"Yeah being a soldier's dumb anyway.  There are plenty of big and tough ponies already doing that anyway...and you can't just start from the top..." Diamond Tiara was willing to concede that she was probably never going to be in the military.  It would pretty prestigious to be on top of the military, though.

"Why can't I be a noble, though?  If I'm good enough, I can be anything I want." She raised an eyebrow at the colt.  She knew a little bit about Canterlot life, but she didn't know it personally.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:23, Mon 29 Oct 2012.

The colt rolled his eyes and set his chin down atop folded hooves.  "It's 'cause you weren't born right.  At least, that's how they see it." he explained.  He wasn't speaking from personal experience... he'd never even left Ponyville, after all.  But Merriweather had voiced her opinions on the matter before when she thought he wasn't around to hear it, and he'd even heard Ponies like Fung and Widget comment before as well.

"The whole noble thing in Canterlot is like a super-exclusive club, and the only way you get in is if you're part of the families that started it.  So even if you're really rich... like you are... it doesn't matter 'cause you were born here in Ponyville like me.  They'll never see anyone else as being 'good enough' for them." he continued.  He didn't really understand it himself, to be honest... it just seemed dumb to be that self-absorbed.  "Besides, to hear the grown-ups talk about it, you don't wanna be part of that anyway.  They always say the nobles are all stuck-up and vain, plus they backstab each other a lot.  Ask your Dad about it sometime -- I'm sure he's dealt with them before.  Mom always says they're all just trying to lick Princess Celestia's horseshoes to get favor."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:29, Mon 29 Oct 2012.

Diamond Tiara was stung to the heart by the first sentence and she couldn't stop herself from interrupting him before he could really start his second sentence. "I WAS born right!"

That was way, way louder than she ever intended to speak.  Putting her hooves over her mouth as her eyes went wide, she fell silent.

Meadow Lark was indeed cut short by that outburst and even Silver Spoon was jarred from her reverie over it.  The two just sort of gawked at their friend for a moment before the colt spoke up.

"Whoa, relax.  I didn't mean anything by it.  Lemme explain..." he said before clarifying his point.  Still... wow... what was that about?

Diamond Tiara stared on in silence with her hooves still firmly over her face as Meadow Lark explained.  A few moments into the silence that followed Meadow Lark's full explanation, she took her hooves away from her mouth.  Quiet, faltering words passed her lips in response.  "Well...maybe I could fix them or something, I mean...if leading's my talent, I could lead a group that would...I...mean.  I could teach them to..."

"You're right, I'll ask daddy about it..." She said at a more normal volume as she looked away, trying to think of anything but what she just did.

Diamond Tiara's sudden shift from haughty to timid put a look of worry on her friends' faces.  Well, at least second for Silver Spoon... her first expression was to fix Meadow Lark with a 'what did you do?!' glare.  He rubbed the back of his head with a hoof as he tried to figure out what to say... the problem was that he was never really very good with words.  Not like either of the girls.  Just too honest for his own good.

"Well... I suppose if anypony could do it, it'd be someone stubborn like you." he chimed in.  "Besides, it could use the change if you ask me.  It's no good right now as it is and I bet things would be a lot better if you mixed it up someday."

"Yeah, then you could make us Canterlot Elite."  Silver Spoon giggled.

"That's just more of the same."

"That was a joke, dummy."

"And that's why your Cutie Mark isn't for stand-up comedy."

"Yeah, maybe..." Diamond Tiara commented as she fell into another silence.  She tried to make what was left of her juice and sandwich last as long as she could.  If her mouth was full, she wouldn't be able to say anything unbecoming, again.  She was lucky that her friends were just confused and scared, rather than mad at her.  Even the sandwich tasted a little worse as she ate it with a frown.

"Um... look, Diamond Tiara..." Meadow Lark chanced softly. "I don't know what I said, but I'm sorry if I was rude or something.  I mean, I wasn't saying anything bad about being born rich or anything.  You and Silver Spoon are really lucky that way."

"Luck's got very little to do with it though.  Our families work very hard for our Bits." Silver Spoon clarified.

"Now don't you get started too..."

Diamond Tiara looked up at him, then at Silver Spoon.  She chewed her sandwich until it was finally gone.  It wasn't Meadow Lark's fault, really, even if she still felt mad at the idea of what he had said.  Still, she needed to say something so they'd forget about all of this.  "It's not like that, and I didn't mean to freak out like that, but...I..."

She tried to force the words out, she really did.

Frankly, Meadow Lark was worried.  This was just like when Diamond Tiara got all stuttery when they were in trouble together.  There was something that the filly just really didn't want to fess up to... he'd given her an out before to spare her and was quick to do so again.

"Hey, forget about it.  Canterlot's far away and there's no use in getting all worked up about a bunch of stupid nobleponies." he waved a hoof dismissively.  "Especially not when we can talk about Silver Spoon having a crush on Fung Shui."

The filly's eyes widened briefly, but she was quick to put on a poker face.  "I'll have you know that there is nothing of the sort.  I simply admire his skills as a dancer.  That's why I'm in his classes, after all."

"So says the queen of ulterior motives."

"Like you're one to talk?  What about your schoolboy crush on Miss Cheerilee?" that counter got Meadow Lark good and flustered, leaving him sputtering for a few moments while his face turned bright red.

"I--!  That's not--!" he stammered as he got all up in Silver Spoon's business.  "How do you know?!"

"Subtlety is not your forte."

"Isn't that another pastry?"

"That's 'torte'."

"Like Rainbow Dash's pet?"

"Tortoise."

"I thought that was like a dolphin."

"That's porpo--"  Silver Spoon started to correct him, but then slammed her hoof down on the table.  "You are doing this on porpoise!"

"You mean on purpose." he grinned in spite of the filly's immediate threat of strangling him.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:52, Mon 29 Oct 2012.

Diamond Tiara couldn't help a little giggle at the exchange.  The two knew each other a little better than she thought, but they still didn't know her most guarded self.  Relief flooded through her as the focus fell on something far less serious than her.  Things got to get a little lighter, and she got to breathe again.  Still, she didn't know that Silver Spoon had a crush...until now.

She giggled again, even as she learned more than a couple of words from the exchange. "You two are so silly."

Even if she did have any crushes, her secrets were as impenetrable as black storm clouds and fell like thunderbolts before they could be caught.

In some time, the bell rang again to announce that lunch time was over.  All the good fillies and colts had to file back on into the classroom, which admittedly was a less than appealing notion just then.  Everyone was full and going over math lessons was a good way to induce naps.  Cheerilee was well aware of that issue though (especially since she suffered it herself) and kept everyone on task by making sure the lessons actually required involvement and quick thinking as opposed to droning on over boring equations.

Following math was history, and then language studies.  Learning was always fun since their school teacher was good at keeping things lively and challenging, but the most fun came along after all those lessons were taken care of.  Each school day encouraged creativity in the children, so a portion of class was dedicated to free study as well as the arts.  The kids were free to focus on any creative affair they wished and were encouraged to present it once finished to add on extra points to their grade for quality work.  It was a favorite part of the day for many of the students -- it was no-stress and more liberating for them to be able to do as they pleased with different creative endeavors.

Applebloom contented herself to drawing at her desk while Sweetie Belle was off chatting with Miss Cheerilee, busily discussing some sketches -- apparently Rarity had helped her with some dress designs and she wanted a second opinion.  Featherweight was busily tinkering with a camera as he took it apart to clean the components.  Over to one side, Meadow Lark had his attention settled entirely on a portion of the school's bookshelves, mulling over some books regarding music theory and composition while trying to decide which one to pull down and read.

Seafoam felt guilty from lunchtimes.  Being offered an apple was out of the blue for her.  She felt even more guilty she hadn't accepted, but any apology might have to wait until after school.  Or at least after this free study.  Languages was hard.  After a moment, she nervously  approached miss cheerilees table.
"Umm, Miss. Umm are there umm any books on umm.. learning to read?"

Diamond Tiara and free period didn't get on well.  She would have preferred to be 'free' than to have a free period.   She ended up writing away at a piece of paper on her desk.  Drawing was too hard and none of her work was all that good, even she knew that.  Luckily, writing was way easier.

It was a story about three bandits in the Wilds around Appleoosa going up against other, worse bandits.  The characters are pretty close to Meadow Lark, Cloud Hopper, and Light Hoof.  She did put Sundance in as the silly deputy who ended up teaming up with them in the end to beat the corrupt Sheriff and his bandit friends.  They were assisted by two beautiful high class townponies Gold Crown and Crimson Brush (who, upon inspection would bear a suspicious resemblance to Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara, though with slightly reversed importance).  It was a bit of a predictable story, admittedly, but it was better than her best drawings by a long shot.

It would have even been finished if not for her sneaking occasional glances at Meadow Lark and Silver Spoon.  It looked like everypony had forgotten her earlier gaff, but she still couldn't help her worries...

As free period was a time for creativity, Rosebud began the time sulking for a few minutes at being disallowed to read the fiction she'd brought along and had been reading during lunch. Soon, however, she was at work doodling a Ruble Goldberg-esque contraption for lighting street lamps, chandeliers, and other hard-to-reach candles. She even added a snuffer.

After that, she started on a more practical design for the contraption, to make it actually useful.

Bumblebee sat at her desk, a couple books stacked up.  The one she was reading was about how one produces Honey.  Another on her desk was about bees in general, and then there was a cookbook for Honey.  All sorts of honey-related and based recipes, savory and sweet.

Xing, perhaps surprisingly, had little interest in reading at the moment. A chance to show some creativity? This was something she had been looking forward to indeed. Instead, she had pulled out a wide mouthed jar, the bottom of the shallow jar lined with what looked like black ink or wet charcoal. Many sheets of blank white paper were stacked on the desk, and Xing looked deep in concentration, a small brush held in her hoof rather than by magic, unusual for a unicorn capable of magic, even this young. "Hey... um... Bumblebee," she murmured from her own desk beside the yellow Pegasus. "Want to learn... some Chineighs calligraphy?" she asked, not looking up from her paper. Her hoof, the tip of her brush dipped in the black charcoal ink, swished across the paper to make delicate and very tedious symbols, the meanings of which would be lost on the observer, but were nonetheless beautiful to look at. Though, to an untrained eye, it likely resembled oh so many meaningless wiggly lines...

"This is... um... how we tell our stories..." she explained as she swished her hoof down in a well practiced motion, careful in exactly how far each line was, each swish of her hoof. "This is... the story of Yue Fei, a great hero from many centuries ago. It is a poem, you see... Calligraphy is... a very important art... in my country... It is... a Chineighs saying... that 'the way characters are written is a portrait of the pony who writes them'. It takes a lot of practice..."

bumblebee blinked and looked up at Xing, nodding.  She scooted her desk over to have an easier time to look, and watched as Xing swished and swirled the brush around

"Wow.  That's really neat Xing.  Ah'd like to learn, yeah.  Ah'd hate to go through life thinkin' they're just a bunch of pretty squiggles... seems unfair to yer culture and all that."

Sweetie Belle didn't mind Seafoam's interjection and politely set herself aside to let the new student speak with their teacher.  Despite the question itself, Cheerilee didn't look very surprised and nodded to beckon her over to the shelf.  "Your father mentioned that you weren't familiar with written Equestrian.  Reading is a skill best suited to being taught Pony-to-Pony, and I'm more than happy to offer you any tutoring you may need."  she explained kindly as she pulled down a few books from the shelf.  "We do have these grammar and spelling books which I'm sure you'll find useful.  Equestrian isn't all that difficult a language either, especially since we use so many pictographs as short-reference."

Diamond Tiara would find that Meadow Lark and Silver Spoon were quite absorbed in their own tasks.  The Pegasus had found some books he'd apparently taken interest in and just settled down right there on the floor to read, having them spread out around him.  He seemed quite enraptured in whatever he was looking into.  Silver Spoon, meanwhile, had been fixing her make up.  She didn't wear much at all (rather, she wasn't allowed to) but made due with a little mascara and eye liner mostly as practice.  While she was mostly busy with her compact mirror, she couldn't help but be distracted by Rosebud's sprawling drawing as it grew more and more complex around her desktop.  While she wasn't sure she considered the oddball filly a friend, the two had spent some time together along with the Cutie Mark Crusaders... it wasn't like they were strangers anymore.

"I'm almost afraid to ask..." she observed aloud as she peered over at Rosebud's schematics.  "That looks like something Mr. Whatsits would build."

Diamond Tiara decided to set aside her story at the scene where there's the big pie-out at the Not So Okay Corral.  She decided that she could bother him, at least, and learn a little more.  After all, she had cut her story short to see what he was doing.

"Hey, what are you doing, anyway?" It came out a lot more pointed than it was meant to sound, but she usually would have just scoffed and walked away or have poked fun.  Then again, not too long ago she would have spent free periods pulling off more Blank Flank Pranks.

Thankfully for Diamond Tiara, Meadow Lark was so absorbed with his personal study that he didn't seem to catch the unintentional jab in her tone.  He lifted his nose from a book reluctantly, his eyes still on it even as he turned his head her way.

"Huh?  Oh... music." he said distractedly.  Obviously he wasn't actually performing anything and a lot of those books looked really dry.  While the majority of the books that Miss Cheerilee stocked the school with were properly leveled to her foals' young minds, there were a few that were significantly more advanced.  Those were mostly for reference sake when she needed to look something up.  While Meadow Lark sure wasn't smart enough to fully grasp those lofty concepts, he at least gave it a shot.  "That Octavia musician you like had a guest spot on DJ P0N-3's show the other evening and she played some classical stuff, then they did a sort of mash up.  Vinyl started mixing over her cello while she was playing.  I thought it sounded pretty cool how the styles worked together like that, so I was looking to see if maybe they had roots from the same type of music."

"Couldn't two friends make anything work together?  I mean, I wouldn't try to make that screaming music work with Octavia's...but whats her name's music isn't that bad." Diamond Tiara and 'music theory' knew each other about as well as the ocean and the stars, but she could wager some guesses. "Did you find anything or...what?"

"Hmm?" Rosebud looked up and saw Silver Spoon peering at her drawings. "Oh! N-nothing!" the little pegasus said, shielding the page she was working on from view. Realizing the futility of this, she reluctantly let Silver Spoon see the whole piece. "It started out as a candle-snuffer. I was just gonna revise it," she explained.

"You're not thinking about slipping into the forge again, are you?" Silver Spoon had to ask with a wary glance.  Planning blueprints was one thing, but that generally lead to the idea of actually building something afterward.

Over by the shelves, Meadow Lark mulled a bit over Diamond Tiara's question.  "Sort of?  I mean, yeah, you can make anything work together if you try hard enough, but some things are naturally more compatible to begin with." he explained.  "If you go back far enough, all modern music traces back into the classical era.  There was just so much done and labeled during those times that it influenced everything else to come afterward.  These books don't really cover a lot of the new stuff though.  I'm gonna have to go to the library or talk to a musician..."

"Well, the library might have something, and isn't it not too far from the games store?" Diamond Tiara shrugged her shoulders.  As far as she as concerned, if you could put it together with something else and everything worked out, it didn't matter where they came from...

"What does it matter if they have roots together?  If they work together, it doesn't matter where they came from...only that everything works."