Chapter three
The Professor blinked. "An alicorn? I thought they were just a myth."
Flamerunner sighed, trying to think of a way to describe her situation. A clock ticked on the classroom wall with each passing second. Tick… Tock… Tick… Tock. The white filly watched as the second hand swirled around the twelve numbers. Finally, she turned back to the stallion.
"Lemme show you." She crouched down head first and slipped the purple school uniform off. Once it hit the floor, Flamerunner straightened up and spread her wings. For a moment, the professor just stood in place with his mouth wide open. Then, he closed it and regained his composure.
"Fascinating!" He exclaimed, circling around the filly. The stallion's horn glowed light blue and he floated a clipboard and pencil above his effortlessly. The pencil began to scribble notes furiously as he examined Flamerunner; the professor paused.
"And that… That power… It's because you're an alicorn that your aura reacted the way it did?"
"Well, it's never happened before… But it's only the fifth time I've tried using magic." The white filly replied, watching the professor circle around her.
"How did you control it?" He asked.
"I didn't; it was more like my power was controlling me." The white filly shuddered at the memory that was reality not long ago. The professor paused for a moment and the pencil stopped, for he was deep in thought.
"Does anypony else know about this?"
"Just my mom." Another pause.
"Well, Flamerunner," the professor began, "I look forward to teaching you everything I know." The clipboard and pencil floated back over to the stallion's desk, and the blue aura that was around them disappeared.
"Wait, that's it?" The white filly couldn't believe what she was hearing; after her magic went out of control, the stallion was still willing to teach her!
"Actually, that's not it. To help you learn how to control your incredible strength, starting tomorrow, I'll need you to stay after school every day for an extra hour."
"A whole HOUR!?" Flamerunner squeaked, her orange eyes wide.
"Yes; unless you want what happened in class today to repeat itself." Once again, the white filly shuddered.
"No, that's okay… I'll stay after…"
"Wonderful," the professor smiled, "I'll see you tomorrow, then."
Flamerunner trotted out of the unicorn building with her mouth curved up in a smile; she was going to learn magic! Ponies were scattered everywhere in the front of the three buildings; some were talking, some trotted over to their friends, and others just made their way to their next class. After deep thought, Flamerunner remembered that she had basic mathematics next. She turned toward the middle building and was about to begin walking over to it, but then froze when she heard a cry.
"FLAMERUNNERRRR!"
The white filly turned to the direction that the voice came from, and realized who it was immediately. In a blur of light blue and all the colors of the rainbow, the pegasus pony that she had met before crashed into her from the sky.
"Owwww…" Flamerunner rubbed her head in the spot Rainbowdash had caused her to fall on. "Hey! What's the big idea!?" The rainbow pony slowly got back up to her feet, opening and closing her wings.
"Sorry 'bout that," She said with a guilty smile, "I've really gotta work on my landing."
"You can say that again." The white filly replied, rolling her eyes. "First of all, you had your wings closed before you even touched the ground. You can't just do that and think you're gonna land okay; 'cause you're not."
Rainbowdash was about to say something else, but then narrowed her eyes suspiciously and fixed them on Flamerunner's.
"You know a lot about flying for a unicorn pony." She said slowly.
"Oh, well um… Uh…" The white filly looked at the ground, wondering how to cover for her carelessness.
"Oh, that's right!" Rainbowdash exclaimed with a smile, "How could I forget? You're Spitfire's daughter; I'm sure you know all kinds of stuff about flying!"
Flamerunner laughed nervously, relieved. "Haha, yeah. Even though I don't have wings, my mom tried to teach me everything she knew." She waited for a response with satisfied closed eyes and a tilted back head, then realized there was silence from the rainbow pony. The white filly opened one of her eyes to see what was going on. Rainbowdash was just staring at her with huge, sparkling pink eyes.
"…Everything..?" She murmured, almost as if she was staring through Flamerunner and her eyes had taken her somewhere else.
"Um, yeah. Everything."
For a moment, everything was silent and still.
"PLEASE TEACH MEEEE!" Rainbowdash begged, falling to her knees and crying tears of hope. Flamerunner looked around nervously.
"Shhh! Everypony's staring at us!" She hissed through the gritted teeth of a nervous smile.
"PLEEEEAAASEE!" The rainbow pony cried again, her hoofs clapped together.
"Fine, fine, I will! Just shut up!" Flamerunner snapped, losing her patience. At once, Rainbowdash stopped crying and shot up to her hoofs, her eyes wide once again.
"You will?" She asked, almost as if she didn't believe the white filly.
"Yeah, sure. I will." She rolled her eyes.
"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHAN KYOU" Rainbowdash yelled, flying around in small circles.
"Don't mention it." Flamerunner mumbled over the rainbow pony's continuous thanking, an annoyed look on her face as she made her way to the main building for math class.
The white filly stepped into the classroom, on time for once, and looked around at all of the ponies socializing. The format of the tables and booths was the same as the last class, except everything was reversed; the chalkboard was on the far end of the room.
"Ah! You must be Flamerunner!"
Flamerunner looked up to see a dark purple mare with a long, blond mane.
"My name is Lillyleaf; I'm so excited to have you as my new math student! I've already heard so much about you!"
"Like what?" The white filly asked warily.
"I've heard from some of my students that you're very skilled with magic!" The teacher answered cheerfully.
Already? Flamerunner thought, shocked by how fast the news got around. The late bell rang; three chimes.
"Anyway, you can take a seat right there, next to Roselu- …. Is she late again?" Lillyleaf sighed. "Oh, well. Go ahead and sit next to Vinyl Scratch." She pointed to a large empty spot in the booth. With a nod, Flamerunner walked nonchalantly over to the booth slot, slid past other students, and sat down next to another white filly with a dark and light blue mane; she wore black and purple shades over her eyes.
"Sup." She said simply, glancing at Flamerunner before looking back at the chalkboard.
"Hey." The flame-maned filly replied. Lillyleaf trotted to the front of the class and turned to face everypony.
"Good morning, class! Today, we're going to learn about the joys of long divis-" She was interrupted by the door being swung open and a large, buff, brown pegasus entered the classroom, dragging in a white filly with a dark and light pink colored mane by the arm. The filly's hind legs dragged on the ground, and she had an annoyed look on her face.
"What's the meaning of this?" The teacher asked, sounding both confused and angry.
"I caught this one trying to sneak into the pegasus classes with paper wings." The pegasus stallion sneered, spitting the words 'paper wings' like they were an insult.
"It's not fair!" The pink-maned pony cried, her voice squeaking. "All of the classes should be open for everypony; just because somepony has fancy wings shouldn't make them any better than us earthponies!" She spat the words 'fancy wings' like they were an insult.
"But how would you even take part in the pegasus classes if you can't fly, Roseluck?" Lillyleaf sighed, sounding scornful.
"Well… Um… You could just… Uh… JUSTICE FOR EVERYPONY!" She yelled, clearly not knowing how to respond. There was a groan from Lillyleaf. Flamerunner smiled.
She liked this pony.