Sunset gulped as she looked at the door in front of her. The hall she had come from felt empty and were darker than they perhaps should be. But school had let out a good half hour ago so she wasn’t surprised to find them as such. Sunset knew she was distracting herself with other things and ignoring the door she was supposed to be entering which sported a placard which identified the room as the “Principal’s Office”.
Sunset shook her head and looked at the door with a determined glare “Dammit Sunset. It’s just Principal Celestia. She’s not going to banish you. Heck. She can’t.” She said to herself before balling her hand into a fist and rapping against the door, making a clear, crisp noise.
“Come in”
Sunset let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding as the voice of the principal came from the closed door. If she closed her eyes she could almost pretend that it was her mentor. However unluckily for Sunset, that very thought sent a chill through her spine and a new reason to hold her breath as she imagined any of the many worst case scenarios should she go back to Equestria.
Sunset opened the door slightly after doing her best to shake her head clear and peeked her head through the crack. “You asked for me to come see you after school?” She asked, doing her best to keep any worry or nervousness out of her voice though she failed terribly. After all. This may not be the princess that ruled a country for centuries and mentored her for years but she was still like her enough to bring back large amounts of memories for the former pony.
“Ah. Sunset Shimmer thank you for coming. Please take a seat” Came the principal’s voice from the room which had an odd lighting to it. It was dark. The only light coming through was struggling to pass its way through the horizontal blinds behind her desk, creating an almost ominous shadowy figure out of the principal.
Sunset gulped and gave a soft nod as she entered the room and made a b-line to the singular chair sitting in the middle. The position of the chair, with nothing around it and around two feet away from the desk itself made Sunset feel all the more like she was on the stand for something. As though she was about to be scolded for something. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling in the least and was almost like what she imagined an interrogation to be like. She hoped that wasn’t what this was.
“Now I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you here, correct? Or worse, you’re not wondering why but what you’re in trouble for?” The Principal asked.
Sunset gave a wordless nod once before finally adding words to her action “Y-yes. I’m…not in trouble, right? I mean, I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong recently. I’ve been trying to make sure I was on my best behavior at all times.” Sunset explained. She honestly hadn’t any clue why she’d been called into her office. She was sure she hadn’t done anything wrong. Especially not recently when she’d been spending so much time with her friends
Celestia said nothing as she turned around and finally started to open the blinds to let a little more light in. Just the small action helped the room feel better more welcoming. Sunset couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle as she thought about it. Celestia had just let the sun and the room immediately felt better. The same way that Celestia herself made everypony around her feel better, just by being there. It was a feeling that honestly made Sunset feel a little homesick.
“Now that this room doesn’t feel like a cliché, I wanted to tell you that no. You are not in trouble” Celestia informed sunset with a warm smile.
Sunset couldn’t stop herself from letting out a sigh of relief and a small chuckle as she realized how tense she’d been. She hadn’t even noticed that she’d been gripping the bottom of the seat hard enough to dig her nails in a little. “Heh. Well that’s good to hear. I was kind of worried for a minute there” She said before giving another chuckle and looking more directly at the principal who almost seemed to have a halo of sunlight around her thanks to the window behind her. “Uhm. But if that’s the case, why did you call me in?”
“Ah yes. Because while you are not in trouble, I’m afraid someone else is.” Celestia said with a sigh, her head facing down and seeming to stare at her desk. “They were…not good at all. They ignored the suffering of others or worse yet were so naive that they didn’t want to think that what was actually happening was indeed happening. They were just so…I don’t even have the word for it” She explained with a humorless chuckle
To say Sunset was confused was to make light of just how strange this felt to Sunset. Celestia seemed so…open and vulnerable. “I- Principal Celestia. I don’t understand. If someone else is in trouble, what does it have to do with me?” She asked curiously
“Because Sunset.” Celestia said as she walked up to the student and placed a hand on her shoulder “Because I want you to do it.”
Sunset looked at the principal with a confused expression “I- Do what? I’m sorry but I don’t understand”
Celestia reached behind her and placed something into Sunset’s hand. When Sunset looked down she gasped as she found a riding crop in her hand. “I- Celestia! What’s going on!?” She shouted, now completely confused instead of just partially so.
“Sunset. The one who’s in trouble… is me.” Celestia said with a sigh “I ignored what you were doing, I didn’t realize what was going on during the battle of the bands and I was completely useless during the friendship games. I’m a pathetic excuse for a principal and I want you sunset. To punish me. Please” Celestia pleaded
There was a jolt after Sunset looked into those pleading eyes belonging to the principal and now she stared. What could she do now? She didn’t know. So she continued to stare at the one thing she could. The one thing that was both welcome and unwelcome, good and bad, cruel and kind. Her thoughts swirled. But there was only one thing that filled her thoughts, the very thing she was looking at.
Her bedroom ceiling. The jolt had been her mind waking up from the dream.
“Dammit!”
Author's Note
Here ya go.
This was just a little thing I had sitting on my desktop that I decided to finish off while COD:Ghosts re-installs. Kinda meh about it but I'm glad to have it done