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

by Halira

Chapter 23

We sat in the classroom where the chess club met in usually. As far as I knew, no one used this classroom for anything else since the only things here were a few tables, chairs, and chess sets. I sat, staring at the chessboard. I reached with my mouth and moved an earth pony forward before sitting back and waiting for Prim’s move.

“Why do you do that?”

I looked up at her. “What?”

She looked at my piece. “Why do you always make the same opening move? You always move the earth pony in front of Luna forward to start the game.”

I shrugged. “It works for me. It gives me plenty of options to move more versatile pieces. I beat you most of the time. Why change a game plan that works?”

She snorted and levitated forward one of her pegasi from behind an earth pony. Prim tended to change up her opening moves every game. Maybe she was trying to be less predictable, but it rarely helped her. In my opinion, a sound strategy outweighed throwing my opponent off their game with unpredictability. It didn’t matter if she could predict my opening move; I had a plan and would keep to it until there was a need to change it.

I moved an earth pony forward from in front of my Celestia.

Prim smirked and moved her pegasi back to its opening position. Okay…that wasn’t a good way to develop the board.

I moved a unicorn out.

She moved that same pegasus again, jumping to a different space, safe from my unicorn.

I moved Luna forward.

Prim retreated her pegasus back to the original opening position, and only now did I realize her strategy. Crud, I had to get that pegasi off the board next time she moved it, but there was no move I could make that would guarantee I could take it. Prim was going to force a draw by the threefold repetition rule.

“That’s not a winning strategy,” I growled.

She smirked deeper. “But it isn’t a losing one either. If I have an overall losing record against you, it is better to force the draw than suffer defeat.”

“That’s just cheap! That’s abusing an obscure rule!” I fussed.

She smiled broadly. “Are you going to cry over it?”

“No!” I snapped. “It just defeats the whole reason for playing the game if you are going to force a draw straight out of the gate. Where’s all that talk of being superior? You aren’t very superior if you don’t win.”

She glared at me and stomped a hoof on the table, knocking over most of the chess pieces. “Oh, is that how it is? You’re always so insufferably clever, but when I decide to do something clever, you pitch a fit! You’re a hypocrite.”

“No, I’m not!” I shouted back. I then blinked in confusion. “You think I’m clever?”

“The alternative is saying some complete idiot is repeatedly beating me, and I won’t have that,” Prim hissed. “You’re either clever, or I’m so stupid I can rarely beat an idiot. You’ll find me having anything good to say about you exceedingly rare, so take the compliment I graciously gave you and like it, dirt pony!”

“You aren’t supposed to call me that,” I growled.

“The human isn’t here to give me detention, and it's your word versus mine that I said it,” Prim haughtily replied.

I groaned. “Why did I decide to deal with you today?”

Prim’s ears sagged. “Because neither of us want to deal with the thought of death, and fighting with each other is a good distraction.”

The fight left me as I was forced to think about the dead professor again, and I laid my head down on the table.

“Oh yeah,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Prim said quietly.

I looked at her. “Did you know him? Did you have to do any counseling with him?”

She shook her head. “I saw him once while visiting the fourth-year dorm. I didn’t speak to him. He was disgusting, but he reminded me of what my great-grandmare was like before she passed away—just the way he looked like he was faded. Hearing he died just hit me with thoughts of my great-grandmare again. I miss her.” She shook her head. “Not that it is any of your business!”

I didn’t snap back. “I met him. I didn’t get to know him, but he seemed nice. I’ve never known of anyone I met dying before. I’ve never had to deal with death.”

“Lucky you,” she spat. “I cried for a week when my great-grandmare died. She was the only pony in my wretched family who didn’t think it was a mistake that I was ahead of my rotten brother to inherit. It isn’t even like I’m going to inherit soon anyway. My grandmare is still well, and my mother is next in line after her. I’ll be old before anypony needs to worry about me inheriting, but they’re all so eager to see me fail and be dismissed. They all hate me and think my brother is oh-so-charming, oh-so-clever, oh-so-perfect, and oh-so-much-better-than-me. He’d have murdered me in the womb if he could.”

“You don’t have anyone to vent to, do you?” I asked.

“No, I don’t have anypony to vent to, dirt pony,” Prim hissed once again. “And why do you Earthlings have to use words like that? Anyone? Just say anypony like a real pony.”

“I am a real pony,” I insisted. “I was born a pony, as were my parents. My grandparents were human before being ponies, but we’ve been ponies for three generations. We use the term anyone because there are more people than just ponies.”

“If they aren’t ponies, they don’t matter,” Prim asserted.

I slammed a hoof down on the table. “You are in this school because a human thought there was something worthwhile about you. Professor Newman was the one who chose you out there of thousands of possible students. Your riches alone couldn’t get you in. I personally don’t see what she thought was worthwhile.”

Prim flattened her ears. “What are you talking about?”

“Professor Newman was the one who went through selecting students for admission out of all the applicants and presented her choices to Headmaster for approval. She’s basically the admissions officer for the school. She researched every student here, so she knows everything about them, and for some reason, she decided to let you in.”

Prim bared her teeth. “And she let my brother in as well.”

I shrugged. “Maybe that’s the reason why. Maybe she wants to see the two of you face off and prove yourselves against one another and see who is the worthy heir.”

Prim flicked her tail violently. “She should not be meddling in my family’s affairs!”

I smirked. “What would have happened if Red got admitted and you didn’t?”

She stared at me for a few seconds, then looked away.

“He’d probably supplant me,” she whispered.

“And she could have done that, just removed you from being heir, but she didn’t. She’s giving you your chance to prove yourself. How about getting off your high horse and be grateful that a non-pony decided to give you a chance.”

Her sneer returned. “Oh, but she could have also admitted me and left him out. She’s giving him a chance as well. If she researched everypony here so well, she’d know how vile he is and would have stopped him. His envy and lust for my position knows no bounds. He has been plotting my downfall since we were six.”

“Really? Six?” I asked skeptically. “I doubt it. I’m sure he is now, but a six-year-old doesn’t have that kind of drive.”

“You don’t know my brother as well as you think you do. Red’s only desire is everything he doesn't have,” Prim said, but only with a hint of anger. Her tone was mostly filled with defeat. “You think I’m vile? That only means you haven’t paid my brother as much attention as you should.”

“He’s vile to you, I’ll admit that, but you go out of your way to show you deserve it,” I said, looking her in the eyes. “Maybe if you were a little nicer to others, you wouldn’t be fighting for your position.”

“It is my duty as heir to assert my family’s social standing. I’m not going to belittle myself to commoners,” Prim replied.

“But you’ll kiss some noble filly’s rear end if she outranks you, right?” I asked, smiling. I knew she had to hate that. I had seen how forced her smiles were around those noble fillies.

She looked me back in the eyes. “If that’s what standing calls for, then yes. I would embarrass myself and my family if I didn’t. I wouldn’t expect you to understand that. You commoners don’t know your place or social structure. Everything you do is an embarrassment. I’d educate you, but I think it is beyond your capability to understand.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how you look at yourself in the mirror. Do you have no desire at all to be better than what you are? What’s the point of school if we don’t grow?”

She tilted her head. “What’s your goal for being at this school, Earthling? Do you just want to have fun and play with magic you normally wouldn’t? I know you’re into alchemy. How can you do that back on Earth when the ingredients are hard to come by outside Equestria? You’ll spend four years here, if you’re fortunate, learning all those skills you’ll never be able to use, then you’ll return to your forgotten farm in your forgotten town and farm your namesake food stock. All that knowledge gained, yet the natural order will continue, unchanged by whatever growth you believe you’ve had. You are the most pointless student here. I’m at least fighting for my birthright. What are you doing? Maybe Headmaster and Professor Newman enjoy watching ponies struggle against the pointlessness of it all. In the end, you’ll always end up a farmer or perhaps become involved in some other common trade of the lowborn, if you are adventurous, but never a mage, and my brother or I will lead our house, leaving the other to try to squeak out a living as a common bureaucrat, and the choice will be made on Headmaster’s whim, yet it will still maintain the natural order of things. Humans have a sickening idea of fun. Equestria was better without contact from Earth.”

It hurt, but she had landed a strong blow with those words. What was I going to do after graduation? She was right about my prospects as an alchemist on Earth. I couldn’t even import most of the things I would need because they either were contraband at the portal, or they were something I would have to harvest myself because there was no market for the item. For the first time, it hit me that if I wanted to be an alchemist, I had to stay in Equestria. Was I ready to leave Earth behind for good? Would I even be able to? I had no idea what Equestria’s immigration laws were.

Prim stood up, looking smug. “I think I have won today’s game. Thank you for the distraction, but I need to return to studying. As I said, I have my birthright to protect. Enjoy contemplating your humble future.”

I watched her leave, then looked at the chess set with its toppled pony pieces. No one had survived on that field of battle. Prim thought she won today, or at least did a draw, but I think we had both lost.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

A strange game.

The only winning move.

Is not to play.

[psodude]

So I just can't help it. I think of professor Newman as a Newman female from PSO the game and now it's stuck. Can't wait for more.

[AvoidingFever17]

“If they aren’t ponies, they don’t matter,” Prim asserted.

Prim
If i could tell you how mad i am right now? This story would become M rated just by my words alone
So sit down and shut up before i make The Original ETS outbreak look like a minor case of Flu for you

[AvoidingFever17]

Prim stood up, looking smug. “I think I have won today’s game. Thank you for the distraction, but I need to return to studying. As I said, I have my birthright to protect. Enjoy contemplating your humble future.”

Oh prim
...i sense there's a lot of Trauma but also Fear in you
Perhaps You are scared as well
I know Diamond Tiara would know what its like
You will see in time