Book one of "Who We Become".
Sunset always knew that she was destined for greatness, but she never dreamed of how great she could become. Not until she had seen it - the mirror had shown her as an alicorn. Ignoring Celestia's warnings, Sunset goes l...
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"Okay, class, we have something very fun to do today!"
All of Ivory Pages' students waited excitedly. All except for one.
"Finger painting!"
Cheers echoed throughout the room as the class gathered around the art table to get started with their messy projects. Again, except for one. One student hung back, letting out a sigh as she dug a hair tie from her pocket. All the others seemed wholly uninterested in keeping themselves clean, but Sunset was not getting paint in her hair. It was bad enough she had to play along with such a dumb activity in the first place.
But she couldn't do much about it. As much as she hated it, she needed to show her caretakers that she could be passed to the next grade. She was going to be stuck in this world for two and a half years, and she would have no choice but to rely on others for her basic necessities. Two and a half years, and she wasn't going to spend the whole time in kindergarten.
Kindergarten... why couldn't they at least put her a few grades up? Her aptitude test certainly wasn't the reason. Words were largely the same across both worlds, so her reading and comprehension were quite literally off the charts they used to measure her skills. Math had a few differences when it came to the more advanced subjects, but she easily outperformed the standard for high school aged humans. Science was a lot trickier; some principles carried over, but in many ways the world seemed to work differently when it didn't have an underlying layer of magic. Still, she was easily twice the level they expected her to be at. History was her biggest fault, since she knew absolutely none of it.
All signs pointed to her at least being placed higher in elementary school, since they were determined that she couldn't be home schooled and had to be around kids close to her age. Maybe fourth or fifth grade, with some after school classes on history. But no, apparently the core values that kindergarten would teach her were just far too important. Even if one of those values was smearing paint around with her fingers.
She waited as all the other kids took their places. Ivory Pages seemed to think she was just shy, but really she was stalling for time. Every few minutes of waiting around was a few minutes she wouldn't be covered in paint, so she pretended she was just being patient as all the kids got the colors they wanted. Only when she could delay it no longer did she get any paint of her own. Without even pretending to be amused, she poured some paint onto her paper and began moving it around.
It wasn't fair. This wasn't what she was supposed to get from the mirror. She was supposed to earn her wings, to become an alicorn. That's what the mirror showed her, that was what she had been promised. Not this. The mirror hadn't shown her playing with finger paint, it hadn't shown her reading juvenile fiction in the hope that she could impress some guy who knew less about his profession than she did, it hadn't shown her failing to come up with an answer to her teacher asking what she wanted it to be when she grew up.
