"Hey, Twilight."
"Huh?" The girl turned around and found Sunset approaching her. "I saw Discord talking to you earlier. He didn't bother you too much, did he?"
"Oh no, no." Twilight shook her head. She then looked down at her drink for a second, before throwing it away. "Not really."
"Mhm." Sunset didn't look convinced but didn't press on the subject either. "Else, are you enjoying yourself so far?"
"Oh, yes, yes of course." Twilight nodded eagerly, a happy grin on her face. "I'm just...taking a break from all of this. You know, I'm not used to this whole partying and socializing and-"
"You've been standing here ever since the party started, right?" the fiery haired girl asked rhetorically, a small smile on her face.
The purple girl in return sighed, letting her head hung. "Am I that transparent?" she asked.
"It's not that." Sunset walked next to her newest friend and put a hand on her shoulder. "But I know where you have been and I understand fully if you're not ready to talk with anyone right now. Though I must say, you're behaving better than I did on my first party."
"Really?" Twilight blinked. "How so? If you don't mind me asking." she hastily added the second part, hoping that she didn't accidentally offend the other girl. Said girl in return chuckled, before answering: "I didn't even show up. An hour and fifteen minutes later, Pinkie Pie climbed through an open window, wrestled me to the ground, tied me up with a rope I didn't know I had in my closet and then carried me all the way to her house."
Twilight blinked once. Then twice. "You're kidding. You're kidding, right?"
Sunset just took a drink from the nearby table and shrugged. "If you don't believe me, ask the others. I think Rainbow Dash even took a video on her phone."
"Uh...I think I'll take your word for it."
"Really?" It was Sunset's turn to be blinking in surprise. "I thought a scientifically driven girl like you always needed some kind of proof."
In return, Twilight let out another sigh and looked over to Discord, who was, along with Pinkie Pie, commenting, while four students were sitting on flying pigs and racing against each other.
"As of late, science and logic seem to have turned their backs on me." the girl muttered.
Sunset frowned. This was not where she wanted this conversation to be going. "You know, magic is a science of itself. Once everything has calmed down, I can teach you the basics, if you're interested. I'm sure the Princess can lend us some books too."
"You already mentioned that." the other girl pointed out.
"Did I? Man, this day is messing with my head." she chuckled a little.
"Aren't you at least a little bit nervous?" the newest Wondercolt asked.
"Haha, I'm a wreck Twilight. The only reason I'm not constantly looking at my watch...crap, I'm doing it again" Sunset quickly lowered her arm "the reason I'm MOSTLY avoiding glancing at my watch, is because I know have friends who will support me through all of this." She approached Twilight, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"And you have those same friends, Twilight. We're going to stand through this together. Now come on! Let's actually enjoy the party."
"Wait, but I-"
"No "buts", Twilight. You're going to have fun now and I'll make sure you have."
While Sunset was dragging Twilight into the crowd, another person used the opportunity to get away from it. Fluttershy sighed in relief when she finally found a more or less silent spot at the far end of the room. Not that she didn't like parties, she just couldn't stand the noise for too long.
The girl sat down in a chair in order to relax her feet a little. From her spot, she could see the masses of students cheering on the racers. Normally Fluttershy was against such use of animals, but the pigs appeared to be happy with the situation they were in, so it was okay.
As she enjoyed the relative quiet of her lonesome self, a person stepped next to her. Looking up, she couldn't help but let out a small, high pitched screech, when she recognized Discord standing next to her.
"Why hello there my dear. Taking a break I assume?"
"Oh...um...yes. Not that I don't appreciate your party, it's just..."
"Oh don't worry, don't worry my dear." Discord summoned a chair and took a seat himself. "The Fluttershy from back at home is very much similar to you. She also doesn't like to be in the center of the action for too long, especially on parties. You know" Discord snapped his fingers, making a tray with a variety of snacks appear in his claw "since we're here, how about we have a little chat and get to know each other?" the lord of chaos asked smiling, offering the snacks to Fluttershy.
Smiling shyly, she picked up one of the treats and started talking. "Well um... I like to take care of animals, you know."
"Oh really? Tell me more."
As the party went on, slowly but surely some of the students needed to go home. Luckily they found out that the door from which they originally got sucked in, didn't repeat the process and so they could leave the school grounds with no problem whatsoever. Still, the appearance of that snake-dragon whatever it was thingie was the main topic of their conversations. Add to it the strange phenomena happening this morning and you could easily guess that more than one person was worried about their current situation.
"Man, ever since Shimmer came to our school, things have been a rollercoaster."
"Honestly? I still think this is better than normal school life."
"Better? Do you have some screws loose or something?"
"Just ignore him. I'm just glad that we aren't hypnotized again or that some evil demoness is trying to destroy our world."
"Though you gotta admit, Twilight was hot as hell."
"Oh yeah..."
Starlight Glimmer listened in to those conversations, seemingly just sitting on a nearby bench and checking her cell phone. In reality, she was making mental notes about the details she picked up from the small conversations the students had with each other. Specifically, the appearance of some snake thing that could make things appear out of nowhere. Then there was another topic being mentioned, namely magical incidence happening before today. Could this possibly mean that the Goddesses have been on earth for far longer than Starlight thought at first?
She shook her head. There was just not enough information to go on as of now. She needed to supervise the situation for at least a week, maybe even a month, before gathering any followers. Or maybe she should go for a more directly approach?