For as often as Sunset found herself staying up late, what she normally tried to do was come to school fairly early. It hadn’t worked out so much the last few weeks, but she still semi-routinely got her wish. Sometimes she didn’t even feel like the walking dead.

It was a simple enough routine: every day she’d come to school well in advance of any students; about 5:30 AM was her preferred point of entry, seeing as the school was usually open that early yet almost entirely empty. She’d start by going to the library, using one of the thoroughly buried electrical sockets in the corner as a discreet place to charge her phone. While that was charging, assuming it wasn’t a Tuesday or a Thursday, she’d go to the girls’ locker room to brush her teeth. Then she’d retrieve the soaps out of the showers there and abscond quietly to the boys’ locker room - she preferred those showers because the boys’ locker room had better water pressure, yet she preferred the girls’ soap because the boys' scented soaps made her want to gag. Then she just had to put everything back where it belonged, get some food, and return to the library for her phone and wait for class to start, all while dodging any signs of life wherever possible.

It was a simple routine, but a reliable one. School meant several inconveniences, but it was also access to electricity and running water she had more or less unrestricted use of, provided she could hop through the hoops necessary to utilize them.

It was a Monday morning, and that meant that showering was on the table. Having thoroughly drained the hot water tank for the gymnasium because walking to school in this weather sucked, Sunset left the locker room hallway, which was barren as usual for this time of day. She'd taken a bit longer than she normally did to shower, so it proved necessary to use the lesser-traveled back route to the library to avoid the handful of students that were drifting about. She would have liked some food, but she’d taken too long and would have to show her face to the early morning kids in the cafeteria while there wasn’t a crowd to hide her head in, which just wasn’t acceptable. She’d live without.

Upon entering the library, Sunset did a quick glance about the wide room. Not seeing Cheerilee and confident she’d be unnoticed, Sunset slipped over to the room’s light switches and flicked off the light for the right end-most part of the room, which she then made her way over to. Ducking into the farthest aisle of the book shelves, she pulled her phone out from between the books she had tucked it in, leaving it on its charger. She then put her back to the shelf, sat down, and let her head fall back against the spines of the books behind her as she let out a quiet sigh in the relative gloom.

This was usually how she spent the next hour or two. The exact means by which she occupied herself varied, but a lot of times she’d just lay down on the carpeted floor and let the minutes pass in peace as her hair dried. Maybe she’d catch a nap while she was at it.

It was unfortunate that Rarity was never here nearly as early as she was. An extra hour or two alone with Rarity every day would be fantastic, but alas, she was on her own here. She still needed to find a way to convince her to agree to that...didn't help her now, though.

While Sunset was debating what precisely to do with herself, the phone in her lap vibrated twice. Glancing at it, Sunset smiled and brought it up to examine the text, though the smile became a befuddled frown as she looked at the sender and did not see Rarity’s name like she was expecting. Instead, she saw a number she did not recognize with a blank default icon. Not a contact.

“Who the buck?” she muttered under her breath, though that answer provided itself in short order as she read the text she’d been sent.

(###)###-####
Hi, it’s Fluttershy
Do you like scary movies?
Today at 6:06 AM

Sunset’s already confused expression contorted further. Fluttershy was texting her? Of all people, it was Fluttershy?

It took Sunset an inordinately long time to answer such a simple question. Her guard was up.

You
I don’t watch many movies
Today at 6:07 AM

(###)###-####
Oh
Would you like to?
Today at 6:07 AM

She didn't pause to think on it - the response was mostly automatic.

You
I don’t have time, sorry
Today at 6:07 AM

(###)###-####
Ok
Well if you know someone who does, I have a ticket to Exorcist 2 I’m trying to get rid of before winter break
Today at 6:07 AM

You
Idk why you’re asking me
Today at 6:07 AM

(###)###-####
In case you wanted it
Today at 6:07 AM

Sunset stared at that message. She wasn’t thinking much while she simply looked at it, yet it also felt like her thoughts had been given a good stir.

Her thumbs started moving again to type her response.

You
I’m good
Today at 6:08 AM

(###)###-####
Ok
Today at 6:08 AM

Sunset waited. She scrolled up the brief distance again to the line she’d been looking at before. Then she scrolled down to the end of the very short conversation, which did not seem to be lengthening any time soon.

Sunset fidgeted in place. Her fingers started moving again, acting on a thought that came to her.

You
How’d you get this number?
Today at 6:10 AM

(###)###-####
I looked up call history
Today at 6:10 AM

Sunset blinked a few times.

You
I called you?
About what
Today at 6:10 AM

(###)###-####
I don’t remember
We’ve texted before too, I think
Today at 6:10 AM

You
Have we?
Today at 6:10 AM

(###)###-####
I think so
It was a long time ago
I think it was on a different phone
I can’t scroll up
Today at 6:10 AM

Sunset scrolled up at that, and found that she couldn’t either. Conversations in text didn’t appear any farther back than when the first text arrived a few minutes ago.

You
I can’t either
Huh. I don’t remember that
Today at 6:11 AM

(###)###-####
I could be remembering wrong
But I’m pretty sure we’ve texted
You had my number at one point
Today at 6:11 AM

Sunset dipped into her contacts, though midway there she remembered that she wouldn’t have it saved. Sure enough, her contact book was markedly bare, save only for a select few names - Rarity being one of them, as well as Flash Sentry and a few others that were only recorded as numbers without names. Utilitarian purposes, for the most part, though the majority weren’t used anymore. She didn’t do much with herself anymore.

You
Yeah I don’t see you on here
I can’t compare numbers
Today at 6:12 AM

(###)###-####
Maybe I was never in your contact list?
Today at 6:12 AM

You
I guess not
Today at 6:12 AM

Fluttershy not being on her list of contacts was far from surprising, though Sunset also was also somewhat bothered by it…not that she really wanted to remember what was said between the two of them in the past. Nothing to be proud of, no doubt.

A brief internal debate was had, once Sunset had come back into focus, and brief was all it had to be. Quite simply, there was no way this was random, and Sunset had difficulty accepting that this was as innocent as it appeared. Her next question to Fluttershy came not long after she came to this conclusion.

You
Were you asked to do this?
Today at 6:12 AM

(###)###-####
?
Today at 6:13 AM

You
To approach me
Today at 6:13 AM

(###)###-####
No
Why?
Today at 6:13 AM

You
Because you came out of nowhere at me with a movie ticket being all nice
Today at 6:13 AM

(###)###-####
I didn’t mean anything by jt
I’m sorry
I just thought maybe you’d like it
Today at 6:13 AM

You
That’s my point
Why are you coming to me now?
Today at 6:14 AM

(###)###-####
I had this ticket from my brother and I don’t want it
I didn’t want to throw a perfectly good movie ticket away if someone else wanted it
I thought it was worth asking
Today at 6:14 AM

You
Ask your friends instead, I’m sure one of them will want it
Today at 6:14 AM

(###)###-####
Ok
I’m sorru
I won’t bother you again
Today at 6:14 AM

The feeling that the last line inspired made Sunset’s face twist into a grimace. She had been about to tab out of the conversation, but she instead swerved and returned to typing.

You
Not what I meant
I'm sorry, you aren’t bothering me
Today at 6:14 AM

(###)###-####
It's ok to say so if I am
I can be annoying
Today at 6:14 AM

You
You're not being annoying
I'm just confused
I'm sorry
You don’t talk to me normally
Today at 6:14 AM

(###)###-####
I don’t talk to most people normally ^^’
Today at 6:14 AM

Sunset couldn’t help but roll her eyes lightly.

You
Yes but still
Has me a little on edge
Today at 6:15 AM

(###)###-####
I'm sorry
Today at 6:15 AM

You
It's fine
I just wanna know for sure that I'm freaking out over nothing
Why did you decide to talk to me?
Today at 6:15 AM

(###)###-####
Rarity
Today at 6:15 AM

You
She put you up to this?
Today at 6:15 AM

(###)###-####
No
But she always seems really happy and relaxed around you
More than anyone I’ve seen
That has to mean something
Today at 6:15 AM

Sunset smiled a little as her thoughts touched on Rarity, though the distraction was brief. She went to reply, but then saw Fluttershy was in the midst of writing something, so she waited.

(###)###-####
I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a little while
Today at 6:16 AM

You
Well
We’re here I guess
What else did you want?
Today at 6:16 AM

(###)###-####
Nothubg
Nothing*
Not now I mean
I just wanted to talk
In general
Today at 6:16 AM

You
You're probably better off talking to your friends still
I'm not that interesting
Today at 6:16 AM

(###)###-####
I can't talk to them about everything
I don't know how to at all sometimes
Today at 6:16 AM

Sunset...did not know how to respond to that. Her thumbs twitched instinctively to start typing, but all she ended up doing was staring at that message and frowning. Her brow furrowed after a little while.

After some time, Fluttershy texted back:

(###)###-####
Sorry but is it ok if I take a break?
Talking is hard for me
Getting hard to breathe
Today at 6:17 AM

Sunset felt the impulse to begin typing out the words, 'Are you okay?' She almost did.

You
Yeah that’s fine
Today at 6:17 AM

(###)###-####
Ok
Sorry
Can I talk to you later?
Today at 6:17 AM

Sunset hesitated. She wasn’t exactly eager for that, but she also wasn’t entirely comfortable with outright saying no here. Her gut overrode her knee-jerk impulse.

You
If you want to
Today at 6:18 AM

(###)###-####
Ok
Sorry again ><"
Today at 6:18 AM

The texts stopped at that point. Well after they did, however, Sunset was left with her phone in her hand, expression blank, head spinning as she tried to answer a very simple question she asked herself:

What the buck was that about?

This went in so many directions, from her perspective. Her initial take (which had seemed obvious at first) was that this was her trying to move in on Sunset because the Rainbooms wanted to do that, but it was Fluttershy doing it. Were it anyone else she’d be positive of the motive, but Fluttershy?

And granted: sure, Fluttershy would be bad at this. That made sense. It was Fluttershy, after all, but Sunset was still trying to reconcile how, throughout the entire thing, Fluttershy kept trying to bail on her. That conversation would have ended twice over if Sunset herself hadn’t been the one trying to keep the wheels turning on it. If Fluttershy was trying to be sneaky, surely she wouldn’t be trying to escape so quickly without getting something out of it. Maybe it was believable that she was simply that horrendously bad at this, but then why would the Rainbooms let her anywhere near it? Surely they'd know it wouldn't go well. And even if she was telling the truth that it wasn’t some ploy, this whole thing was- just, she- why? Why? What?

Sunset put her hand not holding her phone over her face, dragging it down it as she breathed out a haggard sigh. Her hand came to a stop over her mouth, and after a few more moments she toggled the power button on her phone to re-light the screen so she could read back and try to make sense of what just happened.

This would normally be where she tabbed out and went to ask Rarity about this, if for no other reason than for someone else to help her figure out what to think. She swapped to Rarity’s contact, even, but the comment Fluttershy had made about not always knowing how to talk to her friends stood out to her enough to make her hesitate. Was this a matter she should be getting Rarity involved in? What if something was going on that Sunset wasn't aware of? It sure seemed like something was going on that Sunset wasn't aware of.

The longer Sunset thought about it, the less she considered whether Fluttershy could be lying or not. She had a lot of uncertain feelings about it, but one of them was a slowly yet steadily growing sense of concern that had since started to rise above the others, and it had little to do with her initial suspicions.

Nothing in particular inspired her to do so, but at some point Sunset began to text.

You
Are you at school?
Today at 6:31 AM

The response took some time. While she waited, Sunset fiddled with the strap of her bag sitting beside her, wondering if this was a good idea. Too late now, though - the returned text arrived as though to underline this point.

(###)###-####
Yes
Today at 6:33 AM

You
Where at?
Today at 6:33 AM

(###)###-####
My car
I need the quiet
Today at 6:33 AM

It took Sunset two attempts to respond with what she meant. She got it out eventually.

You
If you want, you can sit with me in the library
Today at 6:37 AM

(###)###-####
Thank you but I need quiet right now
Today at 6:34 AM

You
It's really quiet. I'm in here every morning
There's a legacy aisle that has all these old books in it from the school's past. No one ever reads them
I've basically got an entire wing to the library to myself
It's got a lot more room to stretch your legs
Today at 6:34 AM

Fluttershy's response was not as quick as before.

(###)###-####
It sounds nice but I don't want to intrude if you're used to having it all to yourself
Today at 6:34 AM

You
It's not intruding
Today at 6:35 AM

(###)###-####
It kind of is
Today at 6:35 AM

You
I am actively inviting you to join me
Y'know, if you want to
Today at 6:35 AM

Response didn't come. She almost didn't add something, but as the pause grew and she gave it a few moments of consideration, she decided to add it:

You
It gets a little lonely in here by myself
I figure sitting in your car would be kinda the same story
Does it ever get lonely over there?
Today at 6:35 AM

According to the continually cycling ellipsis at the bottom of the conversation, it took Fluttershy a few starts to type what she did, and with several delays.

(###)###-####
Sometimes
Today at 6:36 AM

You
Are you lonely right now?
Today at 6:36 AM

(###)###-####
A little
Yes
Today at 6:36 AM

You
Want some company?
Today at 6:36 AM

Another extensive delay. Midway through it Sunset added:

You
I can come sit with you if you'd rather stay where you're at
Whatever you're more comfortable with
Today at 6:37 AM

(###)###-####
I'd like to stay here
If that's ok
Today at 6:38 AM

You
That's cool
Want me to sit with you?
Today at 6:38 AM

(###)###-####
I don't want to be a bother
Today at 6:38 AM

You
If it was a bother, I wouldn't be asking
If we're both gonna sit by ourselves in the dark feeling a little lonely, we may as well sit together and not be so lonely
Y'know?
Today at 6:38 AM

A little more delay. Then:

(###)###-####
Ok
Today at 6:38 AM

Sunset smiled to herself.

You
Where you parked at?
Today at 6:38 AM

(###)###-####
By the light that doesn't work
In the corner
Today at 6:38 AM

"Alright," Sunset both typed back and said aloud to herself under her breath. "On my way." She hit "send" and looked at the text for a few more moments, just confirming to herself that this was indeed happening. She then unplugged her charger from the wall between the books that she'd snaked it through, tucked the cord into her backpack, and shouldered the bag itself as she stood with a grunt and began making her way out of the library.

About an hour had passed since she initially arrived at the school that morning, so it wasn't surprising to see the hallways occupied by a constant trickle of students, be they coming or going or simply loitering about waiting for time to pass with their respective cliques. Total avoidance was not possible anymore. Fortunately, the other students generally wanted about as much to do with her as she wanted to do with them, and the entire trek was aided by the sense of purpose Sunset felt now that she had an objective that mattered. After all, everyone is inclined to clear out of the way of someone who looks like they're on a mission, and if there's anyone on a mission you wanted to steer clear of, it's Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset pushed through the front doors to Canterlot High School and out into the dim of the late autumn morning, which hit her with a chill that made her shudder. It was barely light enough to see clearly at this hour, and this was made worse by the spitting mist that perpetually wafted down from the heavens doing their best to obscure the coming light even further. It was going to be a very gray day today, when the light did come, and the morning made no attempt to disguise this fact even during the first moments of sunrise.

High schoolers are bad drivers. It was a known fact, and it was something that was readily reflected in the dinged up, bent, and chipped doors and rear ends of the vehicles that Sunset passed as she made her way across the parking lot. One particularly poor driver years ago had forgotten which pedal made the vehicle stop and which made it go fast, because he had gone fast at a particularly inopportune moment and then failed to remedy this. No one was hurt, mercifully, but the car was totaled and the school had had nothing but trouble with the street light in the far corner of the parking lot ever since. That trouble was currently manifesting itself as a spot where the darkness of the early morning sat uncontested over several empty parking spots around it, though it was not completely empty there.

Fluttershy's car was, frankly, adorable. It was a compact pink Beetle with an off-white top and a pale blue interior, and it all but looked like it had been made with Fluttershy specifically in mind. The license plate even had a ladybug on it beneath the numbers. It was a humble thing, but there'd been few vehicles that Sunset had seen that embodied their owner quite as effectively as Fluttershy's did.

Sunset couldn't see into the car very effectively until she was only a few yards away from it, and sure enough, Fluttershy was in the driver's seat, currently sitting with her legs being hugged to her chest, chin on her knees, looking up at Sunset with the aura of a frightened and stressed cat. Sunset, in turn, smiled and gave a little wave as she approached the vehicle, watching Fluttershy's hand move just enough off her leg to push a door control - the vehicle responded by making the noise of the doors unlocking.

Sunset opened the door lightly, not wanting to challenge the quiet too much if she could help it. The passenger seat was clear, so she had no trouble seating herself, tucking her backpack in the space by her legs as she closed the door. As soon as she did, Fluttershy locked the door again.

All was still and quiet in the tiny little car, which seemed to do its best to swallow small noises up wherever it could. It was the smallest car Sunset had ever been in - it looked complete in the way it was designed, but to her it felt like there was only half a vehicle in here. It was like someone had cast a spell and shunted half of a bigger car's mass into some pocket space. It wasn't quite claustrophobic, though - likely due to a lack of just about anything that might have taken up space. Everything here was tidy, if spotted with the occasional stray hair on the softer surfaces.

Sunset took in a quiet breath, then sighed as she let her head fall back against the headrest. She turned her head a little to see Fluttershy peeking at her, though the moment their gazes found the other, Fluttershy's swiftly deflected like two same-charge poles on two magnets had intersected, timidly finding anything else to look at that wasn't the other occupant of the car.

Sunset gave a lopsided smile at this, diverting her gaze away from Fluttershy and making a note not to look straight at her. The windshield was good enough anyway. "You have a really nice car," she murmured, speaking at a volume she usually reserved for a library, or when someone was trying to sleep. "I like it."

The response would have been inaudible were it anything but total silence: "Thank you."

Sunset's gaze wandered about the vehicle's dark interior for a little while after this, though she did well to keep her eyes from passing over Fluttershy. There wasn't a lot to see while it was this dark, but she could see enough to get an idea. When she was done, her gaze fell to her lap, observing her own hands resting against the thighs of her tight jeans. You couldn't see the fading fabric in the shade. "Gas mileage must be pretty good."

Fluttershy did respond, though only in the most technical sense. The nonverbal noise she made left little meaning to be gleaned from it beyond acknowledgement.

Sunset's hands gently tapped against her legs once. She was trying to make this not be awkward, but it was proving unavoidable. It didn't feel like good energy to be silent for, though, so she let it lie for a while before she spoke again, just as quietly as the first time. "...so when I'm nervous, I tend to um...I ramble, a little bit, just to uh...to fill the air. I know you said you would prefer quiet, though, so I can uh...I can bite it back, if you'd prefer that. It's not like a...'s not a big deal or anything, just kinda...happens, so..."

There was a faint creak of seat leather as Fluttershy adjusted where she sat. Sunset could only see her out of the side of her vision, but it appeared like she had settled more into the seat as she hugged herself just a little bit more into a ball. "I can listen."

"You sure?" Sunset turned her head more at her, though she looked past her, not at her. "I'm totally fine being silent too."

Fluttershy gave a timid nod. "I might not have much to say..."

"That's okay." Sunset chuckled quietly at herself as she looked back ahead, out at the sea of cars where it began several rows down, where you could actually see where you were parking beneath operable parking lot lights. "I can keep myself pretty entertained with the sound of my own voice."

It was said as a joke. Sunset didn't hear a reaction to it, nor did she look to see if there was one. It didn't matter.

For a while, she let the silence take over again. Sunset listened to it, letting her thoughts have access to some amount of autonomy as she tried to relax. It was difficult to remain properly tense in the atmosphere of this vehicle, though it would be a lie to say she was truly relaxed.

There was almost no sound. The water coming from the sky nonstop never came down in any amount larger than the endmost point of a pin, barely visible except as the lazy curtain of mist as it passed near and through the lights of the parking lot and of the cars that had begun to appear with increasing frequency the closer it got to class time. The beads of water that occasionally streaked down the windshield were the respectful culmination of innumerable tiny droplets that didn't make so much as a whisper as they manifested and followed gravity's whims down the surfaces of glass and painted metal. Even Sunset's breaths felt loud in comparison to anything in this vehicle.

Sunset's hand found its way to her pocket and retrieved her phone. She thumbed the power button, noting the time - 6:44 AM. She thumbed the home button on reflex, and then looked at it for a few seconds before she yielded to impulse, letting it direct her to her texts with Fluttershy. She tapped a button near the number where a name would go, then added it to contacts. Fluttershy's name would greet her at the top of that conversation from now on.

"It's kinda weird," she muttered, "where things go."

There was no response to this. Sunset waited to see where that thought would take her, but it had escaped her already. She let it go, allowing another to slip into the original's place.

"When I was a filly," she began, "all I wanted to do was magic. As soon as I learned that one of the first things I was gonna learn was what kind of magic worked for me, I was gone. I was suborbital. There was nothing I wasn't ready to do. I wanted to be the best magician that ever lived. So, y'know, I would think about all the cool magic. I wanted to like," she gestured over the parking lot like she was marking a path through it, "make new rivers, and have them with these really grand names with cool stories attached to them. I wanted to make trees super duper large, and climb so high I could build cities in them and make tree kingdoms. I wanted to dig holes in the ground so deep that they'd go forever. I made up these silly ideas for new stellar bodies, so that I could make them rise and fall at different times of day, just like a princess."

Sunset chuckled as she reminisced, shaking her head at her filly self.

"Even when I was seven, I never had a shortage of ideas. They were usually stupid, but...y'know," she bobbed her head back and forth once, lightly, "stupid kid, stupid ideas. Always had 'em, though. Always big. Always wanted it to be new, or some invention. Had a thing about making up new stuff...so you'd think I'd go straight into like, conjuration or something, right? Something about making new things, or like...illusions. Sharing my visions so hard that even reality would see it my way."

There was still no response. The silence listened.

"So naturally, the first tradition of magic that I was predisposed towards turned out to be fire. Y'know, something that can't create anything lasting on its own, or that would directly fulfill any of those over-the-top ideas that I had decided were my destiny. Impermanent and temperamental fire, of all things." She smiled a little more to herself. "I was pissed. I felt cheated, and I went out of my way to prove I was good at something that I liked the sound of more. Each time I did, I failed, or whatever I did turned out to be another manifestation of fire. I got angrier and angrier each time, not realizing that I was living up to the spitting image of a pyromancer as I was doing it. Hot-headed, feisty, creative...passionate. Explosive, sometimes."

Sunset's eyes fell to her lap. She kept smiling, though her voice gathered a rueful quality to it.

"It's possible I could have done something about it back then, if I'd known and been a little smarter about it, but...nah. Nah, I was...way too caught up in my own bullshit to stop myself. Fire was impressioned on me at an early age, and by fighting so hard against it, I cemented it as a part of me forever." Her gaze drifted to her hip, where she imagined her cutie mark would be on a human. The smile had faded. "No regrets...not anymore, I mean, but...if that was something I had ever stopped and really learned from, I don't think any of us would be here right now." She looked up, towards the school building. "I'd still have my life, my home...probably would have a crown on my head that I did deserve..."

"...for...reason."

Sunset turned her head towards Fluttershy. "What'd you say, sorry?"

Fluttershy swallowed, but she did indeed speak up as she repeated: "Everything happens for a reason."

Sunset turned her head the other way, looking out the passenger door window at the entrance of CHS - her eyes traced out the barely visible signs that the entire front of the building had been rebuilt after having been destroyed. You wouldn't see them if you hadn't looked for them a thousand times already. "You think so, huh?"

It was silent enough that you could hear Fluttershy's movements from nodding. "Sometimes it takes a while before it makes sense, but nothing's truly random. There's reason in everything."

Sounds like something Celestia would say. The thought reached her lips, though her tongue didn't dare speak those words. "I hope so."

There was a soft creaking of leather as Fluttershy's legs unfurled, her shoes gently tapping against the car floor beside the pedals. "I read somewhere once that if one single cell was out of place at the time of conception, none of us would have been born. Every movement and arrangement of every bit of matter, and the time and the place...all of it needed to be perfectly as it was. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be me. At best, I'd be someone else, or maybe not here at all. It's kind of a crazy coincidence, when you think about it, but it happened. It keeps happening, too. Every time someone's born, it's because everything was just right, in the exact way it needed to be." Fluttershy brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I guess you could look at it like it's all random stuff coming together in the way that it ended up for no reason, but...I don't like looking at it like that. It sounds so futile that way."

"Sometimes that's how it feels."

"Yeah."

"It-" Sunset's voice cut out unexpectedly, and she quietly cleared her throat. "Yeah."

"It's hard, sometimes."

Sunset nodded, voice shrinking. "It's really hard."

"Yeah..."

Silence waited long enough for them to finish before it settled forward, falling over the two of them as they sat there. Something about the atmosphere had changed, though Sunset wasn't of a mind to think about it like that, as swept up in her own thoughts and the emotions that had swelled in response to them.

Nothing was said for a while. The two girls did nothing besides sit there in the dark, allowing the minutes to slip by uncontested.

Eventually, Fluttershy was the one to pipe up. "...do you um...do you mind if we listen to some music?"

"Not at all," Sunset replied pleasantly. "What kind?"

"Oh, um...I don't know, I was just going to, um, find something on the radio, I guess..."

Sunset considered this for a moment, then counter-offered, "Do you mind if we do like- do you have a playlist on your phone, or something? Something not as random as the radio."

"Oh! Um...yes?" Fluttershy shrank down in time with her voice as her hands grasped at and began to fiddle with her hair anxiously. "Um...I don't know if um...if I want to um..."

"That's okay." Sunset put as much assurance as she could into her tone without making it sound disingenuous. "Do you mind if I hook my phone up?"

Fluttershy shook her head, unraveling somewhat as she looked curiously at Sunset's phone. "What kind of music do you like?"

"Oh, just kinda whatever I feel." Sunset fumbled a little with her charger cord in the dark as she pulled it from her bag, attempting to plug one end into her phone and the other into Fluttershy's car's dashboard. "I'm a little eclectic with music."

"I'm sure it'll be ok. Just um...nothing too intense..?"

"Nah nah," Sunset waved a hand with a chuckle, "not feeling that either, don't worry."

Sunset eventually hooked her phone up, with a little help from the dashboard lighting up as Fluttershy turned the key in the ignition a bit. She had just the playlist in mind, which came up as "Breakupcore" on the dashboard display. This earned a giggle out of Fluttershy, which to Sunset felt like a victory and that the assembly of the playlist had been worth the effort. Not all of the songs on it were sad, necessarily, but they had the energy that she had always associated with feeling down and looking for a pick-me-up after a breakup, even if that meant singing along to somber lyrics alone in a dark car in the middle of the night.

She wasn't alone, of course, but that didn't stop the inevitable. She's not sure when she started exactly, but as the music played, Sunset's own instinctive need to tap, sway, or otherwise move along to the music she heard gave way to softly singing along, and she just kind of...didn't stop doing that. Normally she kept her voice down so it was inaudible to anyone but herself when others were nearby, but that didn't seem to apply here. So she sang along - not loudly, but not hiding it, either, which ended up making it sound very loud to her ears while Fluttershy cheerfully swayed and bobbed along. Something about that felt particularly freeing.

They were both late to class that morning by about twenty minutes, but even with the hasty scramble of a farewell as a signing off, Sunset still found herself in great spirits afterwards. She had no trouble getting to class with the extra spring in her step.

At some point during first period, Sunset managed to sneak out her phone and inconspicuously get one last text out with a question that she found herself in urgent need of asking.

You
So if you're here early like me, can we sit together like that again? I'm kinda sick of the long lonely mornings
Today at 7:47 AM

Fluttershy
Sure! I think that sounds really nice ^.^
Thank you for spending time with me. I feel a lot better now
Today at 7:48 AM

The response never arrived, as Sunset’s phone died before she could finish the first word. She was still all smiles for the rest of class.

Author's Note

For those interested, I had this song stuck in my head and was singing along to it while I was writing. Don't know if I get the appeal of glam rock, but The Orion Experience's music is very catchy. Would recommend.