“This was just before the premiere. You can see how nervous they all were,” Sunset said warmly as she swiped through the picture gallery on her phone. “Oh, and this is Pipp freaking out backstage after she ripped her dress during her first scene. Thankfully, Rarity was in the audience and fixed it right up between scenes, and I don’t think anyone else even noticed. Here they all are taking a bow at the end of the last performance.”

“Oh, they all look so adorable,” Cadence cooed, watching over her shoulder as the two of them stood in the municipal parking lot together. “And look, there you are.”

“Yeah,” Sunset said with a smile. “Didn’t expect them to drag me onto the stage to take a bow with them.” She sighed. “You know, I didn’t get to do any theater stuff in college. Didn’t realize how much I missed it. It’s gonna be hard handing the reins back to Luna next year.”

“You could always ask her to take you on as a co-advisor,” Cadence suggested. “Sounds like she does owe you one for saving the club from Celestia’s wrath in the first place.”

“Speaking of the wrathful one,” Sunset said, putting her phone away and looking towards her approaching boss.

“Colluding with the enemy again, I see,” Principal Celestia said cooly as she walked up to them.

Cadence giggled and went in for a hug. “You are incorrigible. Hello, Celestia.”

Celestia smiled and returned the hug. “Good to see you, Cadence.” After breaking the hug, she looked over towards Sunset. “Ready for the most boring Tuesday night of your life?”

“I guess,” Sunset replied a little unsure of herself, looking towards city hall where the regular school board meeting was about to be held. “I don’t really understand why you asked me to come. Isn’t this something you should bring your vice-principal for, or maybe one of the veterans like Gladys or Cheerilee?”

Cadence took it upon herself to explain. “It’s a tradition of the school district to bring all first year teachers to the first spring meeting, giving them a chance to learn the processes after they had some time to acclimate to their new schools.”

“Wait,” Sunset said, suddenly breaking out into a cold sweat, “all first year teachers? Does that mean?”

A smug and oily male voice suddenly spoke up from behind her. “Well, well, if it isn’t Sunset Shimmer.”

Oh, fuck me sideways! As every muscle in her body suddenly tensed up, Sunset stood stock still for a moment, her jaw working silently through a slew of insults before she turned around and said between clenched teeth: “Hello, Dapper. You look … well.”

The man was about Sunset’s age, wearing a tailored suit and tie that probably cost more than Sunset’s first car, dark hair slicked back with just a little too much application of gel. He regarded her over the rim of his designer glasses, letting his eyes run over her body just a little too long, as if remembering something with a slight smirk. “I wish I could say the same,” he replied eventually. “Still rocking that rebel without a cause look, I see. I thought you’d at least dress the part of a professional by now.”

She simply stared daggers at him as her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides.

Thankfully, Cadence took the opportunity to clear her throat and give the man a pointed look. “Mr. Facade, how about we head inside?”

Not breaking eye contact with Sunset and the smirk never leaving his face, he replied: “Of course, Principal. See you inside, Sunny-Buns.” With that, he followed Cadence towards the entrance.

After the two Crystal Preppers were out of earshot, Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow: “What the heck was that?”

Sunset held up her hand in a silent request for a moment as she began to pace back and forth for a bit. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Deep breaths, Sunset. After getting her emotions down from seething to mere simmering, she turned back towards Celestia who was still waiting for an answer. “You remember the first day of the school year when I told you about the moron who took that Crystal Prep job from me because of his family connections?”

Furrowing her brows, she nodded after a moment. “Vaguely. So?” She pointed towards the door Cadence and the man had just gone through with a questioning look.

“Behold the moron,” Sunset confirmed. “Dapper Facade.”

Celestia frowned. “Alright, that explains some of it. First impressions are, he’s a bit of a smarmy asshole, I’ll grant you that. But you’re not normally this … flappable. What gives?” As a career educator, this Celestia was just as capable of reading someone’s body language as her royal counterpart, not that Sunset thought her body was currently anything but screaming its displeasure loud enough for anyone able to see lightning and hear thunder to pick up on.

Sunset looked off to the side. “Well, I told you we were in the same dorm while we were studying abroad. I’d just come out of a bad break-up, so I was in a weird headspace, and let’s just say maybe I jumped into a casual fling that turned a little toxic in the end.”

Standing there silently for a moment, Celestia’s face made some weird movements. She brought her hand up to her mouth and looked at Sunset with a mirthful twinkle in her eye. “Oh, hohoho, hihihi … HAHAHAHA!!!” It didn’t take long before she was, somewhat unexpectedly, doubled over in a full belly laugh, her laughter echoing across the parking lot. “Oh, my stars! Are you telling me that after you broke up with Sparkle, that guy caught the rebound!? Hihihi.”

“I’m not proud of it, you know, so you don’t have to rub it in,” Sunset said while blushing furiously. She hadn’t quite expected that reaction from her mentor. “Please don’t tell Gladys about this, or I’m never gonna hear the end of it.”

“Oh, I haven’t had a laugh like that in years. My lips are sealed,” Celestia promised, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye after she’d brought the last of her giggles under control. “Seriously, though, are we gonna have a problem when we go in there?”

Sunset shrugged, somehow feeling better after hearing Celestia’s silvery laughter in spite of being the butt of the joke. “Only if he opens his mouth.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. The understanding is that first year teachers are supposed to be seen but not heard at these things. That includes you, in case you’d forgotten.”

Sunset shrugged again, made a motion to zip her mouth shut, then added another motion, and another, and another, and another, and yet another as Celestia grew visibly confused.

“What was that?”

“Wasn’t that obvious?” Sunset replied, repeating the motions more slowly while adding a verbal explanation to go along with them. “I zipped my mouth shut, locked it with a key, dug a hole in the ground, buried the key in the hole, built a house on top of the hole, then moved into the house atop of the hole with the key in it.”

The confusion gave way to recognition as a sad smile made its way onto Celestia’s face. “I miss her too sometimes, you know.”

Sunset nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Whenever I’m upset, I try to remember one of her jokes. But they become unfunny when I try to tell them.”

Celestia drew closer and laid a comforting hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “Ready to head inside?”

“Gimme a minute. I’ll catch up.”

Nodding and giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, Celestia turned to head inside.

As Sunset stood there, gathering her thoughts, another woman approached from the shadows of the late evening, the white curls of her silvery hair lightly swaying as she walked. “Good evening. Ms. Shimmer, was it?”

“Headmistress Opaline,” Sunset replied in surprise. “Yes, good evening to you. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“We teach grades one through four in house at the orphanage,” she explained her presence, that same unreadable expression on her face she had worn when Sunset first met her. “I’ve taken note of the fact that Misty has been spending a lot of her time at CHS lately, outside of regular school hours. I hope she’s not troubling you.”

“Not at all. Misty had a bit of a rough time integrating with the rest of her peers at first,” Sunset replied carefully. “I’m glad she’s more actively participating in after school activities these days.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Opaline said coldly. “She also tells me that you’ve been looking into the matter of her birth mother.”

Somehow I wish she hadn’t. “It just so happens that I had some connections that led me onto the right trail. I’m told you don’t have any records, so I thought Misty deserved to know as much of the truth as I could find. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Drawing very close and giving Sunset a penetrating look that felt like a cold fire, Opaline said: “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Ms. Shimmer.”

For some reason, Sunset felt like that had almost come out as a threat, but she wasn’t the type to cower before anyone except maybe Celestia. So she drew herself up to her full height instead of retreating. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Not backing down either, Opaline replied. “I’m sure your heart is in the right place, and that you believe you’re doing the right thing. But you’re a rookie teacher. I deal with abandonment issues, all day, every day. And I try to teach these kids to look forward, not backward. Reopening those old wounds can be detrimental to their development.”

On the face of it, the argument made sense, and Sunset briefly had to look away as her regret welled up about how she had initially fucked up in how to handle Hitch’s situation. But then some other regrets reminded her of certain lessons. “You may be right,” she said evenly, “it can hurt to face our past. I may just be a rookie, but I know a thing or two about facing my own past, and we all have to face our past sometimes in order to heal and really move forward, instead of just pretending to move forward. I think Misty is at an age where she needs that.”

Opaline stared back, and for the first time Sunset felt like she could detect some emotion behind those blue orbs, a momentary flash of anger. Then something odd happened. Her eyes almost seemed to change for a moment, growing softer and seemingly even changing color for a split second before she clenched her eyes shut and moved her head to the side, as if trying to hide or suppress something in the moment. When she looked back up, her eyes were as cold and steely blue as before. “Heed my advice, Ms. Shimmer, before it’s too late: You should drop this fool’s errand of trying to find her mother,” she said in an intense whisper, her voice dropping even lower for the final few words, “for Misty’s sake. Before she gets hurt.”

Not awaiting a reply, Headmistress Opaline Arcana turned and walked away in the direction of city hall, pausing momentarily with what seemed like an involuntary jerk of her head before resuming as if nothing had happened.

Sunset was left stunned, and it took her another minute before she gathered herself and headed inside for the school board meeting as well.

She didn’t know it yet, not consciously at least. But on some level deep down she could feel it. The opening shots of a battle had just been fired, a battle that would end the war which had begun in Maretime Bay over three years ago, one way or another.

Author's Note

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