“Ladies first,” Light Patch said, holding the door open for the girls; which prompted a scoff from Rainbow, who’d been playing with a hacky-sack while diplomacy strategies had been discussed.
“You’re just saying that because you’re worried that the ballet lady would throw a shoe at you if you went in again,” she scoffed.
“It’s still gentlemanly,” Rarity replied in his defense stepping through the door. “Now what I’d really like would be to get back to an earlier question of mine.”
“Does he know Kung Fu?” Rainbow jokingly threw out as she entered.
“You and your brother practice ballet?” the fashionista replied, with a small glare towards Rainbow as the last of the group entered the main room.
“Actually, now that ya bring that up, I’m a mite curious myself,” Applejack said, looking Light Patch up and down.
“Yeah, I took ballet largely, I guess, because my brother was taking it. I don’t really remember that much myself. I was five or six when I did it, along with tap and a little jazz,” He replied, showing off the little bit of tap he could remember. “I was okay at it, but never really put in the time to get really good at it. That was more my brother’s thing; he got a job being a part of the dance shows on cruise ships there for a while.” Light Patch reminisced as he thought back. “Why’d you wanna know, anyway?”
“If I was to guess, she was probably curious because it’s... kind of rare to meet a guy who takes ballet and openly admits it, considering its, ah, girlish appearance,” Fluttershy chimed in.
“Also, you don’t really look like a dancer either,” Rainbow also chipped in.
“Yeah well, it was a long time ago and I didn’t go for much of a year. Anyway, everyone ready to diplomatise?”
“That’s not a real word,” Princess Twilight said, frowning at Light Patch. “But yes, I believe I’m ready to ‘diplomatise’,” she said, stepping forward into the room where they could hear music playing from.
The moment they had opened the door and Hortensia saw them, she instantly froze and mouthed several words before her surprise wore off and her face became filled with rage. “I thought I told you to all get out, and never darken my doorway again!” she half shouted.
“The ‘darken my doorway’ bit is new,” Applejack muttered quietly.
“Yeah, but it’s a nice touch,” Light Patch replied.
“Very frightening,” Fluttershy said from where she was hiding behind the two.
“Wait, wait! Please, just hear us out,” Twilight replied, holding her hands out. “I know we’re in the way and kind of frustrating you, but please, we don’t need a super long time. We just wanna look at the mirror wall, and we’re prepared to help make it worth your while,” Twilight said, immediately jumping to her ‘Plan D’.
“How so?” Hortensia replied, crossing her arms.
“If ya’ll got any hammers, nails, and such, I can help fix up some of the smaller stuff,” Applejack volunteered, as she pointed at a few places here and there that had small minor repairs needed.
“And I’m a more than competent seamstress, and I’d be more than happy to help with any costumes, or making new curtains, or such related tasks,” Rarity said, looking pleased as she already began making plans.
“I could at least sweep up a little, or help Applejack,” Rainbow muttered.
“And what about you three?” Hortensia asked, looking at the last three.
“I’d clean the mirrors, all ov’em,” Light Patch said with a sigh as he looked around and realised that the walls of the room were all covered in mirrors, meaning the other practice rooms were likely the same.
“Considering that I’d be doing the most of the examining of the mirror, I’d help him clean them once we’re done.” Princess Twilight sighed as she not only reached the same conclusion as Light Patch had, but then also gone on and estimated the amount of mirror coverage, and calculated the odds that the other rooms would have just as much.
“I was thinking I’d help clean, if that's okay. If you’d rather, I could check the building for any animals like mice in the walls. Or something,” Fluttershy finished, finally having come out from behind Applejack and Light Patch now that Hortensia had calmed down some. The group watched the young woman as she considered the offer of the teens in front of her.
“It’d be nice not having to do all of that myself, and I have fallen behind on a lot of things...” she trailed off, looking around the room and thinking of all of the other things. “Alright, you know what? Fine. If you’re willing to help me out here and there, then sure. You two can follow me, and I’ll show you where I’ve got some tools and stuff I brought in to try and fix the place up some. The cleaning supplies, when you're ready for them, are in the door across from this room,” she said, finally motioning for Applejack and Rainbow to follow her and prompting small cheers or smiles about the success.
Twilight watched the group disperse as they either followed Hortensia to either see what she wanted them to focus on, or start on their own tasks. After a few seconds, she was alone and, with a sigh, turned to face the mirror that Light Patch had pointed out to her was where the three colts— Boys, Twilight. Come on, try to at least use the proper terminology, she chastised herself. Shaking her head, she walked up to the mirror and began to closely examine it. At first, she just looked and carefully touched the mirror to see if whatever magic there was would allow her through it. After a short while longer, and seeing no obvious magic or indications of it, she turned to her bag to collect some instruments that she always carried with her in her travels since she’d become the Element of Magic.
It was a couple of hours later and several pencils worn down to nubs, and enough pages to print at least half of Conflict and Resolution, but she was sure she had a decent answer for what happened that allowed the boys to get into this world. She smiled at her work, and then frowned when her ear twitched slightly at the sound of some soft squeaking in the room. She looked up to see Light Patch working on the mirrors on the far side of the room. She blinked as she realized she’d never even noticed that he’d re-entered the room.
“It was about half an hour ago.” Light Patch answered her thoughts. “Fluttershy and I started in another room to give you some peace and quiet while you worked. We managed to finish that room, and this was the only other one Hortensia—that’s her name by the way—wanted the mirrors cleaned. So Fluttershy started sweeping, and I started to work in here.”
“How-” She’d barely finished asking before he replied.
“You’d stopped scribbling and,” he waved into the mirror at her reflection, “I’m cleaning a mirror, and you're right behind me,” he finished, sounding like he was barely able to keep his laughter in.
Twilight flushed in embarrassment, before she looked at the final page of notes before her and gave a sardonic smile. “Well, it leaves more questions than it answers, but I think I know how you three got here. To sum it up, because I don’t feel like trying to explain it in full more than once, it looks like the same kind of magical set up like the mirror-statue magical bridge. But it’s recent and, while it’s a similar spell, there is a strong hint of Discord's magic. But it’s mostly somepony else’s work.”
“Or something,” Light Patch threw out. “You don’t think it was the Dazzlings, do you?” he continued.
“I doubt it, but I can’t… Hey wait, how do you kno-” She cut herself off and shook her head as she waved her hands to keep Light Patch quiet. “Let me guess; it’s all apart of the show, isn’t it?”
“Spin-off movie series that is-slash-was officially non-canon to the show. But yeah, I’ve seen all three of the movies that are out, and I think Purple Heart’s seen at least one. I don’t think Wits seen any of them, however,” Light Patch finished with a shrug.
Twilight sat there, quietly considering the answer before shuddering with how weird it all seemed to her. After a few seconds of allowing the thoughts to trail away, she quietly and efficiently gathered all of her stuff back into the bag, and grabbed some cleaning supplies to start on her share of the work. It was a few minutes of quiet before Light Patch finally broke it again.
“So, how’ve you and the others been since ya’ll got home?” he asked.
“Good. A little weird, but we’ve been managing to get back to our regular lives. Probably a result of all of the world-saving we’ve ended up having to do,” Twilight said as flash of the one time she’d ever really seen him bothered popped into her mind. “What about you three?”
“It’s been... good,” he said tersely, suddenly on edge before just as quickly sighing and giving himself a chiding look in the mirror that Twilight barely caught. “I don’t know about the others, but it’s been a bit shy of hell for me,” he finally admitted. “It’s weird. We had this massive adventure, turned into another species, almost died… probably. And we can’t tell anyone else about it. I’ve wanted to talk to someone, but I felt like I couldn’t even talk to the guys about it. I felt like there was some kind of...” he paused, searching for the right words, “unspoken taboo. Anytime we drifted close, something else seemed to just come up.”
“I’m sorry. I know how hard it can be. It took me a while to talk with my friends about the whole thing around my brother's wedding; assuming that was in the show.” She looked at the teen to see him give a nod of confirmation. “I figured as much. It does get better, and it’s kind of a band aid situation. You’ve just gotta rip it off.”
“It’d be easier to rip it off and actually talk about it if the first time I tried to talk about it, all of this didn’t then happen, like, immediately after I mention it,” he said, his hands waving to the room around them. “Like the universe decided that was close enough to saying ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ and decided to punish me for it anyway,” he finished with a bitter smile and a half laugh. “At least the universe has good comedic timing, if nothing else,” he said prompting Twilight laugh along with him transforming his bitter laughter into honest.
After they’d got their laughter back under control, they’d gotten back to work until Fluttershy came into the room to help them finish up, the sound of her entering once again made Twilight’s ear do that annoying feeble twitch, which made it itch. She grunted as she scratched her ear. “No offence to either of you, but this whole unmoving ear thing is just wrong and unnatural.” No sooner had she finished than Light Patch had begun laughing so hard he ended up falling to the ground. “What’s so funny?”
“You don’t know how big my freak out was when I’d gotten back to our world and my body. All through the adventure, I’d been trying to keep from thinking about the full range of movement of my ears, or that I could move my wings like I’d had them all my life. But once we’d gotten back to our world, a sound made my ear twitch and I just freaked out, shouting about how unnatural my pony ears’ movements had been and to get them off until my friends got me calmed down.”
“You were turned into a pony?” Fluttershy asked quietly, thinking about what she’d heard from Twilight and Sunset about how ponies looked on their world. “Oh, I bet you were just adorable.” She squeed thinking about it, prompting Light Patch to once again fall to his knees with laughter, before he settled down into a slightly evil chuckle and began to wipe the tears from his eyes he finally spoke up.
“You should ask Wits End about his pony form,” he said, falling into a light Joker laugh.
* * *
“So,” Science Twilight said, “you’re from another dimension, huh?”
“Yep,” Wits replied.
“Huh.”
“You know, you’re taking this a lot better than your pony counterpart did.”
Twilight shrugged. “Once you’ve had someone from a world of magical talking horses become your friend, you kinda get use to it.”
Wits paused. “Fair enough.”
The two of them walked in silence for a few seconds. “So,” Twilight said finally, “what are you three in your world?”
“Mollusks.”
Twilight stopped walking. “Really?”
“Yep. The three of us are hyper-intelligent cuttlefish who communicate through interpretive dance.” He turned back, seeing the unamused expression on the purple girl’s face. “Not buying it, huh?”
“Not really, no.”
Wits shrugged. “Fair enough.” The two of them continued walking. “We’re humans, mostly like the ones in this world. Only with a more limited color palette, and definitely less randomly bursting into song.”
“Really? How do you deal with major personal issues, then?”
“We push them deep down inside until the fester and destroy everything we know and love.”
“...So everyone in your world is a teenage boy, then?”
Wits winced. “Ouch. But fair.”
“What year of high school are you in your world? Sophomore? Junior?”
“Graduated. College too. I’ve got a job and everything.”
Twilight looked shocked. “What are you, a genius?”
“I’m old, is what I am.” Wits ran a hand over his smooth chin with a frown. “Thanks for reminding me. In our world, we’re a good 7-8 years older than we are here.”
“You got de-aged?”
Wits sighed and shook his head. “In the weirdest possible way, maybe. In our world, Purple Heart’s a couple years younger than I am, and Patchy’s about a year and a half older than me. Here, it’s like our age order has been reversed? Ish?”
“Hmm.” The two of them stopped at a crosswalk just as the sign turned from green to red. “How does that happen?”
“Magical mirrors. Discord shenanigans. How should I know?” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m just a passenger in this crazy ride called my life.”
“What’s a ‘Discord’, anyway? The other Twilight mentioned it before.”
“You ever seen Star Trek?”
“Is that like Interstellar Odyssey?”
“Is there a character who’s a god-like entity who messes with the crew on a semi-regular basis?”
“Yes.”
“Discord is that.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” The walk sign switched to green, and the two teens started walking once again. “There’s no-one called Discord in this world, is there?”
Twilight thought for a moment. “Well, there’s Mr. D. the janitor.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Discord I know.”
“There’s also Professor D. the Language Arts teacher.”
“There’s two people named D.?”
“Dr. D. the dentist, Señor D. the owner of the churro cart outside of the park, M.C. D. the radio host...”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Twilight shrugged. “Apparently it’s a very common name.”
Wits sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Five Discords. I don’t know if my poor heart can handle it.”
“Oh, there’s also-”
“Hey look, there’s Crystal Prep!”
“Huh?” Twilight looked up at the campus that lay before them. “Wow. I never thought I’d be back here.”
“It looks like school’s out for the day. We got here just in time.” Wits End moved over to the wall and knelt down, making a seat with his hands. “I’ll give you a boost, and then you can find a rope or a tree branch or something to help me climb back ov-”
Twilight shifted the branches of a bush a few feet away to reveal a hole in the wall. “Or we can go through this.”
Wits, still kneeling, shuffled over to the hole. “Why is there a barely hidden hole in this military compound of a school?”
“You can thank D.-san, the Crystal Prep groundskeeper,” she said while slipping through the gap.
“I hate everything about my life.”
“Some of the students needed a way to sneak out after curfew,” Twilight continued, ignoring Wits as he crawled through, “so they made a deal. As long as D.-san is supplied with weekly sushi rolls, he turns a blind eye to this hole.”
Wits End sighed, pulling himself back onto his feet. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“I should be able to get into the records using one of the computers in the teacher’s lounge.”
“Lead the way, fearless leader.”
The two of them slipped in through an open window, and snuck down the empty halls. “It’s right down here,” Twilight whispered, peeking around a corner, only to quickly pull back.
“What is it?” Wits whispered back.
“It’s you.”
“Me?” Wits leaned past her to see around the corner for himself. There was a student with long tangled hair standing at one side of the hallway, hunched over something in their hands. “That’s not me. I’m me. I should know, since I had to deal with myself back in Discord’s little game world.” He frowned. “He was a di-”
“Not you,” Twilight hissed, pulling him back. “This world’s version of you.”
“That’s me?”
“That’s you.”
“I have long hair here?”
“You don’t have long hair in your world?”
“Not since high school.”
“You are in high school.”
“My head hurts now.”
“Just be quiet!” The two teens leaned around peered around the corner to watch the alternate version of Wits. “What’s he doing?”
Wits narrowed his eyes in an attempt to see better. “Looks like he’s… on his phone? I think he’s texting someone.”
Twilight readjusted her glasses. “Is that a Blackberry?”
“Absolutely disgusting.”
“Hang on, he’s taping something to the bottom of that fire extinguisher. What is it?”
“We both wear glasses, and you think one of us will be able to see that thing from here?”
“Fair enough. Look.” The two of them watched as the Wits-alike turned and scurried down the hall away from them. “Let’s hurry before someone else shows up.”
“Right.” They moved up to a door with a sign. “Teacher’s Lounge. That’s our stop.”
Twilight nodded. “You watch the hall, and I’ll spoof the records so that Equestria High thinks you’ve transferred over. If anyone comes by, give three knocks and try to distract them.”
Wits End nodded. “Guard duty. I can do that.” He leaned through the door as Twilight slipped through. “Try to make it fast!” he whispered as loud as he could. “Guard duty never ends well in stealth missions!”
The door closed in his face. “Great,” he muttered, leaning with his back to the door. “Und now ve vait.” He looked across at what his alternate dimension counterpart had stuck to the wall. “Well, it’s not really being nosy if it’s me, right?” He crossed the hall and felt around the bottom of the fire extinguisher. “There we go,” he whispered, carefully pulling the object free so as to avoid tearing the tape.
In his hand was a smartphone, much more recent than the phone the other Wits End had been using. “Huh,” Wits muttered, leaning back against the Teacher’s Lounge door as he turned the phone over in his hand. “No brand name? I thought for sure it’d be a iPone or a Saddlesung or some other punny name. Huh?” He pushed each of the buttons in turn, but the screen remained dark. “No battery? I didn’t realize my alternate self was a creative litterbug.”
“Student?”
Wits went stiff, staring straight ahead. “Jig’s up,” he muttered under his breath. He forced a smile on his face and turned to face the source of the voice. “Yes, I-” His eyes danced over the older man in front of him. He was middle aged, with off-white skin and snow-white hair combed straight back. A pair of rectangular glasses framed his severe expression, and a quick glance down revealed a rather angry-looking scar that ran from the palm of his right hand up into the sleeve of his suit. Finally, the teen’s eyes landed on the badge pinned to the man’s coat pocket, and his eyes went wide. “Holdfast? What’re you doing here?”
“That’s Professor Holdfast,” the teacher corrected, narrowing his eyes at the much shorter teen. “I may have only joined this school recently, but that doesn’t mean you can be so informal with me. What’s your name?”
“Uh…” Wits took a step back towards the door, rapping his knuckles against it three times as his mind stumbled through a million possible answers. “It’s, uh… Stanlee. Stanlee Cameo.”
“Well then, mister Cameo. Maybe you can answer this question for me. What are you doing on school grounds after hours?”
“I, uh, well, that’s a, uh, very good question. I am…” Wits looked down at the device in his hand he had been nervously fidgeting with. “I… lost my phone, and had to come back to pick it up!” He held out the smartphone with another forced smile. “That’s all!”
“Hmm…” Holdfast’s eyes cut down to look at the phone. “And the tape?”
“The… tape…” Wits thought for a moment before deciding that the best lie would be the truth. “Someone taped it to the fire extinguisher,” he said, pointing to the same extinguisher he’d taken the phone from. “Probably one of those teenage pranksters I’ve heard so much about. Hah. Hah hah.” He knocked on the door three times again.
“And why do you keep doing that?”
“What? Oh, uh, you know. Knock on wood.”
“I see…” Holdfast bent down, inspecting Wits’ face. “Are you in one of my classes?”
“No, I just have one of those faces.”
“And what kind is that?”
“The kind where I always look guilty when talking to an authority figure?” Wits grinned for a split second before deciding that was too far. His ear perked as he heard the sound of a window sliding open through the door, then slide back shut. He sighed in relief.
Holdfast’s eyes narrowed. “And what was that, mister Cameo?”
“Oh, you know,” Wits said quickly. “Just like to keep breathing.” He pointed back towards the front of the school. “I should get going now. Teenager things to do, teenager places to be.”
“Hmmph. Fine.” Holdfast made a dismissive gesture with his scarred hand. “And mister Cameo?”
“Yessir?”
“Next time you lose your phone, don’t wait until school is over to retrieve it.”
“Oh, believe me, professor. You won’t see me in school after hours again.” Wits threw the snow-white teacher a salute as he turned and ran down the hallway.
“No running in the hall, mister Cameo.”
Wits skidded to a stop. “Heh heh, right.” He continued to the exit of the school at a moderate rate of speed, waiting until he stepped through the front doors before breaking into a run again. Once he was at the gate, he spotted Twilight. “Is it done?”
“Yep!” Twilight grinned widely, despite her heavy breathing from her own run away from the school. “According to Equestria High’s records, you’ve just transferred in.”
Wits gave the girl a thumbs up. “Excellent. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
“Let’s what?”
“Let’s go meet up with the rest of Mystery Inc.”
“Ah, that one I get.”
* * *
“So, you’ve met the other Pinkie, have you?” Pinkie Pie asked as she hopped from foot to foot down the sidewalk, arms out to balance herself.
“Yeh,” Purple Heart replied shortly. Sunset arched an eyebrow at his monosyllabic response.
“You met in a game?” Pinkie continued.
“Yeh.”
“Was it fun?”
“...Eh...”
“So it wasn’t fun.”
“...No...”
“Was it fun enough to want to do it again?”
“...Maybe.”
“AHA!” Pinkie cried, whirling around to point an accusing finger at the purple teen. “Two syllables! You lose!”
Purple Heart blinked at the vivacious girl. “Huh?” Pinkie shook her head and waved a finger at him, clicking her tongue in disappointment.
“You lost,” she reminded. “No take backsies.”
Sunset smirked, covering her giggle with a hand at Purple Heart’s frowning goldfish impression. “She’s got you there,” the redhead chided.
Purple Heart rolled his eyes and exhaled explosively from his nose. “Didn’t know I was playing a game,” he grumbled as they came to a crosswalk. He stopped, eyes avoiding the two girls as he focused on the crosswalk light on the opposite side of the street.
“Oh, darling,” Pinkie crooned, imitating Rarity as she reached up and petted the purple teen’s head, “everything is a game.” Another smirk passed over Sunset’s lips. Seeing the male teen’s profiled frown brought her such amusement for some reason. She turned back to the crossing light, letting a silence briefly fall around them.
“How about this,” Purple Heart said just as the light turned in their favor, “let’s play a game where you, Pinkie, ask me a question, and if I can’t answer it I’ll give you five dollars. Then, I’ll ask you a question, and if you can’t answer it, you give me five hundred dollars.”
Sunset arched an eyebrow again at the purple teen, stepping off the sidewalk to cross. “You have money on you?” she asked.
He blinked and looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Ehm...no?”
Sunset Shimmer rolled her eyes and sighed. “Then how do you expect to play?” she snarked.
“Ooh~!” Pinkie chimed, bouncing ahead of them again. “You could loan him the five dollars for the duration of the game!” Jerking in surprise, the redhead turned to her bouncing friend and stared incredulously at her.
“Don’t tell me you have five hundred dollars!” she asked, surprise suffusing her tone.
“Of course I do!” Pinkie replied cheerily. “Everyone loves sweets! And I work at the place the makes ‘em the best!” Sunset sighed and waved her hands.
“Go on then,” she said, pulling out a handful of fives from her wallet and holding it out to Purple Heart. He blinked and reached out to take it only for it to be snatched from his reach. He backed up under Sunset’s hostile glare.
“I want them back when this game is over,” she warned, “or so help me, I’ll...” She faltered for a moment, attempting to think up a viable threat to cow the taller teen. Looking up into his eyes, she saw him waiting expectantly.
“Well?” he prompted. “You’ll what? Molest me again?” His words elicited an immediate explosive reaction from the redhead.
“Don’t even go there!” she snapped, whirling on him. “I’ll think of something! Something...”
Pinkie smiled evilly as she walked beside them. “Need some time to think about your little lovers’ spat?” she said sneakily. Her smile widened upon seeing the two flush and immediately begin denying her words.
“Lovers’ spat!?” Sunset squawked. “With him?! I’d rather kiss Spike!”
“A lovers’ spat with her would leave me bleeding or otherwise injured,” Purple Heart retorted. “Thanks, Pinkie.”
“Happy to help!” the pink haired girl chortled. “Anyway, this game of yours?” Sunset gaped, darting past Purple Heart so that Pinkie was between the two of them.
“What, you still want to play that?” Sunset asked in surprise. “He could just be messing around with you!”
“So what? If it’s fun, it won’t matter as much,” Pinkie grinned, turning to address Purple Heart. “Well, who starts? You or I?”
The purple teen blinked and shook himself to answer. “Uh, you start,” he said.
“Okay then!” Pinkie fell silent for a moment as she thought. “What...is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
Sunset stared at Pinkie Pie incredulously. She was about to chide the pink haired girl into an asking an easier question when she remembered how much of a pain that Purple Heart was becoming. Her mouth stayed sealed as she looked past Pinkie at Purple Heart, waiting expectantly for his answer. Or lack thereof.
“African or European?” he clarified.
“African.”
“Dammit.” He looked down at Sunset and quirked his brow beseechingly. “Can haz monies?”
She tried. She really did. Those sorrowful eyes were annoyingly adept at accomplishing their task. “Ugh, fine.” She forked over five dollars which he promptly handed to Pinkie. Pinkie grinned, gesturing back at him.
“Your turn,” she prompted.
Sunset switched her gaze back to the purple teen.
“What goes uphill on four legs and down again on three?” he asked.
Sunset and Pinkie blinked, frowning at the question. Pinkie opened her mouth as if to answer but immediately shut it. This went on long enough for the trio to make it back to Equestria High.
Pinkie sighed in defeat and reached into her hair, pulling out five hundred dollars in ones and handing them to Purple Heart. He grinned and pocketed the money.
“Well, we’re back here,” Sunset gestured to the school. “Now what?”
“I’m going to ask Celestia if there are any dorms on campus,” Purple Heart said. “I don’t think the Purple Heart of here would much like me showing up at his house.”
“Understandable,” Sunset agreed. “Though I must say, during my time here, I’ve never seen a student dorm on campus.”
“It can’t hurt to ask,” Pinkie offered, brow still creased. She looked at Purple Heart. “Okay, I gotta know. What goes up hill on four legs and down again on three?”
A devilish grin crossed Purple Heart’s face and he pulled out five ones recently won from Pinkie and handed them to the pink haired girl.
“I’ll be back then,” he chortled, walking into the school and leaving the two stunned girls standing in the courtyard. After a moment, Pinkie burst into laughter. Sunset stared at her pink haired friend, a questioning look on her face. Upon noticing her friend’s incredulous look, Pinkie stopped laughing long enough to address the unspoken question.
“He may have trolled me,” she said, “but we still had fun.” Shaking her head, Sunset followed after Purple Heart into the school, followed shortly by Pinkie Pie.
“Do you suppose he misses home?” Pinkie asked softly in a moment of seriousness. “He just got pulled into another world again. Do you think he’s mad?” A sharp retort leapt to Sunset’s lips, but the frown on Pinkie’s face forestalled her scathing remark. The red haired girl considered the question carefully, thinking back to her interactions with the purple teen. Honestly, she couldn’t see him missing home. If he did, he hid it well behind his impertinence and constant puns. Therein lay the clue to his inner feelings.
“Maybe,” Sunset replied finally as they turned into the corridor leading to the principal’s office. “If he’s mad or homesick, he hides it well.”
Pinkie nodded her agreement. “He perked up when we came to the theater,” she pointed out. “We should get him to perform something… though what format it will take might be a problem...”
Sunset shrugged and held open Principal Celestia’s door. Inside was Purple Heart standing before Principal Celestia’s desk. Judging from the principal’s furrowed brow, Sunset believed that she had just been posed with Purple Heart’s question. Seconds passed, during which Pinkie and Sunset settled into the chairs flanking Purple Heart and unintentionally leaving no seat for the boy himself.
“No, there aren’t any student dorms on campus that you and your two friends could stay in,” Celestia spoke. Purple Heart sighed and his shoulders slumped. “However-” He perked up. “-there’s a small building on the north side of the campus that has been in disuse since I became principal here. I’ve no idea what its original purpose was, but I’m sure that you three boys could stay there.” A grin broke out on Purple Heart’s face. “But-” Only to fall minutely. “-it needs a severely thorough clean. Something that I think the girls can help you with.” Celestia looked past Purple Heart at Sunset Shimmer and Pinkie Pie with a kind smile.
Sunset gulped. “Oh boy.”
“Cue ‘student bonding over cleaning’ cliche,” Purple Heart hummed. “Thank you, Principal Celestia. My comrades and I greatly appreciate your offer.” Celestia inclined her head and waved the trio out.
“Off you go,” she dismissed. “I’m sure your friends are on their way back.” Pinkie hopped out of the chair, her cheer returned and she skipped out of the office followed by Sunset who set a more sedate pace. Purple Heart smiled and followed the two girls, closing the door behind him. Celestia sighed.
“Now,” she cooed, placing her hidden plate back on her desk. Atop the plate sat a piece of cake with a fork stuck haphazardly in it, as if she’d been interrupted. “Where were we?”