Sunset slumped against the bookshelf. No, not slumped. Cowered. She had gone to the most remote section of the Canterlot High library and made herself a book bed just so she had somewhere to sit without going out into the main area and taking a chair. At this point, there was no telling what the other students might do to her. Everyone thought she'd fallen back to her old ways, that she was the one airing everyone's dirty laundry under a thin pretense of anonymity.
She couldn't help but feel a little insulted. When she had torn the school apart, no one had even suspected her of doing so.
Still, professional pride did nothing to fill the hollow left behind by even Sunset's closest friends abandoning her, save for one. The fact that the one sticking by her was the one friend who Sunset really had defamed online was almost enough to make her smile. Almost, but not when Princess Twilight had admitted that there was nothing she could do against the tides of public opinion in another world.
Sometimes, wrote the princess, all you can do is stay strong. Remember who you are. And find your family.
Sunset waited. Nothing more seemed forthcoming. She groaned and folded in on herself. "Thanks, Twilight. Crystal clear advice."
"Hey!" said a vaguely familiar voice. "Not to step on the Princess of Friendship’s toes— uh, hooves…" The voice trailed off and cleared its throat. "I’ll start over. Hi!"
Sunset looked up to see a grey-skinned girl smiling at her, neither golden eye quite pointing in her direction. The girl's only concession to the winter weather was a tan, brown-spotted scarf wrapped around her neck. "Sudsy Bubbles?" Sunset reviewed her recent memories and found a familiar face missing from the background. "Where have you been all week?"
Sudsy shrugged, her smile never shifting. "You know, out and about."
A terrible thought crossed Sunset's mind. She narrowed her eyes. "Doing what?"
"Um..." Sudsy bit her lip, her eyes going even more askew. "W-well, I, uh, you know, things."
"Things," Sunset echoed.
"Also stuff."
Sunset took in the panicking girl squirming before her and shuddered at the familiarity. She mentally smacked herself and looked away. "Well, I don't know what you're doing here, but you don’t want to talk to me," said Sunset, curling up on the book bed. "People might think you’re giving Anon-a-Miss new rumors."
Sunset heard footsteps, sitting up when she realized they were coming closer. A frowning Sudsy knelt before her. "So... you have a Sly Fox mask in your locker?" she said.
Sunset's mouth worked silently for a few moments. "Do you just not use social media?"
"I don’t think 4kun counts as social media. Antisocial media, maybe."
"My point is that I’m persona non grata."
Sudsy beamed. "At least you’re not persona au gratin!"
Sunset just stared at her.
"Yeah, I don’t know what that means either." Sudsy settled herself on the floor. "I’m trying to cheer you up by channeling Pinkie Pie, and I’m guessing from your expression that I’m just confusing you."
"Thoroughly," said Sunset. Still, it was better than thinking about the last furious look she'd seen on Pinkie's face.
"Still, I’m on the bottom of the social totem pole as it is, Sunset." Sudsy gave a smirk that Sunset suspected was modeled on her own from darker days. "My friends and I get out of the way when Scribble Dee comes down the hallway. Talking to you can’t do that much damage."
"Well..."
The smirk grew gentler. "And you do seem like you could use a friendly face."
Sunset sighed and nodded. "I could. I really could."
Sudsy's sweeter smile came back in full. "Great! So, let's review. How have a bunch of green-faced no-names been messing with you?"
"I'm really not sure what you're talking about, but the problem is, ugh, this." Sunset held out her phone, open to Anon-a-Miss's MyStable page.
"Let's see..." Sudsy scrolled through a few posts, frown deepening all the while. "Wow, whoever did this is isn't even being subtle about the frame job."
Sunset straightened up. "You don't think it's me?"
"No offense, Sunset, but I do remember what you were like back before the Fall Formal. You were awful, but you always made sure you had plausible deniability."
"I really don't know how to feel about that sentence."
"Huh. Yeah, me neither." Sudsy shrugged. "Whatever. My point is that if you were doing this, you wouldn't use your own skirt as a color scheme, to say nothing of the 'totally not Sunset Shimmer' avatar. This is almost too obvious."
Sunset groaned. "I know, but try telling that to the rest of the school. The worst part is how everyone's eating up the gossip, yet they all hate me for it."
"And everyone else." Sudsy kept scrolling, wincing at something onscreen. "Just look at some of these comments."
"I try not to." Sunset felt the corners of her lips turn up in spite of herself. "It means I still have some shred of hope for you naked apes." She gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth.
Before Sunset could get out an apology, Sudsy smiled at her and said, "Says the shaved horse." She winked and turned back to the phone, eyes drifting out of alignment as she took it all in. "Have none of the teachers done anything? The principals?"
"It's not hard to keep this sort of thing beneath their notice. I managed it for years. I may not be doing this, but whoever is is a quick study."
"Well, it still has to be violating MyStable's terms of service. Probably. Aaaand reported." Sudsy nodded to herself as she handed the phone back, but wilted soon after. "Not that that's going to clear up your reputation any. I mean, I haven't seen the school this bad since the sirens."
Sunset blinked as she put her phone back. "The... the what?"
"Uh, the sirens? Evil singing horse-fish from Equestria who feed on strife?" Sudsy pointed at the cutie-marked journal. "Pretty sure that got involved somehow."
"It... it did." Sunset flipped through it with one hand, the other clutching her aching head. She stopped at the last time she wrote "Dear Princess Celestia," though her blurring vision made the text hard to see. "I wrote Princess Twilight, and... and she came here and we had... But no, the other one was my first slumber party, I haven't... I just turned my life around, they don't have a reason to trust me yet, otherwise... But the journal..." With those last words, Sunset's voice cracked.
Reality followed suit.
"Uh..." Sudsy, who wasn't actually Sudsy Bubbles at all, backed away from the fracture that hung in the air like a break in unnaturally clear glass. "Forget I asked?"
Sunset, sitting in the center of the break, threw her head back and gave a keening yell in response, a half-shriek half-buzz that had no business coming from a human throat. Ditzy Doo wasn't sure how much of the unnatural sound was caused by pain and how much was distortion caused by the break in the local reality. She was sure that that break was growing, spider-webbing out in all directions.
Ditzy gulped and loosened her muffin scarf, giving the down on the back of her neck room to breathe. Twin arcs of silver light emerged from it, and she rose on them, up and out of the universe.
She twisted through ever-higher dimensions, emerging in a dark void not unlike outer space. Bubbles of more familiar space-time took the place of planets and stars, filling the interstitial realm with twinkling lights. Ditzy turned around—still a tricky proposition for her, given the additional ways to turn—and looked back at where she'd been.
The world-bubble she'd just left had certainly seen better days. The different possible Earths, Equestrias, and other worlds normally resembled glass spheres full of slowly shifting color, but this one's glass had cracked around her exit point. The cracks spread, covering every inch of the hypersphere in moments. Even as Ditzy watched, the entire cosmos broke apart with a sound like a trillion shattering wineglasses. The shards of existence flew out for a moment, only to collapse in on themselves seconds later, somehow grouping up smaller and smaller until they formed a single, dark point from every angle Ditzy could see.
Time passed, a rather complicated process in the exotic realm of probability space, where causes did, do, and will lead to every one of their possible effects para-simultaneously. And that was before nerves came into the equation. From Ditzy's perspective, it took somewhere between a few minutes and a small eternity until the point reinflated into what seemed to be the same world-bubble as before.
Ditzy wrung her hands. "Okay," she said to herself, the sound muffled by both the higher dimensional space and the absence of air. (What precisely Ditzy breathed between different possible worlds was another one of the things she tried not to think about.) "So. We know what went wrong. Now let's go back in, but this time, we don't cause a catastrophic paradox. Good plan? Good plan." She flew back in, aiming for the familiar sight of Canterlot High, easily spotted in a realm where her eyes had all the dimensions they needed to focus properly.
Conventional space enveloped her, contorting around her until she found herself back in the dustiest part of the library. This time, she heard voices from the moment she emerged into conventional spacetime. She tightened her scarf again and hunkered down.
"I still don't see why we can't just make another text post," said Scootaloo's voice.
Apple Bloom's answered her. "No one'd believe Applejack if she tried t' deny what we posted 'bout her, but Rarity? We gotta have hard evidence for her. Evidence we don't got."
"Sunset's phone was locked!" squeaked Sweetie Belle. "What was I supposed to do?"
"We still could've made her suspect," said Scootaloo.
"But, but without the photos, she might suspect us! Do you know what she'd do to me if she found out I was the one who blabbed about her rejected idea closet?"
"Well, we have to do something!" Scootaloo cried. "Strike while the iron is hot, right?"
"Yeah," said Apple Bloom. "Otherwise, she'll have our sisters all to herself!"
Ditzy scowled and pulled the scarf off her neck. Wingbow spread, she slipped just out of the universe, enough to move and see without being seen. It was a delicate act, like trying to stay just submerged enough that her eyes were halfway between air and water. Still, the girls weren't going anywhere. As they plotted, she positioned herself above and between them, right below the overhead lights.
Then she emerged, backlit and scowling like an angry angel. "Foolish children!" Ditzy boomed, her voice as deep as she could make it. "You have angered the spirits of Yuletide! Repent! Repent in this time of peace and goodwill, for it is not yet too late!" With that, she slipped back out of phase with the universe.
She couldn't hear the Crusaders anymore—even a millimeter away, she wasn't in that Earth's atmosphere anymore—but they were clearly panicking, running out of the shelves. Ditzy nodded to herself and made for home.
"And then I figured I should report it to you..." Ditzy bit her lip. "And, uh, you're not looking happy."
Lyra Heartstrings—not Ditzy's displaced unicorn classmate but her liaison with far more experienced worldwalkers—sighed and rubbed her temples. "I'm not feeling especially happy right now, Ditzy."
Ditzy gulped, fidgeting in her seat. By all rights, the situation should've been silly. The person in front of her appeared to be her age, wore a mint-green three-piece suit, and worked out of CHS's gym storage closet. However, Lyra bore herself with professional pride and dignity that belied her physical appearance, wore the skin-coordinated outfit astonishingly well, and had done something to the storage closet such that she could fit her desk and several filing cabinets in a a space as thin as a sheet of paper.
"This is about the whole 'imploding that worldline' thing, isn't it?" said Ditzy.
"Among others." Lyra took a deep breath. "Look, Ditzy. Much as I hate to admit this, there is a list in my section director's office. It is labeled 'Things Lyra Heartstrings is No Longer Allowed To Do in the Equestrian Time-Space Administration Bureau.' I have personally only contributed one or two items to that list, but other Lyras have been a lot more productive in that regard. Suffice to say, we as a soul frequency have a history of doing really stupid things on missions."
"Like what?"
Lyra colored just the slightest bit. "That isn't important right now. What is is that I'd really rather not start a similar list for you. Foundational inconsistencies are no laughing matter, young lady." Her gaze hardened as she went on. "You were very lucky that you pointed out one in a timeline resilient enough to bounce back from poking a paradox into it. If there's ever a next time—which there shouldn't be—you may send shards of existential substance streaking across half of probability space."
Ditzy winced. "I understand, ma'am."
"Good. We tolerate these little paracosmic joyrides of yours because they give you valuable experience, help you learn the lay of probability space, and we know better than to try to constrain a curious teenager who's largely doing what we want her to. Not without reason, anyway." Lyra took a deep breath and let a small smile onto her face. "Don't get me wrong, Ditzy, your heart was in the right place, but next time, make sure you're not entering the causal equivalent of a Faberneigh egg. Dismissed."
Ditzy squirmed a bit, not getting up. "Um, just one question, ma'am?"
"Yes?"
"Does this worldline have any inconsistencies like that?"
Lyra smirked. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to blow up the universe." She cut her snickering short when she saw the look of horror on Ditzy's face. "Sorry, departmental in-joke."
Warm words slipped into Ditzy's mind unbidden. Not if I have anything to say about it.
She let out a breath she didn't remember holding. "Okay. Got it. Thanks, both of you."
The Apple household was stuffed to the brim with friends and family. Yuletide dinner warmed their bellies, and togetherness warmed their hearts.
"Sorry for suspectin' you like that, Sunset," Applejack said as the two girls sat on one of the kitchen counters, waiting for the next batch of cookies to finish baking.
"Hey, at least we cleared it up quickly." Sunset shook her head and blew on her cocoa. "Still can't believe those three were so possessive."
"Ain't that surprisin', really. Way I figure it, yer a bit like a new baby. We're all givin' you attention they used to get, an' that means they don't feel loved as much." Applejack sighed and looked up, her gaze far from the now. "Went through the same thing myself when Apple Bloom was born. Just wish they'd told us. I'm still gettin' called Piggly Wiggly online."
Sunset nodded and found herself thinking of home. Her parents, her... siblings? Did she even—?
The ringing kitchen timer broke her concentration. She hopped off the counter and pulled on oven mitts as Applejack opened the oven. "Well, like they say, all's well that ends well."
Applejack nodded. "Yup. Now be sure to save some o' those fer those three troublemakers. They're still gettin' some cookies after their just desserts."
Scootaloo groaned. "Do we have to do this? It's been hours! And it was all Apple Bloom's idea!"
"Traitor!" Apple Bloom shifted, only to yelp as a few straight pins poked into her arms.
"Up-up-up!" said Rarity as she measured Sweetie Belle. "You'll have to stay still for just a bit longer. And it's only been twenty minutes, Scootaloo."
Sweetie sighed. "I warned you, girls."
"This is so dumb! What are you even measuring us for? We're already wearing the dumb sweaters!" Indeed, every girl but Rarity in Apple Bloom's bedroom, which Rarity had claimed as her makeshift studio for the evening, was wearing a Yuletide sweater. Though "wearing" was something of a strong term. "Burdened with" might have been more appropriate. Given the lumpiness and diseased-looking color schemes, "hosting" was also a possibility.
"You're being punished, and I'm doing my utmost to avoid wearing one of these pieces of condensed tackiness for as long as I can. Now stay still, Scootaloo, or I'll start on that dress I've always been meaning to put you in."
Scootaloo stiffened up. "I'll be good," she grunted out, barely moving her jaw.
Rarity nodded. "See that you are." Her expression softened as she backed away, letting all three see her. "And remember, girls, you are loved. Just because we don't spend as much time with you as we can doesn't mean we're leaving you in the lurch, whether or not your sister is by blood. And if you feel we are, tell us." She grinned and shook her head. "Honestly, after this kerfuffle, we'll be sure to listen."
"Does that mean you'll take the pins out of the sweaters now?" said Sweetie, her limbs shaking slightly with her effort to keep them still.
Rarity lowered her head, the light reflecting off of her red-framed glasses. "Soon, my dear. Soon."