Wondercolts Forever

by Epsilon-Delta

Rating: everyone
Tags: Horror, Princess Celestia, Human, Sunset Shimmer, Alternate Universe, Drama, Equestria Girls, Mystery
Length: 48566

Sunset notices the other students have been going to Canterlot High for an exceptionally long time.

Sunset didn't realize just how different other dimensions could be before going through the portal. Now she finds herself in a world where people never age or grow, they just attend high school forever. Whether she's entered a paradise or a nightmare remains to be seen.

Published 2020-11-18 17:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-01-18 15:36:50 UTC

Chapter 1

A human.

Sunset recognized her new form from mythology, knew her form would likely change once she went through the mirror, but it was still a shock to learn they were real. Were there more of them around?

She appeared to be in a courtyard with a large building nearby, but she didn’t see anyone else. Probably for the best.

She sat there a moment flexing her new ‘hands’.

“Hello! I’ve never seen you before.”

Sunset pulled back in surprise from a familiar voice. She looked up to confirm her fear. It was Celestia!

It looked just like you’d expect a human version of Celestia to look with the same waving hair and the same enormous size. Sunset tried standing up on her hind legs, but this other human was so much taller than her that Sunset was about eye level with her chest.

She reminded herself that this couldn’t possibly be the same Celestia she just ran away from. There were multiple versions of everyone somewhere else in the multiverse, Sunset had just gotten unreasonably unlucky and ran into the person she’d least wanted to see.

“Are you nervous?” Celestia put her hand on Sunset’s head. Sunset knocked it away and stepped back, only to get a chuckle from this new Celestia. “May I ask what brings you to my school?”

Sunset looked at the building behind Celestia. This did look like a school…

Sunset’s cover was going to be blown immediately if she couldn’t think of an excuse!

“I just transferred here,” Sunset said the first thing that came to mind. “I got lost since it was my first day. Sorry.”

Celestia tilted her head with an almost playful smile. Sunset had no idea if what she just claimed was completely absurd. She could be a senior human for all she knew!

“Well, if you say you’re a transfer student I won’t challenge it. I can tell you have a lot of potential,” Celestia said softly. “Though you must have been very lost to have ended up here.”

Sunset held back her anger. Already she wanted to punch this bitch just for looking like Princess Celestia.

“Hehe! Yeah! I’m really bad at this, huh?”

“Well, the cafeteria is right there.” Celestia pointed to a door. “If I’m not mistaken it is lunchtime. You’re more than welcome to go. If you have any questions, my office is always open to my students and I’d be more than happy to help.”

Celestia waved and walked off, much to Sunset’s relief.

Did she know? Something about that seemed off…

Still, this might be good. A school. And the principal thought she was a student here so maybe everyone else would too. At least, it’d be a while before they caught on.

Sunset would have to learn about this world and Equestrian schools gave free lunches so maybe this place did too. She didn’t exactly have a game plan for this new world just yet. Free food on day one was a huge perk.

Sunset walked towards the cafeteria. The place had electric lights, so she wasn’t in the stone age, at least. Though maybe it would have been better it was, easier to take advantage of that is.

Inside she saw several students, all of them about her size, and a few adults a bit bigger but not as big as Principal Celestia. Clearly, Sunset was a teenage human now.

Strange.

That wasn’t supposed to be how interdimensional transformations worked. You were supposed to be the same age when this sort of thing happened. Sunset was in her mid-20’s, a young adult, so she should be a young adult human, right?

Though then again that was what Celestia taught her and Celestia was a lying, manipulative bitch so…

It did let Sunset get in line for food without anyone saying anything, so being a teenager seemed good to her. Maybe half the students were already sitting down while the other half were waiting in line.

Get her bearings straight first, then she could think of how to exploit this place.

“Oh hey!” Someone, female, based on the voice, grabbed Sunset’s shoulder. “Are you a transfer student? You look new!”

“Huh?” Sunset turned to see another teenage girl with rainbow hair talking to her.

“My name is Rainbow Dash!” The girl was way too excited for Sunset’s liking. “You are a transfer student, right? I love helping transfers out! You guys are always so crazy, you know? Come sit at my table. I’ll introduce you to my friends.”

Way too friendly.

Sunset kind of wanted to just hang back, be a bit of a loner.

“Sure. But I’m a bit of a recluse just so you know.” Sunset looked away.

“That’s cool! Everyone’s kind of like that at first,” said Dash. “But once you see how incredibly awesome this place is, I’m sure you’ll open up!”

Were there seriously teenagers with this much school spirit? Dash must play sports or something. Sunset hated sports ponies.

Sunset got to the head of the line and was amazed at the selection! There was a massive wall behind the lunch lady filled with every food imaginable. She saw pasta, salads, sandwiches, pies, pizza, nearly everything she could think of was right here!

Though a lot of it was human foods Sunset didn’t recognize.

But between her and the food was a plump human; the lunch lady, no doubt. Something about her seemed off, gave Sunset the creeps. There was something of a blank stare just above her wide smile.

“Is there anything I can get you, dear?” The lunch lady asked.

“Um.” Sunset scanned the endless options. She didn’t even know what a lot of this was. “A burger?”

The lunch lady robotically reached under the table and pulled out a tray with burgers and fries on it to hand to Sunset. Thankfully, not asking for money.

It smelled delicious! But the way that lunch lady went right back to her blank smile…

“Are you okay?” Sunset asked her.

“Okay?” The lunch lady asked. “Is that some kind of hip slang?”

“What?”

“You don’t talk to adults.” Dash pushed Sunset ahead to get her own lunch. “You know, aside from teachers and Celestia.”

“You don’t? Why?” Sunset asked.

“Cause they’re lame!” Dash assured her.

“It’s true, I am lame,” the lunch lady agreed. “I don’t understand you youngsters and your hip ways at all.”

So the lunch lady was… mentally challenged or something. Good to know.

Maybe not talking to adults was a cultural thing? No, that wouldn’t make any sense! You can’t have a culture where you don’t talk to adults! Could you?

Sunset was baffled by this little exchange, but it wasn’t like she could just ask Dash questions that exposed her alien origins outright. She had to pretend whatever the heck was happening was normal.

Sunset just smiled and took her tray off to the cafeteria, looking for a place to sit. Rainbow Dash was quick to point out the table she intended to sit at. Sunset sighed, resigning to give her what she wanted.

“Yeah. You just stick with me, newbie.” Dash bit into her own burger after sitting down. “I know all the ropes of this place now! I’ve been going here for ten years, so-“

“Wait, hold up.” Sunset raised her hands to stop her. “You’ve been going to high school for ten years?”

“Yeah?” Dash glanced around, looking for the point. “Why?”

“How old are you, exactly?” Sunset asked.

“Sixteen, same as you! Duh!”

“So you’ve been going to high school since you were six?” Maybe humans aged differently.

“Six what?”

“Six years old!”

“I don’t think you can be six years old.”

“What?!”

Humans couldn’t possibly age that differently.

“If you can’t be six years old then how did you get to be sixteen?”

“I just am sixteen?” Dash was cringing a little at the oddness of the question. “Do you not know how age works or-?”

“Maybe we’re talking past each other. Okay. Like you’ve been alive for sixteen years, right? So you’re sixteen. And in another year, you’ll be seventeen.”

Dash laughed.

“You think I’m just going to magically turn into a seventeen-year-old next year?” Dash laughed even louder. “This is why I love transfer students so much! You all have such nutty ideas!”

Sunset stared in disbelief, unable to process what was happening. What possible explanation could there be for this?

Another student, this one with purple hair and a much more complex looking dish pasta, sat next to the two of them.

“Oh! I see we have a guest at our table today,” the newcomer said.

Sunset opened her mouth but was too stunned to speak at the moment. Thankfully, she had Dash here to do the talking for her.

“Ah! The new transfer student is messing with me.” Dash pointed her thumb at Sunset. “Sunset Shimmer here is a riot!”

“Well, my name is Rarity, miss Sunset.” Rarity gave her a nod. “But you do need to be careful around transfer students, Rainbow Dash. I wouldn’t normally invite one to sit with me until they’ve been here a few years. They can be a bit rough around the edges.”

“That’s what makes them fun,” said Dash.

Meanwhile, Sunset’s brain was still stuck on the age problem.

“So uh, how long have you been sixteen for, Rarity?” Sunset asked her.

“Why I’ve always been sixteen of course. What an odd question.”

Always? Were they vampires or something?

“I meant how long have you been going to this school for,” Sunset corrected herself.

“Oh, well I was actually one of the first students here at Canterlot high.” Rarity took out a cloth napkin and put it over her lap. “I’ve been going here for hundreds of years.”

“Hundreds…”

“Of years yes.” Rarity began daintily eating her pasta.

They really were vampires… or something. But why would a vampire go to high school for hundreds of years?!

What even was the possibility here? They claimed to have never been younger than sixteen. But they came from somewhere else?

“And uh…” Sunset looked back and forth between the two, hardly able to think what to ask next that wouldn’t give her away. “What were you doing before you came to Canterlot High? Did you go to another school?”

The smiles vanished.

“How rude!” Rarity turned her nose up. “This is exactly what I was talking about! Transfer students simply cross the line sometimes.”

“Yeah! You can’t just ask stuff like that, new kid!” Dash stood up at this insult. “We didn’t ask you where you came from!”

“Wait. Why can’t I ask that?”

“Because it’s rude! Being new doesn’t give you the right to be a bully!” Dash was leaning forward like she really was defending her friend against a bully.

Rarity nodded in agreement.

That’s when Sunset realized something.

Sunset needed to leave.

She didn’t know what yet, but there was something horribly wrong with this place.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” Sunset stood up and left.

She left the building, and she ran. She tried to get as far away from this school as possible.

Chapter 2

Sunset’s plans of amassing power here, revenge on Princess Celestia, all of that was long gone. The only thing she felt and thought right now was panic and the need to figure out what the Tartarus was wrong with this dimension!

It wasn’t long before Sunset realized the entire city was somewhere she didn’t want to be. Heck, walking through the rest of the town made her want to go back to that school. Astoundingly, things were more normal back there.

It was miles before she found any signs of life outside the school and the people she found could only technically be called 'alive'.

All the adults, the few people who populated this city, were just like that lunch lady, more robots than people. They went through what looked like pre-programmed routines - picking up garbage, tending to plants, fixing the road - but when they finished, they just stopped. The adults in the stores stood perfectly still behind the counters until Sunset came in.

None of them were much for conversation; just laughing at Sunset’s ‘hip ways’ anytime she asked them something more complicated than the time of day. At least she knew this city was called Canterlot now, just like the place she left.

There were no other teens out here, making Sunset feel like she was the only real person in this entire city.

From far off, Sunset heard the school bell ring. Maybe the streets would be less lonely soon.

She was getting hungry. Maybe she should have stayed for lunch.

There were plenty of stores downtown, a convenience store just on her left looked tempting.

“Hey there, kiddo!” The clerk greeted her with a creepy smile when Sunset stepped inside.

Sunset didn’t talk to him. He wasn’t a real person, that much she was convinced of now. He didn’t seem to mind the cold shoulder either, none of them did.

She looked through the things in the store, trying to find anything useful, or any food she might be able to steal. She saw something that caught her interest right away.

A map!

Despite a recent vow to never pray to Celestia again, Sunset found herself hoping to Celestia that this was just one insane town on an otherwise relatively normal planet.

Sunset took and looked over the map. It showed Canterlot to be a geographically impossible location. Every biome possible was crammed into this one city!

To the north were tundra and snowy mountains. To the east was desert and a canyon. To the south were swamp and jungle. To the west was a beach and ocean. Then the city had eight different nature reserves, all of a different type, all inside its borders. The city was clearly enormous.

When she was done gawking at it, she realized something else…

Every border of this city was surrounded by inhospitable terrain that stretched on for two hundred miles until the map ended! There were no roads leading out into, let alone through, those wastelands.

No way that was a coincidence. Something put those deserts and frozen mountains there. The longer she stayed here the more certain Sunset became that she’d entered into the lair of some evil god. Something trapped people in this city, because why else would it be set up as a cage like this?

Sunset needed to get out of this city if she could. For all she knew, she could end up like one of these mindless adults if she stayed here too long.

The obvious choice would have been that portal, but it would need thirty months to recharge. It wasn't like she could go crawling right back to Celestia after that big fight, either, crying that the outside world was just too scary for her.

Testing the cage was the better idea. But which of these biomes would be the easiest to go two hundred miles through?

“Hey!” Sunset called out to the guy. “This is a long shot, but do you know what’s on the other side of this desert?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing?” Sunset asked.

“Yep!” He kept his huge smile on. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Well, that’s disturbing.” Sunset looked back down at the map. She already knew she couldn’t get a lot of information out of the adults. One more question and he’d start talking about how he can’t understand the young folk.

Her stomach rumbled again.

If she was even going to attempt to escape she’d need supplies. But right now, it’d been almost a day since she’d eaten and she didn’t have any human money.

This store had plenty of candy on display, baked goods, and pizza too. It wasn’t like Sunset had never shoplifted before, though that was more for the thrill than necessity.

She wondered if stealing something would piss off whatever god was sleeping here. The store clerk was so robotic he might not even notice if she just grabbed everything and walked out.

As the guy stared forward blankly, Sunset stepped out of his sight and pocketed a few candy bars as stealthily as she could. She’d move up to bigger targets if she got away with this much.

Just as she pocketed the fourth and final candy bar, she felt a poke from behind that made her jump halfway across the room.

A familiar girl was laughing where Sunset had stood just seconds ago

“You can relax! It’s just me.” Dash lowered the rose-colored sunglasses she was wearing now. “I thought I saw you in here! Where the heck did you go after lunch? We didn’t see you for the rest of the day!”

“I kind of skipped class,” said Sunset. “Something important came up.”

“What could possibly be more important than school?” Dash asked.

“Um. You know.” Sunset shrugged with a forced smile.

Dash frowned with pity for a moment, thankfully misunderstanding her.

“You know, we’re really not that angry at you from before,” said Dash with a smile. “We get you’re new. You’ll learn how to behave soon enough. But there’s really no need to go playing hooky.”

Sunset tapped her fingers on one of the shelves. She was just going to come out and ask a risky question.

“Out of curiosity, does something horrible happen to you if you skip too many classes?” Sunset asked.

“Absolutely!” Dash took off her glasses like it really was something dramatic. “You don’t have any fun! You don’t learn anything! You don’t get new experiences! You don’t get to hang out with all your friends! Trust me, the school's the place to be when it’s open. Summer breaks a nice change of pace, but most of us would rather be in school.”

Teens that preferred school to summer break? That had to be the biggest sign something horrible was going on here. At least it didn’t sound like she was going to explode if she played hooky.

“Are you feeling okay?” Dash asked. “You look worse than transfer students usually look.”

“Well I’m starving for one,” said Sunset.

“Oh.” Dash put her glasses in her pocket. “Have you tried… eating?”

“Haha.” Sunset rolled her eyes. “No, I haven’t tried eating. I don’t have any money.”

“So?” Dash laughed. “Oh! I get it! You don’t know how money works. Hey, guy! Can we have a pizza?”

“Sure thing, kiddo!”

The clerk took the pizza out from behind the glass and handed it to Dash with that creepy smile on his face.

“See? All the food is free!” Dash took a bite of the pizza and offered Sunset another slice. “Isn’t it great here?”

Free food? Sunset blinked down at the pizza. That would be convenient, but maybe too convenient. There had to be a limit.

“Can I get ten pizzas?” Sunset asked.

“Sure thing, kiddo!”

The man took out ten pizzas stacked on top of one another. Sunset didn’t even know where those came from!

So food was taken care of.

Of course, Sunset would need other things if she was going to get through the desert. A backpack, a first aid kit, a knife…

“Come on! You can admit Canterlot is the best, right?” Dash asked.

“Sure. Hey, is everything in this town free?” Sunset asked. “My old school was very different, you see.”

“Yeah, I get it! Everyone was a transfer student once, you know! Nobody expects you to be normal,” said Dash. “Food is free but you gotta pay for clothes and stuff. Basically, anything at the mall costs money except food.”

“The mall.” Sunset knew where to go at least. “Do you have a job or something? I really don’t have any money at all.”

“Don’t your parents give you an allowance? Everybody’s’ parents should give them one.”

“My parents are dead,” Sunset said flatly.

The closest thing she’d had to a parent for the last ten years was fucking Celestia and everypony knew how that turned out.

“I don’t think parents can die.” Dash was left scratching her head. “They’re not bugs, you know.”

“Well mine did.”

“Have you checked since you got here?” Dash asked.

“Checked what? They died before I left.”

Dash just rolled her eyes like Sunset was being ridiculous. She took out a small, black, rectangular device.

“What is that thing?” Sunset asked.

“A phone. How did they not have phones where you’re from? Ah, never mind that was a rude question.” Dash pressed a button on the side of her ‘phone’. “Hey, where does Sunset Shimmer live?”

There was a jingle, then a voice came out of the phone.

“Sunset Shimmer lives on 452 Sunset lane,” the device announced.

Sunset had a house?!

“Hey! That’s just down the street from Pinkie Pie!” Dash put her phone away. “We should go over there and scope the place out if you haven’t gone there yet.”

“Uh… yeah.”

A strange sense of morbid curiosity compelled Sunset to follow Dash over to where her ‘home’ supposedly was…

Chapter 3

Sunset ate nearly an entire pizza on the way to her house. Maybe it was because she was so hungry, but that had to be the best pizza she’d ever eaten! This place had plenty of good food, whatever it was.

She was only vaguely aware of Rainbow Dash excitedly listing all the ‘awesome’ things there were to do in town as they walked. Dash never seemed to run out. That kid was always so enthusiastic about everything too, to the point it creeped Sunset out a little.

But Sunset was just too distracted by the infinite number of questions floating around in her head to listen to her.

What the heck was this place? Was it its own universe or just a pocket dimension inside another? Or something else? Were the adults robots? Were the teens brainwashed in some way? Where did all of the others come from? All from the same dimension or a bunch of different ones?

Who was keeping them here? And why? How powerful were they?

Her immediate thought was that an emotivore was behind this - like a siren but more powerful. Maybe they trapped you here in this world and brainwashed you to be super happy all the time so they could feed off of your... something?

Teen energy? School Spirit? Happiness?

It had to be something like that. What other option was there?! Admittedly, the possibility of this place being so strange was something that blindsided Sunset. Something else could blindside her too.

“And the arcade is so amazing! It’s got eight floors!” Dash kept going, ever amazed by the town she lived in. “They got House of the Dead, House of the Dead 2, House of the Dead 3, House of the Dead 4 and uh, that dancing one Rarity likes. Plus a bunch of others.”

Dash came from somewhere else, outside of all this, based on the conversation they’d had.

Thinking about it, shouldn’t she remember things like parents dying and aging? Surely it had to be just this one dimension that was warped, it couldn’t be the norm. So that meant she forgot about where she came from? That her mind had been altered?

“Oh! Have you joined any clubs yet?” Dash asked.

“Huh?” Sunset looked up at Dash, snapped out of her train of thought. “Oh. No.”

“Well how about joining the paranormal investigation club?” Dash asked. “It’s totally rad! We explore empty houses and the forest for ghosts! We’re meeting up tonight after sundown, actually.”

“Are ghosts real?” Sunset asked.

“If we knew that we wouldn’t need the paranormal investigation club, would we?”

“Right. Maybe I’ll think about it later?”

Dash put her hands behind her head, looking more solemn than before.

“You seem really down,” Dash pointed out. “Like even for a transfer student. Is something bugging you?”

“I was just thinking.”

Dash continued to walk by her side, frowning.

Sunset wasn’t sure how safe it was to ask millions of questions. Maybe she could test the water just a little.

“I know you don’t like to remember… before,” Sunset chose her words carefully. “But you can remember it, right?”

“Well, sure. Just like I can climb into the sewers and roll around in the filth but -“

Dash kept walking, silently frowning at Sunset with pity. Then she flipped back to a smile.

“Okay! I think I know what this is about.” Dash ran ahead of Sunset a little, then turned back and pointed at her temple. “You’re still worried about getting the procedure, yeah? Cause you don’t have your memories clouded yet?”

Procedure?! Were these people lobotomized?!

“Yeah,” Sunset admitted easily enough. “That does bother me.”

“Well you don’t gotta worry about that! It’s awesome! You’re way happier once all that baggage is gone,” said Dash, but she quickly changed course when she realized it wasn’t helping. “See like - you don’t lose all your memories forever or anything like that. I can still kind of remember before, it just takes more effort. You can’t accidentally remember your past cause you really gotta work to do it.”

Dash pointed at a nearby alley cat the two of them passed.

“Like... that cat! Say you got mauled by cats one time, yeah? Then every time you see a cat you got bad memories. But that’s until you get your memories clouded, then you can see a cat without being all traumatized. No more flashbacks. No more panic attacks. No more PTSD or stress! Doesn’t that sound great?”

Really it was the way Dash was selling it that felt off to Sunset the most.

That sales pitch took for granted Sunset being traumatized. Dash assumed Sunset had horrible PTSD. Was that the norm here?

“In my opinion, you should get your memories clouded as soon as you can! Everything makes perfect sense afterward,” Dash explained. “It’s like jumping straight into the pool. I did it the first day I got here and have zero regrets. Though I get not everyone has as much guts as yours truly.”

Sunset nodded but kept her mouth shut. She absolutely wanted to keep her memories, didn’t have anything nearly traumatic enough for her to consider anything like that.

“But it doesn’t happen until I ask, right?” Sunset asked.

“Well sure, but like I said it’s better to-“

Dash was interrupted by a honking noise and one of those ‘cars’ stopped nearby.

Sunset saw a few of these contraptions around town already. They looked like miniature trains made to carry a small number of ponies around. Already she noted the value one might have in the future.

They could move fast over flat terrain. Hypothetically, Sunset could fill one up with food, coal and water then just drive off into the desert clearing the two hundred miles in a day. Though she still didn’t know how far a car could go on a bag of coal yet.

The window on the car rolled down and a new human with pink hair poked her head out of it.

“You two want a ride?” She offered. This one looked just as enthusiastic as Rainbow Dash. “Where are you going?”

“Right there.” Dash pointed to the very next house, Sunset’s.

“Oh.” She frowned at the house, then smiled wide at them. “Well, I could still drive you up there!”

“Pinkie Pie here just got a car.” Dash pointed her thumb at Pinkie. “She’s really eager to drive people places.”

“It’s true!” Pinkie nodded. “I gotta drive everywhere!”

“You know those things break down eventually, right?” Dash asked her. “You don’t wanna drive it too much or you’ll have to buy another.”

“Pinkie Pie lives life to the extreme! Even if that extreme is just driving two feet. Hey, who’s your new friend?”

“She’s a new transfer student! Sunset Shimmer!”

“Omigosh!” Pinkie jumped out of her car and grabbed Sunset’s hands in her own. “Isn’t Canterlot High the greatest place ever?! I bet you’re so happy here! Just look at you! You’re so happy that you’re in a state of stunned confusion!”

“Um.”

“I have so much to show you! Omigosh! You gotta come over to my house for a sleepover tonight! Rainbow Dash! Did you invite her to the paranormal investigation club yet?”

“I did. She’s kind of the nervous type,” said Dash. “Been avoiding classes and stuff so far. So maybe we should let her stay on her own tonight.”

“What? But you can’t skip classes! We gotta feed Celestia, right?” Pinkie smiled happily.

“Feed Celestia?!” Sunset blurted it out, then realized she should not have blurted it out.

The other two turned to her with a blank look that made Sunset know she just stepped in it. Pinkie let go of Sunset’s hands.

“Hey.” Dash folded her arms and glared at Sunset from one side. “I get you’re new so you don’t know how everything here works yet, but how the heck can you not know about that?”

“Yeah.” Pinkie got closer, walking to Sunset’s other side so she was surrounded. “Are you really a transfer student? Or are you a filthy intruder?!”

Pinkie jabbed an accusing finger at Sunset as she said that last word.

Oh no! Sunset was totally an intruder! What did they do to intruders?! She had to never find out!

“I’m not an intruder!” Sunset assured them. She needed to think of a cover fast! “Definitely a transfer student here! I just - we called it something different where I came from. We always said ‘making an offering’ to Celestia, see? I was just confused by the way you phrased it.”

Sunset laughed. One thing she learned from Princess Celestia was how to fake a smile and fake a laugh.

“Oh! Okay!” Pinkie instantly bought it and went back to her bubbly self. “What a silly misunderstanding! I was worried for a second! Now that I think about it, if you were an intruder, Celestia would just teleport behind you and blow your head up!”

Sunset stood very still. Principal Celestia did immediately teleport behind her the second she got to this place!

“I don’t think Celestia blows anyone’s head up,” said Dash. “Though that would be pretty cool to watch.”

She wanted to know more about this but couldn’t dare ask anything that made her look suspicious.

“What does she do to intruders then?” Sunset asked. “I mean, she has to deal with them somehow, right?”

“Depends on how much potential they have,” Dash explained. “I think she throws the bigger losers out into the desert or onto an island where they can’t bother us.”

“Yeah.” Pinkie put an arm around Dash and Sunset each. “And if they smell really bad they get thrown onto a desert island where they double can’t bother us!”

Dash and Pinkie both started to laugh, Sunset joining in with her fake laughter as soon as she could.

Did that mean Sunset had ‘potential’? But potential for what? To be part of a balanced breakfast?!

It wasn’t a good idea to ask anything more about this subject, Sunset could tell. But at least she had a name now. Celestia was the one behind this because of course she bucking was.

“There, see?” Dash broke out of Pinkie’s grasp and pointed to Sunset with a wink. “You’re starting to loosen up already! Come on! Let’s check out your house!”

Dash led the way to Sunset Shimmer’s house, a fairly large looking one from the outside.

“Welcome home, Sunset!”

Two more creepy adults greeted her right away.

These weren’t Sunset’s parents, not human versions of them anyway. She was a little relieved by that. Having creepy versions of her dead parents around would be even more awkward. Not to mention it would mean this version of Celestia could see her memories.

Sunset looked around. At least the house was nice. Plenty of room, even more than she’d had back in Canterlot.

“Hey! You got Sunset’s allowance, right?” Dash asked them.

“Of course!” Sunset’s ‘mom’ said.

She handed Sunset some paper money, but Sunset had no frame of reference to know if this was a lot.

“Oh! Thank you?” Sunset looked up at them, only to get overly big smiles in return.

“Seem like pretty normal parents to me.” Dash nodded, watching them go off to clean the house.

“Yeah! Nothing at all.” Sunset slowly nodded with her fake smile. “Thanks for walking me back. I do feel a lot better now, you were a huge help! But I just want to relax for a bit.”

“Any time!” Dash pointed at her as she and Pinkie walked back out the door. “Oh! And if you change your mind the club meets at seven!”

They closed the door and left.

Sunset’s parents seemed largely disinterested in her, just sat on the couch.

“I’m going to my room,” said Sunset. “Just stand in the corner and don’t talk to me.”

“Sure thing, dear!” Her father said. They really did go off to the corner.

So your ‘parents’ were basically just robots who looked after your house… Technically useful. Though it was also possible Celestia could see what they saw. Sunset couldn’t rule anything out. She needed to be paranoid for now.

After some searching, Sunset found the bedroom. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was sparsely decorated. The bed was up on a little alcove with stairs leading up to it, a ceiling to floor window right across.

She looked in the closet to find plenty of clothes there. Whoever put these here must have assumed Sunset liked the 'punk' aesthetic. Everything in there was black, leather or flame themed. To be fair she did like the jacket she was wearing.

“Okay, Sunset,” Sunset said to herself, pacing back and forth in her room. “Next time you want to run away from home you go across the ocean to zebra lands, not another dimension!”

She didn’t even know other dimensions could be this creepy! Why did nopony tell her something like this was possible? Was Princess Celestia legally required to lie and misinform her about every possible thing?

Okay! There was no way to change the past! She just had to go over the facts she knew and figure out what to do next.

Principal Celestia, whether it was from ignorance or because Sunset had some sort of ‘potential’, seemed like she was just sitting back and watching for now. The other students all thought she was one of them. She didn’t have to do anything crazy right now.

There were three options in her mind right now. Escape through the portal, escape through the desert, and confront Celestia. Which of those was the best idea she couldn’t say.

The desert and Celestia had too many unknowns for her to even start planning for yet. Principal Celestia could be a completely invincible god that would instantly kill her, or she could be a total pushover. The other side of the desert could have a barrier leading to the outside world or it could have, as she was told, ‘nothing’.

The portal meant biding for three years. But would staying here that long begin to warp her mind? Celestia could be feeding off of her right now, slowly making her more like the other students.

Then there was the magic problem. Sunset could feel so much magic in this place but couldn’t wield it at all without her horn. How did humans use magic?

It’d also mean going back to Equestria empty-handed.

Sunset bit her thumb. No. That idea disgusted her too much. She’d rather be stuck in this eternal high school thing than have to go back there and be humiliated!

There just wasn’t enough information to know which was the best idea yet. For now, she should just lay low and gather more information as passively as possible.

There was technically a school she could go to learn potentially useful things… and everyone there seemed okay with her attending classes.

Actually, they seemed a little too eager for her to attend. But it was the least suspicious way for her to gather information for now.

“Dinner’s ready, honey!” Sunset’s ‘mom’ poked her head into Sunset’s bedroom. Sunset needed to lock the door next time.

“Oh! Thanks… mom.” Sunset tried to smile back.

Sunset got up, still hungry. She could already smell the food from here.

At least the food here was good.

Chapter 4

Sunset didn’t think she managed to sleep that night. She had lain in bed for a good eight hours, but if she did sleep it was for less than one.

Even still, she felt wide awake around five in the morning.

Restless, she snuck out of her house and went down to the school, the streets dead quiet this early. She felt ambivalent about being completely alone in the dark city at the moment. It could be a good or a bad thing.

Finally, she got down to the school - no doubt the nexus of this place. She looked up at its dark windows, wondering if Celestia was looking back down at her, if she lived inside the school. She slowly put one foot down on the school grounds.

Principal Celestia didn’t appear in a burst of fire, so Sunset decided it was safe to take another step... then a third... until finally she got back to the courtyard she first appeared in. Sunset went down to the statue she had emerged from yesterday and sat down next to it.

How could she possibly open it back up when the time came? There had to be some way to use magic as a human. If she could just nudge the inert portal a tiny bit she’d feel much better.

Her fingers were vaguely horn-shaped and humans used those to do everything else. She held one of them up against her forehead like it was a horn but that went nowhere. She tried wiggling her fingers and toes, making various hand signs, rubbing her temples, and concentrating as hard as she could. But nothing.

Incantations! That was one way to use magic without a horn. Sunset closed her eyes and tried the simplest incantation she could think of.

“Vita est quasi impetus tempestatis in anatine mundo,” Sunset chanted.

But nothing happened.

Could humans just not use magic? Even earth ponies could kind of use magic a little and they were already the short end of the stick!

Sunset kept trying to use magic for hours. She tried punching the statue but just ended up bloody. She tried rubbing her hands on it, licking it, and even singing but got nowhere.

Soon it was seven. The school bell rang and other students started walking past her and into the school, chatting excitedly with one another.

Well, there was a school right here. Maybe she’d get lucky for once and there’d be a class about using magic as a human.

She wearily rubbed her eyes while others went past her. They were all so energized and happy looking. It kind of pissed her off.

Sunset followed the crowd inside.

The entrance was a large hub directly across from the cafeteria. There were halls leading left and right and stairs leading up and down. Everyone looked like they knew where they were going, which brought up a problem to Sunset’s mind.

What classes was she taking? If she just walked into one and sat down would anyone say anything? Did they take attendance?

If she already had a house then she must be on their files, right? And if not, she could try gaslighting everyone, insisting they simply had made a mistake.

There was a small office connected directly to this first room, with an adult human sitting behind a counter in it. The sign promised this was the ‘coordinator’. She looked much more alive than the other human adults.

“Excuse me,” Sunset said. “I seem to have lost my schedule.”

“Of course, dear.” She turned to her side, punching something into a noiseless typewriter and looking into a magic mirror. “What’s your name?”

Bit of a relief she didn’t already know.

“Sunset Shimmer.”

“And you said you were a transfer student, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Wonderful! We’re glad to have you here!” The receptionist looked into her mirror for a moment longer. “I think the reason you can’t find your schedule is that you never made one in the first place.”

“Oh, right.” Sunset gave her fake laugh.

“Well, you can make it here.”

The receptionist gave Sunset a form, then reached under the counter and pulled out a huge book, one that had to be six or seven inches thick. The cover said ‘Canterlot High Courses vol. 1’.

That last part made Sunset’s eye twitch. The receptionist took out a second, third, and eventually the sixth volume of this, all of them just as massive as the first. Did you get to graduate if you finished all of these?

Sunset started flipping through random pages.

It was like they had a course for everything. Train repair. Bulgarian cuisine. 18th-century technology. History of printing. History of language. History of historians. Basket weaving. Extreme basket weaving. Dynamite fishing. Lightsaber dueling. Fashion critique. Horse breeding?! That one crossed the line.

A lot of them had another course listed that you needed to have taken ‘the prior semester’, not just ‘prior’, which was interesting. Most of them went in a sequence of one to seven, meaning a lot of these lasted seven semesters.

So the question now was that if Sunset could learn anything, and apparently she could, what would it be?

As she deliberated, idly flipping through pages, she stumbled upon the most important section of them all.

Magic! There was a way to use magic as a human!

Sunset immediately signed up for sorcery one. But what else?

There was page after page of courses about magic. Sunset carefully combed through them, trying to decide what the most useful type of magic would be in this situation. That’s when she saw it.

Interdimensional portals.

Sunset stared down at it in awe like she’d found the lost crown of the stars. That was the perfect course. It almost seemed a little too perfect, like it might be a trap.

She needed to play this cool! Make it look like she wasn’t too interested in that course. Obviously, it would look suspicious if every course she took was one that revealed her ignorance or was directly related to escape.

Sunset quickly signed up for marine biology and pottery as red herrings before going back to what might be useful. She wanted a recent history course to learn what the heck happened here.

20th-century history sounded good. That had to be fairly recent - how many centuries could there possibly be? She didn’t see any courses that mentioned the 21st century.

Come to think of it, she didn’t know what year it was and there was no calendar around. But asking that had to be a suspicious question.

After signing up for an etiquette class and one about car mechanics, Sunset finally wrote down ‘interdimensional portals’.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to take that course,” the receptionist said right as she wrote it down.

“Huh?” Sunset’s heart skipped a beat as she looked up. What if it really was a trap?! “Why not?”

“You need at least two students to sign up for a course before you can take it,” she explained. “Right now, no one has signed up for interdimensional portals this semester. You can tell how many students are currently enrolled in a course by double-tapping the name.”

Sunset tried it. Interdimensional portals had a zero appear next to its name in the book. Thankfully, the other courses she signed up for had at least one other person in them.

Sunset spent so long going through all the courses that she missed the first two periods. No etiquette lessons today it seemed.

As the third period started, the halls flooded with students again. One of them was one of the few Sunset recognized, Rainbow Dash.

“Ah hey! Sunset! You came to school!” Dash ran up from behind and leaned over Sunset’s shoulder. “Are you still picking courses? If you want suggestions here are some rad courses I’m taking. Falconry, history of swords, evolution of poisons, 18th-century battle tactics, film theory—which is great cause you watch tons of movies.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Sunset turned around to face her. “How do you feel about interdimensional portals?”

“Um.” Dash slowly shrugged. “I don’t feel anything? That doesn’t make me a sociopath, does it?”

“Do you want to take it with me?” Sunset put her hands together pleadingly. “Please? Portals are my favorite thing!”

“They are?” Dash rubbed the back of her head. “I mean, they’re a little cool. At least, the swirly ones are. But I kind of already have a full schedule this semester.”

“What about next semester? I’ll take falconry this semester if you take interdimensional portals next one,” Sunset promised.

“Yeah, I’m down for that!” Dash held out her arm like a falcon was perched on it now. “You’re gonna love falconry! It’s one of those outdoor classes!”

Sunset finished penning her schedule. Just one more period and she’d be in sorcery class.

Chapter 5

Sunset walked into the sorcery classroom to find it looked more like a gym than a classroom. There was a wide-open area with no desks or chairs. The walls were lined with what Sunset briefly thought were brooms, but her eyes widened when she realized what they really were.

She ran over to the racks to confirm it, and sure enough, they were magic staves! Each one was solid oak, its tip carved into a crescent moon with a blue gemstone floating in the middle.

Of course! The human body was so magically feeble that it needed a prosthetic to use magic at all! It all made sense now.

Sunset tried to grab one, but they were all chained up, the links enchanted to bind the magic. She hoped someone would come and unlock them soon.

“Ah! It’s you! Sunset Shimmer was it?” Rarity asked.

Sunset turned around. The rest of the class was here, but Rarity was the only person she recognized.

“Yeah.” Sunset kept her gaze averted. She didn’t want to start a fight with anyone and draw attention. She and Rarity hadn't gotten off on a good foot.

“There’s no need to be like that.” Rarity laughed. “I’m just glad to see you being responsible and taking classes! I’m sure you’ll be happy and fit in soon.”

Sunset glanced over at her. She was being friendlier than Sunset expected.

The teacher came in, a woman with a baggy dress. ‘Meadowbrook’ was her name according to the schedule.

“Alright! Everyone, please get your staff,” said Meadowbrook.

The chains on the staves fell off. Sunset grabbed hers like she was grabbing onto the ledge of a cliff!

Yes! This was it! She could feel the magic flowing through it just like it went through a horn! She put one of her new textbooks on the ground and tried levitating it.

The results were wobbly at best.

She lifted the back end of the book, but only the back end, causing it to flip over. Trying to put it back right, she brought the whole thing up a little, but then she lost her grip.

This wasn’t nearly as easy as using something attached to your body, but she was using magic again! It felt like such a huge relief, like having an amputated limb suddenly regrown.

There was some hope of using the portal again, though she’d need practice with this thing.

“Very impressive for your first day!” Meadowbrook clasped her hands together in praise. “Normally, students need days of practice just to use the staff a little. Have you used magic before?”

Bad question! She didn’t know if using magic was normal wherever they came from or not!

“Not really. I think I’m just a genius,” said Sunset.

She got a few laughs, but no one looks suspicious, at least.

“Well, that will certainly be useful to Principal Celestia! This week we’ll be practicing geomancy!”

Geomancy wasn’t particularly helpful to Sunset but learning any type of magic would get the ball rolling.

Meadowbrook tapped her own staff on the ground and the room changed, the walls vanishing so that the lot of them were suddenly standing in a field of grass that stretched outwards in every direction to the horizon.

What spell was that? Where the heck were they?!

At least Sunset wasn’t the only one with a strong reaction. The others all seemed to have a sense of wonder at the room changing, even Rarity who’d been here for centuries. Shouldn’t she be used to this by now?

“Today we’ll be trying to bloom flowers where there are none.” Meadowbrook swept her staff around in a circle, flowers blooming all around her. “Since all of you already know the principles of flow we’ll skip over that part. The main trick here is to make your staff resonate in imitation of life energies…”

About an hour later, Sunset Shimmer was on the cusp of making this work.

She’d been paired with Lyra and Rarity for the assignment.

The three of them put their staffs together, overlaying the crescents, and held them on top of a flower they’d previously summoned for the last part of today’s assignment.

Despite having just met them, the others in her team were able to work together fairly well with her. Sunset was the strongest magic user; Rarity had the most control, and Lyra could react the fastest.

Slowly, the flower bud began to grow. Sunset shoved as much energy into the flower as she could.

Her focus was terrible, being unused to using a staff. It’d veer off to one side, but Lyra would quickly react, sending it hard back in the right direction. Then it was Rarity’s turn to get everything just the way it should be. Her attention to detail, bringing everything together was impressive even to Sunset.

She was used to being surrounded by idiots, but these two were remotely competent.

The flower bud continued to grow bigger and bigger until the bulb was just taller than any of the girls. Then came the final, most difficult part. They failed at this five times already.

Sunset lifted her staff while the other two swept left and right. They all had to be in sync, or it would wilt. But this time it worked! The bud opened and began to bloom.

And just as it finished blooming, the bell rang, the entire place returning to the classroom at the last moment, giving them only the briefest second to see their finished work.

But they did do it.

Sunset and the other two laughed. They actually did it!

Sunset really felt like she wouldn’t have been able to finish that on time! They were the only group that got all the way to the end of the sequence!

“At the last second!” Rarity cheered. “Certainly, the most thrilling way to do it.”

“That was great!” Lyra held up her hand. “You really are a genius!”

“Huh? Oh!”

This was the ‘high five’. Sunset slapped Lyra’s hand. She decided that Lyra and Rarity actually weren’t so bad if you got past all the insanity.

“Well I couldn’t have done it without you,” Sunset admitted. “You’re pretty fast.”

“Oh? The genius is being humble now?” Rarity gave her a high five as well, smiling wide. “I see you’re smiling a lot more than before. I told you you’d love taking classes.”

Sunset did catch herself smiling a bit more than maybe she should given her situation.

“You all did wonderful work today, class!” Meadowbrook encouraged them. “Be sure to turn in your staff on the way out.”

“Is there any homework?” Sunset asked.

“Homework?” Meadowbrook asked. “What’s that?”

“Never mind.” Sunset didn’t want to give her any ideas.

A high school without homework did sound perfect. Sunset also learned today that there were no grades in this school either. You just focused on learning. That shouldn’t sound surprising for a school, but it did.

Sunset returned her staff, smile fading.

She’d need to find her own staff if she wanted to get out of here.

For a minute there, Sunset completely forgot about her actual mission of opening a portal. That was actually… kind of fun. It was a lot less serious than the magic lessons she was used to; people were joking through half of it.

Back under Celestia, she had managed to drown entire buildings under vines without feeling any sense of accomplishment at all, only feeling that it still wasn’t enough. Yet somehow making a single flower bloom was a rush now.

Maybe the difference was because Sunset was free of her old mentor, no longer being pushed as hard as possible towards a goal she wasn’t even allowed to know about. Princess Celestia never actually cared about Sunset or teaching her magic and friendship. It was all just a means to an end.

“Are you alright, dear?” Rarity snapped her out of her daze.

Sunset realized she’d been staring blankly at the staff.

“Oh! Yeah! Just got lost in thought,” said Sunset. “Hey, Rarity. How much does buying your own staff cost here?”

“It depends on how nice of a staff you’re looking for. But they usually cost two thousand dollars minimum.”

2,000… dollars?

The money she’d been given added up to 200, so ten weeks?

Screw it. If Sunset ever got a good idea for escaping, she’d steal a staff and run. Though if she was going to be stuck here longer buying, one to practice with on her own time would be a good idea.

“Hey!” Lyra ran up to her. “You’re cool. If you want to practice magic out of class, you can always join the mage fight club! It’s in the basement after school. I’ll be there and so will Bonbon - she’s cool!”

“Uh! You know, that’s probably a good idea, sure.”

Sunset needed the practice.

Lyra held her thumb up before running to her next class. Did Sunset actually make a friend already? It seemed so hard before, even with Celestia desperately shoving it down her throat in a mad attempt to fulfill her schemes. She’d probably ruin it in a day or two like always…

Sunset ran after Rarity who was a good deal ahead of her.

“Hey, Rarity?” Sunset asked. “I’m curious why you waited so long to take sorcery.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Rarity asked.

“You’ve been here hundreds of years, right?” Sunset reminded her.

“Oh!” Rarity laughed. “Why I’ve finished the sorcery courses many times over, of course! They really are one of my favorites to take. Why I finished going through all seven of them, then seven more semesters in grand sorcery just five years ago. I’m always excited to take them!”

That didn’t sound right. Something wrong was happening here.

Rarity was nowhere near as good as someone who practiced for years should be. Did she seriously forget everything and go back to being a novice in just five years?

But Sunset learned her lesson about asking questions that would make her seem overly ignorant. Despite having a million more things to ask, she kept her mouth shut, simply nodding and smiling before changing the subject again.

This gave her a new theory, though. What if Principal Celestia was eating their memories? Or maybe it was their knowledge, but it was likely something similar to that.

It was the best guess as to what they were feeding Celestia. So far, anyway. They’d gain new memories and knowledge in class, then Celestia would absorb it keeping them in eternal mental stasis.

She’d have to test whether this absorption was passive or active. The minute she got home, she’d write down the capital of every Equestrian province and every other nation. She’d write down all sorts of facts about Equestria and quiz herself every day to see if any of her memories or knowledge were fading.

Chapter 6

Three days in and everything was going smoothly so far. Nothing horrible happened to Sunset in all that time, and she had made some progress in her goals.

She got a perfect score on every one of her self memory tests, meaning her knowledge wasn’t rapidly degrading.

She knew a lot more about how the other students acted and could imitate them much better now. She had gone over the long list of things people here thought were rude in her etiquette textbook.

She had a plan ready in case things went south. Sunset found the place in the mall that sold staves and the part of the school where they were normally stored. Breaking the chains and stealing a staff was something she was confident she could do at this point. Also, she managed to squirrel away a growing stock of food near the entrance to the jungle to the south, in case she needed to hide out in there for some time.

Now another piece of her puzzle was sitting before her.

Today was her first day of 20th-century history and Sunset had a map in front of her. It wasn’t a map of Canterlot, though, but of something that looked much closer to a complete world. She saw continents like ‘Europe’ and ‘America’ on it, but no mention of Canterlot or anything else sharing a name with Equestria.

The desert was at least 200 miles long, so it should be visible on this map. Yet she couldn't find that desert or anything that looked like Canterlot.

No, she had a new theory now. This was a pocket dimension inside the dimension Sunset attempted to travel to. Furthermore, it was like a farm. Principal Celestia trapped people here and used them as livestock to harvest knowledge or whatever; the school existed to restore the knowledge every student learned endlessly. She worked to make this place idyllic to keep them from escaping.

Knowing all that would make escaping this place and getting to Earth a lot easier. You could make rips in the pocket dimension, maybe even get support from some of the people here who didn’t realize they were being used as farm animals.

Of course, she’d have to test the theory first and ask herself if escaping to Earth was really an upgrade or not.

Today they were being lectured on a war called World War 2. That name alone had some terrible implications to it. How many of these were there? Seven?

After just thirty minutes, Sunset could tell this was much more brutal than any war Equestria had ever seen, save maybe the Winter Wars - and even that was mostly because it’d been winter for 12 years prior.

Was this what Rainbow Dash wanted to forget? Sunset suddenly had a slight amount of sympathy for Dash. Some of the students here were hundreds of years old. It was possible some of them had lived through such a thing, but had forgotten completely by now.

Skimming through her textbook, Sunset noticed it went from 1900 to 2000 with no mention of a World War 3. She wished she knew what year it was now. It had to be at least 2001. Sunset needed a roundabout way of asking.

After class ended, Sunset went up to her history professor, Mr. Histrionics.

“Excuse me. I was wondering if there were any courses on the 21st century,” said Sunset.

“Oh, we don’t do any history classes that recent,” said Mr. Histrionics. “It’s really not a good idea to teach anything less than a hundred years in the past until it’s completely out of everyone’s mind. The 21st century is overly upsetting to students for obvious reasons.”

So it was either the 21st or 22nd century and something even worse than World War 2 had happened?!

She thanked him and went back out into the hall. Falconry was next and that was going to be a trial.

Falconry was not Sunset’s special talent. She’d never make it as an earth pony.

She was getting increasingly frustrated with this class. Back in Equestria, she’d always be way ahead of every other student in school - the best by far. That held to an extent even in this other dimension, all save this one class.

For the first time, Sunset was at the bottom of the class and it pissed her off!

Each of them had a staff, a leather glove, and a leather shoulder pad for the falcons to perch on. All of the students were busy teaching their falcons simple tricks while Sunset hadn’t even managed to get hers to come near her at all.

Right now, Sunset’s falcon was perched up in a tree. She’d been chasing it around, calling after it, all day only for it to fly from tree to tree. It perched everywhere but on Sunset’s arm.

Dash’s falcon came back to her, carrying a mouse. It dropped the mouse off to Dash and landed on her should pad.

“Hey, nice work.” Dash gave her falcon gentle pets with one hand. “You got lunch!”

“Wait.” Sunset’s eyes widened. She’d been growing increasingly concerned that some of the food she’d been eating was actually meat, which would be gross. “The food we’ve been eating - it’s not mice, is it?”

“What?” Dash laughed. “No, we don’t eat mice. I meant for Falcon Punch over here.”

Dash nuzzled the falcon perched on her shoulder.

“Okay, good.” Sunset let out a sigh of relief.

Sunset turned to her falcon one more time, still up in that tree. At least it looked down at her this time.

“Okay, listen up.” Sunset glared at her falcon. “This relationship will only work out if you mindlessly obey me! So make with the mindless obedience and get down here!”

Sunset held her leather glove out for the falcon to fly to.

It certainly had the ‘mindless’ part down. The falcon was just preening its feathers, ignoring Sunset completely. It wasn’t even listening to her, was it? Sunset knew she wasn’t an earth pony and couldn't expect to be as good with animals as one, but this was ridiculous. She couldn’t get this falcon to pay attention to her for even one second.

“Come on!” Sunset stomped her foot. “You haven’t even given me a chance. Just talk to me for five seconds, okay?”

But the falcon just seemed completely oblivious to her words. No matter what she said she couldn’t get him to listen. Were the animals zombie robots too?

“I think your problem is you’re being too forceful with it.” Celestia walked over to Sunset.

Sunset stood perfectly still for a moment but quickly turned to the principal with her practiced, fake smile.

That was the second problem with falconry. There were a few classes that Celestia herself taught, and this was one of them. Sunset tried to avoid such classes, but interdimensional portals was going to be one that Celestia taught too. She’d have to face her eventually.

Celestia held out her arm, without the glove meant for protection, and the hawk flew from the tree to land on the back of her hand. Celestia gently petted the falcon, the stupid bird not resisting at all.

“You see,” Celestia explained, “the only way to make a falcon stay, to domesticate any animal really, is to give it what it wants - make staying more comfortable than leaving. Your glove should be something for it to escape to, not escape from. Focus on making it feel comfortable first, then it will obey you.”

Sunset couldn’t help but find a second meaning in all of that. Celestia just smiled down at her like nothing was wrong, but she totally knew, didn’t she? Sunset couldn’t help but find a second meaning in all of that. Celestia just smiled down at her like nothing was wrong, but she totally knew, didn’t she?

The principal held her hand, and the falcon, out towards Sunset, who in turn held up her gloved arm. Celestia gave a flick and the falcon hopped over to Sunset, though it looked back longingly at the larger human.

Sunset quickly took out some of the food and gave it to the falcon, not wanting to waste the opportunity or talk to Celestia.

The bell rang a moment later, to Sunset’s relief. She turned to get out of there as fast as she could.

“Would you mind waiting a moment?” Celestia asked with a soft voice. “I’d like to speak with you, Sunset.”

Sunset froze in place. She sincerely hoped she was about to get lectured for being bad at falcons.

“Yes?” Sunset turned around, smiling. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“I certainly hope not,” said Celestia. “I was just wondering if you were nervous about tomorrow. I’d understand if you were.”

Tomorrow?!

“Which part of tomorrow do you mean?” Sunset asked. “I mean, I have a driving course for the first time on Friday, but that’s hardly-“

“I meant that tomorrow is when I eat.” Celestia put a hand on Sunset’s head. “It’ll be your first time sacrificing your potential to me, won’t it? It’s a big step towards becoming one of my students for real, but I know you’ll be relieved when it’s over.”

Oh no! This was the part Sunset was afraid of!

Sunset was already out of time! If she went to school tomorrow Celestia would devour her memories or ‘potential’ or whatever. How much would she eat? And that whole memory eating thing was no doubt the best-case scenario. What if Celestia turned her into some happy zombie when she was done eating?

“Well, sure I’m a bit nervous!” Sunset was screaming on the inside but smiling wide on the outside. Her legs were paralyzed, she couldn’t move. “That’s what we’re here to do, right?”

That was something she’d heard a few other students say.

“Well, we don’t have to say anything more then.” Celestia slowly moved her hand from Sunset’s head to her cheek, then slowly pulled it away. “I’m more than happy to accept you here. Once you go through with it tomorrow, you’ll be just another one of my students and I love all of my students dearly. Of course, if you have anything you’d like to tell me before then you should come to my office. I’m not a very judgmental person, I’ll understand.”

Celestia turned and started walking away. As soon as Celestia was out of sight, Sunset fell trembling to her knees.

Celestia totally knew and was messing with her! She was just like the other Celestia. Treating her like a complete idiot, stringing her along until the last minute! Only this time Sunset hadn't figure everything out in time!

Sunset grabbed hard onto the dirt she was kneeling on. This was how her life would always be, wouldn’t it? Being constantly used and humiliated by some god everyone else thought was so glorious and benevolent?! No matter how hard she worked, her life would just be one setback after another until she finally became Celestia's mindless tool, just like the princess always wanted!

Sunset slapped her face with both hands. She had to focus! This wasn’t the time for a panic attack! Panic, yes, but not a panic attack.

Sunset had to get out of here now. No way she was going to go talk to Principal Celestia. Princess Celestia had given her enough lies to last her through the next thousand years of high school already.

She’d steal a staff from the school, then go hide in the jungle to the south. She could practice magic on her own, hope that this pocket dimension wasn’t reinforced, or bide her time until the portal opened.

The basement of the school!

Sunset came here a few times before for magic fight club, they kept staves down here.

Thankfully, nopony was guarding them. She just slowly stalked down to the right room and found the rack of magic staves. She undid the chains like she’d practiced and grabbed one. She looked around. Celestia didn’t teleport behind her and kill her, at least. Not yet anyway.

Now it was just a matter of not getting seen. This thing was pretty big and noticeable.

But again, this was hardly the first time Sunset stole something. She knew that the real trick was simply walking away casually. Nine times out of ten, nopony would say anything so long as you were acting like nothing was wrong.

Of course, everything was wrong right now, but she needed to act cool. She smiled and waved at every student she passed. She strolled right through the school towards the front door.

It was actually working for now. None of the students she passed said anything! She got all the way down to the entrance room.

Then Rainbow Dash spotted her.

“Hey! I was looking everywhere for you!” Dash ran up to her, then after her as she kept going towards the door. “Hey, why do you have a staff during study hall? Where are you going?”

“Oh! I’m just taking it outside for a minute,” said Sunset. “To cast some spells.”

“What? You’re not allowed to take school staves outside.” Dash ran ahead of her, laughing. “Good thing I stopped you before you got in trouble.”

“Yeah.” Sunset laughed. “I’ll put it back in a minute.”

“Can you put it back now?” Dash asked.

The two of them locked eyes. Dash’s normally overly happy expression faded away.

The jig was up! Sunset pointed the staff at Rainbow Dash and used its magic to blow her off her feet. Then she ran.

Dash got back up fast and ran after Sunset.

“Hey! What was that for?!” Dash caught up immediately. “Are you trying to steal this or something? You are an intruder, aren’t you?!”

Dash grabbed Sunset’s staff.

“What?! No!” Sunset cast another spell to knock Dash over. This time she did another spell she’d been working on, putting all of her immense magical energy into a single spell, one that covered the entire school ground in a fog!

This wasn’t going well at all! But maybe she could still get away.

Sunset heard a snap and the fog cleared instantly. Celestia had teleported in front of her and cleared out all the fog effortlessly.

This was going horribly! Sunset pointed her staff at Celestia reflexively while Dash jumped back to her feet and ran at Sunset.

“Rainbow Dash,” Celestia’s words stopped her in her tracks. “You know fighting is against the rules.”

“But-!”

“Please sit and be quiet for a moment,” said Celestia.

Dash lowered her head sheepishly and obeyed, sitting on the ground.

“As for you.” Celestia turned her head back to Sunset, completely unconcerned by the staff pointed at her. “I know for a fact you’re smart enough to know that won’t work. I can tell that you became emotional for a moment, so I’ll give you a chance to hand me my staff back.”

Celestia reached her hand out to Sunset.

She was right. Sunset knew she had no hope of fighting this monster, not with her lack of experience with a staff. If only she’d had a few more months!

Maybe this was the only option left. Celestia didn’t seem immediately hostile.

It took effort, but Sunset managed to slowly hold the staff out to Celestia, who took it back.

“Thank you!” Celestia smiled and the staff vanished. How come she got to use magic without a staff?! “You know, I really was going to let you do just about whatever you wanted, including becoming a transfer student for real. But I can’t allow you to steal from me, so now we’ll have to have a mandatory chat in my office.”

Sunset’s mind was blazing, trying to figure out what to say or do here! At least maybe she’d get some answers now, but this was getting close to the worst possible scenario.

“I’d like you to come along too, Rainbow Dash,” said Celestia.

“Huh?” Dash got up, a worried look. “Oh. Okay, Principal Celestia.”

Dash sheepishly followed them to the office.

Chapter 7

Sunset knew she was in far more trouble than you’d normally expect from being in a principal’s office.

The two girls sat across from Celestia. Sunset sat with her legs and arms both crossed, tapping one elbow impatiently with a finger as she leaned back. Rainbow Dash was completely cowed by this extra-dimensional horror, sitting with her head bowed as she clutched her skirt.

“So.” Celestia rested her elbows on the table and her chin on the back of her hands. “Can you tell me your purpose for coming here?”

After briefly considering if there was any way to lie her way out of this, Sunset decided that she had no real hope of it at this point.

“I didn’t mean to come here,” said Sunset. “I wanted to leave where I was, but I didn’t really want to go anywhere in particular. If I knew about this place, I would have gone somewhere else.”

“How interesting!” Celestia smiled.

“I swear I didn’t know she was an intruder!” Dash only looked up with her eyes. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“Of course not. I can’t be angry at you. Here, why don’t you come sit next to me instead.” Celestia gave the spot next to her a pat.

Dash was more than eager to take the offer. She picked up her seat and ran to put it next to Celestia’s. Now the two were sitting side by side, Celestia putting a hand possessively on Dash’s head.

Now it felt like it was two on one again, but in Celestia’s favor. Dash looked relieved for that to be the case.

“I only called you here to help me explain things to Sunset Shimmer.” Celestia put her thumb on Dash’s forehead. “If you don’t mind me lifting the fog on your memories for a moment, I think it would help.”

“I’d do anything for you Celestia,” Dash quickly answered, but looked visibly afraid and unsure a moment later. “It’ll only be for a minute, right?”

“Of course. You know I love you.” Celestia put her free arm around Rainbow Dash.

“I love you too, Celestia!” Dash hugged her back.

Celestia pressed her thumb against Dash’s forehead. Instantly, Dash was clinging to Celestia like a scared child, clearly terrified of something. But she was too meek at the moment to speak for herself.

Seeing Celestia, any version of Celestia, tell someone that she loved them made Sunset’s blood boil. She clenched her fists, holding back anger for only a moment before it poured out.

Not for one second did Sunset buy this.

“Oh, please! You don’t really love her.” Sunset turned her head to the side. “You don’t love anyone. You just want to ‘eat’ or whatever.”

“Well of course I want to eat,” said Celestia. “I think that’s a fairly common and understandable goal. But I really do grow emotionally attached to those I feed off of. I sincerely want Rainbow Dash, and all of my students, to be as happy and comfortable as possible. When I look at her I feel nothing but love and the urge to protect her. I don’t like seeing her like this at all.”

“Your love for Rainbow Dash doesn’t stop you from feeding off of her,” Sunset pointed out. “Eating her memories or - or what is it you eat, exactly?”

“It’s a little more complicated than memories.” Celestia looked down at Rainbow Dash with a loving, but hungry smile. “I’d describe it more like eating your potential, your ability to grow. You see, I’m a being with no potential of my own, incapable of growth myself unless I take it from someone else.

“Teenagers are the type of human who grows the fastest and a school is a perfect place to develop new skills and knowledge - to grow.” Celestia stroked Dash’s hair. “The experiences, the knowledge, the skills they gain here are what I eat. None of them will ever grow any better, different or older, but they will fuel my own growth, make me more powerful with everything they offer to me.”

“Right,” said Sunset. “So then you trap people in this pocket dimension, cloud their memories, and make them mentally stagnant so they can never escape. But you ‘love’ them, huh?”

“So cynical! I think you’re projecting, dear,” said Celestia. “Just because you’re trapped here doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

Celestia gave Dash one last pat on the back. Dash finally let go of Celestia and faced forward, her eyes still full of tears. The normally energetic girl looked completely depressed and down now.

“It’s true.” Dash wiped away a tear. “I knew exactly what this place was, what Celestia is. Back on Earth, most people know about Celestia. She’s known as the 'Fair Lady' on Earth, but you’re kind of not supposed to talk about her. But even then, lots of people go looking for her. Lots and lots of people want to sacrifice themselves to Celestia! Knowing what she was, I went looking for Celestia. I asked her to eat my potential. I begged her to do this to me.”

“What? You actually agreed to this?!” Sunset asked.

“My life sucked!” Dash shot back. “I was never going to go anywhere anyway. You - you come from somewhere else, right? You have no idea how bad the world I came from has gotten. I couldn’t even finish ‘real’ high school because I had a mental breakdown and that’s hardly uncommon. It only gets worse when you leave school. Nearly everyone, everyone I know, they all end up breaking under it all and end up destitute or dead if they can’t immediately bounce back. I know so many people who killed themselves and no one seems to care anymore. I had to- to watch- my- all the other kids-”

Dash started to tremble and sob, unable to relive whatever suffering she was about to mention.

“There, there.” Celestia grabbed Dash again and went back to petting her head. “I think she gets the point. Thank you for being so brave.”

“Almost everyone wants to get in here,” said Dash as she clung to Celestia.

“You see?” Celestia asked. “I don’t need to trick or trap anyone. There’s plenty of people like Rainbow Dash who will flock to me and the comfort I offer them, whose potential would only have been snuffed out by the world anyway. There’s been more recently, but it’s always been this way. There have always been people marginalized and disenfranchised by an uncaring world whose potential would have simply rotted like perfectly good fruit thrown in the trash. There is a long line to me, and you seem to have cut ahead in it.”

“You don’t have to do this!” Sunset stood up and walked to the desk, putting her hands down on it to implore Dash. “You don’t have to settle for this manipulative bitch! Do you have any idea how many dimensions there are out there? I’m from one of them! They don’t all suck.”

“Oh? Were you happy in whatever dimension you came from?” Celestia asked.

Sunset couldn’t manage to say ‘yes’. She just bit her tongue while Celestia smiled softly.

“Look,” said Rainbow Dash, “Even if you come from a place where working sixty hours a week is enough to afford food and shelter, I still don’t want it. I don’t want a normal life. I want every day to be a perfect, fun adventure, surrounded by friends forever. Is that what your other dimension is like?”

“No. Not for me but -“

“You ran away from your world, didn’t you?! This isn’t any different! So don’t judge me!”

“Okay, fine!” Sunset relented. “If you want to stay here and be slowly digested by some eldritch abomination that’s fine, but I don’t want that! I want to leave! I don’t trust people like you and I don’t want anything to do with you!”

Celestia sighed. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and tapped her fingers together.

“There is a bit of a problem with that…”

“Can I go back to forgetting?” Dash tugged on her sleeve. “I can’t stop myself from thinking about the other kids.”

“Of course, dear.” Celestia put a finger on Dash’s head. “I’ll fix you when you wake up.”

Dash’s eyes rolled back into her head and she nearly collapsed, would have, if Celestia didn’t catch her and gently set her down.

“So what are you going to do to me?” Sunset cut to the chase.

“Yes, what can I do to you?” Celestia laughed like a joke had just gone over Sunset’s head. “I assume you’ve never heard of my kind. I’m a Fae and one of the large ones, a fairy princess. Or you could call me an elf princess if you find that less silly. My powers are immense, but they are also a bit fickle and particular.”

Celestia created a tea kettle and a mug for herself, stopping to pour herself a cup.

“Intruders like you are effectively parasites that lodge themselves inside of me like this. This entire place is me, in a sense.” Celestia sipped her tea. “Because you came here without my permission, I don’t have the same power over you as I would if you accepted an invitation to come here. Maybe you think that’s a good thing right now, but it also means I can’t simply throw you out. You’re stuck here and there’s little I can do about it. You see why intruders are such a problem for me?”

Sunset didn’t completely believe that, even if it might be true.

“And what do you normally do to intruders?” Sunset asked.

“It depends on a number of things,” said Celestia. “Sometimes they come here to make trouble and I really have no choice but to exile them somewhere in my home where they can’t bother me. If I don’t eat your ability to grow, then you grow old and die eventually, even here. Then some cut ahead of the line I mentioned. I either do the same to them or else accept them as students depending on whether they have enough unfulfilled potential to interest me.”

“Unfulfilled potential?” Sunset asked. “Let me guess, I have that and that’s why I’m not in the desert, right?”

“You are smart!” Celestia nodded approvingly. “Yes, I think you know exactly what I mean in your case. People who have the potential to become amazing, who could do great things but haven’t, those are the best types for me to feed off of. I can feel so much unfulfilled potential radiating off of you.”

Sunset did know exactly what Celestia meant. Sunset knew for a fact she was a genius who could excel at anything she felt like. She had the potential to become a powerful mage, to kill evil gods, to ascend into an alicorn, to rule over all of Equestria.

But she hadn’t done any of those things yet. And she wouldn’t, not as someone else’s tool.

“If I could eat your growth and make sure you never do anything with that brilliant potential, why you would be one of my most treasured students. It would help me immensely.” Celestia put her hand on Sunset’s shoulder and leaned in. “If you willingly feed me your potential, I’ll accept you as one of my students. You can have eternal life and eternal happiness in this place. I’ll take care of you forever.”

“No!” Sunset knocked her hand off. “I’m not so miserable that I’d agree to that! Why would I want to live in eternal stagnation?”

“Have you ever given it any serious thought?” Celestia asked. “They tell you progress is a good thing but is it? If you’re on the wrong road then regression is the real progress. If you’re already where you should be then stagnation is progress.”

“To my students, everything is wonderful and exciting just as it was the first time. Every trip to the beach, every day you spend with your friends, every time you hold a boy's hand or learn something new - it would all be like the very first time. Everything will always have that spark of wonder, a spark that growth would only ever dim until you become jaded and miserable. People who grow eventually grow old, withered, and dead. I’ll only be sharpening the knife of your life.”

“No,” said Sunset. “It’s not going to be that easy for you.”

“Alright.” Celestia stepped back to her desk. “I won’t force you to.”

“Wait hold up a second!” Sunset got up from her chair. “Before I accidentally make some verbal contract, is option B being stuck in a desert for the rest of my life? Or worse?”

“No. I won’t do anything like that to you.” Celestia sat down and smiled at Sunset. “I really do think your unfulfilled potential is beautiful. You’re like a work of art to me. I want you to be comfortable even if I can’t have you in my collection. If you want, I’ll let you keep taking magic classes from me. Your only option for leaving this place is to escape yourself. It would be exceptionally difficult but you can spend as long as you want trying.”

“Really?” Sunset raised her eyebrow. There was no way she was actually going to be this nice. “So, I can just do whatever?”

“Obviously there’s a limit,” said Celestia. “But if you don’t do anything unreasonable neither will I. I’ll even give you whatever small things you want. Or if you don’t want to be near this school, I could move you to an island until-“

“Yeah! Actually, there is something I want!” Sunset hit the desk with one hand and jabbed her finger at Celestia. “Stop pretending like you’re nice! Or that you’re telling me the truth, or that you care about anyone but yourself!”

Celestia merely tilted her head to rest it on the back of her hand, allowing Sunset to continue.

“I already fell for this!” Sunset threw her arms open. “I already met another version of you where I came from who tried the same act! When I was ten, Celestia saw the same ‘potential’ in me. She saw that I was the best. She acted like this merciful goddess who loved me too, but she lied!”

“Everything she fed me was a lie. All that crap about friendship was just her trying to get me to activate some superweapon to murder her stupid bitch sister with or something. She didn’t actually care about friendship at all! And you think I’m tempted by immortality? I already turned it down. From another you, even.”

Celestia wasn’t at all off-put by any of this so far. In fact, she sat up a bit, excited by that last part.

“Princess Celestia was planning to trick me into casting a spell that would turn me into an immortal alicorn - not even as a favor but in a desperate attempt to leave her stupid job and leave me with no choice but to take it. She told me I was there to study to be a mage too, but that was a lie. Secretly she was planning to veto my decision. Force me to be a princess, force me to risk my life without telling me that was what I was signing up for when I was ten and had no parents to tell her no!”

“She pretended to love me. She told me she loved me, but she was just using me, lying to my face, to the face of some poor orphan girl, just to get me to do her dirty work for her. And when I demanded she treat me like an equal if she wants me to do all of this for her, or at least not treat me like an idiot and actually tell me the truth, she says I’m the unreasonable one?! I’ll never trust someone like you again!”

Sunset stood there seething at Principal Celestia. She certainly went on longer with that rant than she’d intended to, but Celestia was patient and listened to the whole thing without interruption. Celestia waited a moment to make sure there weren’t any more grievances. For the record, there were. Sunset just didn’t want to say them now.

Sunset hardly considered herself a hero or anything like that. She didn’t typically care overly much about the suffering of all the idiots around her. But looking down at Rainbow Dash…

Hearing Celestia tell Dash she loved her when it was all just lies and manipulation, that was the same thing Sunset went through. How could she not get angry about that? How could she not hate this Celestia for doing the same thing the other Celestia did to her?

“Thank you for sharing all of that.” Celestia nodded calmly. “I think I understand you better now. And all this happened to you just a few days ago? Yes, it all makes perfect sense to me now. Most of my students have a terrible scar on their hearts and so do you, don’t you? Poor thing.”

“Don’t play psychiatrist with me.”

“I can’t answer for some alternate version of myself I’ve never met,” said Celestia. “But I will say I’ve been fairly upfront about everything, about eating potential and all that. If you want me to be as upfront as possible, then I do think there’s a chance you’ll choose to stay here as long as I’m not unkind to you. But that really is the extent of my schemes.”

“Or so you say.”

“True! I really can’t prove there isn’t anything I’m hiding, nor can I blame you for thinking there is. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption. Of course, if you ever want me to help you heal your wounded heart-“

“Yeah! By ‘clouding my mind’ right?”

“That would be a quick, effective, and permanent solution, yes. Your anger would be far behind you and-“

“I’m not doing it!”

“I won’t force you to.” Celestia held her arms open. “You can do whatever you want.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Livid, Sunset got up and walked out of the room. She needed to do something! She couldn’t be the only person here with misgivings! She couldn’t be the only one who’d be skeptical about having her memories sealed off!

Chapter 8

Sunset Shimmer went down to the cafeteria, still incensed about her encounter. She’d try to start a revolution right now if she could! The cat was already out of the bag so there was no sense hiding anymore.

All the other kids were eating. She jumped up on a table.

“Attention everyone!” Sunset called out to the eating students. She had to stomp a few times to start getting their attention. “Listen! This is important!”

“Oh! She’s gonna sing a song!” Pinkie stood up and pointed at her, excited.

“What?” Sunset turned to Pinkie. There was something additionally wrong with that girl. “No! I’m not going to sing. This is serious.”

“Daww.” Pinkie sat back down. “Not even a serious song?”

“But I am going to give a speech!” She announced to them. “Listen to me! Celestia is devouring your potential! She’s keeping you all trapped here by blocking your memories and eating your growth! But we can escape!”

A confused murmur went through the room.

“All we need to do is stop going to class,” said Sunset. “If we don’t learn anything, she can’t feed off of us! We just sit around playing those phone games for months and slowly Celestia will starve to death! It’ll be a long, boring fight but we can win it!”

At that Sunset Shimmer was met with boos and laughter.

“But I love Celestia,” one nearby girl gasped. “I wouldn’t want her to get hungry.”

“We all love Celestia!” Another boy shouted at her from the back.

“She’s the one keeping us young forever,” one of the younger girls complained. “We’d just be committing suicide if we made her stop.”

“Well no,” Sunset replied. “You’d have like sixty years or whatever!”

“Well, I want more than that!”

“But don’t you want like freedom and stuff? To move ahead with your lives?” Sunset looked around the booing crowd. In retrospect, she’d rushed into this situation far too fast. She really should have had a game plan! “Anyone? ”

“What we even do if we got out?!” Someone complained.

“Okay!” Sunset could maybe work this angle. “I don’t know who’s in charge outside but apparently they suck too! As soon as we’re out I’ll kill them and conquer your world! You know, for your own good. I’ll install a new government that will make things better and -“

That was technically on the more ambitious end of her original plan, but suddenly it was more heroic sounding than when she first came here.

Not that the students agreed. They all started throwing food at her at that point, mentioning that world that left them all so traumatized.

“Hey! I - Quit it!” Sunset wasn’t able to get any more words in. “Just think about it! If your memories are sealed, then there could be something she’s hiding from you! Anyone?”

No one looked even remotely interested. This was going badly!

“Sunset!” Pinkie jumped up on a table and called to her. “Try singing! You gotta sing a song!”

“What?” Sunset looked down at Pinkie confused. “How will that help?!”

“Look, I know how this works.” Pinkie winked. “Singing a song is the only way to turn this around.”

Pinkie laid down something of a beat for her, hitting the table twice then clapping in rhythm. Strangely, Sunset almost felt like maybe Pinkie did know what she was talking about. Everyone was literally throwing things at her now so it wasn’t like this would make it worse.

“Hey, hey everypony!” Sunset began to clap in rhythm and sing. “I’ve got something to say! It may seem eternal high school is the place to stay. But you dig a little deeper and you will see that the real world is the place to be!”

But it just made them throw harder!

“Oh wait! Never mind!” Pinkie shouted out. “I didn’t realize you were this bad at impromptu lyrics! This won’t work at all!”

“Okay!” Sunset covered her head. “Well if any of you do secretly want to leave, I’m starting a revolution club! I’ll uh -“

She ran out of the room before things could escalate any further.

That had been a disaster. Did literally zero of them want out of this place? Maybe one of them secretly did… and they’d show up later.

Rarity came out of the cafeteria a moment later in a huff. She put her hands on her hips, leaned forward, and glared at Sunset.

“Miss Shimmer!” Rarity scolded her. “What has gotten into you? You were fine for the past two days but now this? How can you say such horrible things after all Celestia’s done for you! Taking you out of - well wherever you were.”

“That’s because Celestia hasn’t done anything for her.” Dash came down the stairs, walking instead of the usual skip she had, still looking groggy, eyes red. “She’s an intruder.”

Rarity gasped at that.

“Look, I didn’t mean to come here,” said Sunset. “I had no idea this place was like this and if I did, I wouldn’t have come. All I want to do is leave.”

“Even if that’s the case, you’re still like a tick attached to our dear principal.” Rarity crossed her arms. “All this food and air doesn’t come out of nowhere! She’s been taking care of you this whole time without you feeding her in return. The least you can do is give her the proper respect and deference she deserves.”

“Okay, okay! I get it! I’m the worst!” Sunset shouted back. “I’m always the worst no matter what I do! But if she’s clouding your memories how do you know she’s not deceiving you?”

“Oh yes, I’ve played this game before,” said Rarity. “I get my memories unclouded and ruin my whole day just to prove you wrong then tomorrow you say again ‘well now they’re false’. I’ve been here for centuries and Celestia has taken excellent care of me that whole time.”

“Yeah! I literally just had my memories unlocked ten seconds ago and I’m good here,” said Dash. “If you keep making trouble Celestia’s going to do something eventually.”

“Maybe I got overheated and overreacted, but is it really unreasonable for me to ask if any of you want to leave with me?” Sunset asked.

The two looked at one another, not entirely able to tell her no.

“You’re leaving?!” Pinkie jumped up from behind and put her hands on Sunset’s shoulders as though she’d been hiding behind the other girl the whole time. “But why?!”

“What?!” Sunset jumped forward, startled. She glanced at the cafeteria, then back at Pinkie. “Where the heck did you come from?!”

“From behind,” Pinkie pointed out. “First of all, you’d have to come up with a way better song if you want to convince me of anything. But why would you want to leave? Did someone sing you a song about leaving? We were having so much fun yesterday!”

“Sure, but - it’s not about that,” said Sunset. “There’s an infinite number of Celestia’s out there and I don’t trust any of them. I’m making a revolution club and I’m getting out of this place.”

Sunset got a piece of paper and wrote down the invitation to the revolution club.

“Besides, I’m clearly not welcome here anymore.” Sunset tacked her club onto the bulletin board.

Rarity and Rainbow Dash softened.

“We really aren’t the type to hold a grudge,” said Rarity. “I promise we won’t be mad for long. But we all love Celestia very much and like it or not you are in her house for a while. If you want respect from me then you have to respect our dear principal in turn. Or at least not make any trouble.”

“Yeah! Your song wasn’t that bad!” Pinkie extended her hand in friendship.

“I guess I can kind of understand why you’d freak out.” Dash kept her arms folded.

For some reason, them being nice to her made anger well back up in Sunset’s heart. But this time she swallowed it. Lashing out had gotten her in ridiculous amounts of trouble the past few days.

“I can’t promise anything right now,” Sunset admittedly, showing as little anger as she could. “That’s why I’m leaving the school for now. I’ll go to the desert or study in the library or something.”

“Well if you don’t want to stay and can’t leave have you considered the third option?” Pinkie mysteriously appeared behind her a second time.

“Third option?” That gave Sunset pause.

“You could go insane!” Pinkie repeatedly jabbed her temple with a finger. “Whee!”

“What?! How would that help?!”

“It’s the only way to understand the Fae.” Pinkie held up a finger all matter-of-fact like. “The trick is to go insane in just the right way or else you won’t make sense to anyone at all. Heck, it’s hard for me to make sense to you right now. But if you want, we can make an eldritch logic club! I have so much I can show you and then you’ll see that it’s okay for Celestia to keep us here because all things are impossible!”

Pinkie clapped her hands in excitement but stopped when Sunset walked past her.

“Yeah, well if I can’t open the portal in three years, get back to me with that.” Sunset pushed open the door to leave. “I want to be alone for a while.”

Chapter 9

Sunset was far off in the desert now. Principal Celestia lent her a car and a staff, as well as all the food and gasoline she’d need to keep traveling.

For ten days straight she traveled east out into the desert. These cars weren’t as fast as pegasi, but they did go much faster than Sunset could have galloped as a pony. She was thousands of miles away from the city of Canterlot now, not just the two hundred marked on the map.

But still, it was an endless desert in every direction. She couldn’t see the city from here and she couldn’t see the end of the horizon. Nothing but sand in every direction. If it weren’t for the dunes and cacti it’d feel like Sunset wasn’t moving at all.

One hour before sunset. Celestia appeared in the seat next to Sunset Shimmer, smiling and looking out into the desert. As per their agreement for her ‘helping’ with this escape attempt, Celestia would get to appear and talk to Sunset for one hour a day.

“Maybe you’re starting to trust what I said? You’re moving along on a horizontal asymptote.” Celestia traced one in the air with her finger. “You constantly approach the X-axis of the outside world but will never reach it no matter how far you go. Interestingly, the longer you travel the less distance you go.”

“Yeah, I know.” Two different versions of Celestia had explained this aspect of pocket dimensions to her now. “I just want to be sure.”

Sunset couldn’t take anything for granted right now, not even that she was really in a pocket dimension. Her endless journey all but confirmed it was the case at this point.

How many more days should she keep doing this? Part of Sunset felt like she had no choice but to keep going east endlessly, getting less and less ahead. Maybe she could hold off swallowing her pride and giving up a bit longer had it not been a desert.

“Can’t you make the temperature a bit milder?” Sunset asked.

For the last few days, Sunset was bouncing back and forth between sweltering and freezing. Deserts got cold at night. Right now she was sweating badly.

“That might be a bit much to ask,” said Celestia. “There’s a limit to what I’ll do for nothing in return. You know, I wouldn’t even humor a normal intruder this much. I just happen to like you.”

Sunset gripped the wheel tighter. She knew it was technically another person, but she’d heard that exact voice say almost the same thing plenty of times before. She’d heard Princess Celestia telling her how she loved Sunset. That was a lie.

“You don’t know me at all.” Sunset kept her eyes ahead.

“I think I’m starting to,” said Celestia. “But you’re right, not by very much. I just like the way you smell. I don’t mind giving you a few gifts if it means you stay closer.”

“The way I smell? Are you trying to be creepy now?” Sunset asked.

“I don’t mean your literal smell of course.” Celestia laughed. “It was a metaphor. Just being near your unfulfilled potential is nice in its own way.”

Sunset kept driving into the setting sun without speaking for a time. For the first five days she refused to talk to Principal Celestia during these visits but the longer she spent out here, alone in the desert, the harder it became to resist the urge to chat.

She knew she'd eventually go crazy without other ponies around, but she’d honestly believed she could hold out longer than ten days. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.

“What are the other adults?” Sunset asked, mostly just to say something, though she was sincerely curious about it as well. “Are they illusions? Or robots? Are the other teachers elves too?”

Celestia smiled, clearly happy that Sunset was finally desperate enough to start conversing with her.

“They’re all fae of different types and all of them my servants,” said Celestia. “Elves are about as diverse a group as animals. The ones that appear less intelligent to you are simply several bodies controlled by one of my servants. They’re more cognizant than you might guess from their behavior. They just sincerely don’t understand you at all because animal life is completely alien to us. Believe it or not, talking intelligibly to a human takes a great deal of practice and skill for a fae.”

They really were alien creatures. The more she heard about these fae the stranger they sounded.

“I don’t suppose you have any books about your kind? Or a course on them if I get desperate enough?” Sunset asked.

“There are, actually. Maybe if you had seen them you would have solved your mystery a bit sooner,” Celestia teased, “but I don’t blame you for missing them. There are very few in such a large list. But I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why not?”

“There is some risk in understanding my kind. Few humans are brave enough to even try to study us scientifically and when they do -“

Celestia stopped to think for a minute.

“Well, I believe you met Pinkie Pie, yes? She used to be a very logical, scientific, and reserved individual. She set out to study us and we allowed her. It’s not impossible to understand the fae, you see, but by the time she finished, she began to think like we do. The other humans became too strange for her to understand anymore. She couldn’t explain her findings to them in any way they understood. In the end, she came back and asked to live with us, and I allowed it because she was a friend. It was fifty years before she learned to speak to humans again.”

With her limited interactions with Pinkie, she could believe something like that had happened to Pinkie Pie. She wondered how much Pinkie remembered of her old life now.

Though it was worrying that Sunset essentially couldn’t study Celestia on any deep level without turning out the same.

“Can I ask what happened out there?” Sunset asked. “That made planet Earth suck so much, I mean. Did a monster destroy the world? Is there an eternal winter?”

“Empires rise and fall.” Celestia made a little circle in the air with her finger. “Now and then human civilization will start down a path that ultimately leads to a nightmare, and then will be too proud to get off that road. That’s all that happened. They created a society and a planet that is completely toxic to themselves. It’s happened before, to a lesser extent, though I’m sure they’ll find a way out someday.”

“Was it your fault?” Sunset asked. “Either you specifically or just elves in general?”

“I take no responsibility for their fate,” said Celestia. “I even warned them a few times that the path they were on would take them to this, but they still fear me. It’s always been hard for fae and animals to understand one another.”

Celestia watched Sunset quietly, noting that she wasn’t reassured that Celestia was innocent here.

“As I said, humans have always feared the dark forests where the fae live.” Celestia looked out her window. “It’s difficult for them to understand us and we’re so far from what they want to be the truth. But there’s also always been people who fear other humans more than they fear us.”

“Around the year 800,” Celestia explained. “Rarity was the first such human that I consumed when I was younger and smaller. I could only fit a single person inside this place then. She had such amazing potential, she could have been one of the greatest artists who ever lived, had she been born into the right family. But instead, she was a slave girl and the other humans she knew only ever tried to beat that creativity out of her. She ran into the forest and found me.”

“Do you understand?” Celestia asked. “Making people fear me won’t do any good. They already fear themselves. That’s all I need.”

“Well if you’re so powerful and you want me to believe you’re benevolent then why aren’t you helping fix it?” Sunset asked.

Celestia paused for a minute, thinking of the best way to answer that question before deciding on another story.

“In the 14th century,” said Celestia, “there was a horrible plague that killed half the world’s population. My sister Luna, near the beginning of this, tried to help the humans. She planted a tree that would feed on disease and pollution. It would grow to be two thousand feet tall and protect the land from plagues and corruption for a thousand years.”

“In just a few days, the plague had vanished for a hundred miles around it. But the tree grew much larger than any ordinary tree and it grew ugly from absorbing the sickness. It was black and knotted with pustules and a purple ichor oozed out of cracks in its wood. The humans who saw it were certain it couldn’t be anything but evil, and despite my sister imploring them to leave it be, they cut it down and burned it. The plague soon returned and killed them all.

“Of course, there’s also a few examples of the fae’s lack of understanding actually causing problems when we try to help as well. That’s usually how it happens. I honestly feel no great love for humans, save the ones I feed off of. I don’t feel the need to help them overly much. They chose their fate and maybe I’ll extend my hand to them in another hundred years or so but until then I only help those who offer me something in return.”

Sunset tapped her finger on the wheel, half hanging out her window as she kept barreling down the endless desert. She couldn’t help herself from feeling angry at this version of Celestia, even if she hadn’t done anything to Sunset yet. She thought for a moment, trying to figure out the most damning way Principal Celestia’s world view was bull.

“Even if you don’t create it yourself, you still take advantage of other people’s suffering. If someone’s only choice is to give you whatever you want or die is that really a choice?” Sunset asked. “The fact that you have all the cards doesn’t mean you have the right to just do whatever you want and use every desperate person you bump into. I know how you work.”

“Oh? Is that what the other Celestia did?” Celestia, to Sunset’s annoyance, saw straight through the question. “I know you said you were an orphan.”

“It was worse than that,” said Sunset. “I was on the streets when she noticed my magic powers. My options were living in a trash can or going with her. If I could have done anything else, I was too young at the time to think of it. That’s not really a choice, is it? I don’t even get why she had to lie to me, there was literally nothing else I could have done back then except to follow her. If she told me to risk my life for her I would have done it. I had nothing but her.”

“You poor, wounded child,” said Celestia. “But, so I’m not avoiding your criticism any longer, I find there are two types of people I can divide the world into for my purpose. Some want to be happy and some want to accomplish something even if it destroys them, or brings misery. It would only be a cruel offer to the latter. Is there something you want to accomplish?”

“Yes,” Sunset answered easily. “I want to become powerful, more powerful than you or Princess Celestia. And I want revenge. If Princess Celestia doesn’t want to respect me then I’ll force her to. I’ll show everyone I’m not just some puppet to be manipulated.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Celestia asked.

“Okay, fine.” Sunset rolled her eyes. “You’re some ancient god. You tell me what I want. If you say something vague and meaningless like ‘inner peace’ this conversation is over.”

“From what little I know of you; I’d say you want control and safety. You had your life torn away from you, making you realize at a young age that you have no real safety in life or control over the world. You crave power and push yourself so hard to get it just to feel in control, to feel safe. I’d suppose that for a while you relied on your princess to give you stability, to be a safe space to retreat to. When instead she took control and stability away from you, it must have felt like such a horrid betrayal to you.”

Sunset slowed the car to a stop.

It wasn’t like the fairy was wrong. Sunset had been completely dependent on Princess Celestia. The princess told Sunset she loved her, that it would be alright even if she failed. Sunset remembered late nights when she would lay under Celestia’s wings, crying herself to sleep.

Yet Celestia still pushed Sunset hard enough to give her panic attacks, still gave her ridiculous tests, still told her to make friends so Sunset could be a weapon, still tried to trick her into casting mysterious spells. It was all a lie. It was a betrayal of her trust, her love.

The only person who’d ever even pretended to love her and it was all just a lie. How the heck could she feel safe after that? Who could blame her for wanting control for once in her life, if that really was what she wanted?

Sunset put her head against the wheel and closed her eyes. It was hard to keep herself from crying. She felt so lonely right now. In a desert that went on forever with no one and nothing to see - that was exactly how she felt.

She glanced up at Principal Celestia who was still calmly watching her.

She said she loved her students and they said they loved her… it felt unfair at the moment.

“Do you love me?” Sunset asked Principal Celestia.

Celestia tilted her head slightly and waited, making sure that was all Sunset would say.

“No,” Celestia admitted. “I only feel an emotional attachment to people I feed off of. If you died right now, I’d be a bit disappointed but I wouldn’t feel sad. You’re like a valuable work of art. I don’t want you to be damaged in any way, but I don’t care about you in the same way one cares about another person.”

Sunset tapped her finger on the wheel a few times before getting up. She wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to that question to be but still felt disappointed.

“You’re more honest than Princess Celestia.” Sunset got out of the car. “But I used to think she was honest too.”

Sunset grabbed her staff. She closed her eyes, clutching the staff with both hands, raising it high.

Then she swung down, trying to create a dimensional tear.

It was no good! Without a horn, it was too difficult a spell.

Celestia came out of the car and offered her service. She merely pointed in the right direction and a portal appeared in front of Sunset. But what was on the other side of the portal was nothing, a true void.

It wasn’t empty space or even a vacuum, but truly nothing. That was what surrounded this place, Sunset realized, what you’d have to get through if you wanted to break out by force. No matter how good her ability to create portals became she’d never be able to get through this stuff. At least, Sunset couldn’t think of a way through it.

Which was worrying because then the portal still couldn’t take her back when it recharged. But it did raise the question of how the portal even brought her here in the first place.

“I don’t understand how anything can get in here if this is the case,” said Sunset. “This place should be impenetrable, like an absolutely safe capsule.”

“Fae magic is a bit different from what you’re used to. I could teach you all about how these things work,” Celestia offered with another smile. “I have plenty of courses on these subjects.”

“Can’t you just teach me here?” Sunset asked. “I kind of burned my bridge with the other students in the heat of the moment back there.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ve forgotten all about it by now,” said Celestia. “Besides, I’m still not willing to give you something for nothing. I’ll teach you whatever you want, but only if you come back to the school where I can admire your beauty a bit better.”

What else even was Sunset going to do? She knew it had to be some kind of trap or attempt to manipulate her. But it’d be faster than practicing on her own. It’d be less likely she’d go insane from isolation and only talking to Celestia too. Not to mention she wasn’t sure if she could get the portal without her help.

“Fine.”

Celestia snapped her fingers and they teleported back to the city. The trip that took days now took only a second.

Chapter 10

Getting Sunset back to school certainly put Principal Celestia in a good mood. Sunset felt like an incredibly rare trading card that Celestia was delighted just to hold onto for a little while. At the end of the day, Sunset was a piece of cardboard, but a priceless trading card was still something to be taken care of.

Celestia would have food sent to her house and got rid of the two ‘parents’ at Sunset’s request. She let Sunset sign up for the interdimensional portals course despite the typical regulations, and suggested the other courses she should take for her goal. She even let Sunset keep the staff for now (though she had to give back the car).

Sunset had no doubt she’d be comfortable, if nothing else, for as long as she stayed here be that one year, three years, or all eternity. On the first night back, she took a long bubble bath, ate a delicious salad, and slept in a cozy bed in a perfectly air-conditioned room. After ten days of driving through the desert and sleeping in the back of a car, this felt like an amazing luxury.

Yet still, wrapped up in the blankets as she drifted asleep, she couldn’t help but imagine herself inside one of those graded card sleeves, mounted on the wall above a gentle fireplace.

She wasn’t stoked about going back to school the next day, and lacked the spring the other students all had in their steps. She knew she wasn’t going to be killed or anything now, but it had only been a few days ago that the other students here had booed her out of the school.

As Princess Celestia was always quick to point out, Sunset never really had any friends at any point in her life. It wouldn’t be too different from back home, she tried to remind herself. Especially since she was getting private tutoring from Celestia, yet again.

No one said anything to her since she came crawling back, not yet anyway, but that wasn’t a good sign. Normally, everyone here was way too friendly, but now that they knew she was an outsider they seemed to be avoiding her. The ‘younger’ students seemed the most suspicious.

Sunset silently wondered what determined whether you were 13 or 18 forever. Those were the ‘ages’ the people here ranged from.

She briefly checked the revolution club posting and, surprise, not one person was interested. Comfort really was the best cage, it seemed.

There was a long homeroom lasting about an hour before the first period where you mostly just hung out with your friends. You didn’t actually have to be here for this, and Sunset had no friends, but she came anyway to look around the library.

She wasn’t taking any more history courses, but was still curious about the subject. Specifically, she was curious if she could find any more historical interactions between the fae and humans.

Skimming through a book of ancient history, she did find what must have been a more famous example. Well over a thousand years ago, Celestia and Luna’s father lived on a mountain called Olympus. Long before the invention of staves, the humans feared him and his magic powers and gave him all sorts of offerings in hopes he’d be kind to them.

But neither of them understood the other. Sunset wasn’t sure why, and the author seemed to share her confusion, but Celestia’s father, perhaps taking insult at an offering of precious metals, made it so the king who offered it would turn everything he touched to gold. That turned out to be a horrible curse.

Before long, Olympus became a forbidden place. Indeed, it seemed like most of the fae cities were off-limits, the names of the places they lived always written in red text. It was enough to make being here, in essentially a fae city, even more unnerving.

Sunset noticed two familiar faces nearby, Dash and Pinkie. She hardly wanted to talk to anyone right now, so she kept her book up high over her face just in case.

Dash and Pinkie looked disinterested in reading any one book in particular. They were going through the library pulling out each book and then putting it back. Sunset made the mistake of peeking out from her book for a second, out of curiosity, and was immediately spotted.

“Oh! It’s Sunset!” Pinkie ran right up next to her and whispered. “I knew you’d come back because there’s nowhere else to go.”

“Ah, hey, it is you!” Dash was back to one hundred percent chipperness. “You wanna help us with something fun instead of sitting there reading stuff like a nerd?”

Dash had her hands on the table, leaning against it and smiling down at Sunset. She didn’t even look slightly upset about before.

“You’re not angry at me?”

“Huh?” Dash drew a blank but remembered after a moment. “Oh! That whole thing with the revolution and me having to remember stuff! Nah, that was before last Friday. It’s hard to be mad about stuff that happened before Friday, you know?”

Maybe Celestia did her a favor and ate the growth that would have made them stay mad, or grow bitter or whatever. That would keep this place largely drama-free. No drama would be nice for a change.

“We’re looking for the secret library.” Dash jabbed her thumb at one of the bookshelves. “Figure it’s gotta be behind one of these shelves, right? Cause that’s how it works in the movies.”

“There’s a secret library?” Sunset asked.

“Oh, sure! There are all kinds of secret places.” Dash shifted through another five books. “I’ve found the secret library four times! Problem is, Celestia eats everyone’s knowledge about secret places at the end of the month so nobody can remember where it is, or how to get there, or what’s inside. But you remember it exists.”

“I remember it being huge and there being all these magical kinda things there, and there was this one book series I can never finish but I remember really liking,” Pinkie said.

“You want to help us?” Dash looked excited about it.

“No thanks.” Sunset lifted the book back up. “I still want to be alone for a while. I’m a bit depressed about the whole 'being trapped with an ancient god who wants to eat my potential', and being betrayed by my legal guardian, and my whole life being a lie and all that.”

“Depressed, huh?” Dash closed her eyes and rubbed her chin. “Well you know, Celestia can instantly solve that problem for you forever, right?”

“I’ll pass,” said Sunset. “And it’s really more like she’s making them not problems anymore rather than solving them.”

“I don’t get why you wouldn’t take it. I mean, if I was horribly depressed and had someone who could instantly solve my problems -“ Dash gave that a second of thought. “Oh wait, that’s exactly what happened to me.”

“Look.” Sunset turned the book around to face Dash and Pinkie. “I’ve been reading about Celestia’s kind and I don’t get how you can trust them. Even when they mean well, they’re so bizarre they can end up destroying you anyway. I already have a short list of times they just screwed someone over for reasons that make no sense at all.”

“Oh, Sunset!” Pinkie laughed and sat down next to her, putting an arm around Sunset reassuringly. “You’re only scared of the Fae because they wield powers that can destroy you in an instant, and are ultimately beyond your comprehension. You can never know how they’ll react to your actions, meaning whether you live or die when interacting with them is completely beyond your control.”

Pinkie smiled like that was supposed to reassure her.

“Are you disagreeing with me?” Sunset asked painfully.

“Well it’s not like I’m unagreeing with you.” Pinkie pointed to her head. “You can’t not agree with someone before you don’t. Just remember the perspective before and you’ll have nothing to worry about because you already did.”

“What?” Sunset’s eye twitch, unsure of how to even respond to that. “Are you messing with me?”

“You’re doing it again, Pinkie.” Dash flicked Pinkie’s ear. “Pinkie thinks like one of them, see? She gets them and she says we’re fine.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault if this is super hard to explain to you nut cakes.” Pinkie rubbed her ear, then grabbed Sunset’s book. “Here, let me try one more time. See, you’re on this page right now. But then you turn the page -“

Pinkie turned the page.

“And now you’re on another page!” Pinkie smiled wide. “Do you understand now?”

“I honestly don’t know if I understand,” Sunset admitted. The concept was either incredibly complex or simple.

Sunset, not seeing this as obvious, confused Pinkie in turn, who then pulled the book to herself and inspected it.

“The important thing is that Celestia understands us after centuries of practice,” said Dash. “She’s been taking care of Rarity for 1400 years just fine, so we got nothing to worry about at this point. Celestia knows how we think and what hurts us. Just hide behind Celestia if any other fae show up, and we’re good. That’s all we gotta know.”

“Maybe.” Sunset took her book back. “I guess Celestia herself hasn’t done anything bad to me yet.”

As long as no other 'elves' showed up, that is.

“At least now I can be more straightforward without worrying about being executed,” said Sunset. “Is it okay if I ask you… what it’s like? Like do you remember taking classes from a few years ago?”

“Sure,” said Dash. “I mean, stuff from long ago goes away completely. We kind of remember it a little, you forget just enough to make everything feel like it’s the first time. I think there’s like emotional memories and uh, the other kind?”

Dash looked at Pinkie who nodded with a thumbs up.

“Yeah!” Dash nodded too. “Like, Celestia ate the emotional memory of last week, which is why I’m not all depressed and angry about it. It’s great! But I still remember it happening. For now.”

“It’s so much more fun being like this,” Pinkie promised “You don’t need to worry about everyone hating you or falling into a spiral of depression.”

“But what about your feelings of love for other people?” Sunset asked. “Does she eat your love and friendship and happy memories too?”

“Sure! But that’s a good thing!” Dash folded her arms and nodded.

“Huh?”

“The best phase is the puppy dog phase,” Pinkie explained “Your first year in love is always the best, after that all your shared experience just dulls your love for each other until it’s no longer magical. Then you drift apart. Celestia keeps us in the happiest, most loving part forever! We’re like everlasting puppies!”

“Yeah! Without it all your friends would just move on with their lives eventually and forget about you.” Dash put her hands on the table and leaned forward. “You should try it! You’ll see how great it is and you’ll never want to go back! Trust me.”

“No, thanks.” Sunset shook her head. “I’m not even going to think about sacrificing myself to Celestia until I’m one hundred percent certain of everything. I mean, you were fully informed when you decided to go through with it, right?”

Dash was left wondering if that was the case.

The bell rang a moment later, signaling the end of homeroom. At least now Sunset knew that she couldn’t upset these people for very long.

This kind of gave her license to be a bit of a jerk… didn’t it?

Sunset got her staff and went onto the roof to meet for personal tutoring with Celestia on dimensional rifts.

“Hello.” Celestia opened her arms to greet Sunset. “I hope you don’t mind, but I found another student interested in taking a few of these advanced magic courses with you. She’s a new transfer student who just came here this morning.”

Celestia gestured to another girl sitting on one of the benches of the school's rooftop garden. She was purple-haired and scrawny, holding a staff as well.

“Her name is Twilight Sparkle,” said Celestia. “Twilight, this is Sunset Shimmer.”

Chapter 11

Sunset’s initial estimate of Twilight was exceptionally low. The purple haired girl had her head all but literally lost in the clouds, staring up at them in a near trance.

She was oblivious to Celestia’s introduction until Celestia mentioned her name, after which she panicked and fell over.

“Um. Hello and... hello.” Twilight stood up then, unsure what to do next, then sat back down. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Yeah, I heard,” said Sunset.

“Oh, geeze! I’m sorry!” Twilight was immediately cowed, bowed her head, and stared at the floor with a heavy blush. “I don’t talk to other people in person very often! Please forgive me!”

“Yeah. Sure.” Sunset didn’t say it in a way that would give any real confidence that she’d been forgiven.

Sunset sighed. This idiot was brought here to slow Sunset down, wasn’t she? This was why Sunset always hated the other ponies her age so much. They were all so stupid and the world had to slow down to cater to their idiocy. Like everyone else, they were all holding her back.

It was hard to tell what Principal Celestia’s real goals were. Was she trying to keep Sunset here as long as possible?

“Okay, great!” Twilight’s mood rebounded quickly. “Then we’re friends? I finally get to have friends, right?”

“Look, I don’t do ‘friends’, okay,” said Sunset.

“Celestia!” Twilight looked at Celestia, suddenly exasperated. “Um! Sorry, but you said I wouldn’t be alone if I came here, right?”

“Yes, but I also wanted you to help me with something, and there is one thing I neglected to tell you about Sunset Shimmer,” said Celestia. “She isn’t a transfer student or from planet Earth. She’s an invasive entity from another dimension who accidentally opened a portal to my realm.”

“You’re a parasite.” Twilight pointed her finger at Sunset but said it with no real malice. She was just stating a fact.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Sunset is taking this course to try and escape,” Celestia explained further. “I would like you to assist her in that goal. My servants and I cannot do this ourselves.”

Twilight clutched her staff harder, frowning silently at Sunset. Sunset gave a similar look to Celestia.

“Okay, this person’s clearly an idiot.” Sunset jabbed her thumb in Twilight’s direction. “How is she going to help me make an interdimensional portal? I’d be faster without her. If you really need to shove someone down my throat in the name of friendship or whatever, can I get Pinkie Pie instead? At least she seems like she knows things. Even if I can’t comprehend most of them.”

“I know things!” Twilight objected. “And stuff, and um - and... things. Other things.”

Sunset looked at Celestia with a raised eyebrow.

“I think you might be underestimating my new student,” Celestia said gently, then held her hand out to Twilight. “Twilight, could you create a spatial portal to the beach we were at before?”

“Right!” Twilight suddenly stood at attention. Now she had the composure of someone in the military.

With deft seriousness, Twilight held her staff out horizontally, then let go, flicking it with her index finger as she did. The staff remained floating in the air and began spinning rapidly in place. Twilight tapped her fingers along the rotating shaft, unleashing an amount of magic Sunset had only seen in this world from the fae thus far.

This new technique worked excellently. The staff drilled the portal into existence, the beach becoming visible just through the other end.

The beach was ten miles from here but creating a portal inside a pocket dimension was significantly more difficult than creating one outside. This was the equivalent of making one that bridged a hundred mile gap.

Even as a unicorn, with a staff essentially attached to her body, with her magic at full power and with equipment she was used to, that was close to the limit Sunset was capable of. And Twilight did it all quickly, too.

Once the portal was up, Twilight stood at attention, the staff behind her back.

The display certainly made its point. Sunset looked at Twilight with new eyes now. This girl was clearly a prodigy when it came to magic, maybe the first her age that was a potential equal. But this didn’t make Sunset any less mistrustful. The question now was why Celestia would give Sunset someone this good.

“You see?” Celestia put her hand on Twilight’s head. “Twilight was one of the most promising of young mages. She really did have an immense amount of potential. She's cut from the same cloth as you, in my opinion. I just absolutely wanted her before she could accomplish anything with her immense talents, and she was eager to come here.”

“She’s an expert mage?” Sunset gave her a doubtful look. “If that’s the case, you’re being a little too nice here.”

“You remember the lesson I taught you with the falcon before?” Celestia asked. “When you primarily feed off of geniuses and prodigies, surrounding yourself with a whole farm of them, you need to be careful. I learned when I was younger that people like you will always escape or harm in the end, if that’s what they want, no matter how hard I try to hold on to them. I don’t try to hold on to humans anymore. If I can’t make this a place you want to stay, then... you won’t stay.”

Sunset stewed in her frown. She really did want to object to something, but Celestia was being too reasonable at the moment. She’d be on the lookout, though.

“Is that reasoning selfish enough for you to believe?” Celestia put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder.

“You think you have me all figured out, huh?” Sunset crossed her arms. “Then what about you? If you’re the best mage of your generation, why the heck would you come here?”

“Why-?” Twilight glanced at Celestia confused, then back at Sunset. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the other three I know came here because they were losers, slaves, or went insane,” said Sunset. “Surely you could actually accomplish something in life and wouldn’t need to come here.”

“No.” Twilight shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what anyone does! Everyone is powerless, and everything you accomplish is worthless in the end. People will just ruin everything no matter how hard you try. We’re all just worthless specks of dust congratulating ourselves on floating around better than the other specks. So.... why even bother? Success is an illusion, and this is just a better illusion. Right?”

“Holy crap!” Sunset put two fingers on her forehead and shook her head. “What is it with you people being so doomed all the time? Is everyone on Earth this cynical, or is it just the people who come here?”

Then, after another second of thought, she realized an important implication of this.

“Actually, you just got here, right?” Sunset stepped forward. “That means you still remember Earth clearly, don’t you?”

“Celestia!” Twilight ran up to Celestia and grabbed her. “You said I wouldn’t have to talk about real-life stuff anymore!”

“This is real life, Twilight.” Celestia gave her a soft laugh, embracing her student. “You’re not in a video game. But that is correct. You don’t have to tell Sunset anything you don’t want to. Of course, you could always ask me to-“

“I’m not ready for that.” Twilight clutched Celestia tight.

“It’s alright. I can eat your potential either way. It’s not something I make anyone do.”

“You still love me, right?” Twilight’s grasp became a bit more desperate. “You said you loved me!”

“Of course. I love you very much, Twilight.”

“I love you too, Celestia!” Twilight relaxed ever so slightly.

Sunset gripped her staff tighter and looked off towards the horizon. Suddenly she liked this Twilight person a lot less.

Stupid spy. Or whatever she was.

After 45 minutes, Sunset was close to creating that dimensional rift she kept failing at back in the desert. This would only ever be the very first step towards the incredibly difficult task of forcing that portal back open. If opening a dimensional rift was like being able to balance on a skateboard, then opening the portal would be like pulling off a 900-degree spin.

Twilight, having already practiced this long before, could already make a dimensional rift. Not only was she ahead, but she was progressing at an impressive rate as well. Sunset had to remind her several times that she had nearly zero experience with a staff just to save face, but grumbled when Twilight assured her that her efforts were still ‘pretty good considering’.

Twilight took this all very seriously, talking little during the course. This was a stark contrast to the much more laid-back vibe all the other students here gave off. This was the only other student who took studying very seriously - as if learning had nothing to do with personal happiness.

“Well that’s it for today,” said Celestia. “But I’ll see you both in multiverse theory in two periods. You both did very impressive work today.”

Celestia left, but Sunset and Twilight remained a moment longer.

Sunset honestly wasn’t sure how she felt about another student who was able to keep up with her, especially when it came to magic. Her whole life she’d always been the best, the only ponies better than her at magic were ancient archmagi or immortal beings.

The whole reason Princess Celestia took her off the street was because she was already the best. Sunset worked so hard on top of that, even with Celestia working her to the point she had the occasional panic attack. Yet Sunset never truly broke. She kept going all the way until the end.

That was what made her useful, wasn’t it? It was the only thing she ever truly had, the only thing that stayed even after she found the truth.

“Did I do something wrong?” Twilight noticed her staring and took a step back.

“No, it’s fine.” Sunset waved her off and started walking away.

“Are you sure?” Twilight ran after her. “Are you still angry at me for the way I introduced myself?”

“What?” Sunset hardly even remembered how that went. “No.”

Twilight started following Sunset awkwardly back into the building and through the hall. It looked like she wanted to say something but was too nervous.

“Something wrong?” Sunset glanced at her.

“No!” Twilight stepped back and shook her head, suddenly afraid.

Sunset blew some hair out of her face. It was hard to believe this idiot was a genius. Back when Sunset was actually a teenager, she would have taken Twilight’s lunch money or something.

Yet Twilight didn’t look satisfied. She still had something to say and eventually worked up the courage for it.

“Well... hey! I know you’re from another dimension, but you have to admit this place is amazing, right? There’s so much room!” Twilight spread her arms apart, smiling wide like it was a joy to do so. “I can do this!”

Sunset couldn’t help but stare at the absurdity of that statement.

“You’re not happy that you get to go outside whenever you want?” Twilight asked, pulling her arms back.

“Go outside?” Sunset asked. “I was able to go outside my whole life. Do you people live underground or something?”

Twilight looked at the ground and muttered something. Now Sunset felt like she was underestimating the situation outside.

“I don’t know what insanity goes on in your world and I know you won’t tell me,” said Sunset. “But where I come from… it’s not too different from this. Everything is fine.”

“Fine?” Twilight said the word like it was strange to her.

“Sure.”

Though now that Sunset thought about it, maybe there was a way she could turn Twilight into a more legitimate ally.

“You know, I could tell you about the other dimension,” said Sunset. “About Equestria. It’s really not such a horrible place. And when I open the portal, I can show it to you. Aren’t you curious?”

“No,” Twilight’s response was quick.

“What? Why not? I mean, if it’s even better than this place-”

“I know what you’re trying to do!” Twilight put her hands over her ear. “You’re trying to get me to hope, but it’s not going to work. Don’t you dare give me hope! I don’t ever want to have hope again!”

Twilight ran off down the hall.

But she wouldn’t get that far. They had another class together in 45 minutes…

Chapter 12

Lunchtime again.

Dash, Pinkie, and Rarity were the closest thing she had to friends in this world or the other, which was kind of sad when you considered she’d only spent a few days with them, so she decided to sit down over there.

They accepted her back into the fold easily enough. Twilight came into the cafeteria a moment later, looking completely bewildered. She’d mostly taken classes that were just her, Celestia and Sunset at this point so, Sunset had little doubt that she was the only person the other girl knew.

Twilight almost immediately spotted Sunset but simply froze in place instead of coming over. Sunset knew Twilight was too socially awkward to just walk up to a table, but she needed this idiot to be on her side. She forced herself to be nice and pointed at the chair next to her.

“Sit.” Sunset found Twilight responded well to orders.

“Right!” Twilight went back into military mode and sat down quickly.

“Ah hey.” Dash leaned forward to peer past Sunset and look at Twilight. “Who’s this?”

Knowing Twilight was going to have trouble introducing herself, Sunset put her arm around the other girl, giving as friendly a smile as she could.

“This is my friend Twilight Sparkle,” said Sunset. “She’s a transfer student.”

“We’re really friends?” Twilight sparkled at the idea.

Hardly. But Sunset needed her.

“Of course!” Sunset gave her a fake, but practiced, smile.

“Really?” Dash stood up. “I love transfer students! I’m Rainbow Dash, that’s Rarity and-“

“Suspicion!” Pinkie hit the table with the palms of her hands as Dash pointed to her. “The last person you said was a transfer student was you! How do I know she’s not you in disguise?”

“Because then who am I?” Sunset asked.

Pinkie Pie’s mind was blown by that. She counted each of her fingers and nodded.

“Oh, hey! That checks out.” Pinkie waved to Twilight. “Hi, Twilight!”

“I’m surprised I haven’t seen you yet,” said Rarity. “What classes are you taking?”

“Well I’m taking a few special classes,” said Twilight. “With Sunset! Celestia let me go to the front of the line if I agreed to help her with something. It’ll be a while before I take normal ones.”

“Ah, with getting her out you mean,” said Rarity. “Yes, I have some vague memories about something like that happening before. Celestia needs to bring in an outsider to get rid of problems she can’t solve herself. I’m certain you’ll be just like the rest of us before long, though.”

“I hope so!” Twilight nodded. “I love learning so much! To get to go to a place where I can just learn new things forever, surrounded by people who are motivated and kind - this really is a paradise!”

“But you don’t learn anything,” Sunset reminded her. “Because you keep forgetting it all?”

“No, it just means I’ll never run out of things to learn, right?” Twilight looked around the table nervously to gauge the others’ reaction.

“Right on!” Dash gave her the thumbs up. “See you got the right idea, Twilight. You should come hang out with me after school.”

“Really?!”

“Sure, I love new kids,” said Dash. “What are you up to later?”

“Twilight still hasn’t been to her new house yet,” said Sunset. “We could go with her.”

“That’d be great,” said Twilight. “To be honest I’m a little nervous.”

Twilight seemed more comfortable talking to the others now. Sunset started eating her food, quietly thinking for a moment. Plotting.

Sunset needed to think of some way to get Twilight more interested in hearing about Equestria, but it was difficult broaching the subject given the culture that surrounded her. She decided to just listen carefully, waiting for moments to drop hints about Equestria that would raise her curiosity. That was the best bet.

“Oh, hey! That’s one of those things.” Twilight noticed Rarity on her phone. She snapped her finger, trying to remember what it was called. “A cell phone, right? Can I see it? I’ve never seen one of those outside of a movie.”

“Why of course. Just don’t drop it.” Rarity handed it over. “These cost a whole month’s allowance.”

Twilight started poking around on it in a manner similar to how Sunset had when she first got her hands on one. Only Twilight spent much less time poking around and instead tried something Sunset hadn’t, namely talking to it.

“Look, just activate the internet for me,” she said to it. When it didn’t respond, she looked surprised and turned it sideways. “It says it’s locked? Like some kind of video game? Explain yourself, phone.”

Twilight jabbed it two more times with her finger.

“Cell phone!” Twilight loudly announced to it. “Rarity gave you to me! You must obey! Hey, what’s this thing’s name?”

The others found this hilarious and laughed. You could kind of talk to cell phones, but not exactly like that.

“Here.” Rarity held out her hand for Twilight to give it back. When she did, Rarity unlocked it with her fingerprint and handed it back.

“Oh.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head. “It’s just a basic biometric. Guess that’s to be expected with something so old fashioned.”

“Old fashioned?” Sunset knew it was going to be considered an uncouth question. “What would even come after this? Brain implants? Robots?”

“Ms. Shimmer,” Rarity spoke over her. “Must we remind you that it is against the rules to speak of the human world here?”

“Yeah! This is way better than modern technology anyway.” Twilight shook her head. “Back in the 21st century, everybody lived stress-free lives because you could use your cell phone to talk to your friends whenever you wanted, and you could pick what you saw.”

“We said no talking about it,” Dash reminded her.

Sunset realized she probably wouldn’t be able to get much out of Twilight while the others were around. She’d need to corner Twilight later.

“Right, sorry.” Twilight covered her mouth.

“Well Equestria’s technically not a human world,” Sunset said, taking the chance to bring it up. “I used to be a unicorn.”

Interestingly, from what Sunset read, unicorns didn’t just not exist in the human world, but were the go-to example for mythical things. That was funny because humans were the mythical creatures to Sunset.

None of the others had heard that fact up until now. Sunset had been carefully saving it. If talking about Equestria was a faux pas here, then the knowledge that unicorns were real was enough to keep them from objecting for a moment.

“So you’re a horse?!” Pinkie was the first to stand up and comment. “I knew it!”

“Okay, first of all, be careful with that. If you call an earth pony a horse you can get in a lot of trouble,” said Sunset. “But also, technically ponies are a type of horse."

“Unicorns are cool,” said Dash, “but wouldn’t having hooves be really inconvenient most of the time?

“I kind of preferred being a pony. Your horn is basically a staff so you can use magic by yourself.” Sunset pointed to where her horn should have been. “It’s way easier levitating things with your mind than picking them up with hands.”

“Hold on, you were able to use magic without a staff?” Twilight asked. “I knew there were other dimensions, but I thought only fae could do that.”

Honestly, Sunset didn’t know how Celestia used magic now that she thought about it.

“There are all sorts of magical creatures there, actually. Most of the ones I knew were animals like me.” Sunset bit into her sandwich. “But we really shouldn’t be talking about that, right?”

Rarity gave her a nod and went back to eating too. But thankfully, that did make Twilight look curious.

Maybe she was a little closer now.

Later that day, the three of them came up to a perfectly normal house.

“Whoa! I get to stay in this place?” Twilight marveled at it. “How many other students are in the building?”

“It’s just you.” Dash laughed. “Everyone gets their own house. Didn’t Celestia tell you that?”

“She did, but...“ Twilight ran inside, spinning around in awe of the first room. “This is just so huge! And it has a couch in it?!”

Twilight ran up to the couch and felt the cushion carefully. Dash was much more adventurous and jumped on it. Twilight became emboldened by this and jumped up and down on it a few times too, the two of them laughing together.

“Just this one room!” Twilight looked around the living room. “It’s enormous! And there are more rooms? Am I allowed inside all of them? I won’t get in trouble?”

“Totally!” Dash laughed.

Twilight’s initial attempt to go into another room resulted in an empty closet, though she was impressed she could step inside it.

“Oh wow!” Twilight opened the door to her bathroom next. “A private bathroom?! This is incredible! It’s like I’m a millionaire! Wait!”

Twilight ran into the room and got down on her knees, running her hand along the rim of the bathtub.

“Is this a bathtub?! I’ve only ever seen one of these in movies!” Twilight looked up at the showerhead. “Wait, it’s a shower and a bath? That’s so weird. I had no idea they did that.”

Dash laughed.

“You’ve seen a lot of stuff in movies, huh? Transfer students get excited about the craziest stuff!” Dash slapped her on the back. “That’s what makes you guys so much fun. But it gets better. Cause guess what, new kid?”

Twilight looked up at her with wonder, as if nothing could top having her own private bathtub.

“Every house here has two bathrooms in it!” Dash opened her arms wide.

Twilight gasped.

“What?! That’s too much!” Twilight jumped to her feet. “I don’t deserve that much! I’d feel terrible! Can Celestia take it away? What do you even do with two bathrooms? You can’t use two at a time, can you?”

“It’s for like when other people are over,” Dash explained. “And you don’t gotta worry about it. We feed Celestia, she takes care of us! That’s the deal.”

Twilight looked over the bathtub in earnest, hitting the faucet, not understanding how to operate it until Dash came over and turned the water on for her.

“It’s so much water!” Twilight ran her fingers through it, splashing it around as it got deeper. “And it’s so clean!”

Dash splashed Twilight with water, who looked shocked at first, but soon laughed and splashed Dash back.

The two of them kept splashing each other with the child-like wonder Celestia promised Sunset, laughing like this was the first splash fight either of them had ever had. In Twilight’s case that may very well have been the truth.

Sunset stood back and watched this with horror more than amusement. A bathroom and clean water were all it took for Twilight to declare this place paradise? Maybe whatever was on the other side of this pocket dimension wasn’t worth going to. Maybe it wasn’t even worth saving.

Maybe even weirder was the fact that Dash loved splashing around in the water just as much, even after being in this world for a decade. The students here always did seem to have that child-like amazement at everything they did, just like Celestia promised.

“Uh oh!” Dash, having gotten distracted, accidentally allowed the bathtub to fill up until it started spilling over. “I’ll go get your parents to clean this up.”

Dash left the room quickly after turning the water off. Twilight remained fascinated by the water.

“Aren’t you impressed by this?” Twilight asked Sunset. “I can’t possibly imagine why you’d want to go back to your world when this place is so amazing.”

“I had a bathtub where I was from,” said Sunset. “The air was clean, and I could see the sun. Maybe I was a little ungrateful for... basic necessities or something.”

Was that the lesson Sunset was supposed to learn from all of this?

“Wait you did?” Twilight looked genuinely surprised by that. “But it’s only a matter of time before someone ruins it all, right? It’s inevitable. The people in charge will always take everything away from you and the masses will always cheer for it.”

“I don’t think that’s inevitable,” said Sunset. “I hate Princess Celestia, my version of her, but even I have to admit she wouldn’t do something like that. Everything is fine. Relatively speaking.”

“What?” Twilight was clearly confused. “Celestia is in your world too?”

“Basically, a unicorn version of Celestia is the ruler of my world,” said Sunset casually, as if she hadn’t meant it to be confusing. “She’s ruled for over a thousand years and hasn’t destroyed the environment yet.”

“You’re lucky then. Sometimes I wish Celestia or Luna would just conquer all of us,” Twilight admitted. “But, I guess I already have that here, so-“

Dash came back with her ‘parents’, so Sunset decided to drop the subject.

Twilight was clearly interested now. This was too easy.

They went through all the rooms after that, Twilight marveling at each of them in turn. Sunset did passively gather a few things from the tour. Twilight commented that her bed (which was fairly large) was bigger than where she used to live, and was surprised that the lights needed a switch instead of ‘just knowing’ when to turn on and off.

Eventually, they got through all of it and went back down to the living room, sitting down on the couch in front of her TV.

“I still can’t believe I actually get a house.” Twilight looked up at the ceiling in awe.

“Do you really not have houses where you come from?” Sunset sat on the couch next to her.

“There are houses, it’s just no one can afford to live in them,” Twilight explained, seemingly in a better mood than before. “My capsule was maybe a little bit bigger than a bed, just high enough for you to go on your knees and almost wide enough to hold your arms out to the side. But it had a TV on the one side and a bunch of drawers along the wall, so I had it good.”

“What do you mean no one can afford houses?” Sunset asked.

“We don’t talk about the human world!” Dash jumped over the back of the couch landing between the two of them. “You don’t seriously want to think about that kind of crap, do you Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head.

“Great! Nothing we can do about it anyway.” Dash grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. “Guess how many channels we get out here!”

“Channels?” Twilight asked. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s like...” Dash scratched her head with the remote. “Well, point is you get 172 of them!”

Dash flicked through a few channels.

“Oh wow! You can change it?” Twilight leaned forward, excited at the possibilities. Maybe they only got one on the outside?

A few minutes later and the two of them were happily singing along to some theme song. Sunset wasn’t paying much attention, though, only pretending to. She was plotting

Twilight was kind of an idiot in some ways. It wouldn’t be too hard to take advantage of her…

Just a few fake smiles, assure her they were friends a few times…

Pretend to love her…

Sunset suddenly felt sick.

“I’ll be right back.” Sunset got up and moved rapidly to the bathroom, Dash making some inappropriate joke as she left.

Sunset stopped by the sink, looking at herself in the mirror. It’d taken her all day to realize it, but she’d been planning on emotionally manipulating Twilight, pretending to like her, to use Twilight like a tool. That was the exact same thing Celestia had done to her! What she was angry about in the first place!

She laughed slightly. Princess Celestia did raise her so why not? Why would she be any different?

Sunset splashed some water in her face.

Whatever!

Twilight was already kind of helping her. Sunset just needed to stay the course, not get distracted, not get tempted, and she’d be fine.

Chapter 13

It was Thursday now, the fourth day Sunset had been attending classes for real and the fourth day Twilight had been here.

Sunset felt dull. Making herself dull was something she knew how to do. Just don’t think, and try not to feel anything for a while. She could keep it up for a long time, but no matter how hard she wished, she couldn’t keep it up forever.

A melancholy was breaking through. She wasn’t sure what to do or how to feel right now and it was depressing.

But she could still work through it. Anger, sorrow, fear, Sunset could channel any of these emotions into work. That was one of her big advantages, one of the things that kept her ahead of everyone else.

After just a few days of hyper-focused practice, Sunset was starting to get the basics of the technique Twilight used. Sunset levitated her staff to her side, spinning it in place and tapping the shaft with her fingers. She mostly had the form down, but her balance was off.

She drilled an intradimensional portal. Yet it still wasn’t a nice, stable circle. Hers looked like cheese - a circle with unstable gaps in it. Every time, the whole thing collapsed completely the moment Sunset stopped drilling.

“Hey, you’re getting a lot better!” Twilight excitedly held up her hand in offer of one of those 'high fives'. “I have to say, you’re the best mage I’ve met, besides maybe myself. And you know, the fae.”

Compliments like that were water off a duck’s back. Twilight might as well be telling her the time of day. Being compared to someone else felt more like an insult to her.

Twilight was still trying to be friendly to her, despite Sunset giving her and the entire world the cold shoulder for the past few days. Taking advantage of her would have been so freaking easy.

Sunset wished she was a hypocrite and a psychopath, devoid of all morals. But she couldn’t help but feel bad and disgusted that she’d nearly repeated what Princess Celestia did to her.

Instead of giving Twilight her high five, Sunset just closed her eyes and turned away.

Deflated, Twilight lowered her hand.

“Oh! Well, can we meet up in the library after school?” Twilight asked.

“I’m busy,” Sunset reminded her. “I have to train if I’m ever going to get out of here.”

“Right. Can I train with you?” Twilight took a step forward.

“Fine,” Sunset mostly said just to shut her up for now.

And it was good enough for now. Twilight nodded and ran off. Not like it’d keep her away for long; they had another class together in 45 minutes. Sunset didn’t like this.

Why the heck did Twilight want to be friends? Did she really attach herself to people that quickly?

“Sunset.” Celestia smiled, beckoning her to stay a moment longer. “Can I speak with you?”

Sunset hated that line. She groaned but turned to her.

“You know I brought Twilight here to help you,” said Principal Celestia, “not compete with you.”

“Great.”

“You seemed much more determined when you first came,” said Celestia. “You’ve been a bit depressed since Twilight got here. Would you like to talk about it?”

“As if I’m going to tell you,” said Sunset. “You’d just use anything you learn to manipulate me, won’t you?”

Truth be told, Sunset couldn’t entirely answer the question for herself. Princess Celestia asked her questions like that all the time. ‘Why did you steal that’, or ‘why did you hit him?’ and so on. Sunset never really knew the answers outside the notion that she was trying to feel better.

“You really do have trouble trusting people, don’t you?” Principal Celestia asked. “You seem to assume the worst in everyone. You are deeply hurt, aren’t you?”

“If you want me to trust you, tell me what you mean by bringing Twilight here,” said Sunset. “You’re older and smarter than the Celestia I knew, and she already has a thousand layers behind everything she does. You’re plotting something, aren’t you?”

“It’s not deeper than I’ve already said,” said Celestia. “I’ll figure out what you truly want before you leave this place. If it’s something I can give you, you’ll stay here willingly. If I can’t then it’s best to get you out of here as soon as I can. Twilight will help me figure you out and help me kick you out if I can’t keep you.”

“So you’re trying to psychoanalyze me, huh?” Sunset sat down on the short wall that lined the edge of the roof. “You thought bringing somebody who can match me at magic would get a funny reaction out of me, is that it?”

“I think it might help you one way or the other,” said Celestia. “I can’t make you comfortable or understand what you truly want until I address your wound. It’s an alien art, understanding you, but I’ve had centuries to perfect it and plenty of humans to study. I think perhaps you have an unhealthy relationship with magic.”

“Unhealthy?” This was the first time anypony had told Sunset anything of the like. “What the heck does that mean?”

“I’m sure my pony counterpart noticed as well,” noted Celestia. “But perhaps her motives were different from mine, based on what you told me. She couldn’t have you letting go of it if she wanted you to cast that spell. She let the wound fester because it drove you on.”

Sunset was suddenly paying more legitimate attention to Celestia’s words. Badmouthing Princess Celestia was like a balm to her these days.

“My guess, for now, is that you’re far too reliant on your magical skills to give you self-worth,” said Celestia. “Yes, I’m confident of this after seeing you with Twilight, though there are parts of your actions I’m still working out. If you want my advice, I think the way to happiness is to just give magic up for a few weeks. You could take meditation courses with Meadowbrook instead and-”

“And be trapped here longer.” Sunset jumped to her feet. “I’m leaving as soon as I can.”

Principal Celestia just smiled softly. She was so damned confident in all of this! She could directly tell Sunset the entire plan, leave herself open on so many fronts and not even care in the slightest. It made Sunset feel like she was way out of her league, even more than she’d been with Princess Celestia.

The old Celestia needed to resort to lying to Sunset; this one could do without lies. Her unwavering honesty showed just how clever and dangerous she was.

“You’re not worried that I might tempt Twilight away from you?” Sunset attacked the only possible weakness she could think of right now. “If she knows there’s a world that isn’t literal garbage if you had something to compete with-“

“No,” said Celestia. “In the end, I find all that matters is if I can give people what they truly want. I can give Twilight certainty and you can’t. She’ll stay with me no matter what you do. So go ahead and do whatever you’d like.”

Sunset glared at her before leaving, but walked away, defeated.

After school was mage fight club. Sunset hadn’t gotten to go to a lot of these, but it seemed useful enough to her that she kept going.

The whole thing was in the deepest part of the school’s basement. The place was suitably dim for a fight club, with stone floors. The platform that floated a few inches off the ground in the center, making the arena.

While Sunset had zero confidence she’d ever be able to beat Principal Celestia, coming here to fight might be a good way to take out her aggressions and you never knew when you would have to fight a more mortal opponent.

Of course, Twilight soon joined this club too. Twilight was eager to do everything related to magic, and had tried to join every magic-related course, only to realize it was chronologically impossible. Even then, she briefly explored time-altering solutions before finally giving up.

Sunset didn’t like that Twilight had joined. It was on the very first day they were both in the club together that her fears were realized.

Lyra was quick to suggest a match between Twilight and Sunset. Both of them were newcomers who were exceptional at magic. Soon enough everyone was cheering the two of them to the platform for a fight and Sunset was too proud to say no.

Sunset tried to hide it, but she was nervous.

Even knowing she was still inexperienced with a staff, losing hurt. She at once hated coming here but needed to get better, needed to be the best. She could already beat students in the same class as her, who were relatively as practiced as Sunset.

The students who were currently taking the more advanced courses, though? She avoided them for now.

Twilight was the one she was most afraid of. She saw the other girl as a sort of rival, having spent so much time around her and behind her in class. Yet Twilight didn’t look nervous at all despite how panicky her nature was. Sunset was determined to beat her badly now.

The rules of a magic duel were simple. They wore an amulet that would greatly reduce any magical blows against you, turn them into kinetic energy that would throw you back instead of harm you. The amulets did not, however, protect from direct physical damage.

It’d protect against magical flames or wind but not against a rock you pulled up from the ground. There was a list of spells you weren’t allowed to cast for just that reason. You couldn’t cast anything that would cause non-magical harm. Obviously, you weren’t allowed to resort to martial arts either.

Sunset twirled her staff, summoning a swirl of fire around it. Twilight reacted by making an incredibly cold air around hers that made frost form in the nearby area. Twilight was predictable at least, and that was how Sunset could win.

Twilight fell for the feint, sending her wave of cold air at Sunset with a swing of her staff. The air left solid ice along the ground. Instead of countering it with the fire, Sunset used the actual attack she had secretly prepared behind it.

Sunset released her own burst of wind that redirected Twilight’s. Both flew at the girl in a massive torrent that would have knocked most of the other students out of the ring immediately. Twilight's amulet protected her from the cold and the bluster of the wind, but the force was all converted into kinetic energy that sent the girl flying.

Twilight reacted faster than Sunset thought she could! She went into that strange military mode, looking momentarily more serious. She swung her own staff behind her and redirected the wind to blow out of the arena, sidestepping most of the impact.

Twilight landed just inside the arena's bounds. She held her left hand out, just before the nexus of her staff, and sent out a wave of telekinetic energy. It seemed as if this was meant to simply throw Sunset off balance for a brief moment, but it morphed into something more.

Twilight had a ton of raw strength, maybe even more than Sunset. But thinking that way made Sunset suddenly want to see for sure. She wanted to see which of them was stronger, if she really could just outpower Twilight. So Sunset pushed back with her own raw, telekinetic shove.

Twilight looked surprised that Sunset was trying to overpower her; like it was a bad idea or something. A flare of anger gave Sunset the advantage momentarily and she shoved Twilight hard.

But it was short-lived. Twilight quickly regained her strength and pushed back much more strongly than before. Realizing this had devolved into a shoving match, Twilight started slowly walking forward, pressing Sunset back as she went.

Sunset began to slip backward. She was right on the edge of the ring now! She pushed as hard as she could, but could only get herself to stay still. Meanwhile, Twilight took yet another step forward with confidence.

Twilight was slightly stronger than her! The thought made her suddenly afraid. Twilight was right next to her now, ready to shove her off the platform.

She couldn’t lose! This was the only thing she had! This was the only reason anyone had ever cared about her!

In a furious panic, Sunset swung the staff hard, smashing the crescent part of it into Twilight’s face.

Twilight fell to the ground, clutching her nose, clearly bleeding. Sunset’s anger parted for a moment as she looked down at Twilight on the floor, knowing she likely just broke the other girl’s nose.

Every noise stopped, everyone just as stunned as Sunset. The other students recovered before she did and ran over to Twilight to help, a crowd soon forming around her. Sunset took two steps back, clutching her staff.

She was ignored for just a moment longer before someone, Lyra, ran up to confront her.

“Why did you do that?!” Lyra demanded of her. “You know this means you lost, right?”

Sunset closed her eyes, forcing herself to go back to her normal, aloof mask.

“It doesn’t matter!” Sunset threw her staff to the ground. “None of you will even care about this after Friday, so who cares?”

She left the room in a huff before anyone could come after her.

This was always how it went, every single time! Any time she’d tried to make a friend at Celestia’s command she’d always screw it up with some stupid mistake.

She was under too much pressure all the time, being constantly pushed as hard as she could manage to be able to cast that stupid alicorn spell. Of course she’d snap sometimes! It wasn’t her fault!

Either way, everyone always left in the end. Her mom, everyone she’d ever tried talking to, and even Princess Celestia were all gone.

She ran out of the basement and up into the hallways of the school above.

Sunset eventually stopped running and sat down in an empty hallway, alone. Principal Celestia would chew her out over this no doubt, just like the princess used to. But maybe it really didn’t matter at all. Tomorrow was Friday and everyone would stop caring after that.

“Sunset!” Twilight was running down the hall calling out after her.

Sunset groaned. It looked like Twilight had fixed her nose, for the most part, with magic. She came alone despite just getting hurt. But even if on some level she accepted she was in the wrong, Sunset was too angry to admit anything of the sort right now.

“What do you want?” Sunset glared up at her.

“I wanted to apologize to you.” Twilight rubbed her nose.

“What?!” Sunset blinked, stunned. She was expecting a lot of things, but not that.

“I made you mad.” Twilight bowed her head. “I’m so sorry.”

Sunset found herself horrified at this display. Twilight really was just like some innocent, abused puppy who wandered in here. She was still mad, but her anger was slightly different now.

“Don’t apologize to me!” Sunset stood up.

“Oh! Sorry?”

Sunset crossed her arms and looked at Twilight with pity. This girl had so much sympathy for everyone else but none for herself. She was worried about Sunset, but not at all for herself.

“Man, you’re hard to be angry at.” Sunset turned away.

“Sorry.”

“I said stop it.” Sunset shook her head. “Look I - I’m the one who should be apologizing okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s my fault I got angry. I’m just a horrible person.”

Sunset pressed her back against the lockers and slid back to the ground.

“I just- I always do stupid stuff like this,” said Sunset. “I shoplift stuff I don’t even need or want, I humiliate the other kids, I break stuff, I go rushing through portals to other dimensions. The princess always scolded me, but I never learn.”

For a long time, Sunset thought Celestia kept her around despite messing up so badly because she cared. But that wasn’t true, was it? It was all just cold, calculating tactics.

“I don’t think you’re a bad person.” Twilight sat down next to her.

Sunset looked at Twilight, still bleeding a little, hardly able to believe this was really happening.

“Twilight, I just broke your nose.” Sunset pointed to her own. “How are you not angry at me? How can you say I’m not a bad person?”

“I don’t know. I’m just not angry. I like you,” said Twilight. “You were nice to me that first day.”

“I was only pretending to be nice to you! I was trying to manipulate you,” Sunset explained. “I only cared about making you want to see Equestria in case Principal Celestia tried to pull something on me. I wanted you to be on my side because I’m selfish.”

“Oh.” Twilight slowly turned her head down, deflated in a way that made Sunset feel like she’d just taken her birthday presents away. Though soon enough, Twilight did look up with a small glimmer of hope. “But you did stop, right?”

“Yeah.” Sunset nodded, having to concede that. “I had a lot of crazy ideas, but I decided I don’t want to manipulate people anymore. I hated being used so... I’m not going to do that, at least.”

“See?” Twilight stood up and held her hand out to Sunset. “Then you are a good person!”

Sunset looked up at Twilight, hand outstretched with the light from the hall shining behind her. She couldn’t help but laugh. Yet she couldn’t take Twilight’s hand.

“Is that really where the bar is?” Sunset waved her hand to let Twilight know it was alright. “You’re way too nice, Twilight. Like the others are nice, but you’re too nice. You don’t feel like Principal Celestia is manipulating you?”

“No.” Twilight shook her head. “I promise you she has my fully informed consent. I read about this for a long time before making my agreement with her. There’s just no hope for me anywhere else.”

It was an unfamiliar feeling, but Sunset felt suddenly protective of Twilight. The thought of her being taken advantage of by anyone made her just as mad as the thought of being used again herself. Twilight just seemed too perfect and innocent and nice, the kindest person Sunset had ever run into. She didn’t deserve to have anything bad happen to her.

“Well, I promise you I’ll look out for you from now on,” said Sunset. “If Principal Celestia really is pulling something on you or the other students, I’ll find it and I’ll protect you. I found all the secrets of the last Celestia I ran into, so I have experience.”

“Hey, I’m not completely helpless,” Twilight objected. “I already know way more about Celestia and the fae than you do.”

“Yeah, well no offense but you look like you’d be easy to take advantage of,” said Sunset. “Trust me, I practically did it.”

“I guess that is true.” Twilight looked down at the floor, then nervously back up at Sunset. “Um! But can I ask why you were mad at me?”

“It had nothing to do with you.” Sunset hesitated before speaking more. But Twilight did deserve an answer after Sunset hit her and she felt strangely comfortable opening up to Twilight just a little. “Magic is just- it’s the only reason anyone’s ever given me a second look. The other Celestia was like my mom, but the only reason she even pretended to love me was my magic and how useful it was to her. I don’t have anything else. I can’t count on anything else. So I got scared.”

Twilight nodded repeatedly while Sunset said all that as if she understood and related completely.

“I feel the same way!” Twilight stepped forward with another eager nod. “My magical powers are the only thing anyone ever cared about for me too. I used to get worked so hard I’d just break down, but they kept pushing me because... well... no one cared about anything else. Even Principal Celestia only took interest in me because of it. But you don’t want me to be better at magic than you, right? If anything, you’d rather I be worse.”

“Yeah, I can relate to the breakdowns,” Sunset admitted, finally standing back up. Maybe she had a lot more in common with Twilight than she realized. “Be glad you weren’t the other Celestia’s student. Yeesh, could I tell you horror stories.”

“Oh, were you having a panic attack?” Twilight nodded, like she completely understood now. “You know, I had a technique that helped me with that.”

Twilight took a deep breath and put her hand to her heart, then slowly exhaled, sweeping it forward. Sunset couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Twilight opened her eyes.

“Nothing. I seriously don’t think I’ve ever said this to anyone before and meant it... but I’m sorry.” Sunset bowed her head to Twilight.

Twilight leaned forward and gave Sunset a pat on the head.

“What the heck was that?” Sunset couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh- I dunno!” Twilight drew her hand back in. “Principal Celestia always pats people on the head.”

“It’s alright.” Sunset gave Twilight a pat on the head in return. “Come on, let’s get outta here.”

Sunset started walking off, Twilight following.

“Where are we going?” Twilight asked.

“No idea.”

Chapter 14

A month into her stay, Sunset’s memories didn’t appear to be degrading just yet. She could still create a mental map of Equestria every morning. She passed all of her own little tests. So far it seemed like Celestia was telling the truth about that part at least, that it was Sunset’s choice if she ended up like the other people here. So far, her attempts to catch Celestia in a lie or uncover some hidden secret of this place had met with nothing.

Sunset still prioritized getting the heck out of here. More specifically, she prioritized learning about that portal. She spent every class studying magic and nearly all of her free time practicing. If another student asked her to do something that didn’t sound like it’d help her with that goal, she flatly refused.

It wasn’t too different from her life back in Equestria, really.

But there was one major exception.

Sunset wasn’t doing anything productive today. She was near the boardwalk by the beach, waiting for someone to show up. It wasn’t that long before they did.

“Sunset!” Twilight jumped forward and hugged Sunset from behind. “I’m so glad to see you!”

Twilight was smiling wide in a way that made it difficult to doubt it.

Sunset couldn’t help but smile a little. You always got greeted like this on Saturday, after they’d just been fed off of. It was like your friends were seeing you for the first time in forever. She knew it was only because Twilight was stuck in an emotional loop, but it did feel good to have someone excited to see you.

By now, Sunset decided that if Twilight was part of a plot, she was an unwitting tool in it all. Twilight was too innocent to be part of anything. If she was being used, she certainly had Sunset’s sympathy now.

After their fight, Sunset decided Twilight wasn’t that annoying. They had a whole lot in common, she found. Not just their life stories, but they had similar interests as well. Sunset had almost forgotten how much she loved learning before the pressure of life spoiled it. There was almost no subject Twilight wasn’t interested in, save her own personal life. By now, Sunset was in the habit of never asking such questions without strategic cause.

They had had a small list of things they liked to do together now outside of going to the library. Twilight was a massive nerd and dragged Sunset into all sorts of things Sunset never really gave a chance before.

“Hey, Twilight.” Sunset let Twilight hug her a bit longer before pushing her off. “Now we just have to wait for–“

“Yo! Twilight!” Dash finally showed up, late as ever, standing up on the boardwalk itself, with her arms wide open for Twilight.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight ran up the ramp to hug her with the same enthusiasm.

Sunset doubted she’d talk to any of the other students if Twilight didn’t have additional friends. Dash and Twilight both shared an interest in video games, though, so Dash usually showed up when she went to the arcade.

The three of them walked another block or so before arriving at the arcade itself, a ten-story building with neon lights plastered all over the face of it.

Despite this being far from the first time either of them had seen the arcade, they both looked up at the tall structure with a sense of wonder. It wasn’t that tall, but at ten stories it was close to the tallest thing building in the city. It was taller than anything near the school.

The tallest tower of Canterlot castle was two thousand feet tall, so a ten-story building hardly impressed Sunset. She wasn’t impressed by it the first time and she wasn’t impressed by it now, but at least she knew not to make a snobby comment about how much bigger the castle was than anything humans had ever built.

Yet somewhat disturbingly, not just these two but every single student who came here, always seemed to be in awe at the height of the building. As long as it was their first time coming here since the last Friday, they’d most typically look up at it with some sense of excitement, even the more aloof types.

To them, Sunset supposed, it was like seeing a tall tower for the first time every time. There was some vague memory in her head about her first trip to Manehattan, when she was young enough to have her parents by her side, and being dazzled by the buildings there. But it was such an old memory.

The other two ran in with much more excitement than Sunset did.

She followed them inside, admitting the sight inside was something that impressed her the first time. It was a bit of a sensory overload walking into this place, dim, yet with so many light sources in every direction you had no trouble seeing at all. There was a maze of super-advanced video game and pinball machines in every direction.

They had everything you’d expect to see in a carnival here too, including bumper cars, a game called laser tag and plenty more. Allegedly, there were even secret areas in this place you could discover.

The largest and most dominant feature in sight was a rock wall near the back, visible from where they were, that went up three stories and had flashing lights all along the side.

The other two ran around, excitedly talking about everything they saw, but it was too much for Sunset to keep up with. Sunset kept a hand in her pocket and waited for them to calm down.

“Man, you’re always so underwhelmed by everything.” Dash finally turned back to her, jabbing her thumb at her favorite cabinet. “How can you not get excited by House of the Dead?”

“I was impressed by it a month ago,” Sunset reminded her.

It wasn’t that these video games were pathetic or anything. Instead of just being little dots you had to pretend were people, the video games here had photorealistic scenes. Sunset was very much interested in exploring this place more, but she didn’t think just walking inside the place warranted that kind of reaction.

“Well, what would you get excited about?” Dash asked.

“There might be something here.” Sunset shrugged, then walked off to look at the games.

Inside she did wonder about that, though. Could she ever get as excited as the people here? She at once saw their enthusiasm for everything as pathetic and enviable.

Dash ran up to the front to see if anyone else broke her records, the first thing she always did, while Sunset looked for something interesting.

She was carefully watching and analyzing every little thing Twilight did in hopes of understanding what having your potential eaten really meant. A major question was whether Twilight would choose the same thing every time.

She looked at Magic Sword, the game she picked last time, but kept walking. Sunset was just a little relieved to see that.

There wasn’t zero change in Twilight from week to week. A month ago, Twilight was marveling at the lack of ‘loot boxes’ in the games like, paradise was merely a world without such things. She didn’t mention that anymore.

Part of Sunset wondered how long this friendship could last if she didn’t take Celestia’s offer. Twilight was far from stuck doing the same thing every time they came here, but Sunset would inevitably grow away from her at some point. Twilight would stay here forever, and Sunset would keep moving.

Maybe it was inevitable for two people to stop being friends eventually, fae or no, over a long enough period.

“What do you want to do?” Twilight asked Sunset this time.

“Something new,” said Sunset.

There was already so much here that she was completely unfamiliar with. She wanted to try all of it before deciding what she liked. And with multiple floors, some of which she’d yet to even go to, that’d take a while.

“Make it something you can go against me at!” Dash came from behind, resting an elbow on each of their shoulders. “Remember! If you can beat me at anything here, I’ll buy you a hundred tokens!”

“Don’t get too cocky. You’re better than me for now because you’re more used to these games. But I’ll keep getting better until I can beat you,” Sunset pointed out, “while you’ll be about as good as you are now.”

“Pfft! You’re really gonna stay here as a normie for the ten thousand years you’re gonna need for that to happen?” Dash asked. “Sides! I do get better for like a year or two at a time.”

Sunset eyed Twilight, a good distance off, wondering if now was a good time to chance things.

Saturday was usually the worst time to start any kind of drama. Her strategy this past month was mostly interrogating the other students, tearing down their world views, near the end of the week to gain information. It seemed like the fastest way to smoke out any inconsistencies. Get them riled up and then everything goes back to normal with no consequences.

But she never did that sort of thing to Twilight or even around her. Pathetic as she was, Twilight did get upset when she saw Sunset messing with the other students. Sunset hated when Twilight got upset with her, even if it was just for a few hours.

She could ask Dash how comfortable she really was with being stuck at a certain skill level forever. But Twilight came back too soon.

“I just have to find something you’d be bad at.” Sunset scanned the cabinets on this floor.

But Sunset did need to think about what Dash would be the worst at. Something like rock climbing was just asking to lose. Dash was incredible at racing games, too.

“Implying that there’s anything I’m bad at.” Dash kept her cocky smile up.

“Maybe that could be fun?” Twilight made a nervous suggestion, pointing over to a game where you seemed to fake-play some instruments. Sunset had never seen anything like it before.

“Yeah.” Sunset nodded, quick to agree with her. “We can do that.”

“Guess we can see who gets the highest score,” Dash agreed.

Sunset had zero confidence she’d beat Dash this time. Picking up the guitar, she had trouble figuring out how this controller even worked.

They must have played just that one game for over an hour, in the end. As much as Sunset enjoyed it, she really couldn't match the other two in how ecstatic they were.

Twilight was clearly happy and wanted to stay here, but it still felt wrong on some level. Sunset wasn’t even sure how much Twilight remembered about Equestria from a month ago. Maybe she should try to show Twilight Equestria whenever Sunset did get there after all. If she could before losing her mind that was.

Sunset was asleep in her bed when her phone buzzed just loud enough to wake her up a little. She turned in her bed to look a her phone, seeing she'd just gotten a text from Pinkie. It was six in the morning.

“Sunset! Are you awake yet? Are you at your house?”

Where else would she be at the crack of dawn?

“No, Pinkie,” Sunset sent the reply. “I’m asleep in your house.”

Knowing Pinkie, she’d spend the next several minutes checking all her closets and under the bed for Sunset Shimmer. That’d buy her some more time to rest her eyes before having to respond.

Without really thinking much of it, she took the moment to groggily scroll through her feed on her new phone.

She saved up through the whole spring to be able to afford one of these. In this society, without one of these phones, you were handicapped. You could instantly talk to anyone anywhere and that was just the start of it. Already, Sunset felt addicted to it. She at once wanted to bring this thing back home with her but was also wary of such an idea.

She remembered when Twilight first came to Canterlot High, Twilight had been clearly traumatized that news even existed here. After finding out it was completely apolitical and having some of her emotional memories eaten, she was only just now starting to consider getting a phone.

Apparently, back on Earth, they created detailed psychological profiles on everyone. The news was specifically curated for you personally, to play on all of your deepest fears and insecurities - to push all of your outrage buttons. The constant fear it instilled in you made you check a hundred times a day for dear life. It made everyone’s life a living hell, but it was what got the most views.

The only thing on Sunset’s feed was funny pictures the other students made, news and updates about art projects they were working on, about what movies were playing, what events and clubs were going on, and nothing more than that. No one had any political opinions at all.

She got to a picture posted by Rainbow Dash of a smashed watermelon at the edge of the beach’s pier. The caption read ‘oh no, Melon!’. Sunset smiled just short of a chuckle. That was pretty clever!

That’s when she realized she’d spent maybe too long here. That joke would have made zero sense to her a few months ago. Heck, it’d probably be hard to even explain this ‘meme’ to anypony back home. Sunset was being ever so slowly assimilated into this place’s culture.

Was she getting too cozy with them all?

“Okay.” Another text from Pinkie came. “Are you 100% sure you’re at my house? Because I can’t find you anywhere.”

“My bad,” Sunset responded, awake enough to respond now. “Turns out this was my house. Weird, huh?”

“No worries, the same thing happens to me all the time but usually in reverse. But Sunset! Guess what!”

“What.”

“Ha! You said it! But no, I wasn’t calling to say ‘what’, I was calling to tell you that I’m only one person short for reverse frisbee tag! You gotta come! And when I say gotta I mean please.”

What the heck was reverse frisbee tag? Searching for it on her phone, it sounded like the kind of game Pinkie would make up. Actually, the internet said she had made it up.

It was a slight miracle that the others were even talking to her. Over the past two months she’d been going to school with them, Sunset had been callous, cruel, or melted down on each of them - and on more than one occasion. Yet because of Principal Celestia, they never cared for more than a few days. Her relationship with them was simply invincible.

Maybe that realization would give most people an existential crisis, but Sunset? She found herself becoming calmer than she normally was. The other girls felt safe in a way. She knew they were going to stay; they wouldn’t simply vanish like her parents or her princess did. She didn’t need to worry about ruining everything with a single mistake like she always seemed to with the other kids her age.

It’d been a while since she got into a fight with any of them, hadn’t it? Sunset hung around Twilight a lot, but it was like she was a fringe member of a small group now, along with Pinkie, Dash and Rarity. Ever so slowly, Sunset was hanging around those girls more and more often.

Sunset wondered if that made them… friends.

She could almost hear Princess Celestia behind her. ‘Go make some friends,’ the princess whispered, ‘you’re no good to me if you don’t have any friends’.

Instantly, Sunset soured on the idea. She wasn’t going to be some pawn, just doing whatever the princess wanted out of sheer stupidity! Sunset furiously wrote that she didn’t want to hang out with some insane fairy wannabe who’s too pathetic to survive on her own. The two of them weren’t friends and never would be. She had more important things to do!

But her thumb hovered over the send button for a tense moment before moving to the side of the phone. She was suddenly thankful to the smartphone for letting you think about what you said before saying it.

Sure, it was technically what Princess Celestia wanted, but Sunset didn’t want the princess to just ruin her life like this either. She used the meditation techniques she learned from Twilight and asked herself instead what she’d do if Princess Celestia had simply never existed. Yes, that was the best way to think of things.

After another minute of reflection, Sunset typed simply ‘sure’ and hit send.

Chapter 15

Three months had gone by now! It was getting close to summer vacation.

There was a spring dance next week and Rarity was very keen on the idea of making all of them outfits for it. Today, Sunset and Pinkie were both visiting Rarity on the upper floors of the school where the sewing machines were. Sunset was being measured while Pinkie was eagerly trying hers on.

Sunset really was wasting too much time these days, going to stuff like this with her friends.

Sunset really hadn’t hung out with Rarity much before this, but it was like this weird friendship chain connected them now. Sunset was friends with Twilight who was friends with Dash who was friends with Rarity. Their meeting was inevitable now.

While Dash wanted badly to be Sunset’s friend despite Sunset admittedly being a jerk to her on several occasions, Rarity was still wary of the newcomer. She wondered silently how long it would take to get Rarity’s trust in a world like this. Generally, it seemed like all the bad drama went away each Friday but any positive feelings you built up remained.

All paths were one way and they all led to friendship.

As Rarity measured Sunset’s arm, Pinkie came jumping out of the changing room. She was wearing a pink and blue dress with a big yellow ribbon tied in the front. Sunset knew nothing about human fashion, but she thought it looked nice.

“I know I say this every year, but this is the best one I remember!” Pinkie spun around, trying to look at her own back.

“If you’ve been here for centuries you must have made a lot of dresses,” said Sunset to Rarity. “Given that you do this every year.”

“Hm?” Rarity paused for a moment as if the idea only just now occurred to her. “Yes, I suppose it must have been a great many by now. Thousands, no doubt.”

“Is there some vault that you put them all in?” Sunset asked. “You could have a whole museum room filled with them.”

“Well, that would be interesting to see!” Rarity smiled at the idea. “But no. They get tossed out at the end of the season. No sense in keeping dated fashion around.”

Sunset looked over at Pinkie. Rarity and Pinkie must have known each other the longest out of the group. If Rarity made a dress for her every year, then was it a different one every time, or did Rarity just make the same dress year after year with Pinkie being genuinely impressed every time? It had to loop around eventually. There could only be so many outfits that looked good on her, right?

“How long have you been here anyway, Pinkie?” Sunset asked.

“How long haven’t I been here?” Pinkie asked. “The answer is 6.5 billion years! But seriously, that question is hard mode for me.”

“Everyone else seems to know,” said Sunset.

“Yeah, but they never lived in an elf city,” said Pinkie. “If they had they wouldn’t be able to say either. Cause like, time is an illusion because you can’t see entropy, but once you do see entropy you don’t see the illusion anymore! Like, uh, like a Ferris wheel! Oh, wait.”

Pinkie suddenly went deep in through, realizing that analogy made no sense.

“And were you glad to get out of there?” Sunset asked. “The elf city, I mean.”

Sunset asked her about where the elves lived at least once a week. She rarely got anything she understood out of it, let alone anything useful. But it was still information and you never knew what information would be important later.

“Oh, no! I loved it there! They got things that go both ways!” Pinkie pointed in both directions at once. “And oh man! The food is so good it can literally kill you instantly! And I got to play with all the other elves before I even met them!”

“Okay. Well, if you liked it there why did you come here?” Sunset asked.

“Cause my brain got used up!” Pinkie gave her head a knock. “Brains don’t last forever, silly. Not unless you loop them around. This is like retirement for me. I don’t actually have any potential left. Celestia just keeps me around cause Luna owes me.”

From her past few conversations on the matter, Sunset already knew Pinkie had worked for Celestia’s sister at one point.

Pinkie tried to explain what exactly she used to do for Luna, but never had much success. What she could glean made her think Pinkie was either in the army or a farmer. Pinkie talked about ‘burning Luna’s garden for her own good’ with a laser sword ‘just like Luke Skywalker did with his farm’. Watching ‘Star Wars’ only made her more confused about that statement.

Pinkie also talked about ‘farming rocks’ by ‘going at them before they were ready’ and ‘smashing bugs before they existed’. The bugs, she assured Sunset, were really gross so it was okay to erase them.

But the part about Pinkie ‘retiring’ to Celestia’s school was new. Sunset always assumed the two didn’t get along for obvious reasons and that Celestia had sniped Pinkie away from Luna or some such thing.

It surprised her in two ways, that Celestia would do such a favor for Luna and that Celestia would keep someone around who wasn’t particularly useful to her.

“I was dead in the same sense that a battery gets dead.” Pinkie jumped up and sat on one of the desks. “Luna gave me three options. The first one made no sense at all, the second one was a swift death, and the third one was to come here! I said ‘high school? Don’t you mean high school?’”

Pinkie laughed hysterically, kicking her legs at what must have been a joke. Sunset looked at Rarity who, to her relief, shrugged rather than laughed.

“Well elves would find that joke really funny,” Pinkie assured them. Pinkie fell onto her back. “But I think I remember that we used to have to wear school uniforms. Do you remember that, Rarity? Or am I just being crazy? Cause if you remember it too we can triangulate how long I’ve been here.”

“I’m fairly certain Celestia would have allowed me to forget such a thing,” said Rarity. “It’d be a lot easier to just ask Celestia if you’re curious.”

Sunset realized something just then. The school had a lot of modern technology that wasn’t invented until relatively recently. It had to have been noticeably different in the past.

“Actually, weren’t you born in your planet’s version of the middle ages?” Sunset asked. “What was it like back then?”

“Can we please keep the conversation polite?” Rarity gave Sunset a look that let her know she was on short notice. “I don’t want to talk about back then.”

“I’m not talking about the outside world,” Sunset pointed out. “I’m asking about the school from way back when. It had to have been more medieval when you first got here, right?”

Rarity gave her a skeptical look, but one that didn’t last long before it was overtaken by her own curiosity.

“I suppose you’re right,” Rarity finally admitted. “What was it like back then?”

Rarity had to try to remember. She paced about, tapping her chin for a minute or so before snapping her fingers as she finally overcame her mind fog.

“Ah, yes! It’s blurry, but I do remember a little of when it was just Celestia, Sweetie Belle, and myself. The school was a such small little castle. We had a courtyard but there was nothing outside the walls but endless grass.” Rarity walked over to the window to look at the school’s current courtyard. “I remember it being such a tiny place. We all slept in the same room with Celestia for a long time. Actually, we all slept in the same bed. That does seem a bit odd, thinking back.”

“I heard beds were super rare in the middle times,” said Pinkie, “so everyone had no choice but to snuggle! Even foreign dignitaries. That’s how elves do it today, but they sleep outside and then inside instead of trying to do both at the same time. It’s way more fun that way! We should all sleep in the same room sometime!”

“We’ve had plenty of slumber parties already, Pinkie,” said Rarity. “But that is interesting. I suppose it explains why I didn’t have a problem with it back then.”

So, Rarity had completely forgotten the culture she’d come from.

“I remember there weren’t any electric lights back then, but Celestia used magic to keep it bright. We also didn’t have these.” Rarity took out her cell phone. “You know, I don’t remember when cell phones first came to this school. Why, every time I turn it on it feels like such a wondrous, new treasure. How can I be expected to remember the actual first time? But at the same time, I feel like I’ve always had it.”

Rarity gave her phone a hug. Pinkie nodded. At least she understood the feeling. Sunset was a bit more concerned that they all slowly conformed to this place.

“Are you worried Celestia might be selectively eating your memories to get you to submit to her ideology?” Sunset asked. “She could easily use this to make you think just about anything. You might not even have anything of your original mindset left.”

“You’d think an outsider would be reassured about such a thing. Do you really expect me to be the same person after four hundred years?” Rarity asked.

“You’re closer to a thousand,” Sunset reminded her.

“Tch! Accusing a lady of lying about her age!”

“But do you not see how easy it would be for her to just completely brainwash you?” Sunset asked. “To completely remake all of your opinions? To reshape your personality to be more convenient for her?”

“If you’re so paranoid about Celestia then just don’t accept her gracious offer and go back to wherever you came from,” said Rarity. “I’ve seen your kind come and go. I’ll at least give you credit for not holding your breath and sitting on an island until you die, but I won’t stand for having Celestia’s name besmirched.”

“Look, this isn’t just about me,” said Sunset.

“It’s not?” Pinkie leaned forward from her desk, shocked.

Sunset sighed but admitted she deserved that kind of reaction. She really hadn’t thought much of the other students here at first.

“Is it wrong for me to be concerned about the rest of you?” Sunset asked. “I’m asking all this because I want to be sure she’s not taking advantage of you all. It’d be so easy for her to trick you, given the power she wields. I’m starting to feel like I can’t just ditch you all.”

“Daww!” Pinkie jumped off her desk and nearly tackled Sunset to the ground with a hug. “You’re so sweet. Trying to look out for me!”

“I suppose it’s hard to be angry at you for wanting to help me,” said Rarity. “But I really don’t need help. I’m as happy as I could ever be. If you want us to question our lives, then you have to do the same. Have you seriously considered if it would be better for you to stay here?”

The suggestion gave her a chill. Sunset hadn’t seriously considered the option to stay here. It was scary to just ask the question.

“Alright,” said Sunset. “I can do that if you let me ask you harder questions. Go ahead and make your case or whatever.”

“Well, Principal Celestia always says the true question is whether you want happiness or to accomplish some goal,” Rarity stated, as though it were a simple a fact as geography. “If you want to be happy, you’ll have trouble finding a better place than this. So, the question is if you have something you want to accomplish.”

That certainly was a common refrain. Everyone here accepted that exact philosophy, perhaps because Celestia slowly nudged them towards it. But it did seem like an increasingly fair question.

Something Sunset wanted to accomplish? Revenge against Princess Celestia?

“Not really.” Sunset stopped by the window, looking out. So much of her anger was gone. “But maybe I’ll think of something.”

After four months, Sunset made it entirely through the spring. Now, on the first day of summer, the rain was pouring down. From what she could gather, it rained a lot this time of year.

Today was also the first day of summer vacation, which meant no more school for a while. The other students were a little disappointed with the idea of not going to school for two months and Sunset was inclined to agree with them, albeit for an entirely different reason.

She was getting good at creating directed portals, good enough to make one from the school to the beach with maybe an 80% success rate, and only missing her mark by a hundred feet or so. She understood interdimensional travel and pocket dimensions a lot better now. She knew the type of portals that Starswirl made centuries ago, and understood why the outpoint of that type of portal would end up being magnetically drawn to this pocket dimension.

Heck, she could even stir the mirror just a little now.

As exciting as that should have been, she more fully understood how much easier it was to get in here rather than out. It was like she got two steps closer only to realize that her destination was three steps further than she thought.

Now her threat was having to go two months without classes and potentially backsliding. She didn’t want summer vacation devouring bits of all that knowledge any more than she wanted Celestia to.

She’d have to practice every day on her own to keep moving forward. Celestia would be around occasionally, but she would be asleep for most of it. From what Sunset heard, elves like Celestia didn't sleep every night but instead went into a sort of hibernation like this.

Of course, with Celestia mostly asleep, it’d be the best time to go snooping around. Sunset was less convinced now that there was something more to this place than what she already knew, but she wasn’t going to stop looking yet.

With her umbrella out, Sunset walked through the rain and down the street towards the local library. She intended to spend her first day planning out the best training regime for herself.

The streets were lonelier today, and not because of the rain.

Most of the students didn’t stick around the same part of Canterlot during the summer. They’d go to the warmer parts of the mountains to the north, off to one of the islands to the west, or camping in one of the nature reserves scattered through the city itself.

Sunset’s friends were doing that last one. It’d be a while until she saw them again.

Or so she thought.

Sunset heard a larger vehicle pulling up behind her. She turned to see a familiar-looking RV coming up from behind. The RV stopped right next to Sunset and the door opened. Rainbow Dash was the one driving.

“Yo! There you are!” Dash jumped out of the RV, splashing in a puddle without a care.

Twilight came out soon after.

“You’re still here?” Sunset asked.

“We thought we’d swing by and give you one last chance to change your mind,” said Dash.

“Sunset!” Pinkie stuck her head out of the window. “Are you a hundred percent sure you don’t want to go camping with us?”

“Yes.”

“But are you a thousand percent sure?”

“Yes.”

“A million?”

“Yes.”

“A Billion?!”

“Pinkie–“

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” said Dash. “It’s not like taking a break for a month is gonna kill you, or like you got a time limit before you explode. Just chill for a little bit.”

“Please?” Twilight put her hands together pleadingly. “It’d be so much more fun if you came.”

“Hm.” Sunset closed her eyes, tapping the umbrella with a finger.

Truth be told, Sunset did wish she could just go on a nice camping trip with her friends. It was something she never really done before because she’d never really had friends before. If only this could have been a more normal dimension.

Yet going on summer vacation felt like a dangerous idea. Sunset was already getting too cozy in this place, knowing that the longer she stayed and more comfortable she got the harder it would be to leave. If Celestia did have some kind of scheme, then it was nothing more than getting Sunset as comfortable as possible here.

The more comfortable the bed was, the harder it became to get back up.

“Well?” Dash asked. “You coming or not?”

“I’d better not.” Sunset shook her head.

“Aw! But why?” Twilight looked genuinely upset by it.

“I have to keep practicing magic,” said Sunset. “You know that. Besides, it’s not like it’ll actually matter. You’ll forget everything that happens during your trip eventually anyway.”

“Yeah, but it’ll still be two months without my best friend,” said Twilight.

Best friend?

Sunset blushed, but quickly pushed Twilight away.

“We have magic communication devices.” Sunset looked in the other direction. “We can talk every day.”

“They’re not magic, but okay.” Twilight lowered her head a little.

Sunset was getting way too attached. Even this much made her feel bad now.

Twilight waved to her one last time before getting into the RV. The RV sped down the road, leaving Sunset alone in the rain.

She stood there, letting the rain hit her umbrella, thinking for a moment longer. She felt like she’d been left behind again, even though it was her leaving the others by her own choice. It was a familiar, lonely feeling.

Principal Celestia came out of the rain from behind and stood next to Sunset, watching them leave. It was hardly creepy at this point. Celestia could appear anywhere at any time. You got used to it.

Celestia never seemed concerned about the weather. Rain, cold, wind, and heat were all simply ignored by the fairy princess. She simply stood out in the pouring rain and the water seemed to bounce off of her, unable to affect her hair or clothes.

“I think I decided that there is something I want to accomplish,” said Sunset.

“Oh?” Celestia didn’t show any concern for that statement, despite Sunset carefully watching for any.

“I want to keep Twilight safe,” said Sunset. “I want to help my friends.”

“And if she’s already safe? If they don’t need you?”

Sunset tapped the shaft of her umbrella with a finger. She wanted to protect Twilight but wasn’t sure if anything she could do was protection. Twilight was already so happy here that Sunset wasn’t sure if letting her out of the cage was a good thing.

“I don’t know.”

Sunset didn’t have much hope Twilight would actually change her mind about this place after seeing Equestria.

One thing she learned fast was that Principal Celestia was hardly ever wrong about anything. Sunset couldn’t think of a single example of such. If she was confident Twilight would stay, it was most likely because Twilight would.

But even if it was doomed to fail, Sunset decided she should at least try.

“Are you hoping that if I make friends with the people here, I’ll want to stay?” Sunset asked.

“I think ‘hope’ would be the best word, yes,” said Celestia. “But I don’t see it as a duplicitous scheme, personally. Ultimately, you’re the one who decided to befriend them. And it’s hardly like this is the only place you could ever make friends. I’ve shown you this frictionless, idealized friendship. Surely you’re already familiar with rougher relationships. I won’t stop you from picking either.”

The only part of that Sunset would have objected to was being familiar with a ‘real’ friendship, one without the rough edges broken off by a potential-eating Fae. Sunset wasn’t convinced she had ever had any friendships before coming here, certainly not since she was very young - and none even nearly as strong as the ones she had now with the girls.

But it was hardly like she was going to say that out loud.

“So what about you?” Sunset asked her. “Do you want to accomplish something?”

“I do. Growing larger and more powerful is a goal in itself for me. I don’t care if it makes me happy or sad,” said Celestia. “And you? When I asked you that question the first time, you said that was the case for you as well.”

“I don’t know,” said Sunset. She put a hand over her chest. “I feel so much calmer since I came here.”

Celestia remained silent for a moment like she always did when you finished speaking. Sunset listened to the rain.

“You know, I used to have these crazy power fantasies.” Sunset clutched her hand into a fist. When she got angry or scared, she used to imagine herself overpowering the other Celestia and forcing the princess to kneel to her, or beating up random ponies, or even burning down the whole castle. Sunset opened her hand back up. “But I haven’t done that in a while. It's just not satisfying anymore.”

Sunset closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself returning to Equestria with overwhelming magical force and beating Celestia into the ground. It didn't feel the same anymore. It didn't make her feel any better.

Principal Celestia didn’t respond right away, listening with a slight smile. Sunset got the impression she knew the answer but wasn’t saying it. That was always something that pissed her off.

“Why did I calm down so much?” Sunset asked. “Because everything here is so calm? Because I’m meditating now? Or did you do something to me?”

“If you want me to 'psychoanalyze' you," said Celestia, "I think it’s simply because you have friends now. You don’t need to force anyone to respect you. You don't need revenge to feel valid if you already do. Do you think I’m right?”

Did Sunset feel valid back in Equestria? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, when Princess Celestia kept her close she did feel loved. She’d always wanted that more than anything, she knew, she just wanted Princess Celestia to acknowledge her. Not too unlike Principal Celestia and Sunset’s new friends did.

“That’s a stupid answer.” Sunset turned and walked away, off into the rain.

Did sunset have what she wanted now? She hoped not.

Chapter 16

And so Sunset spent her summer vacation how she spent every summer vacation, working tirelessly to hone her abilities.

At least things were noticeably improving after a month.

Sunset stood down by the beach, at a lonely section where other students rarely ever came this time of year. She still saw the odd random student now and then, but for the most part, it was just Sunset... and occasionally her 'elven' teachers. The group she normally hung around with - Twilight, Dash and the others - were still off in the woods somewhere, and she had hardly seen them in person since then.

She stood deep enough into the ocean that the waves should occasionally go over her head, were she not forcibly splitting them. The water was parted in a line leading from the beach to about ten feet ahead of Sunset. A wall of water was on either side of her.

Another wave came and Sunset struggled to break it apart. She managed to part it once again and the water went off to either side, the walls of water rising until they were over her head yet again.

Moving so much water this frequently took an enormous amount of strength, and was an excellent exercise for training her magically frail human body. The deeper into the ocean you went the more difficult this became, meaning Sunset could measure her progress by how many yards into the ocean she could walk without getting wet. So far, she’d doubled her distance in about a month.

Sunset carefully took another step forward and split another wave. Her watch vibrated, letting her know that she got a text on her non-waterproof phone back on the shore. She glanced at it long enough to see it was from Pinkie, but that was all the concentration she could spare. Sunset took another step into the ocean, reaching her limit.

Then her watch vibrated again, more this time. Pinkie was trying to call her now? At that same time, an abnormally large wave swept in. It was the perfect storm. Sunset slipped and the water came crashing in on her from all around.

She got completely dunked in the flood, being thrown forward at first, then getting pulled back out before she managed to get her head above water. She was a strong enough swimmer to get back to shore easily enough, but now she was magically exhausted and completely drenched.

It was a good thing she was wearing a bathing suit. Though she still didn’t get why everyone had a problem with her coming simply naked.

Sunset trudged back to shore, only bothering to dry off her hands, before opening the phone. Pinkie had better have a good reason for texting her.

“Sunset! I’m coming over soon! I have something cool to show you!” Read the first. “It’s gonna be spooky fae stuff so get ready!”

“Actually, I decided to just be right behind you.” Read the second.“Actually, I decided to just be right behind you.” Read the second.

Sunset let out a long breath, inhaled, counted to ten, and exhaled. She was a lot better at not getting angry these days. She also knew just enough about the fae to know she had time to dry off her hair and put her phone down where it was safe. Then she turned around to be greeted by a torrent of pure darkness that flowed in a pillar, but by some strange optical illusion, Sunset couldn’t tell if the column flowed up or down.

When it was gone, Celestia and Pinkie were there, but so too was a stranger. Sunset knew at once this was another fae, and one of the ‘large’ ones at that, both from her immense size, and the way her hair flowed like Celestia’s. Only where Celestia’s hair was like a rainbow, this new one's was like the night sky.

Sunset had a better idea of human heights now. Sunset and her friends were all a few inches over five while Celestia was easily seven feet. The new fae was the same height as Celestia but the armor she wore made her look even larger.

The armor was silver and black, set before a cloak of the darkest blue behind her. At her side was a sword of a length and size Sunset doubted she could have wielded herself. It was sheathed within a scabbard that seemed to reflect the night sky. Sunset glanced at it briefly and felt like her heart stopped beating. Looking away made her feel fine again, but she understood now that the sword was too dangerous to even look at.

Still, she spent most of her life in the company of a giant already, so such a thing hardly unnerved her. Yet seeing a fae clad in magic armor was something to be just a little wary of. There was no way to know if she always wore that.

Sunset had zero confidence she’d be able to fight this person, as they looked down upon Sunset with a serious look. Thankfully, Pinkie was there to make the new fae appear less intimidating, by tugging on her cloak like a child as she happily waved to Sunset.

“See? I told you she was there! But you thought she already was!” Pinkie laughed.

“Yes. Most impressive,” said the stranger.

Sunset’s mind reeled a moment longer before it finally clicked. She was almost certain she knew who this was now, though it still seemed strange for her to be here.

“Wait!” Sunset pointed at her. “Is she - are you Princess Luna?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “This is my beloved sister Luna. She came only to admire you, you’ve nothing to fear from her.”

Beloved? That sounded wrong.

“Luna is my super best friend.” Pinkie leaned against Luna affectionately. “She taught me how to not think and use alternative logic.”

“We were told that you were where you are before,” said Luna.

“Can you speak in human?” Sunset recognized when someone was talking ‘fairy speak’ now.

Luna closed her eyes like Sunset had just done something embarrassing.

“Very well. If you need us before.” Luna put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Our sister has said a great many things about you, about a brilliant gem that washed ashore and is in her possession for now. I wanted badly to see you, but I can only come here when things are so. Can you understand this much, child?”

“I think so?”

Luna stepped forward to get a better look at Sunset.

At first, Sunset thought that the armor was freezing cold. The air around her made Sunset shiver when Luna first knelt down. When you first approached it the air felt chilly like the armor was sucking the heat out of you. Yet the closer you got to the armor itself the warmer it became until touching it had a cozy warmth to it. When Luna put just one of her fingers, wrapped in a leather glove, to Sunset’s cheek that sense of cold vanished entirely.

The warmth that went through Sunset put her in a slight daze for a moment while Luna looked her over. Luna tilted her head from side to side and opened Sunset’s mouth to look at her teeth.

“Ah yes, what exquisite beauty.” Luna continued to look Sunset over. “Your potential is so vast yet understated. Such a dull, dream-like salt bringing out the potential. Yet there is still the smell of a lingering, far more powerful dream. Someone else’s, not yours, but it still lingers about you as though you’ve spent too much time in a smokehouse. An excellent addition to my sister’s collection and a great benefit to us. I must compliment you, sister, on your luck for finding such a thing.”

Sunset slowly recovered from her daze. Only just now Sunset realized she was being carefully examined like a collector’s item; Luna raising one of her arms then looking over her hand.

“Hey, can you not treat me like I’m some mounted hunting trophy?” Sunset stepped back, out of Luna’s grasp. “And I don’t belong to Celestia, okay? I’m not in her collection or anything of the sort.”

“You’re being very rude.” Luna took her hand off of Sunset’s face. “Be glad I’ve learned to tolerate your kind.”

“I’m being rude?” Sunset asked. “What? Am I supposed to grovel before you or something?”

“I can show you what I mean.” Luna held out her hand for Sunset to grasp.

Before Sunset could decide whether to take the offer, Pinkie decided for her. She ran between the two of them, shaking her head at Sunset, then Luna in turn.

“Oh, yes.” Luna retracted her hand. “I forgot. Of course.”

“Yes.” Sunset took another cautious step back, unsure if she had nearly just died there. “Of course. Are you two sure she knows enough that it’s safe to be around her?”

“Yes, you will not die or suffer immense pain,” said Luna. “I do not understand you well enough to take care of you, but I can promise your mind and body will not be destroyed today.”

“That doesn’t reassure me much,” said Sunset.

“Nonsense. I wouldn’t damage something so valuable to my sister. Here. Would you like a treat?” Luna reached into her cloak. “You deserve one for being in such perfect condition.”

Sunset was about to complain that she wasn’t a dog but from some unseen pocket, Luna produced a golden apple that made her forget all possible complaints. For a moment nothing existed but that apple and Sunset could do nothing but stare at it intently, and admire its beauty.

When Luna held it out to Sunset, Sunset grabbed onto it like it was a passing branch as she fell off a cliff. Without even a single thought she bit into the apple. She couldn’t even describe the flavor - it tasted like pure pleasure that radiated through her whole body.

As Sunset devoured the apple with wild abandon, Luna slowly stroked the back of her head, smiling softly. Before long, Sunset had eaten the entire apple, eating even the core and swallowing the stem itself before she could regain control.

That was amazing!

“Do you have more of those?” Sunset looked up at Luna desperately, then at Celestia. At that moment she felt as though she’d give them her potential just for more of those. “Have you had those the whole time?!”

“Yes,” said Luna. “But it’s not a good idea for you to have more than one every few decades or you might change in a terrible manner.”

Sunset had half a mood to not even care about that, but it was wearing off quickly. It was a little frightening now just how badly she’d lost control in that moment.

“I am a little surprised you haven’t tried using one of those to get me to submit to you yet,” said Sunset.

“Do you still trust me so little?” Celestia asked.

Sunset didn’t answer. It was true Celestia hadn’t been as ruthless or deceptive as Sunset first expected. After months of searching for lies still nothing. Either Celestia wasn’t trying to trick her or she was so smart that her lies might as well be the truth.

“I guess it wouldn’t make a difference since the effects don’t last long enough,” said Sunset.

“I seem to remember you trying that approach when we were younger,” Luna teasingly reminded her.

“Yes. Though I wonder which of us could bring up the more embarrassing story about the other,” said Celestia.

And they both laughed. Sunset was surprised to see the two of them being so friendly.

“You two get along?” Sunset asked. “I assumed you’d be enemies.”

“Our father didn’t want us to compete as he and his brother did,” Celestia explained. “So, he took something from each of us. From me, it was the ability to change and from Luna, it was the ability to create or destroy. We seek entirely different humans to take what we lack from, and thus to complete ourselves. For that reason, we have no need to fight. The fae are united now and humanity has been spared the chaotic magic that ruled in ancient times.”

“Yes, there are humans that will offer me their dreams in exchange for favors,” said Luna. “I need only understand you enough to make those favors tempting. The only humans I deal with are those capable of destroying for me. Great warriors with a love of destruction and chaos, such as this one. They alone may join my armies.”

Luna gestured to Pinkie Pie, who stuck her tongue out.

“Pinkie Pie?” Sunset looked at her skeptically. “I thought she was a farmer or something! You're saying she's a great warrior of chaos and destruction?"

“Well not anymore.” Pinkie shrugged. “But I used to be vicious! Rawr!”

Pinkie made adorable little claws with her hands.

“How much do you remember about your old life, exactly?” Sunset asked, still hoping for another unique response.

“I remember it, but it doesn’t make any sense.” Pinkie tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Like I think I was on a boat this one time, but then what was I on before I was on the boat, huh? Isn’t that impossible?”

She learned not to press a response like that by now.

“I am curious what made you think we would hate one another,” said Celestia.

“The Celestia I knew wanted to kill her sister,” said Sunset. “It’s the only reason she took me in.”

“Did she say that’s what she wanted?” Luna asked.

“I guess I didn’t discuss this with her in too much detail,” Sunset admitted. “I got angry. But the elements of harmony are a weapon. What else would I have done with them?”

“No.” Luna shook her head. “That is not the dream that lingers about you, the one that must be from another Celestia. It is a dream of longing, like the dream you have.”

“Longing for what?” Sunset asked.

“I cannot say. I can tell that both she and you long for something real rather than something fanciful. I have no desire for dreams like that, they are unappetizing to me. Those who dream of wild, unattainable fantasies and those who have dreams of creation or destruction are the ones that interest me. But you, and she, only wish to grasp something you don’t have. You should stay with my sister, in my opinion. We never seek the same humans.”

Was it possible Sunset misinterpreted anything from back then? It was true that she hadn’t stayed around very long after learning the truth, hadn’t had a real conversation with Celestia about anything.

No! Celestia refused to answer her questions, even the ones Sunset absolutely had the right to know. It was the princess’s fault. She owed Sunset an explanation back then, and if she refused to give it, then that was her fault.

“But what about joining your army?” Sunset asked. “You said that you allowed great warriors into it, right? Is my magic not powerful enough? I can burn stuff! I want to know what my options are.”

Luna frowned at the idea.

“There.” Luna pointed down to a small stone on the beach. “If you can not lift that rock then I will consider you worthy. If not, you would be better off in my sister’s collection.”

Don’t lift the rock? Sunset knelt in front of it and watched it carefully.

“I want to say I’m already not lifting the rock,” said Sunset. “But I’m also a hundred percent certain this is some kind of riddle, isn’t it?”

“You are the one speaking in riddles.” Luna shook her head.

“Oh!” Pinkie raised her hand. “Can I show her?”

“No. If she cannot think straight, she has no business in my realm.”

Sunset couldn’t help but wrack her brain thinking about this. Did she have to not lift it for a year? Or unlift it by removing it from the pocket dimension? The real answer likely made no sense in her current state of mind.

“Well, I’ve seen all I’ve needed to.” Luna turned to leave. “Come, Pinkie. We shall take you back with us.”

“Wait!” Sunset ran over to Luna’s side. “You’re leaving? Can’t you take me out with you?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy,” said Luna. “Pinkie came here on an invitation, remember. It will be easier for you to leave yourself than with my help.”

Luna put her hand on Pinkie’s head and that same torrent of darkness that went both up and down consumed them. Then they were gone.

Trying to live with elves other than Celestia was one other option that Sunset could think of. Living with the humans on Earth was out of the question. But with elves? They might be more acceptable if she ‘went crazy’ as Pinkie said.

But trying to assimilate into their society would be incredibly dangerous, and who could say if any of them would be better to live with than Celestia? Who could say if any dimension would be better than hers?

Sunset really did doubt she could be happier anywhere else than here. The real question, like the others always asked, was whether she wanted anything more than happiness.

“What are you thinking about?” Celestia asked her.

“I’m not sure what I want to do anymore.” Sunset sat down on the beach, putting her staff across her lap. “I’ve been so focused on the portal and, well, finding dirt on you, that I haven’t thought about what happens afterwards. I don't know if I want to get revenge on the other Celestia anymore, but I don't know what to do if not that."

Principal Celestia said nothing but sat down next to Sunset.

Sunset closed her eyes and imagined forcing Celestia to the ground with Luna’s enchanted sword, overpowering her, humiliating her. Those fantasies used to be so satisfying but now they felt empty.

“Do you think I’m going to leave?” Sunset asked. “Or will I decide to stay here?”

“I think you will escape,” said Celestia. “Eventually. When that happens this other Celestia and I will both offer you what you want. Whoever makes the better offer will get to keep you. I’m confident that will be me, but I can’t be certain.”

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two Celestia's was that this one was willing to answer all of her questions without hesitation. Not once had Principal Celestia told Sunset she wasn't ready to know something or forbid her from reading some book. She had schemes and wanted to use Sunset but she was upfront about it all.

"I do appreciate that you're more honest than the Celestia I knew," Sunset admitted. "Or at least more open."

Sunset grabbed some sand with her fingers and let it slide through her fingers.

"But you still don't trust me," Celestia said, noting it more than asking.

Sunset remembered that vision she had when she first looked into the mirror. She saw herself as an alicorn surrounded by fire and magic - the greatest alicorn in history. Why couldn't her Celestia have just answered her questions back then?

"No." Sunset closed her eyes as the last of the sand left her hand. "I don't think I ever told you about my vision, did I? I saw myself as - as like a god. I asked the other Celestia about it for weeks and weeks and she just kept telling me I wasn't ready. I finally went out and got the answers myself and... well that was all part of her plan like I said. I felt like she'd been telling me I didn't have the right to know what I was getting into that whole time."

And how could you think someone like that cared about you?

"Why didn't she tell me the truth?" Sunset asked.

"I think lying comes from a place of weakness, from needing to," said Celestia, "so perhaps you're right to assume the worst. Yet, it's also possible she could have been worried you'd do something foolish and hurt yourself if you'd known. The answer can be anything in between. You'd have to ask her."

Ask?

It seemed absurd. After all, her entire problem was that Princess Celestia refused to answer her for weeks. Would Princess Celestia turn her nose up at Sunset asking again?

But then it did seem Sunset might have been partially wrong about her intentions with Luna...

"I really wish I had your confidence." Sunset smiled.

“You have a long time before making your decision.” Celestia crossed her legs to sit Indian style as well. “You and I have both made rash decisions we’ve regretted. Let’s practice meditating so that you can be in control when it comes time to make that decision.”

Celestia closed her eyes.

Yeah. Sunset had certainly learned her lesson about making hasty decisions when she was overwhelmed with emotions.

Sunset sat on the beach with her hands on her staff and her staff on her lap. She closed her eyes and listened to the waves, counting them, and thinking of nothing else. After a few minutes, her mind was clear enough to not even notice the waves.

She took to this quickly, like she did everything.

At that moment, while she was calm, she decided that she would confront Princess Celestia one more time before deciding anything. She’d give her one more chance to explain things.

Chapter 17

The snow gently fell. Sunset had spent nearly an entire year in this place, and now it was late in the winter. Pinkie’s house, where they normally gathered for small get-togethers, had a part of the roof you could easily go out onto to sit. It had a great view of the horizon over the ocean, so Sunset had come up here on several occasions to watch fireworks or sunrises or the such.

Right now, she sat alone on top of a thin layer of snow watching the moon. The moon and stars you saw were fake; you could never reach those illusions any more than you could reach the end of the desert - but they were still beautiful to look at.

Principal Celestia said, at least, that she was impressed with how quickly Sunset improved at the art of portals. Sunset was confident that if she tried to force the portal open it would work now. Still, she wanted to wait another month before trying, until her actual first anniversary of coming to Canterlot High.

The official excuse was that there was a small chance of shattering the mirror if the spell went wrong. Another month of practice would bring that chance down to zero. More privately, a part of Sunset didn’t want all of this to end just yet. Going back to the real world now would be like waking up from a pleasant dream. Everything here was so easy and happy. But it felt like she had work tomorrow.

The only other year of her life that she could argue was better than this last one was when Celestia first took her off the streets. Sunset still remembered how elated she was back then to have been recognized by Princess Celestia herself, to have been set free from her old life, to have a bright future - to have felt like she’d accomplished something.

Which of those years had been better? They were so different it was hard to compare.

Of course, her older memory was spoiled a bit by the burnout and betrayal she’d experienced later. Maybe the answer would depend on how much of a betrayal it was, how much Sunset’s bias distorted everything. Sometimes, when she remembered her first year as Princess Celestia’s student, she could almost forgive the princess for using her as a pawn.

The window behind Sunset opened and Twilight came out. Twilight sat down next to Sunset, briefly looked up at the same moon, then back at Sunset.

“Hey,” said Twilight. “What are you out here for? Nothing at the party was bothering you, right?”

“No. I was fine,” said Sunset. “I just wanted to come out here to think.”

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to make the party, or being here at all more fun, just let me know,” said Twilight.

Twilight was so easy to read. Sunset liked that about her. It was cute, in a way.

“Are you worried about next month?” Sunset asked her. “That’s what I was thinking about.”

Twilight nodded.

“I don’t want you to leave.” Twilight looked down at the snow. “I know I only got to cut in line to help you, but I don’t want to deal with this kind of stress anymore.”

“You’ll be fine,” said Sunset. “Even in the worst-case scenario, Celestia will make it fine. You’ll be as happy as everyone else here. And I’ll remember you no matter what happens. You were my first real friend. That’s not something I can forget.”

“I know all of that.” Twilight closed her eyes. “But I still feel like I’m getting left behind. You were my first friend, too.”

“I’m not just going to leave you behind,” said Sunset. “My offer to come with me still stands. I can help you -“

“You’re doing it again!” Twilight covered her ears.

“Doing what? Giving you hope?” Sunset repeated Twilight’s line with a sigh of frustration. She’d hoped she could have softened Twilight up a bit more by now. “What’s wrong with having hope for once?”

“Where I come from being positive is rude,” said Twilight. “‘Don’t give me hope’ is just what you say when someone gives you good news or implies that something good could happen. It’s normal. Anything else is like you’re making fun of everyone else’s suffering.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Sunset remembered Twilight giving her that line on multiple occasions.

Sunset did understand more and more that it wasn’t just Twilight who was broken. She was simply a reflection of the culture she grew up in.

“It’s the hardest thing for me to get used to here. I’ve never seen anyone be optimistic before coming here. Not really, anyway.”

“I don’t know if I’d agree with that,” Sunset said. “Everyone here has absolute pessimism about the outside world.”

“But they are positive about some things,” said Twilight. “Just having a positive opinion about a movie or something is usually shot down. A lot of people would call me overly optimistic just for thinking this place could be good. Having hope for the outside world just feels wrong to me.”

Twilight shook her head.

“You said you’d consider staying here.” Twilight turned to Sunset. “Have you not changed your mind at all? Can you tell me Canterlot High isn’t better than Equestria? That you don’t have more fun here? That the people here aren’t nicer to you?”

“I changed my mind about this place a little,” said Sunset. “If someone wants to stay here, maybe it’s okay for them to decide that. It really isn’t the worst thing that can happen. But you never had anything legitimate to choose over this place. I want to give you that much. I want you to come to Equestria with me so you can choose for real.”

“I don’t think anywhere can be good,” said Twilight. “You can’t be happy like this – heck, you can’t be happy at all without paying a price. I can be happy here because I gave something up. I can’t just go to another world and expect to be happy there without paying a price. There’s no hope for any world. That’s just something you need to accept.”

Twilight was being a lot more open recently. Maybe giving her a little bit of slack on this world, giving her and this place a chance, really was paying off.

“You said it yourself.” Twilight rested her chin on her knees. “You were betrayed by the person you cared about the most. Everything you believed in was a lie and you were miserable. A normal relationship couldn’t work out for you. How can you tell me I’m supposed to be optimistic when that’s what it’s like? How can you make light of everything by continuing to hope?”

“What if I can overcome my problems?” Sunset stood up and held her hand down to Twilight. “I’m not going to pretend my problems are as bad as yours, but if I can overcome them then it’s possible. Isn’t it?”

Twilight was clearly terrified, looking up at Sunset, as though she’d just been asked to jump off a cliff. She didn’t take Sunset’s hand, but she didn’t say no or yell at her for trying to give her hope.

“Give me a year,” said Sunset. “I’ll come to terms with the other Celestia. I’ll make friends back in Equestria and I’ll find somewhere I can be happy. Then I’ll come back for you. If I can do all of that, will you give Equestria a chance?”

“It’s not going to work.” Twilight looked away. “Nothing ever works.”

“But if it does! Would you come with me then?” Sunset asked.

“But what if you can’t?!” Twilight stood up. “What if you realize that the world is even more horrible and cruel than you could ever imagine? Will you come back then?”

“Well, I can imagine the world being pretty terrible.” Sunset laughed.

What would the worst-case scenario be? Getting arrested? Sunset was pretty sure using that mirror wasn’t against the law.

“But maybe,” said Sunset. “If I can’t find anything better than here, I don’t see why I wouldn’t come back. ”

Sunset felt like she was so close right now.

She closed her eyes and centered herself. She paced a few steps away from Twilight, thinking carefully about her next words.

“How about this?” Sunset held out her hand again. “One year. Promise me you won’t block your memories for one year. If I come back with hope, you’ll come to Equestria with me. If I’m still miserable by then, I’ll admit you were right. I’ll give up and come back here for good.”

Twilight was still afraid but managed to step forward this time. Whether she was finally curious about Equestria or she thought it was the best shot at getting Sunset to stay here, Twilight summoned the courage. Twilight took Sunset’s hand and nodded firmly.

Somehow this felt like an even bigger accomplishment than even opening the portal would be.

“But let’s try to have fun until then,” said Twilight.

“Sure.”

The two girls went back inside.

The day finally arrived.

A full year had passed now, and Sunset was ready to open the portal.

It was early in the spring again, so the weather was nice once more, bringing out a small crowd gathered around to watch the spectacle. Twilight was there, of course, as Sunset needed her help to cast the spell. Sunset’s friends and Principal Celestia were watching from a safe distance. There were a few other curious students Sunset knew less well, hoping for a spectacle - whether that be the portal, or a small explosion.

Twilight did her part, pointing the staff to the mirror, levitating it, and spinning it around to drill the hole open. Sunset still wasn’t better than her at that technique.

But there was another, equally important job to be done. Sunset closed her eyes and felt carefully for tiny threads of magic that lingered in the inert mirror. Her meditation practice wasn’t just for anger management, but an important part of casting this spell.

There was almost zero chance Sunset could have found them before starting this training, but now, after carefully feeling things out, she did find the one, tiny, straggling fiber.

She closed her eyes and very carefully guided it across the face of the mirror, so it was no longer dangling. Then she copied the thread and stretched that one across as well.

The work was so delicate Sunset needed to block everything else out as she slowly moved her staff crisscross around the mirror, circling it once over. The whole process took nearly an hour and she was already getting tired, but a serviceable network was there now, and the most crucial part remained.

Next, Sunset had to pump all of her energy into the matrix and allow Twilight to finish reopening the portal. If either of them messed this up it would break the matrix and Sunset would have to start over - if she didn’t accidentally break the mirror, that was.

Sunset needed to be forceful, yet precise. She put everything she had, all of her strength and concentration, to make the matrix workable for Twilight. The matrix wobbled but began to strengthen. Then all the fibers snapped forward... but in the right direction!

The mirror shimmered just like it had before Sunset came here!

The portal was open!

“I did it!” Sunset jumped into the air. Such a sense of accomplishment rushed into her. This was impressive even for an elite mage. “I can’t believe I finally pulled it off!”

A couple of students, mostly the ones Sunset didn’t know well, applauded the achievement.

Twilight was much less thrilled with their accomplishment. She was clutching her staff tight, trying hard to smile.

“Y-yeah!” Twilight nodded. “It is impressive. But I guess this is goodbye.”

Seeing Twilight tear up a little made Sunset second guess her decision to go once again. This part may have been harder than opening the portal itself. She reminded herself this was something she needed to do.

“It’s not goodbye. Not forever, anyway.” Sunset put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be back eventually either way."

Twilight nodded.

“I’ll still miss you,” said Twilight.

“I’ll miss you too.” Sunset put a hand on Twilight’s head.

The two of them shared what would be their last hug for some time.

“She’ll totally be back,” said Dash. “See, once you get used to how nice Canterlot High is you just can’t live anywhere else. It’d be too painful by comparison. It’s kinda like going into a hot spring on an icy mountain. The cold’s way too much for you to get out again.”

“Maybe she already came back,” Pinkie suggested. “Cause whatever she runs into is already on the other side of the mirror.”

“Should I be worried that comment almost made sense?” Sunset asked.

“I know we didn’t get off on the right foot.” Rarity put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “But I want you to know I really did enjoy our time together. I’m sad you’re leaving, but I understand.”

Sunset gave her friends a nod. It wasn’t easy leaving them behind. She knew none of them would follow her out, none of them save maybe Twilight.

“I’ll never forget any of you.” Sunset gave all of them one last hug for now, then stepped away. She had to do this now or she’d never be able to tear herself away from them again.

Sunset turned to Principal Celestia, who’d remained silent this whole time.

“So you’re really not going to stop me?” Sunset asked the principal.

“I’ve done everything I can to keep you here,” said Principal Celestia. “If you don’t come back, I couldn’t have kept you here.”

Sunset gave her one last wary look before turning back to the portal.

It would remain open for a full twenty-four hours so Sunset could immediately turn back in the unlikely scenario that the other Celestia told her guards to attack Sunset, or anything crazy like that.

“Thank you,” Sunset said. “If I don’t get a chance to say it later.”

Sunset stepped through the portal.

Chapter 18

Being on four legs again felt good! Being a pony had to be the biggest advantage this version of Canterlot had.

It was cold and dark all of a sudden, Sunset reminding herself that the seasons weren’t in sync between the two dimensions. She left in autumn and arrived in spring. Now she left in summer and arrived in winter.

She lit up her horn to find herself in a vault. Sadly, this wasn’t a room filled with cursed and dangerous artifacts, which made sense if Celestia thought there was a non-zero chance of Sunset coming back for revenge.

It was instead a wide-open room with the mirror portal bolted to the floor in the middle. A single door led out of the room, but there were no other exits. It looked like a good room to put guards to intercept Sunset if and when she came back.

Though clearly, Celestia hadn’t expected her to return this quickly. A year ago, Sunset might have gotten upset about the princess underestimating her, but she felt calmer now.

Maybe it was some lingering paranoia, but she decided to do a test to make sure this wasn’t another pocket dimension. She closed her eyes and cast a spell, making a mana particle appear and drop to the floor.

She’d learned a lot about pocket dimensions and interdimensional travel in the past year. If this was a pocket dimension, even one the size of a solar system, then the particle wouldn’t accelerate as you’d expect it to from gravity.

But this one did. Furthermore, from her estimate, gravity was the same as it was on Equestria. All the lights were green.

Sunset moved to the door. It was locked from the outside, but her magic got it opened easily enough. She peeked her head out of the door to make sure the coast was clear. Sunset didn’t want to talk to anypony else before Celestia if she could avoid it.

There didn’t appear to be any ponies in this area just now, so she stepped out into the hallway. Sunset could see, through the windows, that a blizzard was blowing right now, its icy winds occasionally howling but never with enough force to send a chill through the castle.

Her old home felt like such a lonely place right now.

As she snuck through the halls, avoiding the guards, she couldn’t stop every possible scenario of the coming meeting from going through her head.

She pictured Celestia becoming furious and resuming her scolding of Sunset just as harshly as right before Sunset left. Princess Celestia would call her irresponsible and undeserving. Sunset decided she’d bear that much if the princess did take her back. Though she still couldn’t help but imagine Princess Celestia demanding a guard drag her out of the castle.

She imagined Celestia not even recognizing her and dismissing her without a care. After all, Sunset was just one of a million ponies she’d known in her long life. She wondered which of those two reactions was a crueler vision.

She imagined a more hopeful scenario where Celestia became teary-eyed seeing her student again, dropped everything to embrace Sunset, and apologized herself. Sunset didn’t dare to hope for something like that but silently decided that if it did, she’d immediately forgive Celestia for every real and imagined offense the princess had ever committed.

Princess Celestia was the closest thing to family Sunset had. She could forgive nearly anything of her.

It didn’t take too long to find Celestia, there were only so many spots the princess liked to hang around in. She found Celestia in one of the castle’s many sitting rooms, one of Celestia’s favorites near the dorms of her school.

But Sunset hesitated briefly when she realized Celestia wasn’t alone. She hid for a moment to watch and decide if she wanted this other pony to witness her return.

Draped under her wing was a crying filly that Celestia was consoling. That filly looked familiar. She had a purple mane with a pink stripe through it.

Twilight?

The filly was an alternate version of Twilight Sparkle, which wasn’t too odd. Celestia wasn’t the only pony with alternate versions of herself, though it made Sunset wonder if any of her human friends had pony versions of themselves. Maybe somewhere on Earth, there was another Sunset Shimmer even?

“I’m so sorry,” Twilight apologized with a sob. “I didn’t mean to break down like that.”

“It’s alright,” Celestia soothed her. “I understand how much pressure you’re under.”

“It’s just taking care of the dragon and doing all that work is too much,” Twilight sobbed. “I know you’re trying to teach me to be responsible but - but I wanted to study magic, not dragon training. Why can’t I just do that?”

“Twilight, Spike isn’t here to give you responsibility,” said Celestia. “He’s here to be a friend to you so that you can learn about friendship.

“I don’t want friends,” said Twilight. “I want to study magic! And read books!”

“Friendship is the most important thing,” Celestia said to the little Twilight. “Your magical studies are important, but you must never lose sight of the importance of friends.”

Sunset’s eyes widened and she stepped back in horror. She froze in place and held her breath to keep herself from crying. Her legs trembled and she fell back onto her haunches. She felt sick!

This was exactly the same, wasn’t it?

Celestia replaced her! One year went by and Celestia had already replaced Sunset with a new student. She was still working her new student into the ground, still trying to get her to embrace friendship to activate some weapon, still not telling this filly what she was signing up for! It was the exact same plan!

Sunset looked down at Twilight, trembling as she watched the filly sob. It was like looking at her childhood self and Celestia was doing all of it again. Princess Celestia hadn’t regretted any of that, had done nothing different.

Sunset had just been a tool. When a tool broke you went out and bought a new one.

She realized then and there that it really had all been a lie. She had no family here in Equestria.

Whether she stood there for an hour or a minute she couldn’t say. All she could do was focus hard, trying not to scream or cry or puke. Sunset didn’t want to stay, but couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything that wouldn’t alert Celestia to her presence.

She didn’t hear what else Celestia said to Twilight after that, but eventually Twilight did calm down and Celestia did leave.

Finally, Sunset regained enough control to let out a breath. As she watched Princess Celestia trot off, she decided that the princess wasn’t worthy of explaining herself after all. Seeing this, seeing herself so effortlessly and carelessly replaced, spoke louder than any words ever could.

But Twilight… Sunset couldn’t just leave her here to make the same mistake she did. She stepped out from her hiding spot.

“Hey, kid,” Sunset said to her.

“Who are you?” Twilight looked up at her.

“Do you know anything about the elements of harmony?” Sunset asked. “Or Nightmare Moon?”

“Huh?” Twilight clearly didn’t.

It was all true. Celestia hadn’t changed one bit.

“Listen.” Sunset tried to smile through the tears. “Princess Celestia isn’t that great. She’s just using you as a weapon. She doesn’t care about you or friendship or anything of the sort. It’s all just part of her stupid plans. If you want to study magic, then do that and just forget about friendship. You’ll be happier that way.”

“What?!” Twilight was immediately offended by the idea. “How can you say something mean about Princess Celestia?! She’s Princess Celestia!”

Sunset just gave her one last smile before turning to leave, smile fading immediately.

She revered the princess like that at one point, when she was Twilight’s age and first came here. She knew she’d never be able to reason Twilight out of this, not without making a massive scene at least.

She just left, having said something.

Twilight didn’t call the guards on her or anything. Sunset simply walked back to the chamber that held the mirror portal. She held her breath and her tears and walked back toward the portal.

Back through the empty, snowy hall and finally to the empty room where just the mirror stood. She gazed into the dark mirror, the room just bright enough to show her reflection.

The first time she looked into this mirror she saw herself as an alicorn, blazing with light and magic. Now she was a broken, miserable thing. She put her hoof on the mirror.

Just like Principal Celestia said, it had gone from a place to escape from, to a place to escape to. One last time, she went through the portal.

Sunset stepped back through the portal. She felt numb even to a change of species at this point.

All of her friends and Principal Celestia were still there, talking about something Sunset was deaf to. Sunset hadn’t even been gone long enough for them to depart.

They didn’t notice her at first. Sunset spent a minute watching them from a painful distance, trying to think of what to say to them. She opened her mouth but failed to speak.

“H-hey!” Her second attempt to call out to them was more successful.

They all turned to her, more confused than anything. Her friends came up to surround her right away.

Her friends!

That thought and their attention were enough to give her a brief smile.

“Huh?” Twilight stepped back in surprise. “You’re back already?”

“See! Told ya!” Dash lifted her head with a proud smile. “After being in this place the outside world must be like a nightmare and uh - you okay?”

That brief smile quickly faded, and the others watched her with concern as she forced herself over to Principal Celestia.

“Can I come back?” Sunset looked up at Principal Celestia.

“Did your talk not go so well?” Principal Celestia knelt down and put a hand on Sunset’s head.

Just that much, just that tiny bit of contact, felt like the world. Sunset finally broke into tears and grabbed on to Celestia as she fell to her knees. Principal Celestia held her gently as Sunset cried.

Chapter 19

Sunset followed Celestia over to the nurse’s office, where there was a bed to lie down in.

She had no idea how long she was there for. Hours, no doubt, went by while Sunset cried until she was too weak to get up. After that, she lay for some time with her head in Celestia’s lap. She had no idea how long she’d lain there, but it was dark outside now.

Sunset thought that having guards chase her down was the worst-case scenario, but now she sincerely wished that’d happened. She realized just how worthless she was to the world.

The pony who loved her the most had so effortlessly and quickly replaced her. All of her talent, her cutie mark, her vision of a potential future, all of that was meaningless. Her world and everypony she knew could just move on without her in a single beat, uncaring and unchanged. How could she believe anything she did mattered?

Princess Celestia, the bedrock of Equestria itself, really was that terrible. There just seemed to be no hope at all, just like Twilight and all the others said. It seemed almost difficult to imagine anypony caring about her at all without some kind of witchcraft to help.

Sunset didn’t speak for a long time, but Principal Celestia remained by her side. Even if this Celestia, deep down, only saw her as having utility, that was still more than Sunset could get back in Equestria.

Finally, Sunset did manage to sit back up and wipe the tears from her eyes.

“There’s just one more thing I need to know,” said Sunset. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“I told you before that I thought you’d come back eventually,” said Celestia. “I admit I didn’t expect it to be so soon, however convenient it is for me.”

Sunset nodded.

She was too drained, too broken to be skeptical anymore. She just wanted something, anything to cling on to. Believing Principal Celestia, giving in to her paradise would be so easy. Everything could be so easy.

Sunset wasn’t sure why she was even hesitating anymore. Giving up would be so nice. The only people who actually cared about her were all here anyway…

As Sunset rubbed her eyes, she saw Twilight peeking her head into the office. As soon as Twilight realized she’d been seen, she darted back behind the door, out of sight.

“Twilight?” Sunset asked.

“Oh. Hey.” Twilight sheepishly came out from behind the door.

“How long have you been there?” Sunset smiled just a little for the first time in what felt like forever.

“Awhile. We’ve been worried about you,” said Twilight. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Sunset shook her head. “But I - I guess I’ll live.”

“Does this mean we’re not going to Equestria?” Twilight asked.

Sunset shook her head.

“You were right.” Sunset fell back onto the bed. “Everything sucks. My life sucks. Everyone is horrible. I hate everything.”

Twilight didn’t look particularly happy about converting Sunset to her point of view. Could turning someone into a cynic ever be satisfying? But she did take a hopeful step forward soon afterward.

“But then does that mean you’re going to stay?” Twilight tapped her fingers together. “You did promise that if you couldn’t find happiness in Equestria you’d stay here.”

She did promise that. Sunset couldn’t imagine ever being happy again, not in a world where you could be so effortlessly replaced.

The need to resist Principal Celestia’s offer. The need to be skeptical. The need to go somewhere in life. The need to ‘help’ Twilight in some way. The need to get over her pain. All of it seemed like such a burden she wanted to throw off and Twilight just gave her the perfect excuse.

“Yes,” said Sunset. “I did promise that.”

Already Sunset felt lighter like some responsibility had been lifted. She could just simply let go of all of it.

“I’ll take your offer.” Sunset turned to Principal Celestia.

Sunset glanced at Twilight to see her trying to hide her satisfaction.

“You don’t have to decide this right now,” Celestia warned her.

“No. I know what I want now, for real this time,” said Sunset. “I want someone to care about me. If you can promise me that much, then it’s all I need. I don’t even care if I am an object anymore, as long as I’m a treasured one.”

“I can promise you that all of your friends and I will care about you if you stay,” said Celestia. “You will be valued.”

“Alright.” Sunset closed her eyes tight and bowed her head. “Then do it! Just make it quick.”

“Are you sure?” Celestia’s smile was almost teasing now. “You may want to take a few more days to think things through.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for over a year!” Sunset held her arm out like she was about to get a shot. “I want to be like the rest of my friends. I want all of this to be over with! Just do it!”

“I can stop feeding off of you whenever you ask me to,” said Celestia, “but once I’ve done it the first time it will be very difficult to ask me to stop. Like getting out of a warm bed on a cold night. I’ll ask you one more time if you’re sure.”

Sunset nodded one last time.

“Yes.”

Celestia put her hand behind Sunset’s head and pulled her closer. Sunset hugged Celestia, burying her face under Celestia’s chin. Celestia patted her on the back as if giving her one last moment to change her mind, before finishing it.

Whatever fear Sunset had melted away when the sensation of having her potential eaten hit her. She understood instantly why the other students loved doing this so much. It felt wonderful!

An incredible wave of warmth and love washed over her like she was being cradled in a nostalgic memory of Hearth’s Warming Eve. She felt safe, like she was with her mother again. She began tearing up again, remembering at long last what it’d been like.

Her mother and Celestia, both the ponies who made her feel this sort of safety, both left her in the end. In different ways, but they did leave her. But this time it wouldn’t go away - this time she would get to hold on to the love. She knew that in her heart.

Her tears were somewhere outside this bubble of warmth that now surrounded her and Celestia. It was just the two of them. Sunset could feel something being pulled away from her, but she didn’t care. She wanted Celestia to take it away, whatever it was. She loved Principal Celestia so much at the moment she’d give her anything.

Sunset melted into that overwhelming sense of warm love. Her breathing slowed until she hardly remembered it. She slowly fell into the most peaceful sleep of her life.

Sunset may have fallen asleep at one point, cloaked in that warmth and the comfort of relief. When she opened her eyes, her head was on Celestia’s lap. That almost mystical feeling was replaced by a more normal sense of comfort.

She got up slowly and rubbed her eyes, the realization that she’d just sacrificed herself to this eldritch god only now seeping into her. Yet it seemed like such an inconsequential detail. Sunset felt nothing but affection for Celestia, smiled unconsciously when she saw her.

Sunset looked out the window. The sun was rising now.

“How long was I asleep for?” Sunset asked.

“Until the following morning,” said Celestia. “You had a lot of pent-up potential. It took some time. I’ve already grown substantially thanks to you. It really was an immense amount of power you held. I could likely eat another four or five students already.”

Sunset was hardly concerned about Principal Celestia gaining power now. If anything, it sounded like a good thing. The stronger her new god was the better.

“So that’s it?” Sunset asked. “My potential is gone now?”

“Yes. You’re no different than all my other students now.”

“I don’t feel any different.” Sunset looked herself over. She could still think clearly. She could still remember Equestria.

She ran through that test, all the capitals of the world, that she’d practiced so well a year ago. They all came easily enough. She supposed having her memories blocked was a different process and all.

“Well, it’s not going to be that immediate, but you’ll know the difference soon enough.” Celestia stood up and helped Sunset up as well. “You’ll feel it.”

Sunset did feel a certain excitement. She looked around the room for something she could ‘try’ in some sense. To her surprise, what she found was Twilight asleep on the other bed of the nurse’s office.

“Huh? Did Twilight stay here all night?” Sunset asked.

“She was worried about you.” Celestia nodded.

It was nice to know someone cared about her. Great, even!

Sunset smiled wide as she walked over to Twilight’s bedside, giddy with excitement at waking her up. She paused for a moment.

It did feel different.

The chance to get to see Twilight again, talk to her now that they were the same, filled Sunset with a feeling of excitement. It was like she was a kid again and about to open up a present. Her smile became almost mischievous.

“Twilight.” Sunset gently rocked Twilight and whispered to her.

Twilight slowly opened her eyes. Sunset tapped the opposite shoulder, causing Twilight to look in the wrong direction. Sunset’s giggling gave away her real location.

It was such a lame thing! Why did it give Sunset this much amusement?

“Sunset?” Twilight wiped her sleepy eyes.

“Twilight!” Sunset couldn’t hold it back. She hugged Twilight right then. The two of them would get to be friends forever!

“Gah! Give me a minute to wake up.” Twilight was unable to stop from being hugged as she continued to wake up. “Wait. But you really went through with it, right? And you’re seriously going to stay?”

Sunset nodded.

“That’s so great! I’m so happy!” Twilight hugged her back, then pulled back. “But you do feel okay, right?”

“Are you kidding? I feel great!” Sunset stood up. “I want to see everyone else right now!”

“I’m sure the others will come looking for you soon,” said Twilight. “You could call them and let them know you’re awake.”

Sunset looked down at her phone. She had about a hundred texts asking if she was okay, though most of them were from Pinkie. These phones really were amazing. Sunset wanted to reply to every message at once, but stopped short.

She felt more playful now.

“How about we go looking for them?” Sunset asked. “I want to tell them all in person! I want to see everyone and – and try everything! Come on! Let’s go!”

“Wah!”

Sunset grabbed Twilight by the hand and all but dragged her outside, not just out of the nurse’s office, but out of the school itself. It was a bit funny, given that Sunset was normally the more reserved one.

Just being outside in the air felt like being inside a memory of a warm summer day. She understood now why Dash always seemed so happy just to walk around town. The light of the sun really was a miracle, one she couldn’t believe she’d had no appreciation for just yesterday. Everything she passed by was like a miracle in itself.

Looking up at the sky, the clouds were suddenly more than just clouds. The wind was strong today and they shifted rapidly from shape to shape. Watching them morph like that was enchanting. She understood why the others all got absorbed in them from time to time. She felt like she could watch it for hours.

Had she really just gotten bored with it all?

“Yo, Sunset!” Dash ran up to her.

Sunset was brought back down to earth, missing the approach of her friends entirely from being lost in the clouds. Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, and Rarity! Sunset couldn’t tell which she was most excited to see.

Sunset ran over and grabbed Dash in a tight hug.

“Yeah, I can tell you went through with getting your potential eaten, huh?” Dash laughed.

“No, you were right! This isn’t bad at all.” Sunset laughed too.

“Guess that means you’re one of us, now!” Dash gave her a thumbs up. “Gotta say, I love the new attitude! And now that you’ve seen how great it is, there’s no chance of you going back now.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Sunset shook her head. “It’d be too hard to go back now that I’ve seen it.”

“Oh wow!” Pinkie came up to hug Sunset next. “Does this mean you’re really going to stay here forever? Then you’re sure to never forget me! Cause I’ll be right in front of you at all times!”

“Yes!” Sunset hugged her friends tight. “I’m staying here forever. I don’t want to leave anymore.”

“Yay! One of us forever!” Pinkie pulled Sunset closer.

“Well, I won’t ask what you saw,” said Rarity, before anyone could bring it up. “There’s no need for that now. There won’t be any need for you to exile yourself to endless training, either. It will be splendid to be able to take classes with you again.”

“That’s right! I can take classes with the rest of you now!”

The thought of getting to go to class in her new state filled her with such incredible excitement. She felt like a kid again, waiting for a holiday, only it was for school somehow.

“There’s so much I want to do now. Everything feels so different and new.” Sunset looked down at her hands, taking a few steps forward.

“We can do whatever you want,” said Dash.

“What do I even want to see?” Sunset asked herself as she kept walking. “We could go to the arcade or the forest. And I want to try eating something now to see if that’s any different. Or I could try watching Star Wars again and see if it feels any different. No offense, but that did get kind of boring after the fifth time for me. Oh! The ocean! That’s gotta be incredible, right?”

Sunset looked down at her staff, realizing she hadn’t forgotten everything she’d learned over the past year just yet. At least her ability to create portals hadn’t gone to waste.

Sunset turned her staff and drilled a portal to the beach, unable to contain her excitement to get there any longer. She could really see it through this side!

Portals were so cool!

She jumped through the portal; her friends much slower to follow.

Now she stood at the shore of the beach for the first time in just a few months. The ocean was so massive and endless that it gave her a chill. Seeing the crystal blue waters reflecting the light of the sun, feeling the breeze and the smell of salt was all enough to bring a tear to her eye.

She wondered how she could have ever thought such a thing was anything but magic.

As she basked in that mystical feeling and remembered that it would never fade, Sunset was certain she’d made the right decision. She didn’t need anything but this.

At the end of the day

Summertime! The sun felt so warm and the air so fresh. A wind blew through Sunset’s hair, calling her towards the forest, towards summer vacation. It smelled like adventure!

Sunset could hardly wait to start as she and the other girls in their usual group stood waiting outside the school for Dash to show up.

Her friends rented an RV to take them out on the camping trip. Sunset couldn’t help but jump up and down a little as Dash pulled up in it. She’d barely been able to sleep last night she was so excited about today. That was something that happened a lot to Sunset.

“Alright, ladies!” Dash opened the door and pointed forward, down the road. “The faster we get in the faster we can get there! Let’s go!”

“There’s no need to rush.” Rarity, surrounded by luggage, began pushing her bags into the RV, struggling with how many there were. “I quite enjoy watching the sights on the way."

“Do you really need all that stuff?” Dash asked. “It’s a three-week camping trip! We’re not moving there.”

“I agreed to go camping, not to live in abstract misery, completely disconnected from society.” Rarity got the last of her belongings and struggled to fit them in what little cargo space remained.

“I’m pretty sure that’s what camping is,” Dash muttered as Rarity went past her. “Minus the misery part.”

“Well, I can’t wait to get there!” Pinkie ran up to the RV much faster, pushing past Rarity. “Omigosh! We get to roast marshmallows and build a campfire and go swimming and tell ghost stories and -“

No matter how many times Pinkie told her scary stories, they never got old. Or any less scary sometimes.

“I can’t wait to go looking for all these rare animals.” Twilight was lost in one of her books, as always, as she walked into the RV. “Do you think we’ll find the sasquatch? It may or may not exist; everyone always forgets shortly after finding it. But how amazing would it be to discover it?!”

These four really were the best friends Sunset could ever ask for. Doing anything with them would be a blast!

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Principal Celestia interrupted Sunset just as she was about to follow the others inside. She waved to Sunset, then beckoned her over.

An unfamiliar girl was standing behind Celestia’s imposing figure, hiding like she was afraid of something.

“Could you come here a moment, Sunset? I have a favor I’d like to ask you,” said Principal Celestia.

“Of course!” Sunset ran up to Celestia, excited at the chance to help her. How cool was an assignment directly from Principal Celestia? “Anything for you, Celestia! I love you!”

Celestia put her hand on the back of the new girl and pushed her out from her hiding place.

“Um...” A shy looking human with long, pink hair finally stepped out from behind Celestia. “Hello. My name is Fluttershy.”

“You must be a new transfer student, right?” Sunset held her hand out, offering to shake.

Fluttershy nervously muttered something.

“She’s a bit spooked by all of this,” Celestia explained. “But Fluttershy isn’t a transfer student, she’s an intruder.”

“What?!” Sunset pulled her hand back, reminding herself that there was nothing to worry about if Celestia was here. “Is it really okay for her to be out here, then?”

“I’m not going to make any trouble,” Fluttershy promised, nervously tapping her fingers together. “I, um, sort of wanted to be like you actually.”

“Fluttershy was frightened by how strange this place can seem to an outsider,” Celestia explains. “Ultimately she cracked and ran straight to me to confess. She explained she was an intruder right away."

“Yeah.” Sunset nodded. “That’s probably what I would have done. It’s the smart thing.”

Celestia smiled softly.

“I didn’t entirely mean to come here,” said Fluttershy. “I was going from dimension to dimension, running from something.”

“So, there’s a monster after you?” Sunset asked.

“Not something like that.” Fluttershy shook her head. “More like something I’d be grateful to forget. I’ve been to a whole lot of worlds, but most of them are - well I don’t like them.”

Fluttershy looked up at Celestia with a smile.

“But this place seems so nice! After talking to Celestia, I think staying here would be a wonderful idea,” said Fluttershy. “There’s nothing to worry about, everypony is nice, everything is so peaceful and nopony expects me to accomplish anything.”

“Did you say every… pony?” Sunset raised an eyebrow.

“Fluttershy’s dimension was very different.” Celestia put her shoulders on what was sure to be a future student. “She used to be a unicorn, actually.”

“A unicorn?!” Sunset gasped. “Are those real?”

“Yes.” Celestia laughed softly. “I suppose you wouldn’t remember at this point.”

Sunset didn’t exactly get the joke. Maybe whatever world Sunset came from had unicorns in it?

Sunset hardly remembered her old life and she didn’t care to. She just assumed it was completely horrible like everyone else’s, and that was good enough. Any unicorns in her old world weren’t worth remembering.

“I’d like you to be Fluttershy’s friend for a little while,” said Celestia. “Take her on your summer vacation with you. She’s still not entirely sold on the idea of letting me eat her potential and would like to watch some of my other students for a bit first.”

“Of course you can come with us!” Sunset held her hand out to Fluttershy. “Canterlot is an amazing place! I’ve been here for - uh - How long again? I guess I had so much fun I forgot.”

“It’s been a little over twenty years since you first came here,” said Celestia.

“Wait, really?” Sunset turned back to Celestia, then looked down at her hand. “On the one hand, I feel like I just got here yesterday, but on the other, it feels like I’ve been here forever - for thousands of years. Twenty years feels like the only incorrect amount of time.”

“That’s kind of the only part that scares me,” Fluttershy admitted. “I know Celestia said she wouldn’t unless I asked but - is getting it done scary?”

Sunset shook her head.

“No, it’s great! Getting your memories clouded is like jumping into a pool,” Sunset explained. “It’s best to just jump in and get it over with.”

“Maybe,” said Fluttershy. “But I always got into pools ever so slowly.”

“Well come on, I’ll introduce you to my friends.” Sunset led Fluttershy to the RV.

“H-hello,” Fluttershy meekly introduced herself to the others.

“Thank you very much, Sunset.” Celestia gave Sunset a pat on the head that made the girl’s heart leap with joy.

“I love you, Celestia!” Sunset pushed up on her tippy toes to hug her principal.

“I love you too.” Celestia hugged back.

Like everything else, the feeling of being loved by Celestia never dulled. That catharsis of finally being loved and valued at long last was always there with every hug.

Celestia loved her! She was loved. She was valued.

Sunset let go, smiling wide, tears of happiness in her eyes.

Celestia gave her one last pat on the head before sending her off.

Sunset ran towards the RV, smiling wide that she got to be with her friends.

In her mind, Sunset knew she’d been off to this very camp at least five times before, but the excitement of going still gave her a thrill. She couldn’t wait to see it! To go on this adventure with her friends!

Sunset lied down next to the window in the back of the RV and waved to Principal Celestia as she vanished from sight. Life really was perfect now. Sunset had everything she could ask for. The only thing left to wish for was for things to remain like this forever, but Sunset already had that too.

On the last day before she left the castle forever, the retired Princess Celestia went down to the basement. The objects deep in this vault weren’t locked up simply because they were each dangerous in their own right. No, these were, for her, reverse-trophies. They were reminders of her own past failures.

Out of all of them, gathered through a thousand years, a broken mirror in the corner was the one she felt regretful about the most.

Celestia reminded herself that she had tried as hard as she possibly could to reopen the portal, to find Sunset. All she accomplished in the end, thanks to a failed experiment, was leaving the mirror cracked and permanently destroyed, with none of its original magic left.

Celestia reminded herself that all of this had been necessary. Virtually the same plan had worked with Twilight Sparkle and now Celestia had everything she wanted. Sacrifices needed to be made. If Twilight had broken too, as she very nearly had, Celestia would have simply tried yet again with Luster Dawn.

Yet still, despite her success, this broken mirror remained in the basement.

Twilight would carry on blaming herself for this entire situation, despite the fact that Celestia had suggested the idea that had ultimately broken it. But that was the way things were now. Twilight was driven to carry the countless burdens Celestia had left her. She would leave everything in this room as it was, for Twilight to deal with.

“I’m sorry." But she saw only her own reflection in the broken mirror. “All I can do for you now is hope that you’ve found happiness wherever you’ve gone.”

Celestia had everything she wanted now; had gotten everything she wanted out of Twilight. Every one of her goals was accomplished. Yet somehow, she wasn’t happy.

Celestia turned, leaving the broken mirror to the darkness forever.

Author's Note

Special thanks to Chatoyance for fixing a ton of my horrible grammar mistakes.