Sunset dropped the kickstand once she had the bike parked at the very edge of the driveway so it was out of the way. She wasn't sure if Shining and Cadence would be there for the evening or not, and decided it best to err on the side of caution, since the weather report had been iffy on the chance of more winter weather from the mountains, in a week that had been nothing but a mess of winter storms, cold rain, ice, and snow. The redhead didn't want to risk her motorcycle getting hit by either a skidding vehicle or a plow if it was parked in its usual spot on the street.

The weather hasn't been the only part of the week that had been bizarre, unpleasant, and unpredictable. Ever since she’d left Twilight’s house the previous Saturday, things had been…weird. Her magic had persisted in its erratic almost-surges, and caused several incidents in practice with the girls, and also a small fire in her science class—explaining that to Miss Luna had been…embarrassing, to say the least. Then there was the way Rarity’s magic had felt when she inspected it, and the situation with Trixie…and of course the somewhat invasive questioning from her friends about her certifications and the photo of her as a teenage filly…once word had spread to the rest of the group, she’d been pounced on Monday at lunch by a very excited Pinkie Pie and Lyra who was practically vibrating with her want to ‘see an actual photo of a mythical creature.’ Even Flash had teased her about the picture…

“Suuuuuuuuunseeeeeeeet!!!”

The voice, loud and shrill and gaining the attention of every person in the cafeteria was the only warning Sunset received before a body almost knocked her out of her chair. It was only the steadying hand AJ put on the chair that kept it upright.

Sunset blinked. “Hi, Pinkie. What's going on?”

Pinkie squeezed her in an exuberant hug, but it was Lyra who demanded in an excited rush from just behind Pinkie, “Weheardyouhaveapictureofyourunicornself! Can we see?!”

“Uh….”

Bon-Bon hauled Lyra back and into a seat. “Give her some breathing room, sweetie.” Then she translated for Sunset, “Fluttershy told us you have a photo of your non-human form. Lyra has been ready to burst since she heard.”

“Oh…” Sunset made a face. “It's…not really a great picture. It's just part of some legal documents.”

Lyra leaned across the table to grab Sunset’s wrist. “Don't take this from me, Sunset! A real, non-blurry, guaranteed-it’s-not-photoshopped image of a mythical animal—I’ve been waiting my whole life to see a picture like that!”

The former unicorn sighed. “I’m not an animal, Lyra,” she told the girl with patience she didn't feel. “I’m a person, like you, I was just born in a different body than your species.”

“Sooooooo…” Pinkie bounced and pressed her cheek to Sunset’s. “Caaaaaaaan we see it? I want to know if I’m right!”

“Right about what?” Sunset pried Pinkie off her with some considerable effort. “Also, Pinkie, personal space, please.”

The pink haired girl bounced away with an apology and plopped in the nearest empty chair. “About magic pony huggability! See, I think, because you're a good hugger, Sunset, as a human shaped pony, that pony shaped ponies are even better huggers!”

If she lived to the ripe old age of two hundred, she would never understand the pink one, Sunset decided. “…Right…” she rubbed the back of her neck, before sighing again and reaching into her bag. “Prepare to be disappointed.” The friends who hadn’t seen the picture before crowded around when she opened the slim book to show it to them, and she braced herself mentally for the squeal that was bound to come from Pinkie.

She was not disappointed. Pinkie made a sound of delight that made her teeth itch with the audio frequency it vibrated at. Applejack reaching around to clamp a hand over her mouth was a welcome reprieve and Sunset gave the farmer a grateful smile. Lyra was studying the image with obvious intense interest, looking back and forth between the picture and Sunset as if comparing them. “I didn't know unicorns were Curlies,” she gushed. “That's so cool!”

What in the name of Nightmare Moon’s moon-marked backside was Lyra on about? The redhead managed to avoid being snarky, but only just. “…what are curlies?” she asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know.

Lyra gestured at the picture. “Horses that have this neat curly hair gene. They look fluffy…or sometimes poodley, and their manes and tails are all curly too.”

Sunset cleared her throat awkwardly. “Oh…um…that’s…not a unicorn thing. That's just me—I’ve still got most of my winter coat in that picture, because the Canterlot I’m from is perched up on terraces on a mountain range, and spring tends to come later at the higher altitudes.”

The other girl looked mildly disappointed. “Oh…too bad, because that would be neat!” She went back to looking at the picture. “I can definitely tell it’s you though! It still looks just like you!” She looked over at Pinkie. “Do you think if we went through to Sunset’s home, we’d turn into unicorns too?” Which inevitably set off a conversation between the two of them and Fluttershy on the subject of ‘what it would be like to be a magical pony.’

Flash sat down across from her and his gaze slid between the conversation and the object Sunset was holding. “Oh, is that the thing Rarity was telling me about? Some kind of pony work badge?”

“It's…more like a driver’s license meets a diploma,” the former unicorn responded with a surge of relief that he had a real question and wasn't going to gush over the Equestrian equivalent of her driver’s license photo. “In Equestria, higher forms of magic—not just the dozen or so spells every unicorn foal learns or the powers related to a cutie mark—are regulated and require certification to verify that a spellcaster knows what they are doing and is aware of the ethics of that field. Kind of like how…lawyers here are required to study law and then pass the bar exam in order to actually advertise themselves as a practicing lawyer?”

“Oh, that's…really cool, actually. So is it for…magic in general, or is it like in WoW where there's different ‘schools?’” Flash squinted at the pages. “I’m sure it probably says, but I can't read any of those weird pictograms on it.”

“Different branches of magic, yeah. A lot of human games call them schools, but…we have our own breakdown that…has to do with the spellforms used in the spells themselves, and not whatever arbitrary thing humans come up with that fits the game or book or show.” Sunset glanced down at her certifications. “I got my certs in a couple of branches of study…basic artificing, transmutation, teleportation, spell craft and deconstruction, and a minor mastery in artifacts and enchantments.”

Half the table was staring at her, wide eyed. It was enough to make her already unsettled brain nervous. “….what?”

It was Bon-Bon who found her voice first. “This all happened before you came here, right?” When she nodded hesitantly, the other girl continued, “I’m no expert in how magic horses age but…how old were you?”

“That's a good point,” Applejack mused, having been listening in silence since she’d already heard most of this. “Yer picture makes ya look like a gawky yearling, but everything ya’ve told us says yer kinda pony don't grow as fast as horses here.”

Greasy hydra farts. Of course they’d notice that.

“I…actually set the record at the time for the youngest certified Magus,” she admitted slowly. “…I was fifteen. Not sure if I still hold the record--Princess Twilight might’ve broken it.”

Bon-Bon whistled. “You mean you basically graduated college with something like five or six degrees at fifteen? No wonder you can basically reach advanced math in your sleep! You never mentioned being some kind of genius!”

“Wait a minute. Time the fuck out, Shimmer.” Rainbow’s voice interrupted everything and everyone. “How could you get those at fifteen if it was before you came here? You were going to CHS at fifteen!”

Now the whole table was staring at her, and her hide itched uncomfortably at so many eyes boring into her. “I didn't lie,” she bit out defensively.

“No one said you did, darling,” Rarity soothed from a few seats away. “Though it does beg the question, as I quite remember you as a rather quiet and somewhat surly seventh grader in my history class.”

Sunset rubbed her face. “It's…complicated. The long and short of it is that the portal…has some kind of temporal distortion going on. The first time I went through it took…several years off me before dumping me on this side…and from what I could see, it's a permanent change now, on both sides of the portal.”

Applejack tilted her head, using a thumb to adjust her hat. “So…how old are ya?”

Wincing, Sunset couldn't look at her friends. “…I don't know….”

“How could you not know?” Dash asked, frowning.

“It's not just me. The temporal issue is on both ends—I’d lived here for five years when I stole the crown, but from what Princess Twilight and I have figured out, I've been gone for close to twenty years.” Sunset snagged a carrot stick out of her lunch and munched on it, concentrating on the sweet, slightly earthy flavor to keep her tone even as she explained. “Plus Equestrian days and years are not exactly equal to ones here, and human puberty is completely different from the pony one—trust me on that one, I've done both. And that’s not even getting into my social experiences that are apparently required for certain milestones of growth.”

She had their attention and she pressed on, trying to explain something that even she had trouble wrapping her mind around sometimes. “The fact is, how old I should be or was or whatever is…it’s irrelevant. The portal changed me forever, and this…this body I’m in here, in this world, this is how old I am, and I’m aging just like you girls do, as far as I can tell…so it's just easier to go by what it says on my identification here than to try and figure out the answer.” It was a distressing thought, in a way, because it meant that her real body, the one she had been born with, had been destroyed and remade into something else along the way and she had no way of ever getting it back, and she hugged herself, gripping her elbows tightly with her hands.

A strong arm went around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug, and she realized belatedly that Applejack had decided to do something about her obvious distress. “Ah think…” she started, “that Sunset’s got a point. Mebbe it’s a might strange, but it ain’t like having a friend who was born a horse is something that happens ta most folks.” The farmer winked at her, the playful joke meant to garner a reaction.

“Pony,” Sunset corrected, feeling her lips turn up at the edges.

“That too,” Applejack agreed. “Point is…Ah’m not sure the exact number of years you’ve seen is more important than ya being here right now with us. Yer one of us, our friend, and it ain't no different ta the fact that Fluttershy’s a few months older’n Dash.” Then she laughed. “Of course, that just means Pinkie’s gonna do her best ta find out when yer birthday is so she can throw a big party.”

“You bet I am!” Sunset was latched onto from the other side by Pinkie, who squeezed her so hard her ribs protested. “So! When is it, Sun-Shim?! And how old will you be turning?!”

Sunset shouldered her bag, careful not to slam it around too much, for fear of damaging the contents. Monday had been weird, and after the revelation of the disaster that was her age, her friends had focused on teasing her about ‘how adorable’ her pony self was. Rarity had even gone so far as to point out that she could make and market plush toys of Equestrian ponies if she ever needed a steady income…something about little girls wanting them by the dozen. The redheaded teen had tuned it all out at that point.

Monday had set the stage for the week though. Tuesday had been normal, except for the terrible weather, at least until she was leaving the school. Something had triggered a faint pulse of magic nearby, but it was rapid, faint, and so short a duration that had it not been for Rarity reacting to it as well, she would have believed she’d imagined the whole thing, and the weather had been too abysmal by that point to do more than give the parking lot and outbuildings of the school a quick search. They’d found nothing and it had left her worried and on edge the rest of the day for reasons she couldn't quite put her finger on, and she couldn't even search for it Wednesday, because that morning school had barely started when she’d developed an awful migraine that left her feeling drained, wiped out, and sensitive to all light. She’d spent most of the day napping in the nurse’s office until the pain had dimmed enough to go home, at which point she’d slept through her alarm the next morning and been twenty minutes late to school, her shirt on backwards and her hair a mess. Miss Luna had actually asked her if she was okay before sending her on to class with a pass. Sunset had spent the rest of the day playing catch up.

Now it was Friday, and Sunset had been full of restless energy all day, unable to focus on anything but talking to Twilight after a week of silence between them. She…wasn’t entirely looking forward to the talk they were going to have, but the prospect of curling up with her girlfriend to sleep was enough to push her past that worry into anticipation at seeing the lavender skinned girl.

The prospect of one of Twilight Velvet’s home cooked meals also helped improve her mood.

She laughed slightly, before twisting the doorknob to the front door and stepping inside. Instantly, she was hit with the smell of food that made her stomach rumble demandingly. “Oh wow, Mrs. Velvet,” she called as she pulled off her boots by the front door. “Dinner smells amazing!”

Velvet poked her head out of the kitchen. “I’m glad you think so, sweetie—I made your favorite tonight.”

Sunset perked up, and headed into the kitchen after Velvet to both inspect the pot of chowder on the stove and to give the woman a hug. “This is just what I needed,” she confessed, gesturing to the house as a whole. “It's been a weird week…”

The older woman’s eyes flicked to the table, and Sunset realized Twilight’s father was sitting there…and that neither Twilight nor Spike had greeted her yet. The two adults looked…agitated, and Sunset cast her senses wider, immediately searching for trouble of the dark magic kind.

Her senses brushed something, tucked away deeper into the house, and her magic retaliated with a vicious pulse, tearing the dark, odious source to shreds. Then she looked over her girlfriend’s parents; they seemed tired and stressed, but whatever had come into the house had not gotten hooks in them, as near as she could tell. Blue green eyes blinked. “What’s going on?”

Night Light pinched the bridge of his nose, looking more worn than she had ever seen him. “This week has been…difficult,” he said with a slow sigh. “Some of it is for Twily to tell you—I think she would be upset with us if we preempted her being able to do it herself.”

The two adults exchanged another long look, and Sunset found herself frowning as she saw a myriad of emotions playing across both their faces, frustration, fear, worry, and general unhappiness among them….plus more than a little guilt in the way Night Light wouldn't quite meet Sunset’s eyes. Her gut twisted as the uneasy feeling grew, her senses casting about for the missing girl who always greeted her when she came over. If something had happened to Twilight, why hadn’t they called her?

She didn’t realize that she’d voiced the last bit aloud until Night addressed it directly. “The answer to that is not black and white. I did not forget my promise, and I very much wanted to—I still think it would have been much better for everyone if we’d brought the whole family together on Wednesday, but I was overruled.”

Sunset gripped the back of one of the chairs so tight that the wood creaked, her world tipping out of alignment. Wednesday? Something had happened on Wednesday and no one told her?

Some of what she was feeling must have shown on her face before she could think to put her emotional mask on, because Night reached over to put a steadying hand on her elbow. “I assure you it was not a lack of trust or desire to inform you, Sunset. Twilight asked me not to, providing several well thought out and sound reasons that we felt…were acceptable at the time.”

The former unicorn dimly felt herself nod, hurt that Twilight had not wanted her to even know something was wrong. “…oh…” Her voice echoed strangely in her ears, tiny and far away sounding.

Velvet set her spoon down at the stove and crossed the kitchen to hug Sunset again. “It wasn't from a desire to exclude you, sweetheart,” she reassured. “Twily has been fighting herself for two days, but she was adamant about not breaking her promise to you from last weekend. It was important to her that she show you that she valued her promises to you as things that shouldn't be broken lightly.”

Swallowing, Sunset felt her heart unfreeze and start to beat again, offering out a shaky and rueful half smile to let them know she wasn't about to fall over. “I wouldn't have been mad or anything—it sounds like it wasn’t a small thing. Exactly the kind of reason I asked you to let me know about…” Blue-green eyes looked at her girlfriend’s father.

“I know,” he said, voice brittle, “but Twily was determined to keep her promise—and I wasn't sure pushing her on it at that time was a good idea. Plus she…wanted to prove to you, to us, and to herself, I think, that she can manage on her own if she has to. That she can stand on her own feet and allow others in her life the ability to prioritize their own needs…” His fingers drummed restlessly. “I can't say for certain, but I suspect this is connected to her recent push to be ‘mature and independent’; she’s searching for safe ways to assert herself and feel in control of herself and her life.”

Sunset’s brow furrowed as she turned that knowledge over in her mind and felt the truth of it. Twilight had said and done a number of things in the same vein in the last few months, so it was possible, but it didn't make it feel good. “…that…sounds like something she would do,” she agreed quietly.

“However, I insisted on a compromise, because I had also promised you to keep you in the loop.” Night continued tapping his fingers on the table. “We agreed that Twilight could try to manage using all of her other available coping skills, but if at any point we felt her approach was not working, we would override her decision and call you.”

It all clicked very abruptly, even as she tried not to laugh at the image her mind conjured of Twilight with a stubborn set to her jaw, hands on her hips and brows furrowed as she attempted to work out a way to go through with her twelve step plan or whatever. “Let me guess,” she said with a fond chuckle, “Twilight took it as a challenge, and completely committed to forcing herself to manage, at the cost of remembering literally anything else she should be doing, including silly things like eating? Which is why I'm only being told now…because that’ll snap her back to normal?”

He laughed, more than a touch sheepish. “You’ve got it in one, Sunset. She attacked the whole issue of coping with her usual determination and drive for accomplishing a goal…and she did it. Maybe by the skin of her teeth and with a few bad habits raising their heads again…”

“Although,” Velvet interjected, “I do believe she has been counting down the hours and minutes till your arrival, even if she didn't want to admit it to anyone. At her age, all the coping skills in the world are no match for the comfort and presence of a best friend.” She smiled, running her fingers soothingly through Sunset’s wild curls. “We’re proud of her—even if we wish it hadn't been a necessary thing—but we are glad you're here now, because whether or not she wants to acknowledge it, she needs broader social support than just her parents, even if all you do is tell her she did the right thing.”

The redheaded teen leaned into the gentle touch, feeling a lot of her stresses from the week already washing away, and even the sudden added worry of what had happened to her girlfriend seemed less daunting. Velvet and Night were too calm for it to be anything utterly awful, and she grasped that thought like a shield against the negative thoughts and fears that wanted to drown her if given half a chance. And looking at it, Twilight’s want to hold out and cope on her own made sense—no one knew better than Sunset Shimmer how that stubborn need to prove oneself could feel, or the way it colored her choices and feelings to the point of blinding her to things that didn't fit that self perception of failure or inadequacy. As much as she wished she could have been there to support her girlfriend, it may very well have been something that her presence would have inadvertently made worse in the long term. This way, at least, Twilight had gained a bit of self confidence that had hopefully done something to silence the negative voice inside she suspected plagued her girlfriend just the way it did her sometimes. Voices like that liked to take up residence rent free at the worst possible times, she decided, though in this case it may have proved a boon in disguise. After all, how much help would she have really been given the massive migraine on Wednesday and the sheer exhaustion that had plagued her until just this morning?

Sunset’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “I understand, Mr. Night,” she said softly, “and I’m not mad. You did the right thing, I think, because Twilight needed to know she could, and me being here would have made her doubt herself. I do appreciate you telling me right away though and explaining why—that helps…a lot more than I can really put into words…”

Relief painted itself plainly across his features, taking several years off his face in an instant. “I…I admit that I do not like feeling as though I have to choose between members of this family, so thank you, Sunset, for being so understanding…”

Trying not to get caught up in how easily both Night and Velvet seemed to treat considering her part of their family, Sunset cleared her throat. “I try to limit my explosive moments to the second Tuesday of every month. I couldn't afford the damages otherwise,” she quipped.

“If it needs to be more often,” Night returned with a smile, “I’m sure we could make up the differences. It's not like Twilight hasn't set the garage on fire before.”

They all shared a laugh, before Velvet gave her a long look. “Dinner should be ready in about an hour, if you want to go up and talk to Twilight before we eat. I’ll call you down when it's ready.”

Sunset pulled away, picking her backpack up from where she’d set it on the table. “Yeah, that…that sounds like a good idea. We need to talk about a lot of things it sounds like…”

Author's Note

And here we see what Sunset’s been up to while Twilight was having the week from Hell.

Theres also a bit of addressing one of the elephants in the room of any Sunset story—how old is Sunset Shimmer? Ive seen it handled a bunch of different ways, but this is how we’re doing it—her first trip through the portal had lasting, profound, and permanent consequences for her life. She can never really go back to who she used to be—just like her experiences have changed her, the portal itself took her apart and transformed her long before she ever put on a crown.

In every way that matters, Sunset is a high schooler, a true peer to her friends, to her girlfriend. She has a lot of the same emotional and social flaws of a high schooler, she’s struggling to discover who she really is, who she wants to be. She’s growing and maturing over the story, and the truth is, while her mental acumen does occasionally allow for moments where she acts older, thats a function of having an extremely “high IQ” more than any indication of age. (Once upon a time I was 14 going on 40, and it did not make interfacing with my peers easier, let me assure you.)

(Its also a direct tie in to the side story “Mirrors on the Ceiling” and some of the hinted details there about Sunset’s human form after she first arrives.)

Plus, yeah, ponies don’t measure time increments the way we do. They control the length of their day, their month, their year, their seasons, unlike humans who are subjected to the whims of physics and silly things like a heliocentric solar system and gravity playing a part in the year and lunar month. In this story, at least, that means a lot of things, but tentatively they have slightly shorter lunar months, with a few extra months in a solar year, and a slightly different day length. Im sure theres a mathematical formula that could get me close to the same number of minutes/seconds in a year between worlds, but theres already a temporal distortion so it doesn’t actually matter that much at the moment, lol. (Though you get a rough estimate of the distortion’s effect here, a 4:1 ratio—four years in Equestria for each one on Earth.) The portal actually operates on the Earth calendar for the “30 moons” (roughly 2.5 years, probably on some kind of astronomical event of significance.)

And yes, Sunset is fluffy as a pony. She has the curly, wavy mane, and it extends to her actual coat having “curl” to it, especially in winter. (Because Curlies are neat) coupled with the fact that she actually grows the longer feathering hair on the backs of her legs and around her fetlocks like a Gypsy Vanner, this Sunset is a floofy pony. Part of that is because I like the look it presents in my head, but also as, yes, clues about her ancestry and genetic background. Not that Sunset realizes that, because shes never seen a pony quite like herself, and pony understanding of DNA is…not as advanced as ours by a long shot.

*reads back through* hmmm it seems like Sunset’s snark was in full force this chapter.

And how about Night and Velvet…parents of the year there! Even they are thinly veiled in their “twilight, just hug it out with your gf, for the love of all that is!” And “sunset, please, go get our daughter out of her own head!” No girls, no one is fooled by the pretense.

Next week begins the “kiss and make up” portion. And Sunset learning about Twilight’s week. Hoo boy.