Twilight stared at the stone in front of her. She hadn’t been to a place like this very often, even less because of personal reasons. She didn't like the atmosphere, the stillness that surrounded her. Everything seemed so calm, so detached from the world.

It was still hard to accept it. She sighed and placed the flowers in her hand on the grave.

Snow crunched beneath boots, as Twilight turned to look she could see Pinkie Pie walking between the rows of graves in her direction. Twilight’s brow furrowed. The changes Pinkie had undergone were very obvious to those familiar with the girl. Her hair had been completely straight ever since the funeral, so she had pulled it into a simple and utilitarian ponytail. Her face lacked the joyous energy, instead she had an unusual calmness about her.

It took her about a minute to reach Twilight, but even then neither of them talked for a while. When they did, no eye contact was made.

"How is Fluttershy?“

Pinkie sighed. "Well, they released her from the hospital yesterday. She is still very shaky, but I think it is getting better. It's just slow.“

"How?“

The party girl finally looked up at the princess.

"How did it happened? Why did she…“

"We don’t know. Nobody knows.“ Pinkie produced something from her coat and placed it in a small jar with others of its kind. A small, yet beautiful red and golden flower made entirely from paper with artistic talent. "Nobody will ever know, I guess.“

Pinkie slightly shook her head with a sad expression. "From what I could get out of Rarity and the others, she just suddenly started bleeding a lot and fell over. No one has any idea what it could be. Not that it would matter, really.“

"I know Pinkie, I was here for the ‘funeral‘. I just don’t understand. First this… Anon-whatever disaster, than this, than the accident on the bridge. Why did all of this had to happen to her?“ Finally Twilight shifted her gaze towards the pink girl.

"I read the news article, Pinkie. Six times. And while I don’t know a lot of technology and those 'cars', I don’t think they just explode randomly.“

"Well, again, nobody knows what happened. I am sorry.“

Twilight grimaced and began walking away, only to stop as Pinkie spoke up again.

"My apologies, Twilight, but I need to know. Do you hate us? It's ok if you do, I understand and I think the others would too.“

"I am still mad, Pinkie. But I have more important things to do." The princess from the mirror turned and looked into Pinkie's eyes. Where before she had seemed just like another teenager, so young and dorky, now she radiated cold authority. Pinkie tried not to shrink under the gaze of a being, she only now truly felt was far more powerful than any of them. Then Twilight reached into her coat.

Pinkie was honestly shocked to see the leatherbound book with the red and golden sun, the same sun that was on the grave marker next to them. And she was even more shocked when Twilight held it out in front of her. Like she was handing it to Pinkie.

"I assume you know what this does?" Pinkie nodded numbly, Sunset had told them the gist of it.

"I... I thought it was gone." she stammered. Her shaky hands reached out and tentatively grasped the old tome.

"It was. Until the culprits decided to try and leave it out in the open, so I could find it without knowing who it was. Unfortunately for them, I found out anyway. The only good thing is that the journal remained unharmed, guess they knew it was important to her and me, not that that prevented me from chewing them out for it. For now you will take care of it. The journal stabilizes the connection of our two worlds, if any more news come up or an emergency happens you can contact me through it." With that said, Twilight whirled around and marched away and towards the graveyard's exit. Though she did stop for a moment at the end of the row of graves.

"Maybe I will give you girls another chance, one day. But right now I can't, I‘m both too busy and too full of grief to do so. Goodbye.“

Pinkie gave a small wave towards the lavender girl, calling after her "Thank you Twilight! See you hopefully soon!", then she looked at the gravemarker before her.

"I am sorry, Sunset. I hope you’re at peace now.“

A blur of voices was filling her ears, so many people talking wildly at the same time. All around her was constant movement, so much that no singular body could be perceived. Everywhere, except in front of her.

A sea of red, growing larger by the second, supplied by a steady stream from the amber and red girl. She was lying on the ground, no movement except a twitch here or there.

Her face…

Oh goodness, why was her face so clearly visible? Why did it have to look to her?

She couldn’t get her eyes to look away from the ones of the bleeding form on the ground. Blood was seeping out of those once so lively teal orbs, flowing down the cheeks like tears.

Eyes that were staring right at her.

Why did you do it? they seemed to say. This is all your fault!

She couldn’t move, could not do anything as those eyes pierced her soul, as those words became louder and louder in her mind, clear for her to hear over the rest of the chaos around her.

"After everything I did.“

"This is all your fault!“

"Why did you abandon me?!“

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!“

Rarity fell out of her bed, her night gown soaked to the bone with sweat. For a moment she remained in an uncomfortable position, her breath labored, her head recovering from the shock.

Then she fully collapsed to the ground and began to sob uncontrollably.

She didn’t know how long she remained like this, but eventually there were no more tears to be shed. How could there be any left at all? How could she even had some to begin with? So many had already been lost in this one single week.

A glance at the clock revealed that the fashionista had woken hours before the sun would rise. Briefly the desire to go back to bed crept into her mind, but she quickly pushed it away. There was no way a peaceful sleep would be granted to her, she knew, so she might as well get ready and do something.

After all, today she had to be presentable. They were going to hold the funeral ceremony. If you could even call it a funeral, when there was nothing left of... No, she couldn't dwell on that right now.

So she went into her bathroom for a shower. The warm water helped with the sweat, but only a little with her thoughts. Soon enough, Rarity stood before the mirror in her bathroom. Her purple hair was a wet mess and big eye bags indicated that today had been no singularity.

As she opened the mirror cabinett above the sink, Rarity’s view immediately shifted towards a small bottle containing certain pills. For a moment, the desire to use them emerged only to be squashed immediately.

Was it simple stubbornness? The fear of losing control and plummeting down into a spiral of addiction?

Or was it guilt, mixed with some twisted sense of self-punishement?

Rarity didn’t really care. What mattered was that she wouldn’t take any pills anytime soon and that was that.

With sluggish movements she applied the most simplest of make-up, then she left the bathroom to dress up.

Another day of sadness and sorrow could begin. And it didn’t seem to be any better than the ones before. In fact, today would likely be the worst of them all.

Silently she made her exit, careful not to wake the sleeping inhabitant of the room. Once she was finally outside, Rainbow Dash slowly closed the door and walked into the living room. Only a few critters were still around, most notably Angel of course. The little white bunny was currently standing atop the newspaper from Thursday. As the prismatic haired girl entered, she received a demanding look from two narrowed eyes.

"Don’t worry little guy, she is sleeping. Just lay off my back a bit, will you?“ Without waiting for some sort of answer Rainbow got her lunch from the kitchen, some simple sandwiches curtesy of Pinkie, and sat down at the table.

Before she could start eating though, the opened article managed to catch her attention. It was about the accident. Of course.

Flinging the newspaper towards an empty basket, she finally dug in, although now her mind was again swirling with thoughts and questions. And here she had tried to finally take her mind off it for atleast some time. Alas to no avail, it seemed.

Looking around, Rainbow couldn’t see Angel Bunny anywhere. Most likely scenario: He was currently trying to get inside the room of his best friend/owner. Hopefully he would do it quietly.

They had already released her home some days ago, but only because there was no real point of keeping her in a hospital. She still needed to be cared for, atleast for a few more days.

Fluttershy had been shaken by what happened for the entirety of Wednesday, but when the most terrible news had arrived, she had just snapped. All the stress and then this, it had caused her legs to give out and her mind quickly followed suit. Now she had to be carried around, and make daily exercises to get her body back in working business.

She had insisted to attend the funeral though, even when it meant using a temporary wheelchair.

Well, a memory stone had been placed on a small free spot in the graveyard, a couple of words had been spoken, a few flowers had been placed before it, tears had flown. And that was it. That was all you could do if nothing of the person was left to bury, when everything had been consumed in fire and explosions.

Princess Twilight had been there, the Rainbooms of course, some students from CHS, the teachers, some family, sadly none of Sunset her herself. Somehow it had made the whole thing even more despressing than it already felt.

And now everyone was trying to recollect themselves, reorganize their lives. Christmas was near, winter break had started. Life was moving on, so should they. Still, Rainbow kept coming back to this whole thing, to her memories of Sunset.

She often had to wonder why she could not accept it. She knew of course that she was one of the most headstrong people in the school, alongside Applejack and a few others. But seldom had things been so unreal, happening so quickly that even she could not understand it.

The last week just seemingly blended together for her. They had distanced themselves from Sunset for, at that point, obvious reasons. Things had escalated so much so fast; Rainbow had to admit that many, she and the other Rainbooms included, had all to readily started to fall back into the status quo of mere months ago.

But everything just escalated further. Suddenly, word got around that Sunset was being driven to the hospital. Then she when she had gotten the first actual account of what happened from Lyra, she had been horrified. Only a couple hours later the next bomb: Sunset was actually dead. And only now things seemed to calm down finally, somewhat.

Rainbow already missed her. It was strange, but that was that.

Behind the building that made up the main part of CHS, Gilda Grimfeather was sitting on the bleachers and smoking a cigarette. Since it was the last day of school before the holidays and really cold, she could be sure that no teachers would come out and interrupt her. There were others that had also used this opportunity, not necessarily to smoke, but right now no one else was here.

The main reason for students to seek peace by the sports fields had been the entire fiasco, sitting in the cold was preferable to bear the chaos in the hallways. Sadly one could enjoy this little safe haven for only that much time between lessons, but it still helped.

Now though, the importance had severly diminished. Sunset was gone and with her Anon-a-miss, and with that the influx of secrets. The school wasn’t peacefull by any means. Arguments still happened, so many groups were still broken apart and you could count the number of ‘happy reunifications‘ with your fingers. But at least no more fuel was being thrown into the fire.

Gilda put the burning cigarette back into her mouth and leaned back. Everywhere she looked, white snow covered the world in a big white blanket. A few half-hearted christmas decorations had been set up, although it just looked pathetic. Not like anyone at school was very enthusiastic at the moment.

Amidst the scenery, it was easy for Gilda to spot another person making their way towards the bleachers. They didn’t look like a member of staff, so she was content to continue smoking.

The figure approached an soon Gilda was able to identify her. Lightning Dust still looked somber and downtrodden, which was understandable since a few assholes hadn’t really stopped teasing her yet. On the other hand though, things had started to get better again, so seing her still like this was somewhat worrisome for Gilda.

"Yo Lightning, you alright?“ She looked up but said nothing. Instead she walked over and sat down next to the white haired girl. Gilda took the cigarette packet from her leather jacket and held it in an offering gesture. "Want one?“

"No thank you.“ Lightning’s response came out unnaturally soft for the usually energetic football player. With a shrug, the packet was put back into its pocket. Frozen air passed between them in powerful gusts.

Finally, Gilda decided to break the silence in the way she knew best: direct confrontation.

"Alright Dusty, whats bugging you? If it's cause a few dipshits are still thinking living by yer ol' Grandma is hilarious-“

"It’s not that, Gil. But I appreciate it. It is something else that has been on my mind.“ Lightning gave a small sigh before continuing. "I know it will sound kinda stupid, but I can’t stop myself thinking about it.“

Gilda just gave a small grin, extinguishing the remains of her cigarette in the snow. "Just let it out girl. No one here that is gonna judge you or anything.“

"Okay. The thing that has been bugging me since Thursday, well it has to do with Sunset.“ Gilda frowned, still she didn’t interrupt her company. "I… Gilda, did we kill her?“

The other girl let out her breath in a steamy white cloud, her hand scratching her equally white hair.

"Damn, Lightning that is rather dark of you to think. And to give ya'n answer: No. I don’t think that we killed her. Won’t deny that we hurt her though, one way or another. But what makes you think that?“

"I dunno, its just a feeling of some sort I guess. I mean lots of people are saying she had suffered from interal bleeding. And, well it is possible…“

"Listen, I’m no doctor, but I don’t think pushing someone into lockers a few times, or hitting them with ice n' pebbles, results in blood coming out your entire face. Sunset is dead, I don’t like it any more than you do and I don’t think she deserved this, but thats just how it is. And with her body kinda reduced to ashes, there’s no way we’ll know what caused it all, sad as it may be.“

There was no answer to this from Lightning as she simply sat there. Mumbling something under her breath, Gilda pulled out a new cigarette and plucked it into her mouth.

"Not that I don't understand the point you're making. Or the guilt you're feeling." Lightning actually raised an eyebrow at that, prompting Gilda to elaborate further. "I'm pretty sure I was the last one to hurt her, y'know. Damn it all, I just wanted to stop it, somehow. Thought that if her phone was out, maybe that would hinder the entire thing. It felt shitty, not gonna lie, but I hoped it would matter. Now, I only feel shitty about it. Thinking that I only made things worse, what with me kicking her in the gut after all that. Damned mess this is."

As she searched for her matches, two almost synchronized sounds went off. One off them sounded like some sort of warning siren, and it was coming from Lightning’s phone.

Gilda just raised an eyebrow. Lightning gave a tired sigh and retrieved the device from its pocket.

"It’s Anon-a-miss, again. Sorry, I changed the notification to an air raid siren, it seemed fitting at the… time…“ The last of sentence slowly trailed off as the meaning of it all began to settle in.

"That can't be right." She said, cold dread spreading throughout her. "S-she is d-d-de... M-myStable doesn't work like that. And you killed her phone!"

"What is going on?“ Gilda whispered, as she too took out her phone on went on the MyStable-page that had started it all. Neither spoke a word, as both girls read the newest post. Again and again. Only a few seconds later Anon-a-Miss posted again, this time a single picture with no underlying text whatsoever. Not that it needed any.

"Y-you've got to be shitting me. This... it had to be her..."

"She wasn't it… what have we done Dusty?“

The icy air blew through the streets and the open field. New snowflakes gently drifted from the sky towards the earth, to join their comrades on the floor. On the cold bleachers, two girls sat in utter disbelief. Their minds had already accepted a fact, welcomed it even, using it as a reason for their actions. And yet, right before them was the evidence that they had been wrong. The entire school had been wrong.

"Twilight! Dinner is ready!“

It only took the girl seven minutes and 38 seconds to pause all her experiements, shed her labcoat and get from her labatory to the dining table. She knew it, for she had mentally counted every single second.

Like usual, her parents had made the call to dinner about ten minutes before it could actually begin, knowing full well that their daughter needed some time to make sure none of her projects would continue and/or suffer a meltdown while eating. And since she was already here now, Twilight could very well help with setting the table.

"Please set for five people, Twilight, your brother and Cadence are coming.“ Night Light said before returning to the, rather big, kitchen of the house. Twilight beamed and immediately went to grab the plates from the right cabinett. Her BBBFF would finally be home again!

She hadn’t heard a lot of specifc details, only that Shining had been very occupied the last couple of days. This meant that he had been living in a small apartment near to the police station, and not in the family residence. But now, atleast for the weekend, he would be home!

And Dean Cadence was also coming. While Twilight found the quantity of her visits in recent times a bit strange, there was exactly no reason to complain about it.

Dingeling-Dong!

"That must be them, I’ll go get it!“

Twilight rushed towards the door, her little dog Spike directly behind her. All the noise had woken him up as soon as the lavender girl had started to pause all of her projects. Now he was excitedly following her with his tail waggling. Both of them stopped before the main entrance, and with waisting no time the portal was opened.

With a loud squeal, Twilight threw herself in a hug with her older brother. Her brother, who had only had half a second to drop everything he had been carrying and to brace himself for impact. To his credit, Shining Armor actually managed to keep himself steady while happily returning the hug.

"Shining! You’re finally back again!“

"Hello, Twily. I’m happy too, but please be careful. You almost knocked me over completely.“ Shining chuckled as his younger sister finally released him with a sheepish smile.

A smile that soon turned into a genuine one as the spectacled girl looked to the other visitor, who wasn’t really successful in trying not to giggle at the exchange before her.

"Good evening, Dean Cadence.“

Instead of answering immediately, Cadence moved right in front of her and leaned down. With a big grin on both of their faces, the two carried out their own little meeting ritual.

"Sunshine. Sunshine, Ladybugs awake! Clap your hands and do a little shake!“

After fullfilling the associated moves, Twilight errupted in laughter and embraced her dean in another hug.

"Hey, Ladybug. You do know we only saw each other yesterday?“ The young woman asked with giggles interrupting her speech. Shining was also chuckling to himself with a warm smile, his cheecks blushing ever so slightly. Not that Twilight would notice anyway.

Pulling away from her, Twilight finally let both of them into the house, but only after scooping up Spike to prevent him getting in the way.

"I know, but it feels so long already.“

Shortly after, the entire Sparkle household plus visitor was sitting at the table. Dinner was served and soon conversation shifted towards the eldest son’s recent occupation.

"Come on Shining, tell us about your job. It must have been something very important and serious if they needed you the entire week.“ His Mother asked with genuine interest.

"Yeah, about that. Mainly they needed us to investigate what happened at Canterlot High and the Bridge. And well… I can’t tell a lot of what happened, because there is honestly not a lot of information that we have at all. Even though everyone's been trying to find things at any place even remotely connected, we got nothing.“

When she heard the name of the well-known highschool, Twilight Sparkle immediately perked up. "Wait, you mean CHS? What happened there?“

There was a general silence around the table, as most members were looking at the young scientist with a bit of disbelief. Feeling all the stares coming from her family and Dean, Twilight blushed, while her hands nervously fiddled with her fork.

"Whaaat? I… was very busy lately. With science, and experiements and doing… a lot of homework.“ Trying to hide her blush as well as getting the attention off herself, the lavender girl turned to her brother again.

"So really, what happened at CHS, was it something bad?“

Shining Armor put down his own curtlery. "I don’t know the full extent, but what happened was rather bad, unfortunetly. Apparently over the last two weeks or so, there had been… cyber-bullying of some sort. Someone publishing gossip and little secrets from others under an anonymus account. Sadly, many students quickly found a scapegoat in one particular girl. From what they told us she had been a bully herself for about three years, but lately she had tried to better herself. Then last Wednesday there was an incident of sorts. She… according to all the witnessess, she had come in conflict with a couple of students whom she had been friends with. Then suddenly she collapsed and… started bleeding.“ Shining looked unsure if he should elaborate any further, but evidently decided against it. "The thing is, the girl was driven to a hospital immediately, but on the way to Canterlot Center a car accident happened. From what all the eye-witnesses told us, the ambulance just suddenly burst into flames, lost control and crashed on it's side. That happened on the Royal bridge, over the Everfree River.“

His sister watched him with widened eyes, while the rest of the family had rather somber expressions.

"Did anyone survive?“

"From the ambulance, sadly no. There was another car that got caught in the blast, but it's driver is alive, though still in hospital. The fire was really bad, we could only recover two bodies out of possible five, and there is no way any can be identified. The last days were spent asking almost half the school for any tidbit of information on what happened and what may be the cause, but we may never know."

The CMC-clubhouse was already in sight, amidst the massive orchard of apple trees. Not a lot of noise could be heard, except the random bird or critter, as well as Scootaloo making her way towards the treehouse. As she entered it, she could already see her two friends waiting for her. Scootaloo set down her scooter at the entrance and flashed a short smile towards Applebloom and Sweetie Belle.

As she finally sat down, Applebloom hesitantely started to speak. "Hey Scoots. How is Rainbow Dash doing?“

"She… is okay. Has been a bit busy lately, keeping an eye and caring for Fluttershy. She has been rather quiet in the last few days, but, I mean… I can’t blame her.“

The following silence was broken by Sweetie Belle, as she vigorously stood up from her chair and planted herself before her two friends.

"Alright, enough with this, if I have to adress the elephant in the room so be it. Sunset Shimmer is dead, who here feels guilty for it?“

Three hands were raised simultaneously. Sweetie gave a satisfied nod. "Good, were on the same page then.“ With that she let out a sigh, and dropped her vehement demeanor.

"I just don’t understand it.“ Scootaloo was staring at the floor while she was speaking, her fingers playing with her phone. "There is no real reason why we are directly responsible for what happened with her, no one can explain the cause or anything, really. It could be any reason, something completely unrelated to us. But I… I still have this feeling in my gut… it-I don’t know how to explain it.“

"Ah get ya Scoots.“ Applebloom joined in. "Lately, everytime I see mah Sis, I feel bad for what we did.“ Both of the other girls gave her a questioning look, prompting Applebloom for more details. "She is like a robot sometimes, you know what I mean? She just walks around, always looking for something to do. I guess that is how she’s trying to distract herself when none of the other girls are around. Yesterday… she had a lot of apple cider for diner. Thankfully we managed to convince her to stop, but she has been acting very agitated since. I think, she is feeling really guilty too, and is trying distract herself as much as possible without caring about how.“

Scootaloo looked at her red-haired friend with shock, immediately the guilt reformed in her guts like a rock.

"Alright…“ Sweetie once again asumed the conversation, although she herself was also slightly shaken from the news. "Now, who here feels like we shouldn’t have done it? Because, let us be really honest here. We suceeded, we got what we wanted. Our, respective, sisters are spending less time with Sunset and more time with us. It’s- it is just how it is.“

"Geez Sweetie. That is col-“

"But it’s a fact, Applebloom.“ The white girl wrapped her hands around herself. "I didn’t want her to die, none of us did, I don't think even anyone of the entire school wanted her dead. But she is. Maybe we are guilty, maybe it would have happened anyway. But we wont know. God-dammit, nobody will know why anything happened at all. I have helped Rarity for the last two days. She is a mess, but in those two days I spend more time with her than in the entirety of this month until we started the site.“

The farm girl had no valid response to this, instead she turned to her orange friend only to be greeted by a similar expression.

"So, we won?“ She fell back into the small bean sag and looked towards the ceiling. "Doesn’t feel like a good victory.“

Sweetie Belle just shook her head. "No, it doesn’t. It feels like shit.“

After another short silence, Scootaloo finally looked up. "What do we do now? Do we leave the site be or delete it? And are we coming clean to our sisters?“

"No!“ Applebloom sat up straight in her bag, her tone filled with sudden urgency. "If we do this, everything will be for nothin‘. Right now, everyone is still shaken and messed up from what happened, what do ya think would happen if they find out that we’re behind it? Things will get even worse than they are right now.“

"I agree with Scootaloo, though. I think we should tell them the truth, just not now. Maybe in a year, maybe in half, maybe in more. But not now.“ Sweetie held out both hands to her friends. "And I think we should do it together, right?“

All three looked at each other, than they stood up and took the offered hands.

"Yeah we do. We started it together, we will suffer the consequences together. Eventually, atleast.“ Scootaloo added.

Three pairs of hands gave a reafirmed shake.

"One last question though... Can we make a post on Anon-a-Miss? A final one?“

Surprised glances were shared among the rest of the CMC.

"What do you have planned Applebloom?“ Sweetie asked.

"Nothing bad, I just want to… well… it is something I feel we owe to Sunset.“

Princess Twilight was standing before two ornate doors, mentally steeling for what was about to happen. It had to be done, no way around it, better now than later.

With a long, depressed sigh, the purple alicorn finished her breathing exercises and entered the room.

All current members of equestrian royalty were now present. Princesses Celestia and Cadance were amiably chatting with Prince Shining Armor about something, Twilight didn’t pay any attention to it. In a few moments it would not be of any matter anymore.

Princess Luna was playing with little Princess Flurry Heart, while the Lord of Chaos himself was sitting next to them. Discord sported an amused smile. It seemed to be one of the rare times that he decided to simply hang out with others, although Twilight knew he was waiting for the perfect moment to let loose even a small bit of his energy.

Twilight gave her head a small shake and moved onward. No avoiding it, the sooner it was done the better.

"Twilight! You’re finally back.“ Celestia had finally taken notice of her. "How was it across the mirror?“

She hadn’t told her. Not just her, everyone. She had lied to them all, now she had to tell all of them.

"Y-Yes Princess, I have returned from Terra and… I have news to deliver.“ Her voice threatened to give out. But it had to be done.

"Come now Twilight, no need for titles and such.“ Celestia’s smile was so warm and genuine. They all looked so friendly. "Why don’t you sit down and have some tea with us?“

But the purple alicorn remained where she was. Now, both Luna and Shining Armor were exchanging worried looks, they suspected that something was off.

Twilight gave a last small sigh, there was no point avoiding it.

"Princess Celestia… I am very sorry. My journey through portal was not one born from the desire to see my friends there but- well…“ For a moment she hesitated, searching for the right words. At this point all the beings before her had lost their carefree expression and were looking with uncertainty.

"Three days ago I received a message from across the portal. Almost immediately I crossed it, seeking confirmation in desperate hope. As it turned out, in vain. I regret to bear such news, b-but, several days ago an accident happened at Canterlot High School.“ Tears threatened to spill out of Twilights eyes, yet she held them back. The hardest part was not yet over.

"And Sunset Shimmer is… sh-she… She has passed away.“

Just as the first of her tears was trickling down her furr, Flurry Heart began to cry.

Dim lights gave the room a downtrodden and depressed feeling. Normally, the Vice-Principal tried to give the room a sense of mystery and power, as well as revelling in her fable for darkness and gothic themes. For Applejack, it made her want to go and confine herself into the darkest of the corners.

Such thoughts were exactly why she tried to drown herself in work at home, where she could have the space and the distraction from her thoughts. They also had made her really moody in the last days. That was why she was now standing before Vice-Principal Luna.

She drowned on and on. Talking about Applejack's behavior in the last days since Sunset Shimmer had died.

Applejack listened and yet she didn't. Words meant nothing to her anymore, not those words, telling her that she couldn't act like this, even with everything that happened.

That she could not get into shouting matches with other students over petty things, simply because she was feeling angry that moment. Applejack knew that already, she was very honest with herself, like how she had been honest that moment, what with acting exactly like she felt. That was honesty, wasn't it?

"Applejack, I understand what you're going through right know." This let the orange girl pay attention a bit more. Although it was more because she wanted to know how exactly the woman in front of her could possibly understand her current mood.

"Your friends told me that you value honesty a lot. From my own observation and evalution of your recent behavior, I-"

"Ah don't think you understand me, VP." Her voice was snippish, her behavior so different than normal.

"Oh? Well then, why don't you explain to me so I can understand you better? Maybe that would help our current situation." The Vice-Principal said while keeping her collected facade. It was the last day this year, she wanted this done already. Yet this was a delicate bomb to defuse.

Applejack said nothing though. She didn't try to explain herself or lash out more, she just waited. She wanted to get back to her home and continue working, where it was quiet and nobody bothered her. Where no one argued if Sunset was guilty or innocent. It was all just annoying.

If there was evidence, actual evidence that several students could testify as being true, why still argue against it? They were lying to themselves by disagreeing. She was simply being honest with herself, those were facts after all! She had talked to Octavia.

Yes, Sunset of course did not deserve what happened; she deserved a lot but not this.

Ping!

Luna looked at her computer, made a few clicks, then she seemed to read something.

"Let me ask you this, Applejack. One simple question." The girl looked the Vice-Principal directly in the face, looking for a slip on her facade so she could understand the trick behind this. But the woman remained unreadible, so she just nodded. Might as well get it over with quickly.

"Do you still believe that Sunset is behind Anon-a-Miss?"

"Yes." The response came with almost no hesitation.

Then the older woman pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers, slowly shaking her head.

"VP? Somethin' wrong?" Applejack asked uncertainly. She received no real answer. Instead Luna simply beckoned with her hand towards the screen, prompting the country girl to walk towards it so she could read it.

https//mystable/account/Anon-a-Miss-history//:

Anon-a-Miss:

Well, students of CHS, looks like winter break has finally come 4 u. so it's over for now

Lets be real here. u have time on ur hands now, use it. Cause I know many are making me responsible for all this chaos, which I am, but u are not as innocent as u wanna be. So go on, try 2 mend ur friendships before it is 2 late.

Maybe we will see eachother again, though I hope 4 u that sth like this time wont happen again.

After the message, there was a picture posted. It had good quality, probally taken with an actual camera. The white snow was a stark contrast to the dim light of the room they were in, blinding Applejack for a few seconds before her eyes could readjust. That was when she could see the other contents of it. Like the greyish sky, or the small green winter bushes. Like the red and gold flowers. Or the many shaped and coloured stones. Like the one in the center of the picture.

In memory of Sunset Shimmer. May you rest in peace.

It even had her cutie mark carved into it.

Author's Note

//A/N: timeline, because the different scenes are not in chronological order for narrative purpose and I hope to avoid confussion with this

Wednesday: Incident and hiob’s message to the school

Thursday: Princess Twilight receives message, crosses portal

Friday: CMC meets, Gilda and Lightning on bleachers, Applejack and VP

Saturday: Rarity wakes up, Funeral Ceremony at morning, Rainbow Dash at Fluttershy’s, Sparkle dinner

Sunday: Princess Twi talks with Pinkie, Meeting of all Royalty

With this, the prologue of sorts is completed. The next chapter, which will be in about two weeks or so, will actually start the main story.
This means overall moving away from CHS and the Rainbooms and focusing on... well you'll see. Also, things won't be so sad all the time anymore.

Hope you enjoyed what I've written so far and decided to see where this is going. If you have any advice or criticism, please feel free to say.
Thank you and see you soon-ish

Toodles