“How could Daring Do and the Secrets of Shangri-Neigh not be considered ‘classic literature’?!” Rainbow Dash said. Pinkie Pie had been perfectly fine with getting the story, but Twilight had tsk-tsked Rainbow for violating the exchange’s theme. This was why the Princess of Friendship stood nearby, leaning on the mantelpiece that held her crown and staring at her multicolored friend with a bemused expression.
Sunset and Luna stood nearby, their minor symbiosis to match Discord lasting through the book exchange. Sunset had spoken up frequently during the event, her reactions to the gifted literature ranging from vocal approval to pronounced disgust. Luna, however, sat in silence, only giving the occasional nod to whatever book appeared.
She doesn’t have a clue what these stories even are, Sunset had thought a quarter through the event. Her suspicions were further confirmed when two aberrations in the gifts appeared: Luna’s own Pone Quixote and Canterdide.
These aren’t even within the last two hundred years, Sunset had thought. The rest of the books, from A Summons to Manephis to Equestrian Pastoral, had been just past the cusp of being ‘classic’, in that they’d been written just before the Elements were born.
“I mean, it’s listed in National Equestrian Review’s Greatest Equestrian Novels!” Rainbow continued.
“So is The Bridges of Mareison County,” Twilight said with just a hint of smugness. Luna and Sunset looked on in silence, watching the two’s sparring match in shared amusement.
“Whatever!” Rainbow huffed. “It’s one of the greatest books in the series, and all the characters were written with a lot of depth. Besides, Pinkie loves anything you give her.”
Sunset nodded, more for Dash’s assertion about her poofy-haired friend than anything about Shangri-Neigh. She hadn’t even read a Daring-Do book from this world before; for all she knew, The Mistress of Maredipoor involved a fire being using the sun to fuel his lava production factory.
“Still, Daring-Do’s stories have only been written over the past few years,” Twilight said. “Something’s only classic once it hits twenty-five years old.”
“Says who?” Rainbow scoffed.
“Pretty much every author who ever lived.”
“Pfft! I’m not going to let some club of eggheads tell me what is and isn’t ‘classic’.”
“Oh? And what gives you the right to say what is and isn’t classic? Have you read every significant novel from the last two hundred years, let alone the past twenty-five?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Not everypony has the free time you’ve got, Twi.”
“Free time?!” She pointed at the golden crown resting on the mantle. “Does Princess of Equestria and Headmistress of the School of Friendship sound like it breeds a lot of ‘me time’?”
“Well,” Sunset spoke up. She’d hung around the girls’ alternates long enough to know when an argument was brewing. “I always thought Hoofinghay was a very important classic writer.”
The two friends looked at her, confusion on Rainbow’s face and relief on Twilight’s.
“Hoofing-who?” Rainbow said.
“Hoofinghay,” Twilight said with a smile. “One of the biggest names to come out of the Equestrian expatriates living in Prance one hundred years ago. He wrote The Sun Always Rises and To Hoof and Hoof Not.”
“Of course you’d know him,” Rainbow said with a sigh.
“But he was very good,” Sunset said. “Very few writers ever managed to pack as much emotion in so few words like he did.”
Luna smiled and nodded, but Sunset fought to contain her disappointment. I might as well be talking about aliens, Sunset thought. Princess Luna wouldn’t know the difference.
“I must agree,” Twilight said. “Actually, I think you’d like him, Rainbow. He was always writing about really dangerous things, and he used a very simple vocabulary.”
Rainbow squinted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that...”
Sunset looked back at Luna, who giggled at the two friends now staring daggers at each other. But that same, vague feeling of listlessness still plastered across her face.
Okay, what’s something she would have read? Sunset’s mind flashed through a hundred different authors, spanning genres even well-read ponies rarely dipped into.
Then, just before Rainbow Dash and Twilight could explode into another verbal barrage, it came to her.
“Luna,” Sunset said before flinching. Celestia’s sake, she’s a Princess! Sunset scolded herself. A traditional one at that. She’ll tan me alive for leaving out the royal title.
But Luna simply looked at Sunset in eager anticipation. After a quick breath of relief, she said, “Have you ever read Marechiavelli?”
Luna’s ears perked up. “Indeed! In fact, I spent a lot of my younger days pouring over Chevi’s treatises.”
“Chevi?” Twilight said, pried away from her stink-eye competition.
“That’s what I always called him,” Luna said with a faint smile. “We had brunch a few times every year, usually when he visited his cousin in Canterlot. For a stallion who wrote about such serious political subjects, he could be surprisingly amusing in private.”
Twilight danced in place, glee radiating from her face. “Oh, this is great! I always wanted to know more about him. Did he ever tell you whether he was being serious when he wrote The Princess?”
“Ha! It’s funny you should ask. We were actually walking through Canterlot’s main thoroughfare when I asked him that same question…”
Sunset walked away towards the punch bowl. I haven’t read Marchivelli at all, she thought. But Luna has, and that’s the most important thing. She looked back at Luna, now unmistakably absorbed in the conversation with her fellow Princess.
At least she won’t have to be alone either, Sunset thought with a smile.
Just then, Luna looked right at Sunset. Her first instinct was to turn away, to avoid the awkward situation two strangers looking at each other always causes. But Sunset didn’t see annoyance or surprise, but thanks in Luna’s glance.
Thanks not given to a stranger or even a mild acquaintance, but a friend that’d helped another out of a jam.
And just as fast as Sunset saw it, Luna’s eyes returned to her compatriot’s excited recitations of political theory and balances of power. But Sunset knew then, before all the future Hearth’s Warmings and the adventures that’d come with them, that she had another friend to share them with.
Author's Note
Well, that was short and sweet, eh? It's funny, because the original story I'd planned involved Sunset and Luna going on an epic adventure fighting mystical forces and learning about Hearth's Warming's past. But as I wrote it out, the more I realized just how complex and time-consuming that kind of story would be. So I simplified the story to the duo coming across each other at a Hearth's Warming book exchange, as I myself had recently gone to a Christmas party with a book exchange (one where I too forgot to bring a book and often felt out of place). Using this experience, I found a way to show the kind of alienation and aloofness through Sunset Shimmer and Luna. This story ends happier than my own, but that's the advantage of MLP: happy endings are always possible.
But the best part about this story was nothing about its creative process or how I felt about it, but how enthusiastically my Jinglemas recipient Nyronus received the story. He really seemed to like it, praising Discord's presence and the other characters' interactions. Without his enjoyment, I'd probably just think of this as another story in a slathering of other finished and unfinished works. With his approval, this is a story I'm immensely proud of. Writing is often used to help us understand and connect with one another, and the fact that I was able to appeal to Nyronus so naturally showed this power in full force.
Here's to hoping you enjoyed the story as well, and a Happy New Years to everyone!
This Cold, Unfamiliar Land
The party had been a last minute endeavor on Sunset’s part. The invitation came just as she’d settled upon her bed that night, her journal buzzing and Twilight’s words leaping off the page in unrestrained anticipation. Promises of a wide variety of desserts and an exchange of classic Equestrian literature filled Sunset’s blurred eyes.
It would be nice, Sunset had thought, stifling a yawn. A certain homesickness had pervaded since her brief visit during the Wallflower saga. Past grievances had been buried, and the other world’s holiday celebrations now seemed tainted by their dull familiarity.
What the hay, she thought. So she’d thrown on the ragged clothes piled in her laundry bin, strapped on her tennis shoes and ran through suburbia as fast as she could. The holiday lights hanging from the homes’ roofs reflected off her glimmering skin, and her heart beat in anticipation as she neared Canterlot High.
But standing here now, on four hooves instead of two feet and her cup of punch floating in a light blue aura, she realized just how much of a guest she really was. The other ponies, all local friends and family of Twilight, mingled with each other in comfortable familiarity throughout the castle library. The Elements stood in their own cluster, Spike and Starlight wrestled over the last cinnamon roll on the dessert table, and Princess Luna stared up at a portrait of Starswirl the Bearded hanging by the Historical section.
But Sunset stood off in the corner, sipping her punch with the urgency of somepony who simply needed something, anything to do.
It’s not Twilight’s fault, Sunset thought. She was just trying to be a good friend.
As were Twilight’s other friends, who’d similarly welcomed Sunset with open hooves. For a few minutes, their similarity to Sunset’s otherworldly companions made their introductions easier to handle than she’d expected. Fluttershy still remained quaintly aloof as ever, and Rarity bombarded her with compliments on the way her newly-grown tail shimmered in the Hearth’s Warming lights strung throughout the library. The same warmth of friendship permeated their interactions, almost enough to fool Sunset that they were her own friends.
Almost.
The minor deviances announced themselves in their own subtle ways. The brief pause from Pinkie when Sunset told her about the Theremin in the other world, or Rainbow Dash’s confusion over the concept of “the video-game”. Even Starlight, a visitor of the other world, seemed lost when Sunset brought up her broken motorbike. Nopony (Not ‘nobody’, Sunset always had to remind herself) jeered at her faux pas, but each stumble served as a reminder that this wasn’t her world anymore.
I should’ve told Twilight I was going to sleep, Sunset thought. It would’ve been true. Indeed, Sunset’s presence had been the party’s sole wildcard, a seeming bonus to a holiday filled with a surplus of joy already. Twilight had planned everything else weeks in advance, deciding the various minutia from the shiny blue tinsel that covered the bookshelves to the fruit-flavored punch sitting in Sunset’s cup.
Tastes like mango and pineapple, Sunset thought. She squinted down at her drink and imagined it sloshing around the cup. The cup soon repeated her thought, though the cup’s tilts felt forced compared to the easy handling her mind dictated.
Sunset sighed. I can’t even hold a cup naturally anymore.
“What’s the matter, Sunset Shimmer?” a deep voice emanated from within the cup. Her eyes went wide when the orange liquid pressed into a long, goateed face staring up at her. “Not enough punch to this party?”
“Ack!” Sunset squealed, she and the cup tumbling to the floor. The punch flew out, the little droplets growing larger and larger before materializing into a slender form speckled with different appendages.
“Please, Sunset,” the horned figure said. “‘Ack’ was my third cousin four times removed. ‘Discord’ is the name most ponies call me.”
“Right,” she said, getting up from the floor. Twilight’s numerous correspondences detailing the shenanigans of the mischievous being came to her mind. “Do you always appear to ponies in their drinks?”
“Of course not,” Discord said with a grin. “Sometimes I cameo in their toast and bowls of spaghetti.”
Sunset sighed. “Twilight told me you’d do something like this.”
“Oh? She told you that my face would appear in your drink and you’d react the same way everypony does when they see something so indescribably delightful?”
“Well, not exac-”
“Excellent! I’d hate to have become predictable. Being the Lord of Chaos comes with certain expectations, you know.”
A knowing smile came across Sunset’s face. “But aren’t you supposed to not have expectations?”
Discord grinned. “You catch on quickly, Sunset Shimmer. You’re all right.”
“Well, I like to think-“ Just then, Sunset stood on only two legs and went blind in her left eye. She looked down with her right eye to see the entire left side of her body gone.
“Aaah!” she cried as she fell to the ground. She landed on her reconstituted left side with a thunk.
“Closer,” Discord said. “‘Aaah’ was my second cousin four and a half times removed.”
“Discord!” a powerful voice called out. Sunset didn’t even need to look up at the tall and dark figure to recognize the command’s owner, her blue mane flowing in eternal ethereality. “Cease this tomfoolery!”
“Oh dearest Luna,” Discord said, bowing low with his bottom sticking high in the air. “I’m simply introducing myself to our guest.”
“Such an introduction does not require erasing half of her body.”
“Well, I wanted to make an impression,” Discord said with a sheepish shrug. “A brief moment of inescapable bodily manipulation and the resulting existential terror is something one rarely forgets.”
“Precisely why one does not do it at a Hearth’s Warming Eve Party,” Luna said with a scowl. “This is an occasion for happiness.”
“Well, I was pretty happy…”
A look as hard as steel filled Luna’s face. “Do I need to call Fluttershy over?”
Discord gasped. “You wouldn’t…”
Luna gave a coy smile. “I spent a thousand years haunting little ponies’ nightmares. I’m more than willing to ruin Hearth’s Warming for a being of chaos.”
For a moment, they stared at each other in silence, the upbeat Hearth’s Warming carol blasting from the phonograph and the other guests’ chatter their only accompaniment.
Sunset tensed. Oh no, she thought. One of them is going to unleash a hundred megatons of magic on-
“Oh, phooey,” Discord said with a scowl. “Your sister is much more fun.” With that, he stuck out his tongue and floated off back towards the cluster of guests.
“Do not mind him, Sunset Shimmer,” Luna said with a smile, gentler than her previous one. “He may be reformed, but he’s more than capable of the occasional insolence.”
“Yeah,” Sunset said. “Though if Twilight’s letters are anything to go by, his shenanigans are far from ‘occasional’.”
Luna chuckled. “Indeed.”
“Alright, everypony!” Twilight’s voice reverberated throughout the library. “We’re going to start the book exchange!”
Sunset let out a sigh.
“What’s the matter?” Luna said. “Surely a student of Celestia’s is not adverse to literary exchanges?”
“Oh no,” Sunset said, a hint of embarrassment crossing her face. “It’s just…I wasn’t able to bring a book with me. The book shops in the, um…other place weren’t open when I was invited.”
“Fear not,” Luna said with a smile. “My sister got tied up with some dispute between the Canterlot nobles, so I brought another tome in her place.” A book floated out of her satchel into Sunset’s hoof. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you used this one as your own.”
“Oh, thanks!” Sunset said. She and the Princess then made their way towards the room’s center table, a familiar warmth spreading through Sunset’s body.
