Talking To My Friends.

Twilight woke with a splitting headache. Sunset was still sitting beside her. only ten minutes had passed since... when was the last time she looked at the wall clock?

"She is awake."

"Ignore her."

"I heard she is a princess."

"Applebloom," scolded Sunset. "Listen to Diamond Tiara."

One hour and ten minutes since she started crying.

Princess Twilight tried to rub the weariness out of her eyes. She tried to cough the burning out of her throat. She tried to stretch the shame out of her existence. She failed on all accounts.

"What's it like be'in a princess?" asked Applebloom.

Diamond Tiara covered Applebloom's mouth with her hand. She jerked away and wiped the spit off her hand onto a napkin. "That is disgusting!" she scolded.

Applebloom rolled her eyes. "Yeah. That is the point."

Sunset said, "Young love."

Applebloom and Diamond Tiara blushed profusely.

Sunset held up her French textbook.

Diamond Tiara spit out the phrase, in French, so violently she nearly lost her tongue.

Princess Twilight took a deep breath. "Do you have good food in this world? It has been fourteen hours since I ate."

"My Granny Smith is the lunch lady. I can get something for ya," offered Applebloom.

Princess Twilight lay her head back on the table. She opened her eyes to find a bowl of cut up fruit and a glass of milk.

"How are ya feeling?"

Princess Twilight looked at her hands. She picked half of a grape out of her fruit bowl with her teeth. "Exhausted and overwhelmed."

Sunset said something in French. Applebloom and Diamond Tiara responded in French.

Twilight ignored the girls and focused on eating.

Princess Twilight stared at the wall clock. She counted the seconds she had left until she had to return home a failure and accept The Tree Of Harmony would die.

Sunset stared at her spyglass.

"Magic can't solve all of your problems," stated Twilight. "Friendship can. I want to help you overcome your underlying problems." She looked at Sunset. "How can I help you?"

"You can't. I had friends in the pony world." Sunset yawned. "I had friends in the human world. You are not special."

Twilight mumbled, "Neither are you."

Sunset smiled. "You got me there."

"What happened? Why did you leave the pony world?"

Sunset sighed. "I left because I thought she loved me. I stayed because she didn't"

"Right. What does that mean?"

"I was banished from the palace for breaking into the dark magic library."

Twilight picked her head up off the table. "There is a dark magic library in the palace?"

Sunset smiled proudly. "Not any more."

Twilight put her head back on the table. She looked at the clock. "I talked to your friends. They told me a little about your parents," she bluffed. "Would you care to tell me about them?"

Sunset turned off her radio. "What did they tell you?"

"They never loved you." Twilight's guess was less educated than it was text book.

"Then they told you everything."

"They must have loved you. At some point in some way they must have."

"My parents saw my existence as a burden. Any money they had to spend keeping me alive was money they could not use to gamble." Sunset's voice remained even and calm. It was unsettling how little emotion she showed. "They never had any money. When they did win big they gambled it away. They were not trying to make money. They were trying to win jackpots. Winning money was an unimportant side effect of gambling. I was an obstacle that kept them from what they loved."

"I am sorry to hear that. I don't know how I can help, but maybe if we return to the pony world and you see your parents you can talk everything out."

"No. Not everyone deserves your love. Sometimes those people are your parents. I have not even gotten to the bad part yet. My parents shipped me off to Canterlot at the first sign I had magical talent. I was enrolled in Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns before I had my cutiemark. Before I lost my first milk tooth. I could have lived with being abandoned by my horrible parents if Celestia didn't treat me the exact same way."

Twilight stood and stretched her legs. She wanted her hooves beneath her. "What happened between you and Celestia?"

Sunset shrugged. "She was a princess and I was a burden. She could not get rid of me soon enough. I was once naïve enough to think she would come through the mirror and get me." She clenched her free hand into a fist. "I kept telling myself she would come and get me even after the portal closed!"

Twilight softly assured, "Celestia could not risk going through the portal. You are important to her, but not more important than the entire country of Equestria."

Sunset smashed her spyglass against the table. "I should have been!" She pulled her spyglass out of the hole it made in the table.

Twilight was happy to see the outburst. She knew Sunset was flesh and blood, but it was nice to have a reminder. "What about Cadance? Before I came here she said she wanted to apologize to you. What ever happened Cadance still loves you."

Sunset yelled, "Ha! I would sooner believe the windigo want to freeze Equestria so every pony can have a snowball fight!"

Twilight remembered just before she left Cadance said 'I wanted to be the sister she [Sunset] deserves for once'.

"Maybe your parents don't deserve your forgiveness, but your family does. Celestia and Cadance never meant to hurt you."

"I know." Sunset held up her spyglass. "Do you think I have been spying on Zipporwhill?"

"Have you?"

"Well... yes. I have been spying on the princesses too. I know I can make them love me. I just have to prove I can be loved."

"How do you plan on doing that?"

Sunset turned her radio back on.

"Do you hate me?"

"Yes. A little."

Twilight nodded. "I think I hate you too. Tell me how long will it be before I stop trying to move my tail?"

"Four years and counting. I never thought losing a limb would be hard. I know how stupid that sounds, but I never thought I would lose a limb. The possibility never crossed my mind. I never thought losing a limb would be hard."

"Growing wings wasn't exactly easy either. I think learning to walk would have been harder if I had not already had the experience of acclimating to new limbs."

Sunset smiled. "I'll say. It took me days to learn. I literally leaned on Applejack for hours on end." She chucked despite her eyes filling with tears. "Thank you for getting her to talk to me. It was brief and she yelled at me the entire conversation, but it was nice seeing her." She looked straight at Twilight for the first time.

"Is there any way I can help you?" asked Twilight.

"Tell me what was the rest of the lullaby?"

"Lullaby?"

"Celestia's lullaby. She never sang it to you?" Sunset asked as she wiped away her tears.

"No."

Sunset smiled. "That's right. You have parents. Do you have any rubber gum balls."

"What is a rubber gum ball?"

"They are balls made from the sap of a Aliquid Latin folwer. They are hard. Chewing them hurts but it feels nice. Like walking across hot sand bare foot, swimming in cold water, kissing someone you don't like or hurting others for no reason."

"Sorry."

"Do you have a place to stay?"

"No."

"You are not going back to the pony world are you?"

"No. I can't have you bricking over the portal while I sleep."

"I live alone. If you wanted..."

"Thank you, but I can't. I am afraid I will get too close to you. When push comes to shove we are enemies. I can't let you learn my weaknesses."

Sunset smiled. "So you have weaknesses?"

"Everypony does."

"Yeah. That is what makes us human."

Twilight walked to the school library. Earlier she only had a moment to see it as Pinkie dragged her through. She needed a quiet place to think. She sat beside a bookshelf in the back of the library's second floor. Her eyes shut on their own. Perhaps she could finish the dream she was having when Sunset stole her crown.