The Conversion Bureau - Most Faithful Student

Chapter 2: *Kindness*

An hour later, Sunset awoke to find a woman standing over her, dressed in a heavy gold-colored suit over teal and purple clothes.  She was blonde, tanned, tall and sharp-featured – almost gangly – and her face had nothing on it but concern.

Wore nothing but concern.

Given the last woman that Sunset had spoken to and how much kindness that woman had radiated, this did little to reassure her.  Sunset’s reaction to the woman was a scream and another attempt to channel fire – again, accomplishing nothing but heating up her fingertips.

“It’s alright,” the woman said, but again her voice was too similar to her mentor’s to offer comfort.  “What are you doing here so late at night?  You must be freezing.”

“I don’t know where ‘here’ is and I don’t know who you are,” Sunset said.  “I can leave…”

“Do you have anywhere to go?  …you must not, can’t have one, if you don’t know where you are,” the woman mused.  “This is John F. Kennedy Academy.  Does that mean anything to you?”

Sunset shook her head, still tensed.  She didn’t have magic, but she still had teeth if it came to that.  Some of them canines, now.

“Oh, you poor girl,” the woman said with a sigh and a shake of her head.  “At least let me give you a bed for the night, some proper food.  You’ll freeze out here.”

Sunset’s stomach chose that moment to growl.

“Endless Night, that’s great timing, you fucking traitor,” she muttered into her belly.

The woman laughed at that.  “My name is Aurora.  Aurora Williams.  I’m the headmistress here.” She flexed her hand – her open, empty hand – at Sunset.  “And you are?”

It was a while before Sunset decided to speak.  “…Sunset,” she said.  “My name’s Sunset.”

Aurora frowned.  “Did your parents throw you out?” she growled.  “Let me guess.  They found out about a girlfriend of yours and then they showed you the door?”

The idea of a parent abandoning a child for that reason was so absurd to Sunset’s Equestrian sensibilities that she didn’t realize Aurora was serious until after she had laughed in the woman’s face.  Then Sunset cringed, and her face – and head - fell into her lap.  “I wish it was that petty,” she said, in a sad low tone that she didn’t realize Aurora could hear.

And then, louder: “I ran away.  I realized she was a monster and I ran away.  I had to.”

Aurora offered her hand again and said, “I’m sorry,” and this time Sunset realized she meant it.  She took Aurora’s hand and let the woman pull her up.

Sunset wouldn’t meet her gaze as she took her to a carriage – at least, not until Aurora got in with her, then started the engine; then she gaped at her before looking at the dashboard.  Sunset put her hand on it, felt the thrumming and heat under it as Aurora pulled out of the parking lot.

According to her ex-mentor’s notes, they hadn’t developed electrical power yet.  And those notes were only a century or two out of date!  Yet this woman took a carriage that carried itself for granted – clearly so, given how casual her movements were – and Equestrian engineers considered such devices expensive curiosities after hundreds of years of work...

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?” Aurora said to her.  Sunset recoiled like the dashboard was going to bite her, realizing that Aurora had been staring at her hands.

“A long way away,” she said.  “Long story.  Really do not want to get into it.”

“This must be surreal for you, being so far from home,” Aurora said, never taking her eyes off the horizon.  “Depending on the kindness of a complete stranger, after suffering what you must have from your guardian.  I don’t blame you for not trusting me.”

“Oh, she treated me kindly enough,” Sunset hissed.  “I just – augh, I don’t even know where to begin.  It wasn’t me she was planning on hurting.”

Aurora mumbled something.  Sunset looked at her with what must have been evident fear, for she turned with an apologetic smile to her passenger for a second before turning her gaze back to the road.  “I have a colleague at the school,” she said.  “Doctor Cadenza Lovegood.  I was just thinking out loud that you might want a check up with her.”

“Is she a psychologist?” Sunset asked, her voice flat as her ears would have been on the other side.  She could actually feel their absence, her scalp itching where her ears should have been.

Aurora paused for a good while before answering.  “She is,” Aurora said. “She specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy, and in helping people from broken homes.  And lovers, for that matter.  Definitely not a pills and Freud kind of therapist, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She was more worried about Doctor Cadenza’s reaction to 'I'm actually a unicorn from another world,' but she wasn’t about to say that.  “I really don’t want to go,” she said.

“I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, Sunset.  I promise,” Aurora said, and Sunset could tell that she meant it.

Sunset nodded, and no more words passed between them under that twilight sky until they arrived at Aurora’s house.