Detention was different this time around. The last time Sunset had been in detention was sophomore year. Back then, she just sat in a room with Vice Principal Luna for an hour. So, expecting the same, she asked Fluttershy to swing by her house to check on Rhea before heading over to the office.
However, when she reached the room, Luna directed her elsewhere.
“Why?” Sunset asked. “You said I was supposed to be here for detention.”
“Plans change,” Luna replied. “The two Discord sent up earlier also have detention for the next week. Considering the circumstances, it would be a terrible idea to lock you in a room with them.”
Looking past Luna’s shoulder, she saw the duo from her theatre class. Swallowing hard, she looked back up at the Vice Principal.
“Okay, where to then?” Sunset asked.
“Cheerilee’s class,” Luna nodded. “She’s agreed to work with you today.”
“Work with me?” she parroted.
“Yes,” she said. “I told you before, that punishments are supposed to teach lessons. For some students, punishment means putting them in a room to do nothing for an hour. For others, it is community service.”
“Okay, I’ll head over then,” she said.
Cheerilee’s class was thankfully close. Of course, as soon as she got there, the math teacher dragged her off to the library. For today, she was supposed to help clean up the place.
Simple enough, just clean up any trash and put the books back on their proper shelves. Perhaps a bit of a mindless task, but it was still helping. She was mostly left to herself, other than Cheerilee occasionally popping in to make sure she’s not slacking off.
An hour of replacing books passes quicker than one thinks. Sunset stretched, wincing a little. While her back had mostly stopped hurting by Saturday morning, there was still some soreness in the muscles. Seems like a day of school and detention was a little much. Nothing unmanageable though.
“Sunset,” Cheerilee began, poking her head around a shelf. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
“Isn’t that what I’m here for?” Sunset joked. “Er, right, yeah we can talk. What do you need?”
“I happened to hear your conversation this morning,” she said. “Offering to help Rainbow Dash with her classwork.”
“If you’re worried about cheating, it’s fine,” she assured. “I’m trying to help, not do it for her.”
“No, I know,” she said. “But I was thinking, you are one of our brightest students. I was wondering if you thought about joining the school’s tutoring program.”
“I don’t think many people would sign up if I did,” she said, putting another book away.
“Possibly,” she mused. “But you could help those who do. Your friend for example, I can’t help her. I can try, but I have six classes of twenty students. I can’t take the time to help individuals, which is why I try to get anyone who can to sign up for the program. Besides, it might help you find a plan for your future.”
Sunset frowned at the way that was worded. Putting another book away, she took a pause and turned to the teacher.
“My future?” Sunset asked.
“Yes, your future,” Cheerilee said. “From the things you said during the Formal, you had planned to return to your world hadn’t you?”
“I did,” she said, looking down. “I thought…. It doesn’t matter what I thought, but you’re right. I had planned to be going back to Equestria. Seems silly now, doesn’t it?”
“Wanting to go home is never silly,” she said. “But since you thought you would go home, I can assume you haven’t made any plans for this world. Now that you will be here for a while, you should start thinking of what you want to do here. Not just in your quest to be a better person, but for a career.
“Someone like you could do many things,” she continued. “You have fantastic grades, and the extracurricular classes you’ve chosen through the years show that you’re good in both academic and art fields. With that, you have a lot of options. You could get into any college you wanted, perhaps even with a scholarship.”
“I’d never thought about that,” Sunset admitted. “But I don’t know what to do.”
“The right calling will find you,” Cheerilee smiled. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine myself as a teacher. But then I ended up tutoring someone a few grades younger than I was. I remember the way his face lit up when I helped him get through a test. It was then I decided to be a teacher.”
“Problem is, I already had that happen,” she said, giving a sad smile.
“In what way?” she wondered.
“In my world, we have something called ‘Cutie Marks’,” she explained. “It’s a magic symbol that appears on a Pony’s body when they find their Talent, but it’s more than a talent. It’s their passion, what they love, and also them at the same time. Humans don’t have them exactly, but from what I’ve seen, everyone here wears a symbol in their outfit that probably belongs to their Interdimensional Counterpart. If I had to guess-“
“The flowers,” she guessed, looking at her own skirt.
“This,” she nodded, pointing to the sun on her shirt, “is my Cutie Mark. My brother and I were having a backyard camp out, and he wanted to make a bonfire so we could do smores and such. He did the smart thing and went to get matches and adult supervision. I was the kid who decided to try spellcasting.
“I know, dumb kid doesn’t realize how dangerous it can be,” she laughed at Cheerilee’s expression. “Well, luckily for me, I used a spell to make fire, not one to set things on fire. The difference is that Magic Fire is still Magic, it just mimics fire. It only burns if the Spellcaster wants it to.”
“So you lit the campfire?” Cheerilee asked.
“Sort of,” Sunset nodded. “Once I realized what I had, I tested the limits. I watched how it moved, and I made it move. Can you imagine, fire flying through the air, perfectly controlled. It was like art, with fire as my paint, Magic as my brush and the night sky as the canvas. And a feeling of indescribable happiness as I realized what I could do.
“And I wanted more,” she continued. “Because this was so wonderful, and I was just a kid with so little training, but I could do this. It was then that I knew what I wanted, that I wanted to know how to do anything and everything, to study all sorts of Magic until I could cast anything. I wanted create new spells, I wanted to be as influential to Magic as Starswirl the Bearded, and I wanted help make Equestria better...”
“I can’t even imagine that,” Cheerilee shook her head. “You really do come from another world.”
“Yeah,” she smiled a bit sadly. “I’ve screwed that up quite a bit. And I’m moving forward, but I don’t think I know what to do just yet. Everything I’d ever wanted was so wrapped up in Magic, that I can’t even begin to try and find something similar here. I’d have to find something new entirely.”
“You don’t have to just yet,” she said. “As one of your teachers, I’ll try to help you figure it out. But you don’t have to go into it just yet. You can go through the rest of the year. We still have a band competition coming up, the Friendship Games, the Senior trip, the Spring Fling, and even Graduation left. And some people like to take a year off before college.”
“So, figure out what I want but take my time?” she said.
“Sort of,” she said. “What I mean is that, while I’m not going to pry into your life, you’ve spent a while doing everything for one goal. You’ve done a lot for other goals, changed parts of who you are to fit what you needed. Now, you want to change and be a better person, but it might take a while to figure out what needs changed.”
“I think it can be summed up in ‘everything’,” she rolled her eyes. “I’ve been kind of a terrible person.”
“While you did bad things, it doesn’t mean you have to change it all,” she said. “You’re intelligent, and ambition itself isn’t a bad thing if you can keep it in check. Friends are good for that. They keep the balance between encouraging you and keeping you from going too far.”
“If you tell them what’s going on,” she mused. “Thanks. For, well, everything.”
“No problem,” she smiled. “It should be the goal of any teacher to help their students be the best they can be. If you need advice, I’m usually in here after class.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she nodded. “And maybe I’ll take you up on the tutoring offer. Not now though. Let everything calm down first.”