“So...wanna like...cuddle or something?” Sunset asked as soon as she and Jake were alone.
“Wait...WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!” Jake replied, confused out of his mind.
Sunset took a small step back, having been slightly spooked by Jake’s sudden outburst.
“Whoa, easy there, Jake,” she comforted, taking few steps forward and placing a hoof on his leg. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. How about we just sit and talk for now, alright?”
Jake simply nodded at Sunset as he started coming to his senses again. Both of them then took a seat next to each other on the couch.
“I’m sorry I freaked out like that, Sunset,” Jake apologized. “It’s just, all of this is happening so fast that I’m having trouble coming to grips with it.”
Sunset turned her head to the side, avoiding eye contact with Jake out of regret.
“Yeah, I’m sorry too, about everything tonight,” she stated as she rubbed her left hoof with her right one. “Things didn’t quite go as I’d hoped. I wanted to be alone with you when I told you how I feel, but I got into it with Starlight, and then I just blurted it out and, ugh, I’m so bad at this!”
Sunset quickly stopped rubbing her hoof and brought both her hooves up to her face out of embarrassment. Jake could sense his friend’s distressed mood about how the night had unfolded so far and, wanting to comfort her, placed his left hand on her shoulder.
“It’s fine, Sunset, really,” he reassured the fiery unicorn. “I’m sure it must have been hard for you to confess your feelings, but I’m glad you did.”
As soon as Jake said that, Sunset lowered her hooves and stared Jake straight in the eyes in mild disbelief. Did she hear him correctly? Did he really just say he was glad that she’d confessed to him?
“You…you are?” She asked aloud as she inched her face closer to Jake’s.
“Of course,” Jake affirmed as he moved his hand from Sunset’s shoulder to her mane, stroking it lightly. “You’re my friend, Sunset, and even though we haven’t know each other long, I really do like you. I would be happy to have you as my marefriend.”
While Sunset was enjoying having her mane stroked, the sheer joy she felt from hearing Jake’s words was unlike any feeling she’d felt before. Her eyes started to tear up as she quickly pulled Jake into a hug.
“Thank you, Jake,” she said as she cried her tears of joy. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.”
Jake returned the hug as he too started to tear up a little, happy that Sunset was feeling better.
“So, since I’m officially your marefriend now, do you feel like cuddling?” Sunset eventually asked.
Jake didn’t answer right away. In fact, much to Sunset’s surprise, he broke their hug and looked her in the eyes. She could see that Jake’s eyes no longer contained joy and happiness, but rather sadness.
“Sunset,” Jake very solemnly and gently said. “I said I would be happy to have you as my marefriend, but I can’t just make you my marefriend, not yet at least.”
Sunset felt her heart sink in ways she never imagined possible. Just as quickly as she’d felt happy at Jake’s words a few moments ago, these new words filled her with despair. She started visibly shaking, taking stagnant breaths, and once again started crying (this time tears of sadness).
“Wh-What do you mean?” she asked, trying not to have a complete breakdown. “I-I don’t understand.”
“Sunset?” Jake asked out of genuine concern for Sunset’s current well-being. “Sunset, listen to-“
“W-Why is this happening?” Sunset continued to ramble, lost within her own decaying mental state. She brought her hooves up to sides of her head in a futile effort to make the pain in her mind stop. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE-”
“SUNSET!” Jake shouted as he grabbed both of Sunset’s shoulders, trying to snap her out of it.
Upon hearing Jake’s thunderous voice and feeling his touch, Sunset calmed down a bit. She slowly lowered her hooves from her head, though her breathing remained stagnant and her eyes were still producing tears.
“Listen to me, Sunset,” Jake stated, trying to sound as stern, but compassionate, as possible. “I want you to be my marefriend, with all my heart I truly do. But before that can happen, there are some things that need to be cleared up, okay?”
Sunset stared silently at Jake with glossy, tear-filled eyes for a few seconds before slowly nodding her head in acknowledgement.
“Okay,” Jake said as he pulled Sunset into another comforting hug. “I’m sorry that I upset you like that. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you.”
“Y-You don’t have anything to apologize for, Jake,” Sunset softly and sorrowfully replied as she returned the hug. “I’m the one who lost it. I’m so messed up.”
Jake broke the hug ever-so-slightly, enough so that he could stare Sunset in the eyes.
“You’re not messed up, Sunset. You’re just sensitive, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” he asserted before placing a small kiss in Sunset’s forehead, just below her horn.
Sunset involuntarily broke the hug completely and scooted a few inches towards the other end of the couch. She could feel a small blush cross her face that she tried, and failed, to conceal by covering it with her right hoof and turning away from Jake.
“Um, t-thanks, Jake,” she embarrassingly mumbled, barely above a whisper.
The cute sight made Jake give a small giggle as he scooched closer to the flustered unicorn.
“What are friends for?” he stated as he started scratching Sunset just behind her right ear.
The feeling of having her ear scratched caused Sunset to completely forget about her embarrassment. She lowered her hoof from her face and closed her eyes as she enjoyed the sensuous act, a small smile forming on her face.
“Hmm, that’s nice,” she inadvertently said aloud, but didn’t really care.
Once again, Jake gave a small giggle, giving Sunset a little *boop* on the nose.
“Okay,” he said as he stopped scratching, much to Sunset’s dismay. “We really need to get some things out in the open before we take this any further.”
Sunset looked Jake square in the eyes and steeled herself for what was bound to come.
“Alright, ask away,” she sternly stated.
Jake too tried to steel himself for what was to come. He knew what question he needed to ask first, but didn’t really want to ask it out of fear for what the answer might be.
“What’s the deal with you and Twilight?” he finally asked.
“W-What do you mean?” Sunset replied in a manner that suggested she knew exactly what Jake meant. “We’re friends, there’s no ‘deal’ between us.”
“I think there is,” Jake retorted. “When you were here last time you playfully suggested that maybe I wouldn’t mind having a third girlfriend and then Twilight got upset and dragged me off to bed with her, emphasizing that I’m her boyfriend. That tells me there’s some history between you two that I don’t know about.”
Sunset broke eye contact with Jake and stared at the floor, not saying a word.
“Sunset,” Jake spoke up. “If we’re all going to be in a relationship together, I need to know about any bad blood between you and Twilight. I promise I won’t judge you.”
Sunset gave a long, deep sigh as she resumed eye contact with Jake.
“It’s not something I like to talk about, or even think about, but we fought over a guy once,” she began to explain. “See, there was this guy named Flash Sentry. I used to date him but we broke up, and then Twilight started to get a crush on him, and he kinda liked her back too, but he wasn’t really over me. Even though Flash and I never really got back together, Twilight still blamed me for never having a chance with him.”
Everything was starting to make sense to Jake now.
“I told her that I’d told Flash I didn’t want to get back together though,” Sunset continued. “And in the end, Twilight and I agreed that there were no hard feeling about the whole thing, but I guess some wounds run deeper than you might initially think.”
Jake could see the feeling of guilt on Sunset’s face.
“It’s alright, Sunset,” he tried to comfort her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You knew your friend liked this guy, and you didn’t do anything on your part to try and take him away from her. You’re a very noble and considerate mare.”
A smile once again began to form on Sunset’s face as she heard Jake’s words, as well as a small blush.
“If you say so,” she commented.
Jake reached out his right and stroked his fingers through Sunset’s mane.
“I do say so,” he reaffirmed.
The continued flattery only made Sunset’s blush grow darker as she gave a girlish giggle.
“So, anything else you want to know?” she asked.
Jake did have a number of other questions he wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure which to go with next.
“Um, do you live here in Ponyville?” he went with.
Sunset didn’t give an immediate answer like Jake had expected. Instead, Sunset just stared at him with a look of confusion.
“Wait, you don’t know where I’m from?” she eventually said.
“Uh, no, I don’t,” Jake replied, now confused himself. “Should I?”
Sunset just continued to stare at Jake, not quite sure how to explain things.
“O...kay, well, it’s kind of a long story,” she stated.
Sunset then told Jake her story, everything from when she abandoned her studies with Princess Celestia up to when she accepted the magic of friendship.
“So, yeah, while I was born in Equestria, I technically live in another world,” Sunset ended her tale.
Jake was speechless, dazed, flabbergasted. Sunset’s tale was, to be sure, an incredible one, but there was one element of it that he couldn’t help but fixate on.
“Let me get this straight,” he said in a way that suggested he was exerting a significant amount of self-control over his emotions. “You’re telling me that in all the time I’ve been in Equestria, Twilight has had a magical mirror portal that goes to a human world?”
“Um, yes?” Sunset nervously replied, sensing the rising emotions within Jake.
Without warning, Jake quickly stood up from his seat and angrily stomped over to the library doors, completely forgetting about Sunset for a moment.
“TWILIGHT!” he shouted as he stormed down the castle hallway.
Starlight Glimmer was in the kitchen, enjoying a late night snack of tea cakes when Twilight Sparkle entered the room, looking half-dead and dragging herself over to the fridge.
“Whoa, what happened to you?” Starlight inquired as she put her tea cake down.
“Guy’s night,” Twilight tiredly clarified as she took a bottle of cider out of the fridge and chugged the whole thing.
“Um, what?” Starlight asked, not understanding what Twilight of all ponies would be doing at Guy’s Night.
“Discord got carried away and brought an army of paper skeleton ponies to life that started ransacking the town. Princess Luna and I just spent the last two hours fixing everything,” Twilight explained as she put down her now empty bottle of cider.
“That must have been fun,” Starlight sarcastically commented as she went back to eating her tea cake.
“Yeah, super fun,” Twilight just-as sarcastically stated as she took a seat at the table opposite Starlight. “Do you know where Jake is? I could really go for some cuddling right now.”
Starlight quickly finished her tea cake before answering.
“I think he’s still in the library with Sunset Shimmer,” she responded.
“WHAT?!” Twilight angrily shouted as she sat up in her seat and pounded her fore hooves onto the table.
Starlight nearly fell out of her own seat at Twilight’s sudden outburst. Given how exhausted the alicorn princess had been just seconds before, she couldn’t fathom how Twilight suddenly had the energy to erupt like that.
“WHY IS SHE WITH JAKE?!” Twilight asked as Starlight regained her composure.
“W-Well,” Starlight began to nervously explain. “Sunset came here asking if she could join our herd and, I said I was okay with it, but Jake had a few reservations, so I left them alone to get to know each other better.”
Twilight didn’t say a word, she just stared at Starlight with an infuriated expression and a twitchy eye for about five seconds before getting up from the table and stomping out the door. As soon as she left Starlight breathed a sigh of relief, until she heard Twilight yell from just outside the kitchen.
“SUNSET SHIMMER!”