Dust and Lilycup take a visit to school!

---

"WA-A-AAAAKE UUUUUUUUUU-U-UUUUUUPPPPPPPP!!"

Groaning, writhing under the covers, wishing the grips of dreary sleep would latch on for just moments longer. A very similar situation happening just a few weeks ago, but hopefully with a more positive outcome that the previous events. Dust Mite sat up and yawned, feeling the bleary tiredness wash over his body, urging him to go back to sleep despite the inability to do so with his current situation. Non-committedly scratching random spots on his grey form as he rose, rubbing away whatever form of crust had formed on his eyes while he slept, stretching out the cramped kinks in his muscles from staying still for too long.

"Ugh . . . good morning, Lilycup." Dust half-heartedly managed to spit out with a weak wave upwards towards the general sky of magenta. "How'd you sleep . . . ?"

"No time for that, Dust!!!" She boomed in reply, still not bothering to lower her voice, so her 'little' brother was reeling from the force of the soundwaves washing over him, feeling his ears rattle and his bones vibrate. "We gotta go! Like, now!!!"

"Go . . . ? Go where?" Still attempting to force himself to become a morning pony while recovering the blast of noise that was her inconsiderate voice.

"School!! I'm going to be late if you don't get your tiny, tiny butt in gear." She had taken on a tone of annoyance now, which, generally, was not good for Dust Mite. Lily was not the most cooperative or reasonable when she was annoyed. She was not those traits most of the time, but even moreso when her mood would take a dip south.

"School . . . ?" He mimicked confusedly, scratching his head. Dust . . . didn't attend school, in fact he was out of it. Given his situation, his parents had tasked themselves with home-schooling the puny pegasus over the years, and the thoughts of class and homework were foreign to him.

"What are you, a parrot? Yes! School! C'mon!" Impatient irritation abound in her voice, quickly followed by a descending, looming shadow that darkened the surrounding vicinity. Dust stared upwards, two enormous fingertips that outrivaled mountaintops nearing him.

"H-hey, wait a minute-" He stuttered out, unable to finish his complaint as they slammed down and then ominously began to pinch together, squeezing him between their enormity and lifting him up high into the sky. Dust could hardly get a word in edge wise as he breathed raspily betwixt the two tight walls of fur and flesh that held him up towards his gargantuan sister's eye. "L-Lily! What's this about!?"

"I'll explain it on the way, don't worry Dusty!" She thundered before lowering her trapped sibling down towards his destination. Dust Mite did not have a well-off vantage point to see where he was going, but he had a good enough idea from experience. His suspicions were confirmed once his surroundings darkened with his descent, Eventually the tiny mite of a pegasus released from the pinched grip, taking a short tumble onto a fiber as wide as a hoofball stadium, cushion only by the fact of how worn down it was.

Grumbling to himself as he held his head, Dust gazed around him, knowing all too well where he was. His escape so high up it might as well have been from looking at the bottom of the deepest trench to the summit of the highest mountain peak, faint light shimmering in and only partially illuminating the depths at which he found himself at. Masses of random bits of stray lint formed mountain ranges, while a bit in the distance enacted as a golden monument that was too vast to see all of it. Feeling the landscape shift with a cataclysmic rumble, just outside the wall of denim Lilycup patted her pocket where she had dropped her brother into. "There! Now let's go!!"

"I'm still in my sleepwear . . ." Dust grumbled to himself, looking down at the loose tanktop and pair of shorts he occasionally wore to rest in. "Didn't even get any breakfast either . . ." Sitting down with a sigh, he could only brace himself as he could feel the shaking and rumbling of Lily simply lifting her leg, rising with speed and strength that could part the atmosphere, even hearing every last strain of the fiber of her jeans move with her, then the incomprehensible quake of her hoof making contact, the energy dispersing with a shattering roar.

"Okay, so," Outside, Lilycup began to speak as she walked, that skip in her step not helping in the slightest. "Today's Family Day! We're supposed to bring a family member to show off to our classmates. Now I know what you're thinking bro, 'but Lilycup, why didn't you pick somepony else?' And I have an answer! Mom was out running some errands, Dad's out at work, and you know Cloudy's up in Canterlot probably punching some bad pony's teeth in. So, who else was I to pick, hmmm?"

She paused, as if expecting an answer in reply. "Ding-ding-ding! You! I'm sure mom won't mind me bringing you along with me to school for the day. I'll be extra careful, promise, promise, promise! And uh, just don't tell her about it. Just sayin'." The extra 'oomph' in her following hoofstep, more of a stomp really, made the action seem more than just vaguely threatening.

"It'll be simple and easy, promise. Look, I even brought a microscope and tweezers so other ponies can interact with you! You meet and greet a few of them, and spend the rest of the day chilling in my pocket until we get back home. The day'll breeze right by."

During the whole one-sided conversation Dust was simply trying not to fall through the gaps between the fibers or succumb to the powerful quaking and end up stuck in some lint. The stuff was killer on the sinuses at his scale. "Humph. Sure. Still doesn't help you just dropped this on me outta the blue with no time to prepare . . ." He silently complained to himself, among other murmurs of discontent he was glad he was small enough nopony else could hear but him.

"Oh, and by the by big little bro, I know you're probably hungry. Don't worry, I gotcha covered."

Several seconds later a shadow appeared over the entrance to the pocket but quickly vanished, leaving behind a series of rapidly approaching shadows. Like a meteor storm, crumbs slammed down all around him, having been sprinkled in by Lily, some akin to boulders, while others remained hill-sized and even comparable to smaller mountains. Once it had settled down and realized he hadn't been crushed to death by a simple action of sisterly affection, Dust approached one of the crumbs, using his hands to rip off a sizable chunk of it. One bite made him realize it was a muffin from Sugarcube Corner. Lily really liked visiting that place, probably having a few in store to munch on during her walk to class.

After a few bites, smacking his lips satisfactorily, all Dust Mite could do was sit and wait, wishing for the day to be over already.

---

". . . And that's how apples were made. Thank Celestia the orange war ended before the bananas got involved."

"Thank you . . . Granny Smith! Class, any questions for Granny or Apple Bloom?"

". . . None? None at all? Well okay then! Thank you for telling us all such a riveting tale of fruits Miss Smith. You and Apple Bloom can take a seat now. Who's next?"

A hand shot up quicker than the rest, anypony desperate to get things rolling again after dredging through the escapades of the first apple farmers in Equestria. Lilycup was practically standing in her seat, waving the limb back and forth spastically, Cheerilee's eyes turning towards her. "Ah, Lilycup! But umm . . . where is your family member? I don't remember anyone else walking in with you."

She beamed proudly as she bounced up to the front, taking her time setting things up. Upon her teachers desk the magenta filly placed what was needed, a microscope and a pair of tweezers. She mentally facepalmed, realizing the means of actually communicating with her brother were still at home, left in a rush, but figured it wouldn't be too hard to get things going. All the while over a dozen confused eyes of her fellow students, their family members, and Cheerilee watched her in confusion. "Just oooooone moment everyone, have to retrieve the guest of honor."

Her hand reached down into her right side pocket, face screwed in concentration while her fingers fiddled around, visibly poking out against the denim. Eventually her expression lit up, retrieving what seemed to be absolutely nothing from out of it, but she still carried on, placing whatever visible object she had found upon a slide that fitted neatly under the microscope's lens. "Sorry bro . . . grandma over there took too long. Just do your best to make yourself presentable, okay?" Lily whispered quietly, but was still overheard by those who were closer, garnering even stranger, questionable looks towards her.

"Alright Mrs. Cheerilee!" Lilycup jumped back up, grinning expectantly towards her teacher. "I'd like you meet . . . my brother!" Her arms waved jazzily towards the scope, the older mare looking nonplussed, arms crossed.

"Lilycup, just what exactly is the meaning of this? Some kind of jo-oh-OH." Cheerilee's voice jumped in surprise as she played again with her student's notion, green eye peering down through the powerful magnification lense, shocked to see a grey pegasus waving up at her, looking a bit nervous himself and a tad raggedy, his mane disheveled from bedhead and clothes wrinkled and untucked.

"This is my older brother, Dust Mite! Now, everyone form an orderly line, and you can all meet him one at a time. Please be gentle, he's really, really fragile and really really really tiny. If you want to pick him up, use the tweezers. If you want to talk to him, just ask him to fly into your ear. Also! Keep your voice low, it hurts him if he's up close and you talk normal."

"I . . . I really can't believe this." The educator seemed agawk, agasp, and agape.

"I know, I know, it's a long story, and me or Dust could explain it to you if you'd like."

---

"And he's really tough! And a great flyer!! Like, good enough to be in the wonderbolts if he wasn't so teeny. I was watching him practice one day and he almost hit sonic rainboom. I swear it, by Celestia's mane."

"No swearing, Lilycup. And . . . wow! Thank you for introducing us to your brother. Any questions for Lily or Dust Mite?"
Almost every hand shot up.

"Wow! I've never even gotten a reception that good! Not even when I showed off my private garden for show-and-tell!" Lilycup giggled to herself as walked home, the schoolbell ringing, signaling the day was done. She held up her index finger, focusing in on the miniature grey speck sitting atop of it. "Thanks bro. You really helped me out there." The younger sibling smiled softly, holding up her free hand and extended the opposite forefinger until it was as close as it could possibly get to the almost unseeable mite.

For most of it, Dust Mite was horrified and nervous beyond any sane zones of anxiety, but as it wore on, he was really getting into it. It was the most social interaction he had ever gotten in all of his years cooped up inside his own home, and by the end of it, was feeling just as great as his sister was. ". . . No problem, Lily. Glad to help." Gazing at the sheer vastness before him, Dust clenched his fist and bopped it against the fingerscape held in front of him in as close to a fistbump he could get with his sister.

It was all in all a good day, considering how rudely he had been awoken that morning. His mind went almost haywire every which way things could have gone wrong, but they didn't. Dust Mite was proud of his younger sister and how maturely she handled him, and, well, a little more than embarrassed by her words of praise to bolster him. Even as they made their way back home however, a brief tug of a wriggling doubt etched itself to the back of his mind. It was almost always there no matter how good the turn of events were, but he figured now was a time to be happy about something for a change.

As soon as they stepped in through the door however, the voice of their mother Small Smiles rang through the air. "Lily! Have you seen Dust? I haven't seen or heard from him all day, and I'm worried!! I searched around all of the usual spots he stays, felt over my body, scoured every article of clothing that I own as well as your father's, now I'm getting into yours and Cloudy's. Oh no whatever could have happened-"

"Don't uh, don't worry mom! I just found him! He was chilling in the safe zone in the living room. You must've missed him."

"Nice save, Lily." Dust sighed aloud, that persistent bit of worry still worming its way through his thoughts.