It was true that they had spent together merely a couple of days, but in that short time Sunset had got to know very well the human girl known as Twilight Sparkle and she had found herself enjoying the friendship the two have developed as they continued to work on their new home. The girl was smart and knowledgeable, never afraid of working although still a little shy and insecure, which Sunset attributed to her time studying at Crystal Prep. The few stories Twilight had told her about her experience with the other students at the private school had been enough for Sunset to be thankful she had decided to implement her original plan on Canterlot High. She didn’t want to think about the kind of monster she would have turned into in an environment like that.
Besides stories about their respective lives, Sunset also saw the inquiring mind that Twilight had, but it was clear that the girl had no survivalist bone in her thin body. Beyond a rather rudimentary wood roof made with fence and slabs, Twilight had no desire of building a house for them and it had been Sunset’s work to take care of the whole project. If Sunset had let Twilight in charge, their house would have been a featureless hollow building completely square and with absolutely no decorations whatsoever.
To say that Sunset was surprised at Twilight’s lack of artistic talent would be an understatement; but maybe it had something to do with Twilight’s analytical and pragmatic mind. After talking several times with Princess Twilight, she realized that the pony princess was very much the same, even confessing that her favorite gift from Rarity was a very simple yellow sundress that only had a small ribbon and nothing else.
“Twilight, what are you doing?” so it was with great surprise that she saw Twilight build a small wall, just so she could hide behind it. She would never say aloud how cute Twilight looked with only part of her face visible while hiding behind the wood wall; it reminded her of a scared puppy or a shy toddler.
“I’m not getting close to that… thing,” the girl was behaving like a little kid and all that just because of some worms? Sunset would never understand the way the girl worked at this pace, but she was sure that the fear she showed to the insect currently working overtime for Sunset was quite normal for human beings.
Back in Equestria, all living beings were treated, if not equally, at least with some dignity, including to those that ponies consumed, which were very few to be sincere. It had taken Sunset a long time to get used to the idea of consuming a cow, but after visiting the old farm of the Apple family and seeing the array of farm animals living there, she finally understood the difference between the animals in both universes. Once she got a bite out of her first ever cheeseburger, there was no way back.
“Twilight, I’m pretty sure this little guy is more afraid of you than you are of him,” she said holding one of the workers of their new silk and wood farm that they had built on another section of their home. While the trees of that section were full of green slowly being turned white, the trees they used for more saplings and wood were put in another part to avoid the worm infection. Including an apple tree once they found out they could fuse the fruit with one sapling.
“I’m still not getting close and how do you know it is a male?” Sunset simply shrugged before putting the worm on a tree to start making more string.
“After spending enough time with Fluttershy you tend to learn about animals and ecology in general, although that’s mostly from Tree Hugger and the rest of the Eco guys; I swear I can recognize more plants than I used to back in Equestria.”
“I’ve never been good with biology.”
“So, never tried to dissect a frog?” Sunset said with some humor in her voice, but Twilight’s face went even paler than before at the words.
“Oh god, I think I fainted that time, not that I remember, but Sugarcoat told me what happened, so it must be true.”
“Isn’t that the girl with glasses? She reminded me a bit of Applejack, but with no filter between her brain and her mouth,” Sunset joked making Twilight finally relax thanks to the humor.
“You two would probably start snarking at each other from the moment you two met,” she answered to Sunset as she began to take down her improvised wall.
“Sounds like fun, it’ll probably be an epic battle of wits; not many people at CH can do sarcasm at my level.”
“I believe it, not that I know many people form CH; although, I think I got along better with your school, specially Fluttershy, she was so… nice,” Twilight remembered the time she had met the teenager with the bunny.
“Yeah, she has that effect on people.”
“She even gave me her bunny so I could hug it, it was so soft.”
“I know, Angel truly makes honor to his name, which is weird because the Angel bunny on the other side of the mirror is so different to him, something to think about I guess. If we ever get some way to grow grass she would love to make a full grass field to let her animals play.”
“It would be nice to make one, at least it would break the monotony of everything being wood.”
“Yeah, but one step at a time Twi, we barely have dirt and finally we get some string, not to mention beds and some water,” the barrels they had made before were now filled to the brim with crystal clear water that had been enough to satiate both girls’ thirst, a thirst they haven’t realized they had until they tasted the cool liquid. Also, a set of twin beds were currently sitting underneath Twilight’s original slab roof.
“It would be nice if we had a way to move it or use it besides putting it there.”
“Well, the book says something about a way to make an eternal source of water or something, it is another dimension with-”
“Different rules, yes, I know, I just wished it didn’t give me a migraine trying to understand them; like why a whole tree could stay floating in the sky if you destroy the first block of wood,” as Twilight continued to rant about the idiosyncrasies present on their empty world, Sunset began to read their hint book and found new pages full of new instructions.
“Twilight, what do you know about the California gold rush?”
“Okay, that came out of nowhere, I’m not that good with history, but I guess since you came from another dimension I probably know a little bit more; why the question?”
“Because it seems we will emulate them; we’ll probably even hit gold after all the sieving we will be doing.”