Sunset Shimmer: Student of Magick

Sometime during the night, Sunset Shimmer woke. She could not place what had caused it, as she was feeling sublimely comfortable lying on her side of Rarity's enormous bed. She did not need to use the restroom, was not thirsty, and did not feel as though Rarity had jostled her.

Princess Twilight - at the far side of the bed - breathed evenly as she mumbled what sounded like orders for Spike. He snored gently at her feet, a slight groan escaping him as one of his paws moved as though he was trying to write a letter. Sweetie Belle was curled against her sister, both siblings at peace. Not one of them showed the slightest disruption to their own slumber.

The only other sounds were those of a typical suburban night. The neighbourhood was sufficiently removed from thoroughfares to ensure traffic would rarely be a bother to the residents. If they did not leave some other background noise - such as a fan - to distract themselves, only the insects and the breeze provided the night's symphony.

Sunset assumed her bout of wakefulness was merely a random occurrence of restlessness. They were hardly new to her, especially after the Fall Formal. She was nearly sleeping once more when her subconscious determined what had disturbed her and drove her back into alertness.

There was a breeze that evening, the gentle kind that seemed to whisper soothing comfort to any willing to listen. It was perfectly normal except that it actually seemed to be whispering. There was no human voice, just an ethereal serenader within the breeze. Sunset was almost certain that she could hear it speaking in formless words a message for her alone, a wish that she enjoy a peaceful slumber.

She wanted to obey the bidding to close her eyes and to allow her dreams to overtake her again. The wind promised that she would be untroubled by nightmares of a knife piercing her ribs. She could forget seeing three classmates change into monstrous rats, or that large man who had become a terrifying wolf-like beast to pursue them. No twisted forests would punish her for her sins that night. She could rest in the warmth of being close to two friends, plus Sweetie Belle and Spike. Her eyes slowly closed again, as though the voice of the wind were the sandman himself come to guide her to a well-deserved sleep.

'It's just a waking dream,' Sunset told herself as she felt her mind drifting.

The attempt to sleep lasted until Rarity pulled on the blankets and caused Sunset to shift. The dull throb of the healing wound in her side forced her to be fully alert. When she could still hear the whispers, she had to admit to the reality of the moment.

Sunset Shimmer was scared. There was no other word for it. The whisper was not malicious - though she believed this only by some instinct rather than by demonstrable evidence - but it was unnatural for this world. Memories of other unnatural occurrences made her shiver and hide under the blankets she stole back from her bed mates. She clutched the crocheted doll of herself as a pony to her chest as she huddled closer to Rarity, seeking comfort in the physical proximity of one friend and the spiritual closeness of another.

She contemplated waking the others. Whatever was causing the fantastical voice on the breeze would likely cease, but they would reassure her and protect her from whatever was speaking to her. It was, perhaps, the logical choice. She also knew it was not what she was going to choose.

If the nightmares were real, and not merely constructs to protect herself from the memories of being violated by Flash Sentry and his friends, then whatever magic existed naturally in the human world was dangerous. She could not expose her friends to it. A darker part of her suggested rousing Sweetie Belle, but she refused it. What the girl and her friends had done still hurt, but they had confessed, apologised, and received their punishments. Even if they had not, Sunset would not want to subject any of them to similar experiences, no matter how terrible their actions.

As the whisper continued, the need to understand warred against the desire to remain in the safety of the bed. Something in the back of Sunset's mind pulled at her, demanding that she seek the truth of the mysterious voice. It did not care about the possibility of further harm if it could know. That part of Sunset gradually dominated her until she slipped from the bed.

The teen moved carefully to avoid waking the others. She wore only thin cotton pyjamas and slippers borrowed from Rarity as she made her way to the living room to peek out the front window. The early spring flowers of the small garden in the front yard danced in the breeze and sparkled under light of the full moon as though they were dusted in glitter. Except for a few fireflies bouncing across the lawn, she saw nothing else.

She did hear something new: A second voice. While the first carried from the breeze, the other was carried on it. It was soft and familiar, speaking words that were impossible to hear with the ears. Both voices sang together, sometimes in chorus and sometimes alternating, as crickets provided the instrumentation.

Sunset was breathless at the raw energy just on the other side of the door. Whatever was out there, she could not imagine it being anything bad. It tickled her mind, like something she should understand or remember. She was on the edge of New knowledge and could not place a finger on what it was that she was learning. At least, she could not while she remained inside her safe haven.

Quietly unlocking and then opening the door, Sunset crept outside and scanned the yard. Still seeing no one, she stood straight and strolled down the front steps. What had looked to be fireflies were in fact something else. They moved too smoothly and did not blink as consistently as the insects did. One passed harmlessly through her hand as she tried to touch it. The breeze was unseasonably warm, but Sunset shivered as she remembered the dancing lights in that twisted forest. The song calmed her, these dancing lights radiating kindness rather than punishment. They floated to bob about her as the unpleasant ones of another place had, but they were inviting her to join the pleasure of their waltz as they bathed her in their shimmer.

As Sunset watched them, unbidden images of her friends arose in her mind's eye. She saw herself having a picnic with Fluttershy, both of them giggling as they shared their meals with adorable little critters that cavorted about them. Then she was assisting Applejack with making cider, the two kicking back at the table after the work to enjoy a sample of their labours. Sci-Twi had Sunset assisting with some experiment that left them laughing even as smoke rose from a set of glass phials.

She shook her head as she felt the ghostly touch of Rarity's measuring tape, clearing the visions from her mind. The lights continued to offer happiness, but she had a goal and would not allow them to distract her again.

Sunset stepped back from the lights and turned to the street. A row of hedges that she believed had not occupied the edge of the property before the night fell blocked her view of the road. She had to move between them to leave the yard. They did not act as much of an impediment; the hedges almost seemed to withdraw their prickling branches rather than risk scratching her.

The obstacles were kind to Sunset. Whatever magick fuelled them, it did not want her to suffer as she had in the ancient forest. Everything that had tried to stop her did so gently and did not resist her progress when she refused them. She could feel loving concern in the air around her, as though someone wanted to protect her from all sorrow and pain.

The final leaves of the bush parted to allow her onto the street. Sunset finally spotted the owner of the second voice swaying gently on the sidewalk in front of the house, even more of the strange lights gallivanting around her.

The other party stood upon two legs and had a shape like that of humans, but could not be human. She had big, fuzzy fox ears and a bushy tail - an actual tail, not lengthened hair - and possessed a small snout and whiskers to complete the animalistic ensemble. Fur the same colour as her skin was readily visible on the exposed sections of her body. Her hands were still normal except for the light, downy fur covering them, while her feet were hidden in her boots.

Even in a different form, Sunset recognised the other teen immediately.

"Pinkie Pie?"

She winced as she opened her eyes and looked at Sunset, a sad smile on her face.

"How can you see through my mien?"

"I don't know, but I've been noticing some strange things since the ... stuff that happened."

Though she had been in a swaying dance before, Pinkie now trembled as Sunset approached. Her puffy hair had deflated when she heard her name. Her nose twitched as she sniffled. She rubbed her eyes for a moment, then continued to look fearfully at Sunset.

"I didn't mean to scare you. I was asking the wind to protect you and give you good dreams and let me know if any meanies came to hurt you again." Tears leaked from Pinkie's eyes. "Please, don't be scared. I wanted to tell you and the girls about this, but I couldn't figure out how to explain it, and I didn't want to be rejected again, so I erased your memory when you saw through my mien the first time, but I should have known you'd be able to do it again, and-and...," now fully crying, she continued, "I promise I'm not a bad monster. Please don't hate me. Please."

She kept whispering "Please" until Sunset wrapped her in a tight hug. She stiffened at the contact for a moment before returning the embrace. They held each other as Pinkie cried through her reserve of tears.

"Pinkie, you'll always be my friend, no matter how you look."

"Are you Lost, too?" Pinkie asked, releasing Sunset. "No, I'd be able to see your mien. There's something around you, but it's not like the magic we got from Equestria, and it's not Their type of magick."

Sunset could hear the capital letter and associated it with a terrible fear that caused Pinkie's voice to tremble. "Can you tell me about it?"

"I don't like to," Pinkie began. She paused. "But I will. You changed, too, and I think you'll be able to understand some of it. I just can't do it tonight. I'm setting up contracts everywhere I can to protect you, but I'm running out of time. I can only do this when everyone's asleep. How did you know I was out here?"

"I don't know. I was sleeping, and then I woke up because I could hear the breeze whispering. I wanted to know what was going on."

Pinkie nodded. "Once you learn a little about the secret things, you always want to know more. Just be careful. There's lots of mean-meanie-meanpants out there that don't want anybody knowing their secrets. I'll tell you everything I can when the time is right, okay? Don't trust anybody easily and be careful if any voices start calling your name, but you can't see them."

"I promise. Good night, Pinkie."

They shared another brief hug before Pinkie left, the strange whispers of the breeze following. The faerie lights - for they could be nothing else - faded as the hedges retreated back into the soil.

"You have some interesting friends."

Dark Ace stood on the sidewalk behind her as though he had always been there. He wore the same loose clothing he had at their first meeting, his crisscrossing tattoos mostly covered under long sleeves. What few he exposed glowed in the moonlight, making them more defined.

"You're real." Sunset felt the mental wall she had built to protect herself crumbling. "That really happened."

"That's actually not the first time I've heard that. Since you're here, let me give you an update: The Gauntlet is getting weaker. Don't go anywhere near that school and warn your friends to do the same. See you later."

"Wait," Sunset called, then lowered her voice to continue when he turned back to her. "I wanted to say 'thank you' for helping me."

"Thanks, but I'll be honest and say that we didn't know you were there."

They stood silently as Sunset tried to think of something more say. She had more than enough questions to fill the rest of the night, but she knew he would not stay the hours needed to answer them. She knew each answer would only give her more questions, if her limited experience to date could be used as an indicator.

She decided to ask one question to buy time while she tried to figure out what she wanted to say.

"What are you doing here?"

He chuckled. "I suppose it does look bad. I can say that I'm not in the habit of stalking teenage girls. I felt some Lost magick and wanted to observe it. Imagine my surprise when you came out of that house."

"Will you let me talk to you again? I have questions."

"I'm sure. I've informed the Hierarch about you. Sooner or later, someone in the Consilium will be coming to see you. You'll need to introduce yourself if you want to stay in this city. Got all that?"

"I guess?"

He laughed, keeping it sufficiently low as not to disturb anyone else. "Okay, Sparky, I'll see you later."

"Sparky?"

"Why not? I was thinking 'Ditzy' but Sparky fits you better. It makes a good Shadow Name. Remember what I said about not telling people your True Name?"

She nodded.

"We'll be taking care of the problem Monday next week. You can meet me at the Sweet Shoppe this Wednesday at four sharp. If you're not there by the time I finish eating a cookie, I'm gone. Time for me to go. I have stuff to do."

As he turned away, he added, "By the way, someone inside that house was watching us. Might want to think up a good story for dallying with a guy like me at this time of night. Oh, and don't try to use any magick until after you get a mentor. It has a funny habit of going horribly wrong, especially if anyone else sees it."

He blinked from existence once he was out of the house's line of sight. It was as though he moved sideways while walking a straight line down the sidewalk. Just like the first time she witnessed Ace's disappearing act, it was nothing like the teleportation Sunset had used as a pony. He disappeared as if he had never been there, without any flash or pop of magick, yet she could feel it. She wanted to know what he had done and how, but the answers were not forthcoming.

That left her to confront the observer. Princess Twilight would have barrelled from the house, but Sunset could not easily eliminate any of the others. She believed Ace was correct, but she did not feel as though someone was watching her, for which she normally had an excellent sense.

The curtains shifted ever-so-slightly when she whirled to face the house. There was a sneak at the window and that person was downstairs. If Sunset moved quickly, she could catch the weasel and determine how much would need to be explained or how to keep the witness quiet.

She ran to the door and pushed it open, catching the spy at the stairs. Knowing she was caught, Sweetie Belle turned and dropped onto the bottom step. She opened and closed her mouth a couple times before giving up and staring at Sunset. Her eyes were a little droopy and dazed, as though she had spent too much time watching television.

"What were you doing?" Sunset asked.

Sweetie Belle's voice was too high, and she stumbled over her words as she explained. "I didn't mean to spy on you, honest. I had to use the bathroom, and I saw you going downstairs. Then you were peeking out the window and went outside. I thought you might be in trouble, so I just wanted to make sure you'd be okay, I promise."

She then offered her best puppy-dog eyes and an apologetic - yet angelic - face. There was some fear in her eyes, but it seemed to be little more than the type that went with being caught doing something wrong.

Sunset knew Sweetie Belle had seen everything. She wondered what to do, her concern mostly on Rarity's reaction to learning that Sunset had been meeting a young man secretly at night, and Twilight's inevitable panic about Pinkie's other form.

The Crusaders might have learned their lesson about sharing others' secrets, but there was no guarantee the girl seated before Sunset would keep her mouth closed. Compounding that was Sweetie Belle's seeming inability to state information succinctly, which sometimes led to minor catastrophes of misunderstanding. With so many problems to be juggled, Sunset needed to make sure she would not be facing another that upset the careful balance.

'Just tell her not to say anything,' part of herself thought. 'You know you can do it. You know how to get people to cooperate.'

"What did you see?"

"Nothing." At Sunset's firm glare, she admitted, "I saw you talk to Pinkie Pie, and then a guy I don't know."

"You knew that was Pinkie?"

"Yeah, but she looked-" Sweetie Belle stopped talking, nervousness on her face.

'Time for the kill.'

Though she did not care for the phrasing, Sunset knew the sentiment from her inner voice was correct. "She looked different? Like we all do sometimes?"

"Like when you sing, except her ears-" Again, the younger girl stopped talking, this time putting a hand over her mouth.

"They weren't pony ears, were they?"

Sweetie Belle shook her head, her nervousness overtaken by fear. Her breathing was becoming erratic, and her pretty green irises had shrunk to pinpricks.

"She's not a monster or anything, Sweetie Belle," Sunset began. "Pinkie is Pinkie. It's like when we sing, only she has her own special ability she can use other times. It's okay, you can tell me what you saw."

"I can't say," the girl whispered. "If I do, I'll go away again."

"I'll say it for you: Pinkie Pie looks like a fox sometimes."

There was a small gasp, and then Sunset felt herself tackled, small hands covering her mouth. "No, no, I'm not going back. Please don't say things like that. Please don't make me go back."

Moving the hands, Sunset asked, "Sweetie Belle, why can't you admit it? You see us pony-up all the time, and you were talking about Equestria with Twilight. Why are you so afraid?"

"Because I can't really see things like that. I know I'm just imagining it. As long as I don't say it, I won't be sent away again."

The conversation was going in a circle. "Where would you go if you admitted it?"

"The place with the white rooms and the doctors that ask lots of questions and give you medicine that makes you feel sleepy all the time. It's where they keep all the crazy people. I don't wanna go back. I don't want to be crazy anymore."

"You're not crazy. Twilight told you about Equestria, but you didn't have a problem."

"We were just playing pretend. There's no such thing as talking ponies."

"When we pony-up?"

"I just get too into the music."

"The Sirens?"

"It was just a bad dream that I had because I was so mad about losing the Battle of the Bands."

"There being two Twilights, and two talking dogs named Spike, and the whole 'magic portals opening all around the school' thing?"

"I need to up my meds."

Sweetie Belle jumped to her feet and was making a break for the stairs. Sunset grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, putting a hand over the girl's mouth. Sweetie Belle was shivering. Sunset was starting to feel guilty, not even sure what she was doing. She knew her secrets would be safe, but she could not stop herself wanting to force the younger teen to see the truth.

"I know it seems crazy, but a lot of people have seen all of that stuff. If it would help you, I would tell your parents all about it. We could play for them and show them how we pony-up. You're not imagining it, and you're not crazy."

'Why are you doing this? She thinks she's just one bad trip from the loony bin. You already know she won't tell anyone. Stop it now.'

Sunset ignored her inner voice. "Let's make a deal. You tell me why you think you need meds, and I'll tell you a secret of my own, okay?"

A small, hesitant nod was the reply. Sunset removed her hand and released Sweetie Belle.

"When I was little, I would see weird things sometimes, like what I thought I saw with Pinkie. Whenever I went out, I'd see people that looked different, but then I'd look at them again and they'd be normal. There was this gang that always wore biker jackets. Sometimes, I thought they had fangs and claws. Stuff like that.

"Whenever I tried to tell someone about it, they thought it was just my imagination. They'd call me silly or stupid. Even Rarity wouldn't listen to me.

"One day, I thought I saw this thing floating through town. It was a woman with big wings, and she had these dogs that looked a little like people with her. I wanted to see more, so I went chasing after them and got hit by a car.

"When I was in the hospital, I told everyone about it. One of the nurses who worked at night was really nice. She told me it was interesting that I could see that when no one else could. Then I found out she wasn't really nice because I caught her sucking blood from someone. She ran away before I could say anything.

"I told my parents and the doctor about it and refused to let her near me. They said I was crazy and sent me to the place with the rooms that have pillows in the walls. The doctors there kept giving me medicine and telling me I was imagining things.

"I went along with them so I could finally go home. It took two whole years, and now anytime I start talking about strange things, they get worried and make sure I've been taking my medicine."

Once Sweetie Belle finished her story, Sunset thought on it for a moment. Her initial reaction to agree that Sweetie Belle's imagination was too strong flew in the face of what Sunset had seen. She imagined herself in the girl's place, trying to explain the relatively small number of things she had seen and then being sent away for it.

"Okay, it's my turn. Promise not to tell anyone about this?"

After another small nod, Sunset relayed the true story of what happened to her at the end of Friday, trying her best to relay each experience, though she skipped Flash Sentry's not-so-veiled threats to her body. The two men, the human-sized rats that Ace had called 'spirits,' all three of the Flash Drives transforming into those spirit rats, one of them using strange magick while the other shifted into a bestial wolf-like monster, the stabbing, her time wandering the strange place her new acquaintance had called 'Pandemonium,' and the Watchtower there.

They failed to notice the sun peeking over the horizon until Sunset finished by explaining what Pinkie Pie and Dark Ace had each told her, capping with a quick display of the forming scar.

It took some time for Sweetie Belle to process what Sunset told her. Finally, she said, "You told more than one secret."

"You can owe me, then. How's that sound?"

They both giggled, but Sweetie Belle sobered quickly.

"I do have one more thing to tell you. I didn't tell you everything about Friday." She took a breath. "I remember bumping into you on the stairs. I didn't mean to do it, I was following my friends and didn't see you. I tried to say sorry, but I don't think you heard me.

"Scootaloo got all upset at me for saying sorry. When I got mad at her, Apple Bloom jumped on her side. They both said I had to hate you, too, even though we're all supposed to be friends now. I tried to tell them that, but they said I could be with them or you."

"I'm sorry about that," Sunset murmured. "Just go along with it until this is fixed. I don't want you to lose your friends."

"No way. If this is dark magic, they'll realise they were wrong when it's gone. You're nice now, and I won't do that, even if it's pretend. I don't want to hurt you again."

There was resolve in the girl's eyes, combined with a bit of loneliness. It triggered some reaction in Sunset, who knew what it was like to be without friends.

"I guess you'll need a friend to hang out with until this is over, huh? I'm going to have to learn a lot of new things to fix it, and I think I might need someone to help."

"You mean it? You'd really let me be your friend after everything?"

The bright green eyes shimmered with excitement, completely wiping the fear and hopelessness from existence.

"Of course."

Sunset was prepared for the tackle-hug. As they snuggled on the couch, she glanced at the nearby clock and saw how early it was. Rarity was known for her required 'beauty sleep,' and Spike had confided to Sunset Twilight's habit of sleeping late.

Feeling energised, Sunset asked to borrow Sweetie Belle's laptop, promising they could work together to research what they could, even if they were unlikely to find much. She was tired of being at the mercy of people who knew what was happening and - with an assistant to make the work bearable - decided it was time to fight back.