You like reading too?

"So there Trixie was, standing all alone against impossible odds." Trixie swept her foreleg out in a dramatic motion as Twilight followed along. Trixie had been dropping by while Twilight was having lunch a lot more often lately. Twilight couldn't complain though, she genuinely enjoyed the little blue filly's presence. It's not like she'd been able to make any other friends in this school yet either.

She had gotten used to Trixie's tall tales too, especially seeing as she seemed to have a new one every time they saw each other. Twilight wasn't sure if she just enjoyed her storytelling that much or if she was some kind of improvisation master. One thing was for sure, Trixie knew how to tell the most ridiculous stories with nothing but pure confidence. Twilight was actually starting to pick up some of that confidence by proxy. She used to get so jittery when Trixie started telling her stories in the middle of the cafeteria.

Most of the foals nearby rolled their eyes, but she could see a few ears pivoting in their direction. Trixie might not have been popular thanks to her incessant bragging, but she did have a way with storytelling.

Twilight idly bit into an apple as she focused back on Trixie. "The manticore was a wily foe, but Trixie was far more clever and had read up on all his secret weaknesses," said Trixie in a hushed tone that carried across the room regardless. "She had even acquired a prized artifact, the Orb of Obfuscation."

Twilight wondered where Trixie was keeping all these magical artifacts she was supposedly collecting. Not to mention where she was finding the time to go on all these adventures. She stopped herself before she started questioning what kind of books would have the weakness of a specific manticore listed in them though.

She finished her meal mostly in peace as Trixie wove her tale of magical domination over a manticore that was far too interested in raiding rural towns. It was excellent as usual, though she kept the magical explosions to a minimum after a few glares from the surrounding students. Twilight idly wondered at how lucky she was, before meeting Trixie she would have just listlessly made her way through her meal before running back to her books. Now she got to listen to fantastical stories every so often, and sometimes they even discussed illusion theory.

Having also finished her own meal by that point, Trixie suddenly stood up with a dramatic flourish of her cape. "As much as Trixie has delighted in the retelling of another glorious adventure to her most faithful assistant," she paused for dramatic effect. "The great and powerful Trixie must now attend classes. Farewell."

She then threw down a smoke bomb and disappeared. The effect was slightly ruined when she tripped on her own cloak, sliding out of sight through the cafeteria door as the smoke dissipated prematurely. That cloak really loved tripping that filly, it also wasn't much of a fan of friction.

Utterly unphased at this point Twilight simply stood up and made her way out after putting both their trays away. She was getting far too used to this sort of thing.

Twilight and Moon Dancer had met before, but neither had had much to say to each other. Both loved their books and had little interest in interacting with the ponies around them. Twilight had survived on her big brothers presence and the proximity of her parents, Moon Dancer? She just rolled with it. She didn't need anyone or any pony. Still, it was nice to have a kindred spirit around, someone she could point a hoof at and say. "I'm okay. I'm not different. I'm just like any other pony."

She may have looked into said pony a little, but that was just the smart thing to do. Her parents did it all the time, so there was nothing wrong with it right? She knew it wasn't something she was supposed to talk about though. You couldn't trust anyone outside the moon guard, they didn't understand the things a pony was supposed to know.

Thanks to this Moon Dancer was well informed on the subject of one Twilight Sparkle. She knew about her elder brother, her father who worked in the royal astronomy tower, and even about little Spike the dragon. She was a quiet and introspective pony, not given to talking to others or asking questions she could find in her books. Twilight understood though, they were the same. Even if she couldn't quite work up the nerve to talk to the purple pony she was sure they would be the best of friends eventually. It was just a matter of time.

Now her parents were interested in her though, and had demanded that she start cozying up to her. Moon Dancer really wasn't ready to take this next step with Twilight, but she was willing to give it a try. Better someone who cares rather than her parents sending someone else who would just use her for the connections she would eventually accumulate. Other ponies just didn't understand.

Twilight slowly took notice of the yellow unicorn smiling at her in the distance. There weren't any other students roaming this part of the hallway. She had noticed her a few times in the library, but she gave off the strong impression she wasn't interested in talking. She had actually been thinking about taking the plunge and trying to befriend her, but maybe she had decided to do the same before her?

The unicorn fell into step beside her, still with that smile of hers. Up close it looked a little more strained and Twilight could tell she was uncomfortable. It honestly made Twilight feel better about her own situation, the bookish unicorn still got nervous around other ponies she didn't know all the time. She resolved to make friends with her, she would put in the effort as well if somepony else was going to this much trouble.

"Hello?" she asked curiously. "Can I help you with something?"

The unicorns smile seemed to relax a little. "Hi Twilight, my name is Moon Dancer. I've noticed you like reading."

Glancing at the heavy book filled saddlebags slung over Moon Dancers back, she decided that this was going to be the ice breaker topic. "I think that's something we have in common actually," Twilight said with a reassuring smile. "What kind of books do you like to read? Squeaky Clean's Advanced Spell Theory for Foals is one of my favourites."

Moon Dancer looked back at her, her smile curving up a little more. "I've read that one before, I especially liked the section on spell construction," she let out a nervous chuckle. "Spell construction is actually my special talent."

Twilight looked at her with a new respect. Spell construction was a really rare and powerful talent. Twilight's talent allowed her to understand the inner workings of magic more intuitively than any other unicorn, but a general talent like that could only take her so far without a lot of extra work. Someone with a spell construction cutie mark could potentially revolutionize entire fields of magic in their lifetime.

She wondered what kinds of things they could work out together? This could be the start of a wonderful friendship, and she liked books too. She was starting to regret not having spoken to her earlier, it seemed like she was a kindred spirit. Besides, nobody who liked books could be a bad pony right?

They spent the rest of the break chatting. They weren't sharing any classes together until at least next year, but they were both caught up enough with work that they agreed to meet in the library after school to work on making a study group. She wondered if she could drag Trixie into the mix?

Sunset Shimmer was a strange girl, part of that was the fact that she used to be a unicorn. She had eventually discovered that there was magic on this side of the portal, small pockets of it at any rate. Turns out that there are side effects to dumping a number of magically powerful criminals into a magically inert world. Something had to shift to compensate, and that magic was an integral part of those individuals. No, being a unicorn was not normal by any stretch, but she was far from the only one. What was strange about Sunset was her obsessive drive to succeed, and her sometimes exceedingly short sighted ambitions.

It was something that had been tempered in the flames of failure. But she still had the urge to go above and beyond what was expected of her. She had wanted to impress the Princess so badly that she had turned to dark magic and an ancient portal to a world she didn't understand in the slightest. In the end that burning drive only got her the disappointment of the one whose opinion she cared about the most. Sunset had learned from her mistakes, but she was definitely still dumb in the way smart unicorns with too much time on their hands still end up with exploding towers. Even if she didn't care much about becoming an Alicorn anymore.

That was how she ended up in the basement of a semi popular sweet shop in Canterlot, fiddling with far too many wires to count and electronic components she barely comprehended. "You sure this will actually work?" She asked breathlessly. "I'm pretty sure this is only a few short steps away from exploding."

Lyra looked back at her with a smug grin on her face. "Trust me, I know exactly what I'm doing. You're looking at the number one unicorn expert in all of Canterlot, probably the world."

Bon Bon looked over at them with an impassive expression. "More like a conspiracy theorist. I'm still not sure you're really a unicorn at all. This whole story seems a bit far fetched."

"Come on Bonny, you saw the pictures, and the magical artifacts actually work like they're supposed to." She turned back to the display she was working on, pressing innumerable buttons in a sequence only she was likely to understand.

"Lyra, I don't like pulling this card, but you know there are things out there we can barely comprehend. It's not always unicorns." She said with a sigh, her posture drooping in exasperation.

"And I've explained a number of them already, haven't I... Agent Sweetie Drops?" Sunset turned away long enough to give her an insufferably smug grin that blew Lyra's out of the water.

"Are you ever going to let that go?" Bon Bon asked, sinking further into her seat. "You're really not supposed to know about that. You could get in a lot of trouble if the wrong people heard you talking about this you know."

"What can I say, I like living on the edge." Sunset replied, finally fitting everything into the round metallic device she was working on, closing the back panel with a satisfying click.

"Aww yeah! Here we go." Lyra exclaimed, whooping as the display filled up with numbers and diagrams that would have given most people a headache to look at for any decent length of time.

"A few quick twists here and there, change that number to this one, lock onto that frequency, and..." Lyra seemed to jump around the room, changing the settings on machine after machine as the room filled up with a loud hum. "Bam, there we go."

A portal in space time ripped open in front of them. A swirling mess of red, purple, and green colors lined the edge of a perfect oval floating in mid air. Just beyond they could see a grassy field, and in the distance houses with thatched roofs. The most important detail however was the multitude of colorful ponies bustling about the small town. There were unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies all over the place. A groan was heard nearby as a flashing light came from where Sunset had been standing earlier.

A perfectly normal unicorn with a warm amber coat sat there, rubbing her head and scrunching up her eyes. "That feels just as bad as actually walking through the mirror."

She looked up to see Lyra's intense expression way too close to her face. "Uh... hey there?" She asked awkwardly as Lyra's hand twitched and her gaze remained fully focused on her horn.

Bon Bon just face palmed and ignored Sunset's cries for help as she struggled to keep Lyra's hands away from her sensitive horn.