"Have you ever stopped and realized that our friendship consists mostly of petty jabs and smartass comebacks?"
"No, but yo momma has."
Graphite Swirl rolled her eyes and chuckled as she boarded the bus. "Can I get a transfer, please?" she asked the bus driver, dropping her four bits into the change slot. The gruff-looking stallion grunted and put a white-and-blue Pace card through the card slot. "Thank you," Graphite said politely. She levitated the card into her saddlebag, which was bigger than any other pony's at Halter College, and sat down. Zodiac followed suit, inserting her Pace pass and taking it back before sitting down next to Graphite.
"Do you reckon Jibber Jabber's gonna come?" Graphite asked, looking out the window.
"We'll know when the bus leaves," Zodiac said.
"Fair point."
Sure enough, the very last pony to board was Jibber Jabber, a green-eyed yellow mare with an exclamation point for a cutie mark and a green headband in her short purple mane. She caught her breath as the system accepted her pass.
"'ey, Jibber Jabber!" Zodiac called, getting the mare's attention.
"Hi, guys!" Jibber Jabber exclaimed a wee bit too loudly, causing Zodiac and Graphite, both of whom wore hearing aids, to wince.
Graphite recovered first. "Come sit," she said, slapping the seat next to her with her hoof.
"I'm good," Jibber Jabber said.
Graphite and Zodiac looked at each other and shrugged.
Several minutes passed before anypony but Jibber Jabber spoke. "Do you remember the first time we met?" Graphite asked.
"Yeah! In middle school!" Jibber Jabber exclaimed.
"Not you, JJ," Graphite laughed, "Zodiac!"
"Oooooooh."
Zodiac chuckled. "Yeah, sort of. Why?"
"No particular reason, really," Graphite said. "I just have a good memory for relatively insignificant details."
"You mean details not relating to coursework?"
"Exactly."
Graphite Swirl sat at the bus stop at Halter College after her third day of classes ever at the school. She glanced at her watch, which read ten to two, and ran a hoof through her light pink mane. The bus didn't come for another twenty minutes, and it was practically reaching boiling point outside. She laid her head on her hooves and closed her eyes.
"Hey. Hey! You awake over here?" somepony asked after a few minutes, kicking her side.
"Ouch! Yes! Yes! I'm awake, for Celestia's sake!" Graphite exclaimed, sitting up. Her apparent tormentor was a white pegasus with green eyes, a shaggy green mane, and the sign of the Leo for a cutie mark.
"Good," the pegasus said. "I'd hate to sleep through the bus arriving myself."
"I wasn't even sleeping," Graphite mumbled, putting her head back on her hooves but keeping her eyes open.
"Suuuuuure you weren't." The other mare settled down next to her. "I'm Zodiac, by the way."
"Graphite Swirl."
"Really?" Zodiac took in the unicorn's dark-ish gray coat, pink mane and bright pinkish-purple eyes. "You look more like a Sarah to me."
Who even names a pony Sarah, anyway? Graphite reflected, dimly aware of Jibber Jabber jabbering on. A hoof to the side jolted her out of her thoughts.
"Hey, Graphite, you're not still in la-la land, are you?" Zodiac said.
"What? No! Ouch! I'm awake! For Celestia's sake, I'm awake!" Graphite exclaimed.
"I never said you weren't," Zodiac said, grinning.
Graphite blushed. "Of course you didn't," she said, chuckling awkwardly.
"Anyway…" Zodiac nodded at the window. Graphite looked out to find that the bus had stopped at the red-roofed Northwest Transportation Center.
"Oh, crap. What would I do without you?" she said, hoisting her saddlebags onto her back and disembarking in a rush.
"Probably miss your stop or something, I dunno," Zodiac said to herself, chuckling as Jibber Jabber went off again.