and your mark has its own reserves separate from yours that typically kick in if something like that happens. Its first priority if something jeopardizes the connection is to restore the connection. It will do this even if completely severed. It knows where it belongs and devotes all power towards staying or returning there. This is also why rehumanization spells never worked on transformed that got their marks; the marks would fight back against any spell that tried to take their place away. Your mark is fine, and your strength will fully recover in a few hours. You should eat; that helps with the process.”

Oh so thats why
...hmmm
So if anyone wanted to...
NO! BAD!
sorry just a thought