//------------------------------// // Shady Business // Story: Two in Exile // by River Road //------------------------------// “Alright Shimmer, what’s your deal?” Sunset flinched as the rainbow-haired girl slammed her locker door shut for her, glaring her down. She steadied herself and met the glare with a calm smile. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Rainbow Dash. But please, elaborate.” Rainbow blinked and paused, confused for a second before she shook it off. “Don’t play dumb with me, Shimmer.” Wouldn’t dream of it. Sunset bit back the comment; picking a fight with Rainbow Dash was probably the fastest way to get a broken nose. Some days the girl seemed to have a worse temper than she did. “What did you do with Fluttershy this morning?” Rainbow stepped forward, trying to be intimidating. Sunset had to admit that it worked somewhat, probably because she knew that the athlete could trounce her if she really wanted to. “Why, I only tried to help her promote her animal shelter.” She kept up her smile, taking a step back as casually as she could. “I didn’t think that would make you so mad, though. Is it because I helped your friend when you couldn’t be bothered to?” Rainbow grabbed the collar of her blouse, pulling her close and making her wonder if she hadn’t pushed a bigger button than she thought. “Don’t you dare compare yourself to me. What’s your goal, huh? Are you trying to use her for one of your ploys? Because if you are, I swear I’m gonna–“ “Gonna what? Pick a fight with me on school grounds? If you want to give them a show, you better do it fast before one of the teachers arrive.” Sunset gestured around at the small crowd of onlookers. She smirked as Rainbow let go and pulled back again with an angry glare. “Thought so.” Rainbow glared at her for a couple seconds longer, then huffed and turned around, stomping off angrily. Sunset took a deep breath to calm down, looking after her as the students dispersed again to make their way to class. She was actually rather glad that Rainbow hadn’t taken her up on the offer. The girl was strong, and she really didn’t need yet another visit to the Principals’ office to draw attention to herself, even if it was as the victim. Stepping into the room she paused as every conversation seemed to abruptly cut off. Two dozen students staring at her in silence were rather giving her the creeps and she couldn’t keep from rubbing her arm nervously as she made her way to her desk at the back of the room. As soon as she’d sat down the whispers started up again around her, just barely loud enough that she could make out a few single words. Sunset tried to listen in for a minute, but quickly groaned and decided to just give up, rubbing her temple and actually hoping for once that the teacher would arrive soon. ~~~~~ Sunset grumbled to herself as she fumbled with the keys to open the door to her apartment, stomping inside and tossing her bag into a corner before slamming the door shut behind her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then let out a long and heartfelt groan of frustration. “…how was school?” She opened her eyes and blinked in confusion before remembering the girl that was now living in her apartment. She rubbed the bridge of her nose to keep from blowing up again, gritting her teeth. “Oh, just wonderful. You’ll be happy to hear that apparently I’m not a bully after all.” “Uhm… You’re not?” “Well, I was, but that reputation seems to be thoroughly shot. I swear, every time I think I’ve started to understand humans…” Sunset stomped over to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of tap water and downing it in one. “I decide to do some constructive hazing for once, you know, to change things up once in a while, and they all look at me like I’ve grown a second head and act like I’ve turned into all three founders at once. It’s like they don’t have any standards at all for what is considered good or bad.” She set her glass down and turned around again to glare at Twilight. “Between that and rumor getting out about how I care for my ‘little sister’, people might as well call me–“ She froze, staring at the younger girl who was doing her best to look innocent while keeping her body between Sunset and the living room table. She wasn’t anywhere large enough to hide the various bits and pieces that equaled about one laptop’s worth of electrical components, laid out over several sheets of paper full of notes. Sunset opened her mouth, then closed it again, left eye twitching. She stared for a moment longer, then turned away and silently made her way past the table and towards the bedroom door. Twilight watched her nervously, fidgeting in her chair. “W-where are you going?” Sunset paused at the door, turning her head to glare at Twilight. “I’m going to bed. Maybe when I wake up again I won’t have the urge to kill everyone around me.” Twilight gulped and nodded, watching as Sunset went into the bedroom and slammed the door shut before locking it. There was the sound of angry stomping and shuffling for several minutes, then some very loud cursing she didn’t understand as the key turned again and Sunset stepped back out. “Get yourself ready, we’re going out.” ~~~~~ Sunset leaned back in her seat, looking around the nearly empty vehicle before glancing at her charge again. Twilight’s eyes were glued to the window, watching the buildings and people outside pass by and doing the best to take everything in at once. She stared at the little girl for a moment, then rolled her eyes and tapped her on the shoulder lightly. “Stop staring like that, you’re starting to look weird.” Twilight turned her head a bit, still glancing out the window every few seconds. “But… there’s so many things out there! And most of it looks kind of like back in– back home, but also completely different!” “Yes yes, it’s your first road trip in a new world. Just try not to make that so obvious to everyone else.” Sunset rolled her eyes again, slumping back against her seat. “People are going to think you’re even weirder than you actually are, and then they’re going to think I’m weird for running around with you. At the very least keep it down until we got what we’re going out for.” “…okay.” Twilight sunk back into her own seat, still glancing outside cautiously every couple seconds. “What are we going out for anyway? You still didn’t tell me-“ “You’ll see when we get there.” Sunset cut her off gruffly. She noticed the girl shrink down a bit more and sighed, looking for some way to change the topic before her ‘sister’ would start crying in public. “You’re actually taking this trip pretty well so far. I didn’t think you’d follow me into this thing without fussing.” Twilight blushed lightly, looking down at the floor under her feet and from there over the seat in front of her, inspecting everything. “This is one of those ‘cars’, right? I read the article about them, so I know how they work. I thought they were supposed to be really expensive though?” She looked up at Sunset questioningly. Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Technically, cars are the smaller ones. This one is called a bus, but that’s mostly semantics, really. You pay for riding in it, not for the whole bus.” She paused, giving Twilight a scrutinizing look. “Pretty astute observations for a little kid. How old did you say you are, again?” Twilight looked down again. “Uhm… seven. I’m sorry, I just thought…” “Yeesh, it was supposed to be a compliment, kid. Take it, you’re not gonna get a lot of them from me.” Sunset leaned back, crossing her arms and staring ahead again. “Is that one of those ‘Magic Kindergarten’ tics? Makes me almost glad I never went there.” “Uh-huh…” Twilight nodded slowly, looking down for a moment before glancing up again. “You didn’t go to Magic Kindergarten? I thought every unicorn goes there.” “Yeah, no, you want a story time you can go to the library.” Sunset paused, then frowned a little deeper than before, furrowing her brow. “Wait a second… the article on cars was somewhere three quarters down the list of files I left you. Did you read them all out of order?” Twilight blushed again, twiddling her fingers – something she found to be far more interesting and therapeutic than doing the same with hooves had ever been. “No, I, uhm… I just read a lot.” Sunset stared at her for an uncomfortably long moment, trying to find some sign that she was lying. After a while she turned away, staring straight ahead again and grumbling under her breath. “Another prodigy. Great…” ~~~~~ “So, uhm… are you going to tell me where we're going now?” Twilight looked around, staying as close to Sunset as she dared without getting the older girl mad at her again. “This is the Upper Canterlot shopping district,” Sunset answered curtly. She kept walking for a bit, then sighed at the confused look Twilight gave her from the side. “The school and my apartment are in Lower Canterlot. This is… the part of town for the wealthy people, basically. I don’t usually shop here, but there’s something we’re not going to get anywhere else.” She put a hand on Twilight’s shoulder to stop her, turning her around to face one of the stores, a quaint shop on the ground floor of a two-story building. The shop windows showed shelves full of books, fancy pens and other high-quality writing implements, while cursive letters across the door’s glass pane proclaimed the shop’s name as “Thornton’s Books & Stationary”. “Now I know it doesn’t look like anything interesting, but…” Sunset paused, looking down at the wide-eyed expression of wonder on the younger girl’s face. “Oh, right, books and all that. Don’t get yourself too hyped up, we’re mostly gonna buy textbooks.” She trailed off as the expression on Twilight’s face seemed to somehow get even more excited, turning back to the store and muttering under her breath. “Yeah, can’t imagine why you would’ve gotten bullied in school.” Twilight didn’t seem to have heard, already rushing through the door, making the little bell over it chime loudly. Sunset let out a quiet groan, rubbing the bridge of her nose with two fingers before following – pausing only to take note once again of how physically satisfying some simple human customs could be. It took her a good two minutes to find Twilight again, the girl having made her way to a small corner between shelves at the back of the store, looking through a shelf full of required and recommended textbooks the various schools of the surrounding area used. Sunset was just about to pull her away from them when she heard a familiar voice from behind her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone your age get this excited about textbooks.” Twilight blinked and finally tore her eyes away from the rows of book, turning around to the slim young man in a casual suit who was standing behind Sunset, giving her a friendly grin. He had dark grey skin, short, pale cyan hair and piercing ice blue eyes. A small pendant of a pair of books, with a stylized wisp of green fire on the cover of the top one, hung around his neck. Sunset sighed and stepped aside slightly to give them a better view of each other. “Twilight, this is Thornton. He’s the owner of this store and the one we need if we want to get you ready for school by Monday. Thornton, this is Twilight Sparkle, my sister.” Thornton raised one eyebrow slightly at Sunset, still smiling. “I wasn’t aware you even had a sister.” “Now you are.” Sunset said, meeting his gaze without so much as blinking. Thornton held the stare for a moment, then turned back to Twilight as if nothing had happened. “Wonderful! So what can I do for the little sister of my favorite customer? Textbooks? Notebooks? Fresh folders to fill? Writing implements? If we don’t carry it, we can order it, just say the word.” “Yes, yes, all of that.” Sunset pushed him away a step, looking around the aisle before leaning in. “But that’s for later. We’re not here to be buzzkills.” Thornton straightened up, his smile fading for a colder, more calculating look to replace it. “Is that so? And you think your little sister can keep a secret?” Sunset glanced back at the girl in question who was watching them and looking confused and slightly intimidated by now. “If she can’t, that will be my problem long before it’ll be yours. She’s pretty smart though. Either way, I’m vouching for her.” Without warning Thornton’s grin returned in full force as he grabbed one of them by the wrist with each hand and began to drag them through the store. “Brilliant. Come along then, you two. I think I got a new shipment of pens in the back that would be just right for you.” He led them around the desk with the register and the bored-looking teenager manning it, through a door into the back of the building and then through another locked door partially hidden behind a couple of crates of stock. He closed and locked the door behind them before switching on the light, revealing a mostly empty room with a desk in one corner, a professional photography corner set up in another corner and various printers and other devices along the remaining wall. “Well then…” Thornton pulled over the office chair from behind the desk, sitting down in it and steepling his fingers as he looked at the two girls with a relaxed and confident smile. “Let’s talk about what we can do for you, and what you can do for us.”