Late-Night Phone Call

“Hi my darling~ I got your message earlier, and I was hoping I’d catch you in person, but…C’est la vi. I haven’t been able to catch much air lately, and trust me, I’ve been trying. Until my workplace gets someone else in here, I’m stuck, but it’s not for nothing! I just so happen to be privy to a little event going on over the weekend - a rather spicy sale if I do say so myself. I for one think that would be a lovely time to go shopping, and it would be a delightful excuse to make up for lost time. I’m really trying to find some way to make it special, but at the end of the day if all I can say to have done is spend time with you, then I think that’s a good deal. I’ll see you soon, my sweet. Much love.”

The message concluded with the sound of a kiss being made in the air at the speaker. The chime signaling the voicemail had ended sounded off a moment later.

Sunset at once was left smiling and disappointed by the message. It would have been really nice to punctuate the days with some extra Rarity time. They hadn’t had one of those late-night phone calls in what felt like ages, even if it was closer to a week or a week and a half by now, and they also hadn’t really found much opportunity to spend some time together other than in passing throughout the school day. That’s all Sunset had wanted to do lately, with the kind of week she’d been having, but it seemed the trials of late would have to include missing the girl who had made these weeks and months that much more livable with her charm and the moments they’d shared. What made it worse was knowing that Rarity had already been feeling burnt out shortly before her schedule at work had doubled down, so she wasn’t faring much better on her end.

Sunset quietly hoped she’d finally get fed up and just quit. Yes she would need the money to be able to afford her own place eventually, but that place clearly had no respect for the girl’s time, and nothing about what she’d heard suggested there was an abundance of consideration being had for her regardless. You can’t just dump those kinds of hours on a student in the middle of the school year like that, and certainly not as the holiday crowds were starting to surge. Why was Rarity letting her availability get stepped on like that anyway? Who cared what the business needed? Rarity needed a life. Rarity deserved a life.

It frustrated Sunset. She tried to distance herself from that, though, as even thinking about it as much as she had was making her chest tighten. She’d been struggling with her temper enough as it was.

Sunset pulled her eyes away from the phone in her hand and sat back. Out the windshield and past the sea of vehicles sitting illuminated in the CHS parking lot, the front doors of the school stood tall, beckoning entry for anyone coming in out of the darkness. It managed to look at once shaded and well lit from the position of the lights in the courtyard around it, and it was in these subtle details - the arches, the stylized stonework, the way the shadows and light intermingled so intimately - that the likeness of the royal capital of Equestria could be seen. It took a bit of squinting, and perhaps just the right angle of the head, but it was there. It was like art.

Sunset let slip a sigh. The prospect of going to school was much less appealing on some days than others, that was for sure, but it was different this time. There was something she didn’t want to do beyond those doors, but it needed to be done, and it mattered too much to let it slide. It felt like duty.

Duty to who, though? Herself? The school? The city at large? The people who had her back, despite everything?

Sunset turned her head, gaze passing by what little could be seen in this dark Beetle’s interior to look at Fluttershy in the driver’s seat. Normally they sat together in the morning and listened to music while they were too groggy to have much in the way of conversation at such an early hour, but today the car was silent. Fluttershy’s head was back and her eyes were closed, taking advantage of the silence and the time they had to sit here to catch up on the sleep that she’d been missing over the weekend - anxiety was not lending itself well to rest, and a nap would do her good. It wasn’t entirely clear if the nap was deliberate, but it would do her good all the same, and Sunset wasn’t about to interrupt her rest.

It had only been slightly shorter than a day and a half since Sunset had made her slip of the tongue and spilled the truth of her situation, but it felt like in that time she and Fluttershy had bonded a lot. There was no doubt in her mind that Fluttershy was an ally, and she had nothing left to keep from her. Barriers had broken down almost literally overnight, and in addition to that closeness, it felt freeing to finally be fully and completely honest. Every day for the last four years had been spent under lock and key, even to the few people who she would consider friends, and now she finally had someone who she didn’t have to hide from. It was like stepping out into the sun’s light after having spent half her life wreathed in shadow.

Maybe they hadn’t come up with a more meaningful solution since they first started talking about it, but that didn’t change the fact that to Sunset, this was a gift. She wanted to honor it, somehow.

Sunset’s eyes left the dozing form of Fluttershy to find the dashboard. The readout was dark, but a tap of a button on the control panel brought it to life. 6:22 AM. 23 now. Probably late enough.

Sunset looked back at Fluttershy and cringed a little. It didn’t feel good, but she had to disturb her. She tried to do so as unobtrusively as possible by reaching over the divider between them and gently touching her shoulder in some mix between a tap and a nudge. “Fluttershy,” she whispered.

Fluttershy didn’t stir at first. Sunset had to tap her a couple more times before her eyes sluggishly opened. The sides of her hands were brought to her eyes a few moments later, muttering something that sounded like a question but could have just as easily been random noise.

Sunset tried not to feel too guilty as she gave a little smile in greeting, though it went unnoticed by the very groggy girl she’d just woken up. “Hey. I was gonna go in and I didn’t want you to be confused.”

Fluttershy gave a wordless sound in response. She slowly started to contort in her seat, stretching as little as the car seat would allow, then fell back and muttered blearily, “Okay.”

She tried not to feel too guilty, but that wasn’t to say Sunset succeeded. “Sorry.”

”It’s okay…” One of the hands rubbing her eyes slipped from her face well before the other did. She stared ahead at nothing for a bit, and just as Sunset was reaching for the door handle, Fluttershy asked in that half-conscious kind of voice, ”What did you want to do for…after school?”

Sunset paused. “Uh…” She sat back in her seat, hand still resting on the door handle as she considered this. “Goooood question, actually. Uh…”

They hadn’t done a particularly good job of planning, apparently. It had been a very stressful couple of days for Sunset, and Fluttershy didn’t exactly have the best weekend either, so there was some precedent for it, but still, it would probably pay to have a basic plan of action for…pretty much anything that wasn’t a weekend.

”You can always come to my house…”

Sunset pursed her lips together in uncertainty, hand slipping from its spot on the door handle and slapping quietly against her thigh. “I dunno, I don’t wanna overstay my welcome with that.”

”It’ll be okaY-“ The end was squeaked as Fluttershy spoke mid-stretch, arms going up high above her head as she arched her spine a little and dropped back down into the driver’s seat. ”I had someone over all the time back in freshman year, my parents don’t mind…”

“I’m more concerned about the staying over part, personally.”

”It might be okay…”

“And if it’s not?”

There wasn’t a verbal response to this. A few seconds later, Fluttershy let out a wordless noise of concern. It came off as concern for Sunset specifically.

Sunset smiled wearily in response to this. “Just weekends is a big improvement over what I had.”

”It’s not enough.” It sounded almost petulant and whiny at first, though Fluttershy’s voice filled out, increasing the assertive quality as she repeated herself: “It’s not enough.”

Sunset could only shrug. Her tone and smile became more fatalistic: “It’ll have to be.”

“It’s not.” Fluttershy’s fists lightly impacted her lap as she proclaimed this. “It’s not enough. No one should have to sleep on the street, Sunset, that’s awful. This is awful.”

Sunset didn’t know how to respond to that. Her gut instinct was to play it down, but that might come off as dismissive.

“There has to be something we can do.”

Sunset cast her gaze forward out the windshield, finding the front door to the school where it stood illuminated by its own lights. “I’m gonna talk to Luna.”

It wasn’t quite confusion on Fluttershy’s face, but it was adjacent to it. “The vice principal?”

Sunset nodded. “The school’s already trying to keep everything quiet. If they find out I’m on the street…well, that’s not exactly a good look for them. They’ve got every reason to want to put a stop to that.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to talk to the principal principal, in that case..?”

Sunset winced, then swallowed. The mental image of approaching Dean Celestia didn’t make it past the equivalent of the first frame before she was all but tackling it out of the back of her skull. “I trust Luna more.”

“Okay…” Fluttershy didn’t sound certain of this, but she sounded willing to take her word for it. “Were you gonna do that now?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Sunset couldn’t restrain the smile this brought her. She leaned over in her seat, reaching past the divider and stretching over a bit into Fluttershy’s space to give her a one-armed hug around the shoulders. “I really appreciate that, but I think I’d rather you get a little extra sleep while you’ve got a chance.”

Fluttershy let out a noise that was equal part complaint and coo as she leaned into the hug. “I wanna help…”

“I know.” Sunset tightened the hug just a bit. “It means a lot to me.”

Fluttershy hummed out another quiet coo. She closed her eyes and savored the embrace, slightly awkward though it was, given where it was happening.

Sunset was content to stay there like that for a little while. She rubbed Fluttershy’s shoulder, and once her back started to protest from how it was being bent to reach over, she retracted herself back over into her seat, then over further to prepare to leave. “I’ll be back.” The passenger side door opened, and Sunset stepped out into the cold morning air that swirled in to greet her. “And if I’m not, I’ll text you later.”

“Okay.” Fluttershy began to wave, then stopped as she suddenly blurted, “Oh!” She reached forward in her seat, pulling open the glove compartment, from which she retrieved a small rectangular container of thin blue metal with a plastic handle. Once she had it, she was quick to offer it to Sunset. “Don’t forget this!”

Sunset wasn’t sure what she was looking at as she accepted it, though it dawned on her as she recognized the lunch box for what it was and felt the weight of something inside that had been packed for her. She closed the passenger door, only to come around the perimeter of the Beetle to Fluttershy’s side with a growing grin, then pulled the driver door open so she could give Fluttershy a proper, full hug. It was returned in earnest with a smile made of sunlight.

It’d only been two days since they started working together, and already Sunset found herself feeling moved by small kindness after small kindness. Fluttershy was practically a wellspring of them.

She needed to honor this treatment somehow, one day. She had to.

Sunset strode up to the CHS main building with a spring in her step that all but halved the time it took to reach the front door. She made a quick detour to her locker to drop off the lunch box, and once that was done she made her way towards the hall that would bring her to the vice principal’s office.

The cheer that Fluttershy had put into her lasted until Sunset rounded the corner and saw the door to Luna’s office, where her momentum swiftly stalled out. She didn’t stop moving, but the speed of her steps had notably dropped as she made her way up till she was standing in front of it. Her hand twitched, but nothing else happened. Just staring at the door more or less directly in her face, currently closed.

Part of her was still wondering if perhaps this was a mistake. Maybe this wasn’t the best way to do things…but if this wasn’t it, Sunset didn’t know what else she could do. There wasn’t anyone who both knew what happened during the Fall Formal and was willing to help that Sunset felt even remotely comfortable approaching if not Vice Principal Luna. There certainly wasn’t anyone else who fit those criteria that were in a position where they might be able to do something. This was the start and finish of the options Sunset could think of without taking measures to fabricate more.

Logically speaking, it was worth a shot. The worst thing she could be told was no. Logic wasn’t what was holding her back, however.

Sunset stood there in front of the vice principal’s office door for at least a minute, maybe two. At some point she found herself with her jaw clenched and her eyes squeezed shut. It was at that moment that she impulsively threw up a fist and knocked it twice against the door, slightly harder than necessary, but quick enough that she couldn’t stop herself from doing it once she started. She regretted it, in a way, but it was too late now.

It only took a handful of seconds for someone to answer. The handle to the door jerked sideways as the door swung open, and Vice Principal Luna was standing over Sunset in the doorway. Her neutral expression shifted slightly to a familiar light smile she kept on-hand for when speaking with students. “Good morning, Miss Shimmer.”

“Good morning.” Sunset swallowed to try and unclench her throat, offering a strained smile that must surely have looked as forced as it felt. For the briefest of moments it felt as though she had stalled out completely, though at the last second before the pause became awkward she forced herself to speak. “Can I talk to you about something?”

“You can always talk to me about something, Sunset,” came the pleasant response. She stepped aside as she held the door open for Sunset to enter her office with her. “I wouldn’t be a very good vice principal if you couldn’t.”

Sunset simply gave a polite smile as she stepped into the room, which was - predictably - pitch black, save only for the lit screen of an open laptop sitting on Luna’s desk. She moved over to the seat in front of the desk and sat in it at roughly the same time that the door clicked shut.

Vice Principal Luna followed Sunset’s lead and sat down at her own respective spot at her desk, placing a hand atop the open laptop and closing it. For half a second, the room was completely lightless, though right after there was a click as the lamp was turned on, casting a dull orange glow that did a decent enough job at illuminating half the room. The jury was out on the other half, but nothing was in that half, so it didn’t matter.

Luna took a few moments to settle herself into her swiveling chair more comfortably. “So,” she began, expression and demeanor neutral if slanted positive, “what would you like to talk about?”

Sunset, by comparison, was not relaxed at all and did not look it. She hadn’t moved from how she’d been when her back end impacted the chair, her hands firmly wedged between her thighs like she was trying to warm them. She swallowed the lump in her throat and managed, “Um,” but that was as far as she got into her explanation.

Luna waited patiently. She shifted forward slightly where she sat and placed her elbows on her desk so she could rest her chin neatly atop her interlocked fingers. “Take your time,” she told her, voice pleasant and tone supportive. “We’ve an entire morning at our disposal today.”

Sunset nodded, but the reality was she didn’t know how to do this. She’d rehearsed a little, but such practice was long gone by now. She was really starting to regret not taking up Fluttershy on her offer to come with her. The full attention of Luna was, at least in that moment, a lot to handle.

It took Sunset several seconds more before she found her voice. It took several seconds after that before she was prepared to use it. “I,” she started, slowly, “don’t really know how to say this.”

Luna nodded, motions sedated and measured. Her gaze on Sunset had picked up a curious slant. Not quite inquisitive, but curious. “It’s unlike you to be so apprehensive, Sunset. Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” Sunset nodded, eyes falling to her lap in favor of trying to dodge her eyes around Luna’s. “I’m okay.”

“Is this about our last meeting?”

“Um…” Sunset rubbed her hands together where they were sandwiched between her thighs. “It’s…related, I guess, but not…not like, um, a…”

“Not a direct continuation.”

Sunset nodded again.

Luna nodded in turn. She didn’t react further at first, though after a few moments she lifted her chin off her hands and sat back in her chair, hands remaining before her as they slid a bit more together and lowered onto the desk to rest there. “I’ve said it before, but I feel it’s worth repeating: I am on your side, Sunset. It’s my job.”

“It’s…not.” Sunset almost didn’t finish that thought, but she continued it. “It’s not, though. I’m not a student. I’m not your responsibility.”

Luna’s response came with a two second delay. “Perhaps,” she finally said, carefully. Her tone was close to guarded, but not quite. “Perhaps if you were to peruse my contract as vice principal, you’d find this to be the truth, but this isn’t about contracts or legally-binding obligations.”

“What’s it about, then?” Sunset was sitting forward a bit now, hands in her lap as she looked at Luna intently. “What reason could you even have to want to help me, much less throw effort into it?”

Luna looked at Sunset with some manner of deliberation in her gaze. After a few moments, she asked her: “Is it really so odd to choose the path of compassion when given the choice, Miss Shimmer?”

“It is when you could get in some pretty deep shit over it. Like, I-“ Sunset put a hand to her chest, momentarily looking for the right words for this. “I tried to kill people. Your people. People you’re responsible for. All the rest I took over the minds of, with every intention of marching them into battle in another world. I wouldn’t have thought twice about any number of them dying, if I got what I wanted out of it. I took control of you, even.”

“I am aware of what transpired,” Luna replied coolly.

She nearly stopped, but Sunset pushed with the last of the inertia she’d built up through this conversation: “Then why would you want to help me? What possible reason could you have to want to be on my side in…in anything, honestly? Why are you covering for me when I attacked you?”

Luna’s jaw set. It wasn’t dramatic, but her expression shifted to something akin to displeasure. She remained like that for a few seconds, processing, and after that the displeasure bordered something like bother, which historically was not a great expression for Luna to have when you were on the other side of the table from her. A few moments later she brought one hand to her face, kneading the bridge of her nose between index finger and thumb as she breathed a quiet breath through her nose.

Sunset waited, though not without fidgeting. This wasn’t the conversation she’d intended to have, but now that she was here, she did want to know this. “It just doesn’t make sense to me. You’re doing a lot for me already, and no one’s that selfless.”

“Indeed,” Luna admitted, sounding nearly reluctant as she said it. She kneaded the bridge of her nose for another few moments before she brought her hand down from her face, leveling her gaze at Sunset once more. “Very well, Miss Shimmer. But if I’m to tell you, I’d like it to be in the spirit of openness between the two of us. Is that fair?”

Sunset didn’t know how else to reply but with a nod.

“Fine.” Luna stared through Sunset for a few moments, then nodded as though in affirmation to herself. She still didn’t seem entirely enthusiastic to be saying what she took in a breath to, but it didn’t stop her from sharing all the same: “I confess that it’s not wholly benevolence that inspired my willingness to aid. Not to start, at least. My sister and I had and still have questions we’ve no clear ways to answer, and among them how deep this mess goes, now that it’s landed in our lap. The Fall Formal event represented confirmed first contact with a foreign power from…” Luna hesitated, rolling her wrist with something vaguely akin to dismissiveness, “From beyond the veil? From another dimension? A parallel universe?”

“Parallel universe,” Sunset muttered. “It’s…close enough.”

“Parallel universe, then.” Luna’s chair creaked quietly as she sat back in it, arms folded loosely over her chest. “It’s very apparent this Equestria you hail from wields immense power that we can scarcely understand, and we…I will admit, we panicked.” Luna looked off across the room towards the window as she continued to frown. “We panicked and covered it up. It was the wrong move, but we succeeded, and we got away with it. Upon further consideration and deliberation of what happened, it’s apparent - to me, at least - that whatever powers that be in your realm have little if any interest in reaching out to us on this side of your…portal.”

“Have you gathered that I’m a traitor to my people yet?”

Luna inspected Sunset for a few moments, then nodded. “We’ve gathered something like it, yes.”

“So you know Equestria doesn’t support me.”

Luna nodded. “Yes.”

“And yet you continue to shield me from scrutiny.”

Luna nodded again.

Sunset regarded her for a moment, then let out a quiet scoff as cynicism set in. “So what was the plan, exactly? Buddy-buddy up with me so…what, I’ll cover your ass against anyone who comes in through that portal? Keep me close so you can throw me to the wolves if the government figures out you bucked up?”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “We’ve no plan to sacrifice you, Miss Shimmer, and I’d appreciate it if you abandoned such notions.”

Sunset wasn’t wholly convinced, but she didn’t push it. Instead, she opened her arms expectantly. “What, then? What is it you want from me?”

“Precisely the conversation we are having now: openness and mutual disclosure.”

“So...answers.”

“We did have questions,” came the measured response, “and if you were willing to answer them, it would be appreciated. Several of them stand to make us feel much more secure to know the truth of…and,” she admitted, head dipping ever so slightly as she said it, “maybe a little safer as well.”

Sunset’s gaze fell to her lap, and she found herself with a short-lived rueful smile on her lips as she shook her head. Something about what was said left an ache in her heart, though she couldn’t pin down why in the moment. “Ask, then.”

Luna contemplated this as she sat there, and after a few seconds she came to a decision. “Well,” she started, “of all the questions that stand out to me, chief among them is…” She splayed her hands slightly as she asked, “What comes next?”

“With?”

Luna merely shrugged as she folded her hands together. “Anything. The Fall Formal incident happened, and…now what? What does the future look like in the wake of what transpired?”

Sunset licked her chapped lips as she inspected her lap. Truth be told, that was something she hadn’t spent a great deal of time considering herself. She’d simply accepted her fate and didn’t much mind what that meant, because it didn’t matter what happened to her. “Well…um…”

“We haven’t noticed anyone coming or going through the portal since Twilight Sparkle left us.”

Sunset nodded silently. She thought for a little while longer after that, then sighed and shook her head as she sat back in her chair. “I wouldn’t expect anything to happen from here. Equestria is a bit of an isolationist state, and…I mean,” she chuckled humorlessly, “it’s not like I’m gonna get a chance to pull anything a second time. That portal probably leads straight into a firing line stationed there at all hours after what I did.”

Luna pressed her lips into a thin, worried line. “I’m concerned about the students.”

“Don’t be,” Sunset said quickly. She’d only realized what she’d implied for their safety after she’d said what she did. “Don’t be, it’s- I’m the traitor here, not- you guys didn’t- you did nothing wrong. It wouldn’t be like-“ She made a snap decision not to name-drop either diarch. “-it wouldn’t be like Equestrian leadership to be like that for no reason. Anybody besides me would get turned around. Maybe hit with a like- like a short amnesia spell, just make them forget what happened when they went through. Something like that.”

This did some to assuage her, though Luna didn’t look completely at ease. “How confident are you in this?”

“Very.” Sunset’s tone was resolute, though as she went on, the certainty waned. “I was um…I have extensive training in matters of state in Equestria. Maybe not all the minutia, but certainly the…the tone, certainly, is very familiar to me. Close to heart. I know what Equestria stands for, and it’s not callous brutality.” She inhaled as her gaze strayed to one side, then breathed out, “As ironic as that sounds, coming from me.”

Luna’s expression was neutral as she observed Sunset for a few moments. “Are you, perchance…some manner of leadership, where you’re from?”

”I am.” A few beats passed, followed by a low correction of, “…was. I’m…I was, I mean…heir apparent. Before I failed.”

She’d thought the words many times, but this was the first time they’d ever met her ears. Each word of it stung, but that last one hurt like nothing else. It was like the knife in her chest she'd never quite pulled out twisted, re-opening the wound and letting her experience it all over again.

Sunset had meant to say more, but she found her voice drying up and her eyes unable to leave her hands where she wrung them together in her lap. Her eyes prickled with unformed tears as she sat forward, arms on her knees, looking squarely down at her hands and nowhere near Vice Principal Luna. Didn’t want to see her. Didn’t want to be seen.

The vice principal, meanwhile, was silent. For the longest time Vice Principal Luna said nothing, gazing down at Sunset Shimmer with an unreadable expression. Even as Sunset’s barely audible sniffles disturbed the absolute silence like distant ripples on a still lake, Luna’s stoicism was unmarred. Her presence was as unyielding as it was gentle, like a stone guardian overlooking the valley it had been fashioned to stand sentinel over so many years ago.

She spoke without warning, but the tone could never startle: “You are in ruin.”

Sunset could only just bring herself to nod. She sniffled again, though the only tear that had managed to gather was swiped away before it could slip down her cheek. The shame sat heavy on her shoulders, and every breath had to be toiled for beneath it.

The vice principal nodded at something that wasn’t said. She observed Sunset for a little while longer before her gaze shifted to the side, finding some far corner of the room as she looked past it and off into the distance. “I know what it’s like.”

Sunset didn’t say anything. Luna didn’t wait for her to.

“My closest friend in my younger years was my anger. Sometimes it was righteous. Most times it was…not.” Luna shook her head slowly, like she was watching the shadows of this office play the memories out before her eyes. “I was expelled in my junior year of highschool for my behavior. Four years and many ever-deepening mistakes later, I was sentenced to ten years in prison for a crime I was very much guilty of.” Luna paused, soberly staring off into the distance, her voice low and even. “I had thoroughly damaged my relationship with my family by that point, and what few interactions I was spared during my sentence only served to further strain my familial ties until they broke. When I was released, no one welcomed me home. I was not taken in by anyone, and when I did finally manage to contact my family again, I learned that my father had died four years into my sentence. I was six years too late to apologize to him for anything I'd done, and just as late to say goodbye.”

Sunset rubbed at one eye with the back of her hand with another sniffle. She didn’t know what else to do with herself but to listen.

“To have to pick one’s self off the ground with nothing to their name but loss…” Luna shook her head somberly, teal eyes unfocused still. There were clearly words on her lips, hanging there ethereally, but she did speak them. The ghost of regret hung heavy over Luna’s expression, and for a time she was lost to her reminiscence.

Sunset, meanwhile, continued to listen. The vice principal wasn’t speaking, but it felt like there was a lot being said in the silence that stretched on for well over a minute. She’d learned a lot about what silence could say over the last few months, and there was a lot to hear right now. Things that few people had likely ever stopped to hear.

The silence told Sunset that Vice Principal Luna was a storied woman. Many of her stories were not happy ones. Perhaps they ended well, or at least culminated into something that could be called positive, but the journey that brought her to where she sat in this office had at times been harrowing. Judging by how she kept said office, perhaps her journey was not entirely over yet.

Finally, the spell over Vice Principal Luna broke. Her eyes fell back into focus, and she took in a long, slow breath that she released back out as a sigh. “The point I mean to make is that I know a thing or two about making mistakes, Sunset. Costly mistakes. You and I have both made choices that we will feel the consequences of for the rest of our lives. The only difference-” She turned her chair where it had swiveled slightly so as to more directly face Sunset, “-is that much of my pain is in the past, and yours is very much in the present. I know what it’s like, and to have to bear that burden alone is…” She shook her head, sympathy in her every movement. “That is not a fate I would wish on anyone.”

Sunset didn’t know what to say. She had yet to sit up, and though the tears weren’t building anymore, her thoughts felt almost soupy in composition. Her throat was tight, and words felt so far away from where she was seated.

“Were I to offer to help you, would you accept?”

It was a simple question, but one that took Sunset a not insignificant amount of time to find the words for. “Maybe.” She almost couldn’t hear herself say it, and she had to clear her throat before she could try to repeat it. “Maybe.”

Luna nodded, slowly. “Why do you hesitate?”

Sunset swallowed, licking her lips a little. She raised her head up, though not enough to look at Luna directly. Her hands were much easier to focus on. “I don’t know what you could do for me.”

“I have a variety of means available to me. However, I think the question best asked here is what kind of help you need most.”

This was the point that Sunset figured would come eventually. It was something she had thought about quite a bit before she set foot in this office that morning, but in spite of that she found herself face to face with the matter of being candid with her situation to Luna as though it had snuck up on her, and she had to consider it all over again like it was a fresh new idea she’d only just thought up. It wasn’t actually untrodden ground, so navigating it wasn’t quite so daunting nor arduous, but it still demanded some thinking through.

Eventually, she reached the only conclusion that she felt made sense: what did she have to lose? This was one of her few options regardless, and Luna seemed like she not only understood, but sympathized. It wouldn’t get any better than that.

Sunset took in a breath, tried to ignore how her heart was beating a little faster, and looked up at Luna to just say it: “I need a place to stay.”

Luna’s expression remained largely neutral, though a subtle furrowing of her brow could be seen if one watched her face closely. “Do you not have a place you are staying?”

Sunset bobbed her head back and forth with pursed lips in a show of ‘yes and no.’ She rubbed her hands together in an attempt to find an outlet for her nervous energy. “It’s technically shelter, but it’s…it won’t last me through winter. It's already rough. I um…I’ve been- I’ve got someone that I’m going to start, um, staying with over the weekends, but her parents…like, she knows, but her parents don’t, and it’s…” She fumbled a little bit, then settled with a side-cast look and a somewhat lame, “Yeah.”

“Is this a fellow student?”

Sunset hesitated as she was faced with the need to protect Fluttershy. She was silent for a few moments, then eventually replied, “Yes.”

Luna nodded thoughtfully. “May I ask who it is?”

Again Sunset was faced with the thought of protecting Fluttershy, and this time she clenched her jaw shut as she bit on the inside of her lower lip.

Luna waited. When she was met with silence, she patiently reminded, “I understand the value of discretion, Sunset, but I want to help you. If there are others who also want to help you, I have every reason to want to help them as well. Collaboration can only benefit us.”

Sunset nodded, if a little stiffly. She had since concluded that she could probably trust Luna, but “probably” was not "definitely," and that did not seem good enough. Sunset would take no risks, regardless of how unlikely they were. “I’d like to keep that to myself for right now.”

A small frown tugged at Luna’s lips. She considered this, then sighed an acquiescing, “Very well. Such caution is not necessary, but it is at your discretion. Regardless…” The vice principal sat back in her seat, which creaked under her shifting weight. “The matter of shelter should be resolved as soon as possible. Have you considered making use of local homeless shelters to at least take the edge off of this matter?”

Sunset shook her head. “I don’t have identification. Even if I got it, that’s a link back to this world’s Sunset Shimmer that doesn’t add up. Big loose end.”

“Right.” Luna seemed to pause to process something, then went on. “...yes, that is a…concern.”

“I also can’t get a job, because, y'know…same issue.”

Luna nodded along. “It is possible to land you with employment, of a sort, but that invites other problems, such as lack of protections that you especially would need, given your circumstances. Representation is a luxury that…hm.” Luna tapped her chin, expression becoming increasingly thoughtful as the full breadth of the matter began to make itself apparent to her as she explored it. “This is quite the puzzle we have here, isn’t it?”

Sunset resisted the urge to sigh. She’d navigated these mental gymnastics many times in the past four years, and at no point had her prospects ever been what she’d describe as bright. Revisiting them didn’t bring a great deal of joy, even if doing so with someone else did feel kind of good. “Turns out human society doesn’t really have much to offer someone who doesn’t belong in it. Fancy that.”

“Fancy that indeed,” came the absent reply. Luna was silent for a short time as her focus turned inward at navigating this conundrum, though eventually she left it off with a dissatisfied frown and a bothered sigh. “...not something that can be resolved here and now, I fear. And I still have work to do…” At this, Luna’s eyes flicked to the watch on her wrist. Her dissatisfaction visibly grew at what she saw. “Classes will be starting soon. We are quickly running out of time this morning, Miss Shimmer.”

Sunset gave a helpless shrug. “There’s a lot to this. I wasn’t expecting…” A beat. “...well. Anything, honestly. I didn’t have a plan.”

“And while admittedly I don’t have one either, this can be resolved, and I have every intention of resolving it. How dire is your housing situation right now?”

Sunset only considered this. She didn't want to speak positively of her living situation, given that...you know, it was unsustainable and she had quickly grown to hate it now that she'd had a taste of proper living, but she also didn't necessarily want to ascribe urgency to how bad it was. It sucked, but it wasn't killing her. Quickly, anyway. “I’m kinda fine? I’m…I’m working it out.”

“Well what’s important to me right now is that you’re safe and healthy. I can potentially have something ready for you by tonight if you have no alternatives.”

Sunset wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Would it be better than sleeping in her awful little home she had? Yeah, probably. Was that something she wanted to leap on, though? “I’ll…see. I’ll see about it. Let me take stock of things.”

“Very well.” Luna briefly considered something, then opened her desk drawers until she found both a pen and a piece of paper, which she placed on the desk in front of her and scribbled something on before she pushed it across the desk for Sunset, revealing it to be a series of numbers. A phone number. “This is for my non-work phone. Let me know how things look for tonight when you can, and we can go from there.”

Sunset accepted the paper. She looked at it for a moment as she mentally took stock of the situation, then how to proceed now that their meeting seemed to be concluding. “Alright…so, what, we just kinda like…we like, go back to normal after this?”

“Maintaining appearances would be wise, yes.” Luna started to say something else, though she stopped and winced like she’d gathered static discharge and shocked herself on her desk. “...the absence thing. We didn’t cover that.”

Sunset had, frankly, forgotten about that. It took her a moment to recall that conversation and why it was significant - something about big wigs on the board of education maybe one day sniffing out how Sunset was a delinquent and wasn’t being smote for it. “...dooooo we need to fix that like, now now, or..?”

“I wouldn’t call it urgent,” Luna said carefully, “but it is something I think it would be prudent to work out a solution for all the same. Maintaining appearances will be the operative phrase for this and several things…” Her face slowly grew into a pre-emptive wince. “...and I do fear that one of our best bets will end up being detention.”

Sunset rolled her eyes as an explosive sigh burst out of her. “Really? We’re gonna get all the way into this thing about working together and extenuating circumstances and all this shit, and then you’re gonna turn around and stick me in detention? Really?”

“It would look very normal. I’ll look into something more graceful, but…” Luna’s voice was as much an apologetic grimace as her expression was. “Sorry in advance.”

At this Sunset could only throw her head back, run her hands through her bangs, and groan. The worst part was that she couldn’t decide whether or not it was funny, and as she sat there admiring what a stupid situation this was, some wry chuckles forced their way up her throat while she shook her head. “Amazing.”

Luna offered a sympathetic if helpless smile in response. She cast another glance at her wrist watch, let the matter lie for a few more moments, then informed Sunset, “I’m afraid we’re out of time.”

Sunset let a lingering grumble of a sigh roll out of her throat for a few seconds more before she sat forward, standing up out of her chair. “What a note to leave off on.”

“Quite.” Luna stepped out from behind her desk and opened the door to her office, holding it open for Sunset. “We’ll be in contact.”

“Yeah, for sure…alright.” As Sunset stepped out the door, she paused for a moment, then looked back over her shoulder and gathered up as much sincerity as she could find in herself right then. As it turned out, it was quite a lot. “And…thank you. Really.”

A soft smile found its way onto Luna’s face. “Some things in this world are simply worth doing, Sunset. This is one of them.”

Sunset left the vice principal’s office to make her way back out the front door to talk to Fluttershy, only to meet her in the hall on her way to first period that was minutes away from starting. There was a lot to catch her up on, so while she only could report the gist of it in the time they had, the words flowed out of her with an unprecedented excitement that she could barely contain.

For the first time in a long time, it felt like there was potential for a way forward. They hadn’t found it yet, and there were a lot of variables that had to be navigated, but things were happening. Solutions were out there. More than that, now there were multiple people onboard with her with the collective intention of trying to make her situation more bearable, and even sustainable.

Things could improve. Things were already improving. A spark of hope spit and danced and in her chest like a sparkler, and all she wanted to do was dance with it.

Sunset Shimmer all but skipped down the hallway that morning. Even the thought of detention seemed petty to her as she made her way down to first period to start off the school day.

Maybe things were going to be okay after all.