Daybreak

As school let out for the weekend to begin, Sunset Shimmer made her way alone to the statue at the front of CHS and stared into her reflection. Whether it was her mind playing tricks on her or some manner of magic in the portal that had closed, but she could have sworn she saw the goldenrod unicorn that was herself staring back at her. The sight made her heart ache, but unlike before, it was not the feeling of a suffocating vice clamping down to choke her into despair, but more of a dull throb. She was still lost, still without friends - perhaps not entirely without, but Snips and Snails seemed like they were only taking sides to be in league with the best. Maybe they felt she had grown into being their friend, but she questioned whether that allegiance was a healthy one.

Deciding it better to wait some time before heading home, Sunset shimmer leaned against the base of the statue and slid down against it, allowing herself a moment in the dark to just let it all out. The suffering of the past week was one she knew she deserved, but there was some good to it. As she felt the tears begin to slide down her cheeks, she balled a hand into a fist and clenched at air as if the tension in her arm would distract her from the sorrow. She had to come up with a plan.

An idea struck her after some time, hard enough that her head went flying into the base of the wondercolt statue. With a slight "ow" and while rubbing the back of her head where she had made the impact, she came up to her feet. To her surprise, Vice Principal Luna stood not two steps away, for who knew how long. Again, Sunset Shimmer gave a start.

"I heard you have been asking about me." The vice principal stated, eliciting a slight nod from the student. "With everything that has happened, I am surprised you would ask about me, rather than someone you know."

What could she possibly say to that? Sunset Shimmer reeled, but with a quick glance around she sank back against the statue. "Where I come from," she began, "there's a legend about a mare whose problems with her older sister ended up getting her banished to the moon forever."

Vice Principal looked a little confused, but gave a nod. "What does that have to do with asking me about my..." She paused, seeming to piece that together with a slight surprise.

"The mare was once known as Princess Luna." Sunset informed her, pulling up her knees and hugging them closer to her chest. "I guess I got it in my head that maybe you might have been... well, more like how I was, a long time ago... I guess I was wrong."

Luna seemed to take her time absorbing everything she said. After a moment, she offered Sunset Shimmer her hand. "This is not a conversation we should be having in the cold." She offered. "If you have time, I would like to speak with you in my office."

* * * * *

"My sister and I do share our differences." Vice Principal Luna explained, sitting down at her desk and looking over folded hands to Sunset Shimmer. "When I was about your age, I was indeed jealous of her, and I even left my entire family just so I could go on without her. What followed was... unpleasant, and I do not want to repeat anything I had done, but it was a very dark time in my life."

Sunset nodded, drinking it all in without a word.

"Eventually, I was thrown in jail for a year and reprimanded for most of my misdeeds. When my term was done, I wandered back home and made things up with my sister." Luna nodded. "I see a lot of who I was during that year in you now, Sunset Shimmer."

* * * * *

When she got home, Sunset Shimmer immediately found her laptop and began searching online for every spot of information she could about the five friends she had broken up during her sophomore year. She had spent the trip back thinking of ways she could make it up to everyone individually, since it had occurred to her that there was no way to make amends for everybody at once. If she was going to set things right, she was going to have to make it personal, and that meant getting to know them better on a personal level.

To her chagrin, her search was far too easy - made so primarily by the illicit software she had coerced Key Stroke into getting her access to. Honestly, the hardest part for her was to determine who she would focus on first. It took her nearly an hour to decide, but she decided to settle on Fluttershy. She was the only one to express concern so straight to her, and she suspected her reputation as the most compassionate student at CHS was going to lend itself to making her not easy, but less strenuous all the same.

It wasn't long before Sunset had hacked into Fluttershy's emails and chat history. Unsurprisingly, she had quite a history for the past week alone with each of her four best friends. Opening the history, Sunset began to read, feeling a little guilty that she was making such an invasion of privacy to better understand the people she hoped to rightly earn as friends of her own.

With Applejack:

Howdy, Fluttershy. I heard you were having second thoughts about Sunset Shimmer. What's on your mind, girl?

Well, I just...; Are we doing the right thing?

What do you mean?

Keeping our distance. I mean, it's like we're spying on her. You saw her, she's broken to pieces! How can we just stand back and be so cold to her?

Have you spit your bit or something? You remember she was the one to split us all up, right?

I know, but I wasn't expecting her to take it that hard....

Just you wait, Fluttershy. She's pulled this act before with Rarity, remember?

How can you say that!

It's true, isn't it?

But what if it isn't? What if she's really hurting and we're just making it worse?

Then maybe she'll understand the truth of the matter. She's done wrong, now she's gotta make things right from here.

...

Look, it's getting late, and I've still got chores to do. We'll talk more tomorrow, y'hear?

Okay.... Good night, Applejack.

With Rainbow Dash:

You'll never guess who I ran into in the halls today.

Uhm, who?

Sunset Shimmer. I decided I'd jump the ball and give her that talk we were talking about on Saturday. I don't think Rarity minds us switching it out.

Oh really? How did it go?

I don't know. I mean, I'm still upset about everything that happened. It's not like she's been someone to look up to  for the past two years either.

I know....

Hey, chin up. We've still got the rest of the week to give her an idea of what she's gotta do.; You're not still second-guessing us, are you?

No. I'm just nervous. I don't know if you've seen it, but she's been looking pretty pale this week. I'm worried this will really be getting the best of her.

She'll be fine.

I hope you're right....

Hey, did you see who got Rarity's tag from the secret santa wreath today? I had something in mind to give to her, but when I got in to get the tag, it was already gone! No one can afford to be her secret santa, who could've done it?

Sunset Shimmer blinked, checking the timestamps for the messages. Rainbow Dash's last message had only come ten minutes ago, and the chat log showed Fluttershy typing a response. Hurriedly, she backed out of the hack, her heart hammering as she realized any further looking into her history would be cause for alarm. While it wasn't the greatest insight she could have had, it did give her an idea, but it was as if the idea was upright without a foundation.

As if to give her idea that very foundation, her mind flashed back to Thursday morning the week before, and she couldn't help but mouth the words in a tragic sense of deja vu. "It's no wonder your best friends are all stray animals."

Fluttershy was as compassionate as they said after all, and not just towards other people. She was the very definition of the school eco-kids. With her search for information disrupted and with a bitter aftertaste to the measures she had taken to getting that information, Sunset instead looked up the Canterlot Animal Shelter and saved a copy of their promotional fliers onto her hard drive. A smile found its way onto her face as she looked over several of them to find the one that would seem the most appealing to CHS students.