Sunset grimaced as she flipped through a stack of papers that had been at the bottom of her locker, tucked in the box that she had kept her journal in. It was nothing but pages and pages of old blackmail material and schemes that she’d mapped out. “Ugh,” she said aloud, even though she was alone in the hall. “I can’t believe I still have this stuff. I wonder if Miss Luna will let me use her paper shredder?” It was her free period before lunch and here she was, cleaning her locker of the stuff she probably should have sorted through when she’d been forced to change lockers several months ago. “Why didn’t I do that again?” the former asked herself grumpily.

Heavy footsteps—likely male, her brain supplied—approached her from near where the stairwell was. They stopped a few feet away. “Probably because you were too distracted by a cute girl,” Flash’s voice teased.

Leaning back so she could see beyond the locker door, she deliberately rolled her eyes at him. “You must be confusing me with yourself—I’m not the one who walked into a door. Twice.”

“Guilty as charged.” He plopped down on the floor next to her. “Trying to locate lost homework, pony-girl?”

“No, that’s all accounted for. I just needed to clean it out because I need the room for other stuff.” Sunset added the stack of schemes to the pile of things she needed to destroy or throw away, along with a bag containing stale almonds of questionable age.

Flash bobbed his head, before peering down at the top paper. “Huh,” he commented. “I did not know that about Amethyst Star.”

The redhead groaned. “Please don’t read that. It’s left over from before the formal, and I plan on shredding it.”

His eyes scanned further. “You always were, uh, pretty thorough, Sunset.”

“I was messed up, Flash,” she countered. “I can promise you there’s nothing good in those papers and if Vice Principal Luna won’t lend me her shredder, I’ll find a way to burn them.”

The blue haired young man leaned back against the neighboring locker. “If you need a place to burn them, I’ve still got that firepit in my backyard. Probably safer than you doing it at your place.”

Sunset chuckled, pleased to find that the new friendship they’d struck up over the break retained the relaxed, comfortable feel that had come into being after their awkward and painful talk. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied, using the now empty cardboard box to house all the things that needed to be destroyed.

Flash watched her, then scanned the hallway. Seeing no one, he nudged her with an elbow. “How are things with your girl?” he asked in a voice close to a whisper. “You guys get to spend time together over the holidays?”

She could feel the blush warming her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “I spent Christmas with her and her family,” she admitted. “It was the best holiday I’ve had since I was a foal.” Sunset knew there was a crooked smile on her face. “And I go over to her house on Fridays. It’s...kinda become our thing? I go over, eat dinner with her family, we watch movies or play games, and then I spend the night.”

One eyebrow arched, but Flash was grinning at her—not one of his puppy smiles, but the same kind of expression he had around his bandmates. “Wow. This girl has to definitely be something—I’ve never seen you like this. Guess we monkeys aren’t entirely awful, are we?”

A snort escaped her before she could stop it. “Some of you are tolerable. She’s at the top of the list of ‘my favorite humans.’”

“So if you include your friends, do I even hit the top ten?”

This time it was her turn to slug him lightly in the shoulder, the way Rainbow Dash had sometimes done to her or Applejack. “You should know the answer to that.” Sunset brushed some of her hair out of her face. “You may not be my favorite human, but you were one of the first to make the list.”

He laughed, then gestured at the mess on the floor around them. “Want some help? It’ll go quicker with two people.”

Sunset thought about it for a minute. He’d already seen the worst of what was there, and there wasn’t much else that was incriminating. Mostly just her notebooks and old schoolwork. “Actually, that’d be great. I don’t want to miss lunch.”

The two of them got to work, Flash dumping things that were obvious trash in a nearby can Sunset had appropriated. “Heard Twilight came by the other day. Everything okay where you’re from?”

The redhead blinked at the sudden question. “What? Oh, yeah. Everything’s okay in Equestria. She was just helping me get things set up for the research on the magic that we have here. There’s a lot of stuff that this world just doesn’t have and I’m not really that good at jury-rigging technology to do the work of the stuff that’s been used for millennia to analyze magic.” A thought occurred to her. “Actually, at some point, can I borrow you for a minor scan? I need some baseline controls of humans not actively using magic.”

“Sure, I can do that. So you guys are actively looking into the whole magic thing?” Flash picked up a Ziploc with a few mouldering apple cores in it and gave her a look before he tossed it in the trash.

Sunset rubbed her neck sheepishly. “They fell out of my bag, okay? I didn’t realize they were there,” she grumbled defensively. “And yes, we’re trying to figure out exactly what it is we’re doing and how it works, so that what happened with the Sirens can't happen again.”

“Cool, cool...” the blue haired youth bobbed his head in understanding. “Does...that include how to fight magic monsters? Because...well...maybe the rest of us can’t grow wings or horns, but it’d be nice to be able to fight back.”

Biting her lip, the former unicorn hesitated a moment before responding. “...I...I’m not sure how much of it will be things everyone can do without magic, Flash,” she answered honestly, not wanting to lie to him. “...but I can promise that if I learn of ways for you to defend yourself without magic, I’ll tell you.”

Another nod of understanding. “I can live with that.”

They fell into a comfortable sort of silence after that, only broken when Flash asked her to determine if something was trash or not. With the extra help, Sunset found the task finished quite a bit quicker than she had expected, meaning she would actually be able to make it to lunch on time, if not a few minutes early. After putting the things she was keeping back in her locker in a much more organized fashion—easy to do when more than half its contents were in the garbage or in the box of stuff she intended to shred that afternoon—she shut it with a satisfying clank and spun the lock to secure it.

“Thanks for your help, Flash. I was worried I’d miss lunch.” An idea wormed its way into her brain. “You...want to join us? It’s been fun talking to you...” she trailed off, not wanting to come off as pushy or strange.

Blue eyes lit up. “Sure! I’d like that!” Flash hopped to his feet so he could walk with her to the cafeteria.

Sunset shook her head. They might have been friends now, but he was still so like an over excited puppy sometimes that she had to resist rolling her eyes. “Maybe you being there will give Rainbow Dash someone else to compare skills with on the guitar.”

Flash raised an eyebrow at her. “I must be hearing things. Sunset Shimmer, backing away from competition? C’mon, Sunset...you know you enjoy a challenge.”

The former unicorn knew he was right. She hated losing, and challenges ignited something inside her, drove her to do more, to strive to win or ‘die trying,’ but this... “I do...but not this kind, Flash. Dash is my friend, and I hate that it feels like a near daily thing that I have to get into a test to prove which of us is better. I know she’s competitive, she wouldn’t be Dash if she wasn't...”

“But it bothers you?”

She nodded. “Yes. She’s...she’s my friend. I don’t like the idea of seeing my friends as competition. It makes me feel...wrong. Nauseated. Like the old me is hovering, waiting for an opportunity.” One hand ran through her tangled mane.

Frowning, Flash put a hand on her shoulder. “Can I offer some advice?” When she dipped her head in acceptance, he continued. “It’s okay for friends to have friendly competition, especially with someone like Rainbow. It’s...I guess maybe it’s more usually a guy thing, but she probably doesn’t mean anything bad by it. Think of it as her way of trying to include you and make you feel like you matter...and if it bothers you that much, talk to her.”

His words helped ease her mind a little, and she thought about trying to pull Dash aside to talk to her. “Yeah...okay...I’ll try that, next time I can get her alone.”

She got a pat on the shoulder as encouragement, which made her shake her head. Flash pulled the hand back, rubbing his neck. “Quick question, before we get to the cafeteria. Are you planning on ever telling your friends about your girl? I know you said you weren’t ready to tell them and that’s cool, but it’s kind of a big secret to be keeping...”

Sunset ran a hand through her hair. “I’m not going to keep it a secret forever. I just...there’s some stuff I have to work out first, and telling the girls would...complicate everything way more than it is.”

Blue eyes regarded her thoughtfully. “I was just curious...and look, until then, I’m...uh...here to talk if you need it.” There was his sheepish smile, the one he used when he was trying to make up for the awkwardness of a situation—Sunset used to find that one almost as annoying as his besotted one, but now it only evoked amusement...and gratitude. He was trying, and after all she’d put him through, it really drove home how much he hadn’t deserved what she’d done, and more than that, how little she deserved this second chance and his genuine friendship.

She found herself giving him a quick hug. “Thank you,” Sunset murmured, knowing it was for more than just his offer to listen when she needed to talk.

Flash hugged her back, before nudging her lightly. “C’mon. Let’s go—if I get there quick enough, I can get through the line before the bell. Otherwise all the edible food will be gone, and I’ll be left with mystery meat roulette.”

Sunset smirked, holding up the plastic container from her locker. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the wonders of being vegetarian and bringing my own lunch.”

That netted a snort of laughter and a good natured eye-roll. “Yeah, well, not all of us enjoy eating grass, pony-girl, and today is cheesesteak day. I want to get mine while there’s still some to be had.”

He held the door open to the lunchroom for her and they split up—him to the line and her to the table that had long since been claimed by her friends. She was the first to arrive, but seeing as how she was a few minutes early, that was no surprise. It gave her time to eat a good portion of her lunch so it would free her up for conversation when the girls showed up.

Especially with the long awkward moment when Rainbow Dash showed up and found Flash sitting at the table, contentedly munching on his cheesesteak and talking to Sunset about an upcoming sequel to one of their favorite video games.

“Holy shit! Since when were the two of you friends?! Don’t tell me you two are dating again?!”

An awkward moment started with a tactless question spoken loud enough for the whole cafeteria to hear, of course. Sunset put down her half eaten veggie wrap, all so she could groan and put her face in her hands. She felt Fluttershy pat her shoulder in sympathy. Swallowing the urge to scream and bang her head into the table, the redhead tried to ignore the stares she could feel from the rest of the room, of dozens of curious teenage eyes and ears interested in her response. “No, Dash,” she managed. “We aren’t dating again.” And we never will, her mind added.

Surprisingly, it was Flash who interjected, sounding more than marginally irritated. “Seriously, Dash? You, of all people, are going there, after all the stupid rumors you’ve had to deal with? You know better than anyone that a girl and guy can be just friends without feeling the need to add notches to a bedpost or parade the other around as some kind of relationship trophy.” His voice was loud enough to carry to the surrounding tables and the people focused intently on the conversation. As some of those people whispered among themselves, the young man rolled his eyes, sharing a look with Sunset. He was definitely as annoyed by this as the former unicorn was. "It’s pretty simple,” he continued, mostly for the benefit of the CHS rumor mill at this point. “We were friends before, we tried dating, it didn't work out for reasons that are nobody's business but ours, and after a really long chat over break—that is still nobody else’s business—we're friends again. End of story."

Picking up her wrap again, Sunset felt no reason to argue the semantics of his statement, though privately she disagreed with the first part. She hadn’t been his friend then, that had simply been phase one of her plan. “Flash pretty much hit it on the nose,” she commented. “We got to talking while I was going through my locker, and I invited him to continue the conversation at lunch with us. We were talking about Tirek III...now can you sit down and please stop making a scene?”

Applejack reached up with one arm and tugged Rainbow by the shirt collar into the seat next to her. “Siddown, Rainbow. Ain’t no reason ta stand there lookin’ like a catfish someone just pulled outta the pond.”

The soccer player gave her a weird look. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means you were standing there with your mouth hanging open, darling.” Rarity pointed at her with her fork. “Most unbecoming, and it was causing a scene.”

Huffing, Dash took a bite out of her sandwich and chewed savagely. Sunset wrinkled her nose—ponies weren’t always the neatest eaters (and neither was Sparky when she was super hungry and half distracted by a project) but between Rainbow and Pinkie, they took the concept to a different level. Blue green eyes went back to her own meal deliberately, her mind wandering to the next step of her research to help tune out the smell of greasy, overcooked beef that permeated the room.

It meant she was startled when Pinkie half lunged across the table, shouting her name with glee. Her eyes went wide and she jolted back in her chair, nostrils flaring in surprise. “Pinkie!” she yelped, grabbing the table to keep from falling backwards onto the floor. Flash and Fluttershy caught her elbows to steady her.

“Oops! Sorry, Sunset!” Pinkie drew back to a more normal human distance. “I have something for you—Well, I don’t really since it’s not me who wanted to give it to you but whoever did want to give it to you left it in my locker with a note asking me to give it to you. It looks super important though, and I didn’t want to forget, so I Pinkie Promised that I would give it to you for them as soon as possible! I never ever forget a Pinkie Promise, even when I’m super busy or when there’s cake involved. You don’t break a Pinkie Promise!”

Sunset took a minute to try and parse through the high speed Pinkie babble and turn it into a coherent narrative. “So...what was it you have to give me?” she finally asked, worried about what it could be. Considering the plethora of junk she was still being handed daily, she was almost afraid of what she was about to receive.

Pink hands plonked a slim, leather bound volume on the table in front of her. It wasn’t anything fancy—it looked and smelled like an old book, with that familiar, almost comforting scent of aged parchment, leather and ink, and it bore no cover title or markings to identify its nature. She almost dismissed it as nothing at all, until her fingers brushed the cover to open it.

Power sparked, visible to the naked eye and alien in its flavor. Her own magic pushed back against the force invading her arm, refusing to give ground against it, and her mind rapidly sought to analyze the magic as best she could. Dimly, she could hear exclamations from her friends, could feel their worry for her.

“What in tarnation!?”

The magic didn’t feel like a curse—there was something lacking, a dark, festering feel that always left a pony feeling in need of a shower.

“Holy shit!”

Pinkie had carried it with no ill effects, so it seemed unlikely that it was a simple trap, unless it was specifically keyed to respond to a certain magic level. On a book though? One passed along by what was likely another student? No. It wasn’t a trap.

“Uh oooh...those don’t look like good sparkles...”

The most logical answer was a defensive measure, one meant to protect the volume—suggesting that whatever was in its pages was valuable—and considering that this world wasn’t supposed to have its own magic, she was willing to take a bet that this was potentially the most valuable object she had acquired to date in the human world. But if it was a protection spell, how did she make it recognize her as a non-threat without breaking the enchantment?

“Are you alright, Sunset?”

Her brows furrowed in concentration, scanning the magic as much as she could for any clue. It was alien magic yes, but it was still a spell woven into an object, which means it had its limitations.

“Girls...give her a minute...she looks like she’s in the middle of something.”

Could it be...there were flavors there that were familiar, tidbits of spell encapsulating what felt like...emotions? Feelings? Her magic touched one and heat and anger tickled through her, easily turned aside. Another made her nauseated, when the sense of malice and sadistic glee hit her. A third made her think of Sparky, of her friends, warm and tingly and good.

“Flash is right, girls. Give it a moment, but be ready to get her away from that book.”

“I’m okay, girls. I have an idea...” she murmured, before deciding to risk it. She relented slowly, allowing the tendril of foreign magic to inspect her, focusing her own thoughts and emotions on her desire to help her friends and protect the school, to prevent monsters like the sirens from hurting people anymore. It wormed its way into her awareness, not painfully so, but invasive enough that she could tell the magic was looking for something.

From within, she could feel a response to the experience, the magic she’d used at the Battle of the Bands resurfacing. Her ears twitched, and she could feel her horn, see the faint red energy painting an aura around her skin. A heartbeat later, a pale blue hand landed on the book next to hers, and she chanced a glance up to see Rainbow Dash staring at her stubbornly, pony ears alert and her wings flared defiantly. “We’re in this together, Shimmer. I’m not leaving my friend to fight some creepy ass Necronomicon on her own.”

The words seemed to ripple through the group, and the other girls came to a consensus. Soon five hands rested over hers on the book, each one radiating a soothing aura that filled Sunset’s soul.

More importantly...it had an effect on the magic from the book. There was a faint ringing in her ears, like the chime of a distant bell, and the spell retreated, leaving the book inert but still filled with magic. She relaxed, and felt her ears splay loosely in a more natural position. “Thanks, girls. That did it. The book has...some kind of protection on it.”

Hands retreated at that, and the pony features melted away, though Sunset held onto the magic as long as she could, not wanting to give up her horn any sooner than she had to.

Flash spoke up from next to her. “So what’s so important in this book that it needed protection?” He sounded genuinely curious, but kept his tone hushed to not draw more attention to the table than the pony-ups already had.

“That’s what I’m about to find out.” Sunset opened the book fully, and was greeted with thin, spidery handwriting on a yellowed page. Her friends—Flash included—leaned close as she began to read in a soft voice.

“August 13th, 1906.

“I bought this journal as a means to keep track of my search. I refuse to believe my Mattie has been spirited away beyond my ability to find her, the way her grandmother claims. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I certainly would not have put much stock in the myths of fairies and sprites and other such fanciful nonsense meant to entertain children, yet I refuse to believe she is forever gone. I will find her, and my hope is that my journey may yet aid others in rescuing lost loved ones from such a fate.

“The trail has pointed me to New York, and from there, to the old world of Europe. I leave on a boat on the morrow, and I pray that I will catch up to them swiftly.”

Blue-green eyes scanned pages as she leafed through them, a seemingly endless account from a mystery author, far more pages than the book should contain. Her quick look showed dozens of journal entries, but also drawings, notes, diagrams and numbers, some of which were of a decidedly mystical nature. She lifted her head to look at the group. “It’s a journal...there's hundreds of pages here....and the whole thing is enchanted.”

Rarity dabbed at some tears at the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief, her other hand gripping Applejack’s on the table. “Oh how tragic,” she murmured.

“So some guy over a hundred years ago was...what? Thinking his girlfriend got kidnapped by fairies?” Rainbow scratched his head. “Wait...are there fairies in Equestria?”

“More’n that...how’d they get here?” AJ ran a thumb over the back of Rarity’s hand.

“Fairies...you mean like from when we read 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' in English?” Sunset frowned, running the various magical beings of Equestria through her head. “We...don’t have anything quite like that. There are a few creatures who can shapeshift, but most of them don’t have godlike powers and a desire to kidnap ponies.” The former unicorn tilted her head. “Except maybe for Changelings, but from what I learned, they were sealed inside a volcano about four hundred years ago by Princess Celestia after a failed attempt to take over a city...I can never remember the name right, but it was a big mess. The whole city descended into chaos and anarchy and a lot of ponies and other creatures died. The city fell to ruin after that. Supposedly there was even an attempt on Princess Celestia’s life by Changelings disguised as the Royal Guard.”

“So what are they?” Rainbow’s eyes glittered.

“Changelings? Um...I don’t know what they look like, but they have the power to change into anypony and pretend to be them. Like the Sirens and Windigos, they feed on emotions, and they’re led by a queen. That’s...pretty much all I know. Princess Celestia wasn't...exactly forthcoming about them....it was one of the few topics that made her upset.” She shrugged. “I don’t think it matters though, because I...I’m not sure Equestria had anything to do with it.” Sunset tapped the book. “The magic in this isn’t from Equestria. I think...I think it’s human magic.”

The proclamation was met with six wide eyed stares.

Author's Note

*ominous music*