//------------------------------//
// Souvenirs from Home 
// Story: Magical Curiosity 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

The statue of a rearing horse still stood there between the school and the road. The building itself had no lights on, devoid of conversation. The houses surrounding the school mostly had their lights off, too, though some snoring could be heard if one would strain their ears.
It was a cold, chilly night. Or a cold, chilly morning that happened to be too early for the sun.
Then, a white flash radiated from the statue’s base, and out came Sunset Shimmer, back with her two hands and her two feet. She looked around, seeing no cars and no one on the streets, hearing only crickets chirping and owls hooting.
Sunset fumbled a hand in her bag and took out her phone. She turned it on and read the time.
One ten in the morning.
After scanning her surroundings once more, she checked her messaging app.
No new messages, not even from Twilight. Well, the Twilight with glasses, that was.
“Good,” she whispered, slightly shivering in the cold. “She’s not staying up past midnight and going crazy over it. I hope she doesn’t go crazy when she wakes up.”
Then, she held up the camera still strapped around her neck, and turned that on. The screen now showed pictures of the kite competition, the ponies and their kites on display. Sure enough, it would not be complete without a photo of the champion herself, Derpy Hooves, happily holding up her trophy for all to see.
She turned off the camera, looking around again. Still saw no car, still saw no one.
Sunset yawned as she headed for home, not forgetting to look left and right before crossing the empty road in that cold night.



Sitting on her bed back home with no lights on but that of her camera, she browsed the pictures she had taken. With only the occasional car zooming by on the road outside and the rustling of trees planted on the sidewalk, she then came across the only video she got from the event.
She pressed a button and played the recording.
Sunset could see Starlight visibly gulp.
She heard her voice. “Uh, h-hi!” And another gulp. “If you’re wondering why I-I look familiar, that’s because I’m Starlight Glimmer! You know...”
Sunset chuckled as she saw the rest of the video: the kites in the sky and the ponies holding them, Maud’s straightforward greeting for the camera, Trixie’s entrance from out of the blue, and the laughter everyone except Maud had.
She turned it off. After opening the drawer by the bed, Sunset put the camera back into its plastic bag.
With that done, she took out her phone and turned it on one more time.
One forty-one.
She yawned, covering her mouth in her exhaustion. “I’m not gonna have a great morning, am I?” Then, she smiled as best as she could. “Pinkie’s cakepies always do the—“ yawned again “—trick….”
She placed her sling bag on the shelf, put her phone behind a book, and covered herself in her blanket. After putting her head on the pillow, she slept.



Morning had returned half an hour ago, and Sunset was walking her way to school, first passing by the shops and stores of her district and then seeing more houses crop up the closer she got. Holding her camera, she encountered Fluttershy’s house.
It was a corner house and it looked modest. With brown bricks and a green roof, it gave off a humble atmosphere, but what got Sunset’s attention were the pets roaming around in the front yard. Dogs, cats, birds, bunnies—even a bear was present, but it behaved quite well for such a big creature.
Sunset then saw Fluttershy walk out of the house, saying farewells to her parents inside before closing the door shut.
Sunset glanced left and right, crossed the street, and walked up to her. “Flutters!”
Fluttershy gasped in surprise and tightened the grip on her own sling bag. “Sunset? I thought you would be, um, sleepy!”
“Nah.” She shot a thumb behind her. “Turns out I’d stored some of Pinkie’s cakepie things from Monday. Enough sugar to last me through the entire day without eating.”
Fluttershy nodded and smiled. “That’s good, if not unhealthy—“ and gasped again, placed a hand on her mouth, looking at her friend speechless. “How did your, uh, visit go?”
“Oh, it was really good!” Sunset held her camera up again, this time for her to see, finger on the button. “I even got some shots and footage of the competition! Also, Starlight showed up there as expected.”
Fluttershy smiled. “Who won?”
“You’ll be so happy for her when you realize who she is!” Sunset then winked.
And the two of them walked their way to school together, chatting about other stuff.



The school library was a spacious dome-shaped room, its ceiling made of diamond-shaped glass panes which let in ample sunshine so that everyone could have proper reading light in the day. It also smelled of both musty old pages and of aromatic woody scents. Bookshelves lined up the circular walls, most of them filled to the brim with books on a wide variety of subjects—and it was not just textbooks and yearbooks, for some comics were there, too. Finally, at the center was the computer station where a few computers sat around the bronze bust of a horse.
As Sunset and Fluttereshy entered the library, they saw the sparse number of students there—and by sparse, there were only their five best friends from the diner. The only teacher at hand, Cheerilee, shuffled books around, placing them on each table while brushing her purple hair.
“Morning!” Sunset greeted, waving at her.
Cheerilee waved back with her comb-holding hand. “Morning, Sunset! Don’t stay here too long; class will start in fifteen minutes!”
“Don’t worry,” she replied, “I can handle it.”
With Fluttershy, Sunset walked to the only packed table in the library.
Among those seated there, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were anxiously watching Twilight reading a book entitled The Golden Sail. Rarity sat beside her, tapping her nail-polished fingers on the table, eyeing those glasses with an impatient look. “Are you done?”
Pinkie tapped Rarity on the head and then on her arm. “Hey! Guess who’s here!”
She turned her head and there they were, Sunset and Fluttershy. “Why, good morning, you two!”
Pinkie furrowed her brows and inspected Shimmer. “You ate my cakepie leftovers, didn’t you?”
Sunset raised her hands. “You got me, Pinkie!”
Then, those last two friends sat down on the remaining empty chairs and settled down.
Sunset took out her camera and looked around. With a whisper, she said, “Is she watching?”
Rainbow Dash looked around and saw Cheerilee on the other side of the room, counting the number of books on a certain shelf; it had a book or two missing, from the looks of it.
Sunset looked there, too. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Then, everyone looked at her.
Applejack adjusted her hat, tense. “Heh, thank you for bein’ here, ‘cause Twi’s acting a bit...out of her mind.”
Sunset looked at Twilight again who was still reading the book, holding on to it. She saw, on the cover, several armored knights and a stately unicorn riding a boat with, well, a golden sail.
All eyes then shifted towards Twilight, who noticed the attention. She laughed nervously and pushed the book back to Rarity who responded, “Hmph! If you only knew how much we love our books, too!”
Twilight scratched the back of her head. “Sorry!”
Applejack looked back at Sunset, gestured an open hand to Twilight. “Exhibit A.”
Pinkie nodded, her smile somewhat dampening. “Yeah! We all know Twilight’s a little zealous when it comes to reading, but this is even worse than when I brought over laser pointers for the book club!”
“Uh,” Fluttershy spoke up, raising a trembling hand, “I thought Twilight didn’t want us to speak about the laser pointers.”
Twilight cleared her throat loud, glared at Pinkie.
It was now Pinkie who raised her hands. “Hey, it wasn’t a Pinkie Promise, so I get a free pass!”
And everyone went quiet as they considered Pinkie’s argument.
“Let’s...not bring that up again,” Sunset said, breaking the tension. “Let’s get on to why Twilight probably brought you all here.”
Twilight gasped, stared at her in shock. “How did you know?!”
Sunset wagged a finger, smirking. “After what you texted last night, I had to prepare myself for anything today.”
Twilight gulped and scratched the back of her head again. “Yeah, about that….”
Sunset pressed a button and the camera turned on. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I got home very late at night, but it was worth it for all of you.”
Those friends gathered around Sunset; some leaned closer while others stood up and walked to her side.
“Am I in there?!” Pinkie shouted, stretching her hair out. “Tell me, Sunset, am I in there?!”
“You joined at the last—wait, the other you joined at the last minute,” Sunset said, shielding the screen with one hand and scrolling to a certain picture with the other.
Everyone was silent as the pictures blurred as they scrolled.
Cheerilee, by another bookshelf, looked at the huddled group around the table. Then, she giggled to herself. “You go, old-fashioned Sunset!” she whispered under her breath before returning to her librarian duties.
Then, Sunset opened her mouth in delight. She put down the other hand. She drew in a huge breath of air. “Alright, girls. Are you ready to see what Equestria looks like for the very first time?”
“Do you have pictures of all the Princesses and their castles?!” Rarity shrieked with mad eyes. “It’d be a dream come true to catch even a glimpse of them!”
“You know you can go online and search up castle photos,” Applejack stated.
“Says Miss Farmgirl over here!” said Rainbow, nudging her on the shoulder.
Applejack smacked a palm on her own face. “Dash, I know how to use the in’ernet for years now.”
Sunset sighed, smiling though. “I think we all know what Rarity meant.” She faced the fashionista herself. “I took a picture of one of the castles. The second one is a train’s ride away, and the third one’s all the way up north. Might’ve taken me an hour both ways at best.”
Twilight inched her head even closer, then bumped Sunset on the ear.
“Ow!”
Twilight pulled her head back. “Whoops! Uh, sorry, Shimmer!”
Sunset rubbed her ear. “That’s OK. I know you’re excited and—“
“I’m so excited!” Twilight cut in, biting her lip. “I mean, sure, magic is very dangerous, but this is beyond anything I could ever imagine! Having magic here is one thing, but a whole world that can’t live without magic? Could I—”
Sunset held out her hand towards the over-excited Twilight. “Woah, calm down there! You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
And everyone, including Cheerilee, was looking at her odd.
“Uh, whoops again!” Twilight then looked around and took a step back.
Sunset caught a glimpse of Cheerilee who then turned her back on them and resumed sorting the books out. Then, turning to her friends, hand still over the screen: “OK, whatever you do, don’t talk about it unless it’s just us. If anyone asks you what we talked about today...say it’s between the group. We already have enough trouble with creatures going here; I don’t wanna know what’s gonna happen if someone stumbles into the portal on accident.”
“Or on purpose,” Applejack noted. “Didn’t Starlight arrive right in the middle o’ the day with everyone watchin’?”
“True,” Sunset answered, “but we don’t want them to just walk in and out the portal like it’s a door, and the less attention the portal gets, the better.”
Fluttershy nodded, saying “Mm-hmm.”
Rainbow nodded, too. “Yeah. Sounds pretty reasonable.”
Sunset wiped her forehead. “Phew! Now, let’s show you—“
Rainbow’s head leaned down beside the camera. “Did you take a picture of my awesome pony version there?! What did she do? Did she fly around and do cool loops?!”
Sunset gulped, glanced at Rarity and Twilight who were looking at her with excited grins, then raised a hand.
She looked at Cheerilee who did not look back at them this time; the teacher was now skimming through a book.
“What about all of you keep quiet?” Sunset then said, sweeping her friends with her view. “Don’t wanna cause any trouble, do we?”
Applejack sighed, looking down on the mischievous three beside Fluttershy. “She’s right, y’all.”
Rainbow, Rarity, and Twilight gave anxious grins to Sunset and immediately dropped them, regaining their composure.
Sunset sighed. Her shielding hand was shaking. “Alright? Here we go!”
The hand was lifted, showing the screen to all.
And everyone except Sunset gasped and said their slow “Wow!”’s, eyes wide as they saw the picture of a pink kite held by none other than Pinkie Pie herself.
Except it was not the Pinkie they knew.
In the picture, this other Pinkie Pie was a pink pony with curly pink hair. She had hooves, a tail, and three balloons on her flank.
“Wow, Pinkie!” Applejack looked at the Pinkie standing beside her, then at the camera, then at Pinkie, then back at the camera, then at Pinkie again. “Sunset talked about us bein’ similar, but I didn’t know it was like this!”
Pinkie—not the pony—smiled at the photo, holding both of her hands. “Aww! She looks so cute!”
Fluttershy tapped her chin. “Uh, if she’s a talking pony, what do I do with her?”
Sunset cleared her throat and pointed at herself. “I’m sometimes a talking pony, and you don’t have any issues with me.”
“I don’t have any issues literally talking to myself!” Twilight blurted out. With some eyes on her once again, she backtracked, saying, “Uh...maybe not a lot of issues?”
Rarity visually scrutinized the happy pony in the picture. “Did you take pictures of the rest of us?”
Sunset nodded, scrolling through the pictures fast enough so they were a blur once more. “Actually, it turned out all of your pony selves were up late for some reason.” Pointing at Rarity: “You were going to the town’s bakery to order a cake and have some chit-chat with Pinkie who, in Equestria, works there!”
With everyone still looking at the camera, Sunset stopped at another picture and showed them a photo of Pinkie Pie and Rarity sitting at a table in the bakery. This Pinkie’s mouth was buried in blue frosting, but this Rarity remained as clean as ever with her gleaming white coat and her curled purple mane—
“And those eyelashes!” yelled this world’s Rarity. “She has bigger eyelashes than I do!”
Applejack laughed, pushing her seat closer to the camera. “Sees herself as a pony, an’ the first thing she thinks of is eyelashes.”
Rarity then placed her face closer to the screen. “Wait...is that mascara? On a pony?!” She whirled her head towards Sunset. “You didn’t tell me ponies could be that fashionable!”
Sunset blinked. “I did.”
Rarity shook her head, glancing at her pony self on the screen. “What else is out there? Do they have lipstick?”
Sunset nodded. “Yeah. So?” Then, she caught a glimpse of Fluttershy peering at the camera. Sounding more eager: “Hey, Flutters, you were with Applejack right before the market closed; she was selling apples for the ponies attending the competition.”
With a swift flick of a finger, Sunset brought up another picture, this one of two ponies standing by an apple cart. The yellow one, Fluttershy, was smiling a modest smile, almost as if trying to hide from Shimmer with her long pink mane. The orange one, Applejack, was wearing her country hat and was holding up an apple on her hoof.
The Fluttershy and Applejack in this world looked at each other, mouths wide open, both saying, “Uh….”
Sunset scrolled through the photos again. “Alright, on to...um, you, Rainbow!”
Rainbow punched the air. “Aw, yeah! Did you catch me doing spinning tricks? Doing those sonic rainbooms like a pro?!”
The camera-holder chuckled. “You were just regulating the wind for the kite fliers.”
And she promptly showed the rather disappointing picture of pony Rainbow Dash floating in the sky, her wings spread out. She looked bored there.
And her counterpart looked bored here. “Ugh. But...hey, she has wings all the time. Going super fast is cool, but flying whenever you want?”
Sunset smiled, taking a closer look of the photo herself. “Yeah, it’s cool.”
Twilight placed a hand on her own cheek. “So, what did I do?”
“You organized the whole competition,” Sunset replied, scrolling down to a picture of pony Twilight doing just that.
There she was, the alicorn Princess herself, pointing a hoof over there while ordering another pony to do something—but, she was smiling. Also, beside her was a little purple dragon.
When Rarity saw him, she gasped. “Is that Spike?!”
“Mm-hmm,” was Sunset’s subdued reply.
Twilight, meanwhile, dropped her jaw. “Th-That’s...that’s what she looks like? I-I’m...I….”
Sunset looked at her, devious. Then, she lightened up. “Starlight Glimmer also sent a message.”
With all now quiet again, even excited Twilight, Sunset swiped the screen a few times and located the video. A press of a button and it played.
All were silent as they saw a unicorn sitting on the chair under the open night sky.
Fluttershy raised both her brows. “Is that Starlight Glimmer?”
Sunset nodded, not saying a word.
“Uh, h-hi!” the camera sounded with Starlight’s voice. “If you’re wondering why I-I look familiar, that’s because I’m Starlight Glimmer!”
And everyone watched as Starlight directed the camera towards the kites in the sky. Except for Sunset, they all dropped their jaws as they saw ponies move around with kites.
“W-Was that one floating her string?!” Twilight asked.
“Shush!” Sunset then placed a finger to her lips as they watched.
Twilight grinned, nervous.
“Oh, and Pinkie,” Starlight went on in the video, “your sister Maud also has a pony self! Here!”
And they saw a gray pony sitting on a chair.
Pinkie put both hand on her cheeks. “Maud!”
Sunset gave Pinkie an unnoticed smile as the video continued.
Then, they reached the part where Starlight was back in focus. “So, there you have it! It’s the three of us—uh, actually four, but she’s—“
“I’m here!”
And some gave odd looks at that.
Dash scratched her rainbow-colored hair. “That sounds awfully familiar.”
Then, the camera spun around, and a blue unicorn came into focus.
Everyone opened their mouth once again at the sight of the pony.
“Trixie?!” they all cried out.
“Sh!” Cheerilee shouted, putting a finger on her mouth as well before turning back to skimming another book.
But they did not pay attention to the teacher. They paid attention to the unicorn wearing a pointed hat and a flowing cape, and they saw that unicorn stick out her tongue. “No offense, but I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, can’t stand a world where magic isn’t real and the only thing you could do there is fake stage magic!”
Rainbow tried to stifle her laughter. “If only Trixie could come here and see this!”
And the others tried to stifle their laughter, too. Even Sunset.
“Well,” the Trixie in the video went on, “at least I could do real magic...like this!”
And when they saw the pony’s hat float into the air along with her horn glowing pink, their mouths were zipped.
Twilight’s eye twitched. “Wh-What...just happened?”
“A unicorn doing what she does best,” Sunset said, smiling. Then, she looked at her. “Don’t act surprised; you have telekinesis, so you already know what that’s like!”
Twilight smiled back. “And you used to do that a lot back in Equestria?”
“You already know that, too,” Sunset said, concerned.
“Oh! Right, right, right!”
“And, did I hear a challenge?” a haughty voice called out.
Sunset turned off the camera and turned around to see Trixie standing by the library’s doors, crossing her arms and wearing a glower.
She was also wearing a wizard’s hat.
Sunset smiled, waving at her. “What’s up, Trixie?”
Trixie did not wave back, approaching her slowly. “Do you think you fraudulent good-for-nothings could hide a secret from the Great and Powerful Trixie?!”
Sunset pushed her camera behind her back.
Her friends stood beside her, giving Trixie no greeting smiles.
“What secret?” Sunset said, sounding sheepish. “We were just having small talk, having a good refresher on trigonometry—“
“Hah!” Trixie brandished a pointed finger at them. “If you are truly refreshed, then tell me—“
“Inside a triangle, sines, cosines, and tangents are ratios related to an angle and/or the lines in that triangle.”
Trixie retracted her pointed finger. “That is sufficient for the Great and Powerful Trixie, for Trixie knows you possess a vast amount of knowledge.”
Sunset groaned. “It’s just triangles—“
“It’s more than just triangles!” Trixie yelled.
“Sh!” Cheerilee then placed a finger on her own mouth a second time. “It’s five minutes until class. Shouldn’t you...not be here?”
Sunset and friends then got up from their tables and fixed the chairs, then said their goodbyes to the teacher.
As they exited the library, Trixie walked with them, entering the hallways as other students milled about, opening and closing their lockers, cramming the corridors with their words. She eyed Sunset’s camera.
“Uh, what are you doing?” Sunset asked, noticing where Trixie was looking at.
“I know what you’re thinking, Sunset!” Trixie said. “You think I’m not magical enough!”
Sunset waved her hand off. “That’s crazy!”
Trixie scoffed at that. “Oh, we all know you’re the only unicorn in this school—or, you know, used-to-be unicorn. Look, Sunset—“ placed a finger on her nose “—you may have helped Trixie get into a favorable position in the yearbook and Trixie may have helped you get your friends’ memories back, but no one dares say they’re more magical than the Great and Powerful...Trixie!” and finished with hands stretched high into the sky.
They blinked.
Trixie’s smile disappeared.
And she threw a smoke bomb, disappearing in the smoke as everyone in the hallway coughed, tried to shake the smog away.
When the smoke cleared, Trixie was nowhere to be found.
Sunset looked at where the magician had been. “Huh. Must’ve been—“
And her bag shook; she took out the journal, flipped through the pages, and found the one page with letters glowing.
“What did the Princess say?” Applejack asked, looking over Sunset’s shoulder.
Shimmer ran her finger through the words. “It’s not the Princess...it’s Starlight again!”
The rest of her friends looked at each other, confused.
“She...she wants to come over here after school ends...spend the night together with us!”
“You mean this school or their school?” Twilight asked next, giddy.
“I guess it doesn’t matter which one,” Sunset replied. “They end their classes around the same time as ours anyway, so we’ll be fine.”
“Why is she coming over?” Rarity said, being the third to ask.
“Oh, to learn more about friendship, see if she could spread her lessons around here, and...pfft, defuse bombs.”
Rainbow groaned. “Really?”
“What’s wrong, Rainbow?” Sunset said, smirking at her this time. “It’s not like she’s the kind of pony to cheat.”
“Yeah, yeah, rub it in!” Rainbow budged her on the shoulder. “But, that’s not cheating! The rules never said you could peek at the manual; it only said you’re not allowed to look at it!”
“And what’s the difference?” Sunset inquired.
Rainbow looked away. “Nevermind…” then looked back, “but tell Starlight I’m no cheater!”
And the rest laughed as they walked down the hallway, passing by other students and classmates.
Though Twilight did bump into a mint green classmate, ruffling her spiky hair. She picked up her books and caught up with the rest of her group, now looking up with dreamy eyes, muttering something about magic.