CHAPTER 5

My sophomore year was rather uneventful, and was to me, just another year of learning the incredible, impressive amount of practically useless information that somepony decided all officers needed to know. It was more drill, though now in the midmorning, more cavalry strategy, more advanced geography, and more Shining Armor living in the same dorm with me. More of him filling my nights with behavior that would've only been perfectly acceptable at a cotillion or in royal court.

I knew I got on his nerves. I have many bad habits apparently, and the worst, most reprehensible of which is the fact that I don't beat around the bush. If I have something to say, I just say it. It's not that I use profane language much, and I don't intentionally say insulting things to anypony. I just say what's on my mind exactly as the though sits there. The real problem though, was that I didn't know there was a proper way to inform somepony that you'd be getting in late, that it was bad manners to practice sword techniques indoors, or that there was a single socially acceptable way to discuss how lunch tasted. I did not know these things, and to be honest, I didn't really care. I think the fact that I obviously didn't care bothered Shining more than the actions themselves.

One evening, after retiring to our dorm, I had a long report to write on small unit tactics. I put on a pot of coffee, grabbed a cup of the brew, and collapsed onto a comfortable chair to start writing. Soon enough, my humble and permissive roommate came out of his bedroom.

"Drake...what in Equestria is that smell...is that coffee?" He asked.

"Yep. Go get a cup, Shining." I answered. "It's good stuff."

"I will do nothing of the sort." He replied. "It's 7 o clock at night. You know you won't be able to get a minute's sleep if you drink that stuff, and we have classes tomorrow." I looked into my mug and swirled the dark liquid.

"Never bothered me before." I stated simply. "It's just coffee. Don't drop a load."

"Drop a...Drake, sometimes you are intolerable...incorrigible even." He sputtered.

"Yeah, well..." I I sighed. "...and sometimes, you can be a real girlycolt."

"Girlycolt?! How do you even come to that conclusion, Drake?!"

"No stallion...anywhere brushes his mane that much in the morning." I explained. High tea at four? And just the idea that you know as much as you do about flower arrangement makes me question sometimes."

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying the more finer things in life." He said with a snobbish tone. "You should try it sometime. You might actually like it."

"And you should try something that actually involves getting your hooves dirty." I shot back. "Go camping, get in a fight, drink coffee and talk to a filly."

"Well, you don't exactly have an impressive love life either." He pouted. "And besides, why would I want to do those things in the first place?"

"I dunno." I shrugged. "Why wouldn't you?"

"Because...because..." He stammered angrily.

"Uh-huh..."

"Because they're beneath me!" He stated.

"Oh? So I'm beneath you." I said, giving him an unimpressed look.

"What...no...well...maybe some of the things you do." He answered. "I don't know why you act that way. You're an intelligent sort of stallion, and have all the making of a great military officer. But yet, you choose to act like a...a base, common thug sometimes."

"Well, it may be because I'm not a spoiled rich colt. I wasn't born into some life in a palace where I had meals served to me by some poor hardworking butler whose first name you probably don't even know." I scolded, finally tired of this entire routine. "I had to work for everything I got, and when I had time for fun, I didn't have some frilly nanny pampering me and having me play with other stuck-up rich ponies. Wanna know why I am the way I am, Shining? It's because I AM a common pony. This is how all the little ponies act, and your breed is in the minority. Now I have a report to write, so let me to it. Go stick all that in your fancy meerschaum pipe and smoke it." I turned back to my report and began to write as I heard the door to Shining Armor's bedroom slam shut.

The next morning, I woke up and began getting ready for class. This to me meant brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink, running a brush through my mane a few times, and gathering up all of my books and papers for my various classes and placing them into my saddlebags. It was while I was on this last phase of my morning ritual that Shining came out of his bedroom. I didn't even bother to acknowledge that he had entered the room. I just knew that he was going to tear into me for what I'd said the night before. He had it coming, with his hoity-toity remarks, but I still had to live with him for two and a half more years, and it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't have made an enemy of Shining. Surprisingly though, Shining didn't say anything offensive. In fact, it was just the opposite.

"Um...Drake?" He said in a low voice. I turned and saw that his mane was a bit more disheveled than normal, and he was looking more at the floorboards than he was me.

"Yeah?" I replied in a half-hearted tone.

"I just wanted to say...well..." He let out a sigh. "You always say exactly what's on your mind, Drake. I think I'll take a page from your book. Maybe I was wrong in judging your lifestyle and your way of doing things. You're right, Drake...you're right, damn it all. I was born rich and raised to be an aristocrat. The way I do things...the way I act, it's the way I was taught to be. I am an aristocrat, and this is just the way we act. This is the way we think, and I don't think anything is going to change that. I rather like my life, and I'm quite comfortable with the way things are for me, just so you know."

"That, I can understand." I nodded.

"That said, you weren't born into the life I was. There are hundreds of thousands of ponies who will never have what I have. Good ponies. Stallions and Mares who have jobs and families and their own happy lives, and never will have to spend two hours getting ready for a gala, or learn how to properly drink tea. You have a different way of thinking than I do, but that doesn't mean you're wrong or bad or anything of the sort. We're just from different castes, and that's why we contest each other so much."

"Yep." I muttered.

"So...I apologize, I suppose. I may have said some things I shouldn't have. In fact, if I'm guilty of just one trespass, it's that I tried to force you to be more like me. You're way too stubborn for that." He said the last bit with a slight smile.

"Well..." I said, slightly taken aback by his soliloquy. "S'alright, I guess." I finally answered. "I mean, we've gotten along pretty well so far to have this whole 'Prince and the Pauper' thing going on."

"Well, to be honest Drake, I haven't had that much experience in being around ponies as...dirt poor as you." I gave him a look that started out as baleful, but soon turned to a grin when I noticed he was stifling a laugh.

"Well, I ain't had much experience with snooty, highfalutin' aristocrats either." I smirked.

"Droll, Drake." He said, rolling his eyes. "Well, we'd better get ready for class then."

"Yep." I replied, tossing my saddlebags onto my back. As we walked out the door, the only thought on my mind was 'Wow, it has a sense of humor.'