Starlight needed more sleep than she got. Twilight still had her doing periodic friendship lessons, she was the school of friendship's only counselor, and along with that, hanging out with friends was part of the job description. Her days had already been packed before Twilight dropped the bomb that she would be taking over as principal, she still had her counselor duties, but now she had to teach and run the school as well. The amount of sleep she got each night was steadily declining.
Such was the stress in her life that quiet, calm moments like these were a great part of her day. She still needed alone time after all, right? Starlight was taking a much needed stroll through Everfree Forest, a lovely place really, she didn't understand how the citizens of Ponyville had been afraid of it for so long.
Last night, Starlight had seen a shooting star. She had wished for life to get easier, but she knew such a wish was impossible to grant, life was the way it was, and if it changed anytime soon, Starlight had an ominous feeling it might be for the worse.
Starlight had gotten lost in her thoughts, and almost fell into a hole in the middle of the path.
"wha? Since when was this here…?wha...?" Starlight gasped. She was standing at the edge what she had initially thought had been just a hole, in actuality however, it was a crater several hops across, but the most shocking thing was the pony in the middle. A small unicorn colt was lying in the bottom of the crater, he had a dirty, baby blue coat and a dark navy mane. He was also wearing broken glasses several sizes to large for him.
Starlight rushed down the side of the crater to the colt's side, she quickly assessed his injuries (not that bad, actually) and sent a beacon to twilight, asking for assistance. The colt was unconscious, but there was no sign of a major head injury, the only injuries he had were small scratches. Unusual for somepony who had created a crater this big, from what Starlight could tell, it was caused by an impact, not a magic surge. His lack of injuries seemed like a miracle, really.
Twilight arrived before too long, along with Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy.
"oh, gosh! Is he OK?" Fluttershy exclaimed as she gently flew down to Starlight and the colt.
"he's fine, I think." said Starlight, her quiet morning had very quickly evaporated. Guess she was right about things getting worse.
"Anyway, we should get him checked out at the Ponyville hospital, his injuries might be worse than they appear." Twilight said, authority in her voice. The other four mares nodded and Starlight levitated the colt along.
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"is anything wrong, Nurse Redheart?" Starlight asked the nurse.
"Not anything we can see, he just appears to be unconscious." Nurse Redheart said, obviously thinking about something. "there is one concerning thing though, no one knows him. Not one pony has ever seen him before."
"That is concerning..." Starlight trailed off. "Can I see him now?"
"I don't see why not." Nurse Redheart smiled before trotting off to see another patient. Starlight pushed open the door to see the colt, looking a lot cleaner now, lying peacefully on a bed, his glasses had been repaired and placed on the bedside table. Starlight wondered where he had come from, if what Nurse Redheart had said was true, then the efforts of the others (mane 6) had been in vain, they had gone out to try to find somepony who knew the colt, apparently with no luck. How far away from home was he? Was anypony looking for him? She had lots of questions, and no answer.
Starlight was forced out of her musings by a small movement. The colt's eyes twitched, before opening. He groaned and closed his eyes again. Starlight's eyes widened, he was waking up!
"are you OK?" she asked, concerned. The colts eyes opened again, but when he saw Starlight, his eyes grew large, all signs of fatigue gone.
"what in the…?" he whispered. Then he looked down at himself, and his eyes grew even larger. "WHAT?" he shouted, he jumped to his hooves and started hyperventilating.
"Calm down! you're OK!" Starlight tried to reason with him, but he just stared at her.
"This cannot be happening." he muttered, probably to himself. Starlight was very worried at this point, the poor colt was shivering, he was in a defensive position, and he was edging toward the door. Starlight supposed this might be normal for waking up in a strange place, with strange ponies, but it still worried her. She used magic to levitate his glasses onto his face, and he seemed to calm down a bit.
"see? OK!" Starlight said with a smile. The colt's eyes were still huge, but he wasn't hyperventilating anymore. "so, what's your name?" Starlight smiled again.
"Conan" what a strange name…
"I'm Starlight, nice to meet you!"
"Sure." was the only answer. Starlight's smile faltered, she could already tell this was going to be hard…
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Starlight hoped Twilight would be back sooner rather than later, she was still looking for anypony who knew Conan, and in the mean time, there was no reason to keep him at the hospital, so Starlight had brought him back to the school. From the way introductions had gone, she thought she might like to enroll him in the school, his later actions only strengthened this desire, it was obvious he needed some lessons.
Everypony he met, he would stare at them critically, he was wary of everypony, including Starlight.
He didn't talk much at all, and kept looking around anxiously. Other than that, he seemed fine. Well, except for one thing... He looked at absolutely everything he saw with wonder. The students, the castle, and the classes (what he saw of them). Starlight thought this was normal. New ponies usually looked at these things with as much wonder as he did, they were unusual after all, but the thing that had worried Starlight was his reaction to her magic. The only thing she had done was teleport some scrolls to her she needed for lesson plans, and he had freaked out, backing against the wall and glaring at her horn, like it had offended him!
"How did you do that?" he said, sounding astonished.
"You mean my magic?" Starlight was confused, had Conan never seen a unicorn use their horn before? That didn't make sense, he was a unicorn himself after all…
"yeah. That." he said, after hesitating for longer than Starlight thought was necessary. Starlight was kinda disturbed, but she didn't do anything about it, she had work to do after all.
"Hey Conan, do you wanna watch me teach?" Starlight asked, maybe this way, she could get Conan to talk to her more.
"What does this school teach anyway?" Conan asked, without giving an answer, Starlight noted. She hadn't had time earlier to really tell him anything, she had lost a lot of time to work on lesson plans this morning because she was waiting for Conan to wake up in the hospital.
"Oh, It's a school of friendship! The only one of it's kind." Starlight beamed proudly. Conan raised an eyebrow.
"A school for learning how to be friends?" he said, he obviously didn't believe her.
"Yup! I bet you'll believe me if you come to my lesson!" She said, still smiling.Conan may think it's a silly idea now, a lot of ponies did, but they all discovered how great an idea it was, and Conan would too! Starlight thought.
"why not." he sighed. Starlight grinned. She gathered the materials she would need and headed off toward the classroom.
Since every teacher in the school was absent, Starlight was holding one big combined class today. It consisted of the usual things each teacher included, plus a little extra starlight always added into her lessons. The main topic today was usually a boring one: Ancient Friendships Of Equestria. All the students usually dozed off in this class, but today Starlight was going to have them put on an impromptu performance of the story they were learning, She was sure everypony was going to love it.
"OK class, as you have been told, Princess Twilight and her friends are away for today, so I will be teaching Ancient Friendships Of Equestria. But I have a twist! We will all be playing the roles in the story, should be fun, right?" The students looked excited, whispers rose up about what the roles were going to be, and what kind of part they would like, but everyone hushed a bit when one student asked,
"Professor, who's that?" the being who had spoken up was Smolder, the school's only dragon student. She was of course pointing to Conan, who just stared at her.
"Oh, he's Conan. he's going to be observing our class today, please welcome him." Starlight introduced him. Smolder just tilted her head before sitting back down.
The class carried on for several hours, during that time, there was lots of laughter, mistakes, and fun. Conan sat next to Starlight and watched. Whenever Starlight looked down at him, she shuddered slightly, there was something about his eyes, he was watching so intensely, there was emotion there too, but even Starlight, who prided herself as an expert of emotions, (she was the guidance counselor after all) couldn't identify what it was.
Eventually, class ended, a welcome feeling for most, a bittersweet feeling to others. Smolder came up to Conan after most other students had left, her friends promising to meet up later.
"So, who are you?" she asked, straight to the point. Conan looked puzzled for a second before resuming his cold stare once again.
"what do you mean? Starlight told everyone who I was at the beginning of class." he said, even more cautious than when he had been speaking to Starlight. She couldn't blame him, if this was his first time meeting a dragon, anypony would understand.
"No, she told everyone your name. That tells us nothing, except that you have a weird name." Smolder returned easily.
"Smolder..." Starlight sighed. Smolder could be one of the more… headstrong students. Having come from a dragon family, Smolder was even less accustomed to friendship than the other students.
"I'm aware." Conan stated, not sounding offended at all.
"Actually, Conan is the reason the rest of the professors aren't here today." Starlight started. Smolder raised an eyebrow, silently asking for her to continue. "he fell out of the sky last night, and no pony seems to know him. The others are out looking for anypony who might know him."
"Then why not just ask him?" Smolder asked, pointedly looking at Conan.
"I have, he's just being vague." Starlight glared at Conan too, who just shrugged unapologetically. Starlight had actually asked him about ponies he knew, he said he didn't know anypony, which made no sense. When she had asked about where he came from, he had shrugged like he just did. The only thing he really told them was his name.
"why not take him to the Crusaders? They can talk to anyone! Plus, he has no cutie mark, so they would probably jump at the chance." Smolder suggested. Starlight thought about it, that might actually help, maybe talking to ponies his own age would make him open up.
"who're the Crusaders?" Conan asked, but at that moment, a purple magic aura surrounded the doors, pushing them open to reveal the princess of friendship, and her five best friends.
"Twilight!" Starlight called, running over to her teacher. They had a quick greeting before turning to look at Conan, who had gotten ten times more defensive looking since the doors had opened.
"So he is awake!" Twilight smiled and trotted over to him. His eyes narrowed as she approached.
"Everypony, meet Conan!" Starlight announced. Conan glared at Twilight, who took notice of his expression. Twilight frowned and turned to Starlight.
"Is he always like this?" she asked, somewhat concerned. Starlight frowned as well and shook her head. The forgotten Smolder cleared her throat.
"We were talking about taking him to the Crusaders, unless you found something?"
"Oh, right. We ended up talking to a lot of ponies, but no one had ever heard of a pony fitting his description, much less knew him." Twilight said sounding kinda down.
"So, can I take him to the Crusaders?" Smolder said, sounding almost bored.
"of course, sorry about this, Smolder!" Starlight said.
"Like I asked earlier, who are the Crusaders?" Conan was still glaring at Twilight, a fact that made her squirm.
"Someponies who can hopefully help us out!" Smolder said, sounding mischievous. Conan sighed and made his way out the door after Smolder, who had just left.
"He seemed mad at me..." Twilight said, sounding guilty.
"I couldn't guess why, he's been relatively calm and happy since waking up." Starlight walked over to Twilight. "well, except for a few odd things… "
"Like what, darling?" Asked Rarity.
"well…" Starlight explained his reaction upon waking up, his actions when other ponies tried to talk to him, and strangest of all, his reaction to her spell. Everypony in the room was looking rather concerned by the end of it, especially about the last story.
"It's almost like he's never met a pony before." Rainbow Dash commented.
"That reminds me, when I asked him about the ponies he knew, he just said he didn't know anypony. He didn't say anything about other beings."
"what other beings would he know? From what you told us, he didn't seem to recognize any of the students either." Twilight noted.
"hmmm yeah, you're right. However, what other conclusion can we come to? We know next to nothing about the guy." Starlight said, everyone was deep in thought when they heard a voice they all knew too well say
"Well I might have an idea!"
