Gonna work, work, work
Got so much to do
But I don’t mind the work
‘Cuz I get to work with you!

Sunset rolled her eyes as she stepped out of the way of the two fillies that had just finished building a lemonade stand at the edge of the park. A futile effort, since Canterlites of the top rings were mostly nobles, which meant they only ever ate in the finest restaurants and would never be caught consuming anything less than that. Still, one of the fillies —a pegasus— had a Cutie Mark in the shape of a glass of lemonade with a little umbrella on top, which meant that her product couldn’t be bad.

Sure enough, Sunset bought two glasses and found herself enjoying the flavor. Not too sweet and with just enough sourness to make it interesting.

Upon returning the now empty glasses, Sunset led Twilight through the streets again. Twilight had wanted to keep looking at Cloudsdale, but the city was going to drift along the mountain for a few more hours, and Sunset wanted to get on with her shopping so that she could spend the next day going through her books to decide which ones to take back to the human world.

And so, after several minutes of navigating the streets, Sunset reached one of the stores she’d seen during their earlier walk. It was a one story high building of faint purple-gray stone, like most of the others in the city. The first difference came with the sign, which hung by chains to the roof’s rain pipes instead of with magic, and it had the drawings of three different gemstones. It was a reagent supply store.

Sunset pushed the door open and immediately felt herself smile. There were large tables on the side walls and in the middle space, upon which wooden boxes sat, each holding different kinds of items fit for enchanting. Gemstones occupied the central tables, calling for the customers’ immediate attention. The tables on the walls, however, held other things like herbs or fibers or even metals. On the wall adjacent to the door there was a wide shelf with books. At the far end sat an earth pony mare behind a counter, probably the owner, and the wall behind her held jars containing different liquids and powders that Sunset couldn’t recognize at a glance.

Twilight took in a long, loud gasp as she entered the store. Sunset snickered.

“Don’t touch anything or they’ll charge us for it,” she said. “Aside from that, feel free to look around.” Twilight didn’t need to be told twice as she started reading the titles of the books.

With an amused shake of her head, Sunset made her way towards the metals section. Unlike businesses that catered to construction or crafting companies, reagent shops had magically treated metals only in their purest forms, and their alloys followed very strict guidelines. They could be sold in flakes, but that wasn’t common. Instead, Sunset found the boxes full of rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other forms of jewelry-like shapes. They were good for novices who were starting out, but they weren’t what Sunset was looking for.

She walked to the counter, and the mare, with a dull pink fur and graying yellow mane, turned her head to look at her with a small smile.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I want to see your catalog on platinum metals,” she said.

The mare’s eyes twinkled and her smile morphed from customer service to actual interest. Platinum metals were extremely rare, even more so those treated for magical purposes. If Sunset found what she wanted, she’d be spending a small fortune. Of course the mare would become giddy with excitement as she pulled a sheet of laminated parchment and placed it on the counter.

“What are your preferences?” the owner asked.

Sunset eyed the list. She knew what she wanted to do, but not what the right materials were, so she appreciated the mare going straight to the point. “I want something malleable and with a low threshold.”

The owner hummed. “Both for mana?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a bit contradictory.”

“I know,” Sunset admitted. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Tapping her hoof to her chin, the mare looked over her list for a good minute. She clearly wanted to ask what exactly it was for, but prying into the customers’ projects was considered bad manners. Plus, being an earth pony, she probably had had nasty experiences with pretentious unicorns and wanted to avoid such a situation again.

“Depending on how much mana flow you intend to have it withstand, and how often, I can recommend one of two alloys,” she said, pointing at her catalog with a hoof. “Iridosmium is very malleable, but will also bend under heavy mana flow. But if you expect a large amount of mana to flow through, osmiridium might work best, since it doesn’t bend under sunlight magic. However, you’ll have a hard time shaping it.”

Sunset considered her options. Of course, when talking about metals, all descriptions had to be thought of as understatements. Any shaping she’d try to force upon them would require insane amounts of mana. Sunset knew she could work with them as a unicorn, but since she was going to work with them in the human world, she couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll take the iridosmium,” she said, then hesitated. “How much is it?”

The owner gave her a knowing smile. “Twenty thousand for a standard sheet.” She giggled when Sunset flinched. “But, I can throw in the book your friend is reading.”

Sunset turned around to see that Twilight had picked a book from the shelf with her magic and was reading it.

“Twilight!” Sunset yelled. Twilight yelped and her magic faltered, dropping the book on the floor. “I told you not to touch anything!”

Twilight had the gall to look offended. “But I didn’t! I used my magic!”

“That’s irrelevant,” Sunset said. “You’re lucky I won’t be charged extra for it.”

“Sorry.”

Sunset huffed and turned to face the grinning mare. “I guess I can’t back out now.”

“On the bright side,” the mare said, “that tome is a comprehensive guide on reagent minerals and their magical properties.”

Sunset already owned a copy of that book. She decided to cut her losses and pay for the sheet of iridosmium. It was five centimeters in height, thirty in width, and very thin. At a glance it looked like an unassuming piece of metal, but upon closer inspection, Sunset could see the very slight blue tint to the mainly silver surface. She stored it in her saddlebags, along with the book Twilight had picked, and exited the room before the owner changed her mind.

“I’m really sorry,” Twilight said as they exited the store. “I really thought that magic didn’t count as touching.”

“It’s ok, as long as you mind yourself next time.”

Twilight spoke again after a minute. “So, what is it that you bought? It sounded expensive.”

“A sheet of magically treated iridosmium,” Sunset replied, falling into lecture mode. “Magically treated metal can be shaped with your mana so that you get the exact shape you want without having to melt and cast it again. The treatment is very laborious, so the price is ten times more than it is non-treated.”

“I see…” Twilight said with a slight shake in her voice. “What are you planning on doing with it?”

“Remember when I tried to recreate a horn?” Sunset asked. “I did some thinking, and I came to the conclusion that one of the reasons it wouldn’t work was because untreated metal has a very high mana threshold, requiring a lot of effort to make it flow through. So when I tried channeling my mana through the contraption Shining Armor made for me, I had to force my mana through, and so the quartzes took the full strain and cracked under the pressure.”

She turned around a corner, then continued talking. “I could have gotten treated iron for a fraction of the money and I’d most likely succeed, but I don’t really want to take any chances, so I got the very best. Of course, I’ll use some of my rubies instead of quartz to make sure they no longer crack.” Ruby was not only a very tough gem physically, it also was almost impossible to break with mana overload.

“You know,” Twilight said, trailing off the second word for a few seconds. “I was thinking. You keep talking about bringing gemstones with us and… Well, you probably already know they’re very expensive in my world, so…”

“I also thought about it,” Sunset said with a nod. “But my gems are all magically treated. They’ll be better put to work as part of magical artifacts. However, if we ever need the extra money, I guess I could bring regular gems we can sell.”

“We could also bring a bunch of those coins and melt them,” Twilight offered. “Gold sells well too.”

Sunset blinked, then chuckled. “Oh, bits aren’t made of real gold.”

“What? Really?”

“Mhm. They were at first, but some ponies, following your same mindset, started melting them to sell them for profit. The Equestrian Bank then decided, with Princess Celestia’s seal of approval, to change the metal for bits from gold to pinchbeck, which is really just another form of brass.”

“Huh.”

Twilight asked more questions about Equestrian culture, and Sunset was happy to provide her with answers. She had never liked teaching, finding it a bothersome and time wasting activity, but she felt a nice fuzzy feeling whenever Twilight’s eyes sparkled with unbridled interest every time Sunset explained something. At this point, Sunset didn’t even try to deny it to herself.

She had a crush on Twilight, and she loved impressing her and overall spending time with her. How had she not noticed before was anypony’s guess, but Sunset could think back on their previous interactions and see the signs from quite a few months back.

The real question was: what to do about it?

Sunset had a clearly defined goal in the human world. She would develop magical technology until it was commonplace and earn her wings. And when she became an alicorn she’d come back to Equestria and rule as was her right. But that would mean parting ways with Twilight. Then again, Sunset didn’t know how long it would take her to achieve her goal. Another thirty moons? More? If so, she could pursue a relationship with Twilight no problem. But then, when the time came that she ascended, could she leave Twilight behind? Would she ask her to come to Equestria?

Those and more questions floated around her head as she walked around the streets of Canterlot. She had always known that socializing was a pain in the tail, but this was a tad too much.

After a while, Twilight complained that her hooves were getting sore. Sunset had barely noticed that hers ached as well until she pointed it out. She looked around and saw a restaurant nearby. It was around time for lunch anyway, so she made a beeline to the entrance.

The building was rather large, with big windows and an outdoor dining area. The place was full, but they managed to get a table at the outdoor area, on account of the air still being quite cold. Not that Sunset minded. Having spent thirty moons as a human had made her feel the coldest she’d ever been, so she could weather a few gusts of end-of-winter cold wind.

“Oh, the steamed cauliflower sounds delicious,” Twilight said as she read the menu. “I think I’ll get it.”

She did order that, along with some radish juice and a blueberry muffin for dessert. Sunset herself got grilled eggplant with cheese and a side of sliced carrots, roselle juice, and cranberry pie for dessert. And just as she had thought during breakfast, Equestrian cuisine was several magnitudes better than anything humans could ever produce. Though the different flavors of meat were kind of exotic to Sunset, so that was a bit of a silver lining.

When their main dishes had been consumed and their desserts arrived, a unicorn mare walking down the street stopped right next to their table and looked at them.

“Twilight Sparkle, is that you?” the mare asked.

Sunset choked and felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured on her back. Twilight herself had frozen just as she had been about to take another bite to her muffin. Her magic faltered and she dropped it on the table with a loud clunk. Even if they had dressed up, somepony had recognized Twilight. Sunset shouldn’t have been so surprised, considering that she knew nothing about Twilight’s pony counterpart. But still, the day had been going so well, she had forgotten they were supposed to be hiding.

The unicorn, oblivious to their predicament, kept talking. “Honestly, if you were going to eat out with a friend, you could have told us. We wouldn’t have minded, you know?”

“Uhm…” Twilight said, her eyes darting back and forth nervously.

Sunset managed to gather her wits and come to her —both of their— rescue. “I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken,” she told the mare. “Her name’s Gleaming Eve.”

“Oh, wow, are you sure?” the mare asked. “You look a lot like my friend Twilight, except you’re wearing glasses.”

“Oh, yeah!” Twilight said, forcing out a smile. “My name’s Eve! Gleaming. Gleaming Eve.”

Sunset facehooved.

“You sound just like her, too! This is so freaky.” The mare said. “I’m Minuette. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Minuette,” Twilight said with a shaky nod.

Minuette gave her a more energetic nod. “I’m sorry for confusing you, and I’m sorry for interrupting your lunch.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Twilight said, and her smile began to relax. “I’m actually new to town. My friend Sun-” Sunset glared at her. “-shine! Sunshine. She was showing me around.”

“That’s so nice!” Minuette said. “Canterlot can be a bit stuffy with all these ponies looking down on you, but it’s actually quite nice if you have good friends with you. Why, me and my friends hang out loads. If you want, I can introduce you to them! We can give you a tour to the middle rings if you haven’t been there already.”

Twilight’s smile stiffened once again. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose. Besides, we’re just about finished already. We were planning on going back to our, er, lodgings and relax.”

Minuette nodded. “I totally understand. And now that I think about it, I don’t think I’d be able to get Twilight to join us anyway. She’s always so busy, between school projects and private lessons with the princess. It’s rare she ever has time for us!”

Somewhere in her rapid speaking, Sunset felt five particular words stand out like spilled juice on a white rug. She opened her mouth, and as she prepared to ask the question, she felt her heart beating in her throat, and a sense of dread overcome her. She had time to close her mouth, to avoid saying anything and keep on living in sweet, blissful ignorance. But the intellectual part of her brain, for the first time in her life, was the one to betray her, as it knew she would be unable to let go and forget.

So she asked.

“What do you mean, ‘private lessons with the princess’?” Her voice was anything but stable. It wavered between a normal, if low, tone, to a whisper, and back again in as many words as the sentence was long. Her lips trembled as the question escaped her. She didn’t want to know the answer, but she couldn’t move to cover her ears or tell Minuette not to answer. She simply sat there, watching as the stranger turned her head to reply with an obliviously happy smile.

“I guess you’re not from Canterlot either, huh?” Minuette giggled. “Twilight became Princess Celestia’s personal student some thirty moons ago. She’s kinda famous…”

The world around Sunset seemed to dim out. The corners of her vision were consumed by darkness, and her ears could hear nothing but her own breathing and the muffled, incomprehensible voice of the blue mare in front of her. Her body felt heavy as if another pony was holding her in place, but the coldness of the air felt more pressing in her skin.

Princess Celestia had another student. She had replaced Sunset. Not only that, she hadn’t waited long before replacing her. She had replaced Sunset. But she had no longer been her student; Celestia had terminated her apprenticeship. No matter how much her logical mind screamed that it had been inevitable, a much louder voice within her whispered that she had been betrayed. Betrayed by the princess that had promised her greatness.

Princess Celestia had never intended to make Sunset an alicorn. What had been the purpose of making Sunset her student, then? Tradition? Habit? Whimsy? Whatever the reason, it was clear now that the princess had not thought of Sunset as anything but disposable. Why else, if not that, had the princess allowed her to learn all she needed to know to rule Equestria, but then refused to turn her into an alicorn?

Unless Sunset had been nothing but a practice round. One the princess could make all the mistakes with and not worry about. All so she could properly raise the next princess of Equestria.

Sunset turned to look at Twilight. Her factions obscured, her voice muffled. All Sunset could see was a pony she’d never met, a pony she’d been replaced for. A pony that had taken everything away from her. A pony that—

Sunset choked in a breath and forced her mind to derail from that line of thought. With a start, her vision cleared and her hearing returned. She found herself breathing heavily.

“Sunset?” Twilight said.

A look around told Sunset that Minuette had left at some point. She tried to take deep and slow breaths to calm herself, but her heart wouldn’t slow down, pumping freezing blood throughout her body.

Gritting her teeth, Sunsetlit up her horn and started building the necessary circuitry for teleportation, and after finding the beacon she’d made in her room thanks to the relay, she activated the spell with her mana. From her perspective, the whole world compressed within itself in an infinitely small dot of white light, and not a moment later, the light exploded in all directions, and Sunset felt her stomach hurl as the sight of her room came into view with the speed of a cracking whip.

She ignored the thud that was undoubtedly caused by Twilight losing her balance and falling down, and walked towards the edge of her bed, pulling her chests from underneath with her magic.

“Ow…” Twilight moaned as she managed to stand up. “Where… Uhm… What…” She mumbled a few more words. “What are—”

“We’re leaving,” Sunset said, and hated the way her voice cracked, betraying her effort not to cry. “Tonight.”

“But—”

“I said we’re leaving!” Sunset yelled.

Tears fell down her eyes as she grabbed the bits from inside her first chest with her magic and tossed them away and filled the now empty space with some of the books from her shelves. Books on the principles of magic, mana manipulation, and flow control. One on spellcraft circuitry, and some of basic spells for novices.

She closed the chest when it was full of books and gemstones and pushed it to the side, then opened the second chest. Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes fell upon a neatly folded dress. Sunset levitated it as memories washed over her. She had just become the princess’ student and was about to participate in the Grand Galloping Gala for the first time. She had been nervous because she needed to get a dress of the best quality to not look out of place, and her family didn’t have enough money. The princess had gotten her the dress as a gift, and Sunset had loved it as it had made her feel special.

She used her magic to tear it apart, and felt something within herself break along with it. She tossed it unceremoniously to a corner and began filling the chest with more books. Intermediate and advanced spell circuitry were obvious choices. Some tomes on spells for those levels were mandatory as well. Some books talking about the mechanics of the Harmonic Veil would come in handy, along with others about the logic behind arrays.

By the time Sunset filled the chest with books, her shelves were already half empty. She read the titles of the remaining books and decided that they were useless. History, geography, politics, economics… All related to Equestria. None of which would be of use in the human world.

Once that was done, Sunset opened the drawers of her desk, making them fall to the floor. The ink bottles rattled, some spilling, but she didn’t care. She didn’t need ink or parchment or quills. Instead she picked a flat box that contained her lapidary tools, made with magically treated obsidian specifically to work with gemstones. She put them in her saddlebags after making sure nothing was missing.

Finally, she decided to lock herself in the washroom and take a long bath, casting a muffling spell on the door so that she wouldn’t hear Twilight’s insistent pleas for her to talk. Sunset didn’t want to talk —she didn’t want to think— about anything related to the princess. She wanted to get away and continue her work so that she’d ascend into an alicorn as soon as possible. She would become a princess in her own right and show Celestia how wrong she’d been to replace her.

When night fell, Sunset cast an illusion spell on the chests so that they’d look like nondescript wooden boxes full of sheets, undid the teleportation beacon, dressed herself and Twilight as maids again, then led the way back to the throne room. Instead of taking the front route, however, Sunset used the personnel-only hallways and corridors so that they arrived at the throne room from the back. Just like she had expected, nopony gave them more than a glance as they walked.

Upon arriving at the space that contained the mirror, Sunset undid the illusions from the chests and set them down. She then used her magic to rip the laces that held their suits together. Their shirts remained, but that wasn’t an issue.

“Go,” Sunset ordered Twilight. “Get Shining so that he helps us carry the chests. You have five minutes before I start sending them through.”

Twilight hesitated. “Uhm…”

Sunset groaned, then pushed Twilight through the mirror. She waited exactly five minutes before levitating the chests through the portal. She tore the rest of the maid outfit off her and made sure her saddlebags were properly settled on her back, then cast a fire spell on the discarded clothes.

With a final look at the curtain that hid the rest of the throne room, illuminated by the flames that consumed the outfit, Sunset turned towards the mirror and jumped through.

End of Volume II

Author's Note

And here we are, the not so surprising twist.

In the first drafts of this chapter, I had considered them running into the pony versions of people they know. I had thought of Cadance spotting them and talking to them. I had thought of a random NPC recognizing Twilight and her having to wing it. I even entertained the idea of Twilight's parents being the ones showing up at the restaurant.

In the end, I didn't like any of those ideas. I wanted the pony to recognize Twilight to be close enough to know the pony version, but not so much that she couldn't be deflected by a simple "she just looks alike" situation. Enter the cheerful, loud, and very friendly Minuette.

Overall, I'm happy with how this turned out. It's a bit of a low note, but not all volumes will end with high hopes. You've been warned.

Next up: Interludes. How many? Yes

If you liked it, please do leave a comment! I love reading your thoughts on every chapter!