So I thought about it and, while I am getting a bit more used to the general work, I don't think I'm ready to write about my first case just yet. It probably wasn't even as bad as I'm making it out to be, but for some reason what happened just... hit me really hard.
I don't even know why.
In any case, instead of writing about that, I'll write about some other things, like the fact that I actually got to personally meet Princess Celestia's prize student today. Yup, the one and only Sunset Shimmer herself. It was a very... eye-opening experience. If I were asked to describe the mare...
She's... not the kind of mare I thought she'd be.
Don't get me wrong, she's actually a fairly decent pony for the most part and we did actually hit it off eventually, but I think I saw a side of her I wasn't really supposed to see if that makes sense. We all have a nasty side to us, and Sunset is no exception. After listening to her and just generally observing her for a while though, I've come to the conclusion that much of her attitude might stem from the immense pressure of being the Princess' personal protégé, but that's just my guess.
Okay so maybe I should explain.
My senior partner and I had traveled to Rainbow Falls to investigate a report regarding strange distortions in the thaumic field in that area. By the time we got there the field had settled down and there wasn't really anything left behind for us to investigate so we headed back with nothing to show for the trip.
It happens a lot more often than you'd think and it's always a pain when it does. You hype yourself up for some big discovery and then when you get there, poof... nothing. Some of the more jaded agents see it as a relief, but as much as I complain about my job, I can't help but get excited at the thought of finding some otherworldly thingamajig. Well, I mean when we're able to find it before anypony else does that is. The best part of my job is finding out how these objects work in a controlled environment... but I'm getting off-topic here.
My point was that the trip was a bust and we had to slink back to the boss with nothing to show for our efforts. He's usually pretty cool about things like that, but because we had some unexpected free time he gave us, or rather my partner, another job to do. The only reason I was able to meet Sunset Shimmer at all was that I was left with nothing else to do for the moment. My partner decided that wasn't fair so she ended up dragging me along while she spoke to the Princess about approval for some expedition outside of Equestria's borders.
She brought me along but I still didn't have much to do there so I stood out like a sore hoof. Thankfully the Princess noticed how awkward I was just standing there while my partner did all the work and gave me a job. I didn't really know she could just do that without any input from the boss, but she is the Princess so even if there was some kind of protocol, following her orders was kind of a no brainer. Well, it was because she was the Princess, but I was also happy to do it because the job in question involved finding and retrieving Sunset Shimmer from wherever she'd snuck off to within the castle.
Apparently, the mare had a habit of running off to who-knows-where to do who-knows-what without informing anypony of where she's going. My job was to find her and bring her back to the Princess like she was some foal who'd run off when her mother wasn't looking. Was it an important job? Maybe not, but I didn't care. I was going to meet one of my idols next to the Princess and Star Swirl. It was going to be awesome and I'd get an autograph and all that other happy horse manure.
Cut to about forty-five minutes and many, many searched rooms later and I find Miss Shimmer holed up in the restricted section of the Royal Archives. One of the perks of my job is that I just have to flash my badge to the guard and, as long as it's for work, I get unrestricted access to the entirety of the Royal Archives, including the restricted section.
It's a really, really nice perk.
Getting back to Sunset Shimmer, the mare is sitting at a small desk near the back, book in hoof and looking for all the world like it was her Goddess given right to be there. By the time I found her I was more than a bit fed up with the search, but when I actually saw the mare that irritation went right out the window. I won't say I squealed like a filly because that didn't happen, although a polite cough was enough to catch her attention.
The first expression on her face was shock, then confusion, then annoyance. I didn't really know what to say, but before I got the chance to say anything she up and teleported right out of the room, book and all. It took me a second to process the turn of events, but her disappearing from my sight wasn't exactly a problem in and of itself. Now that I found her, I could use the remnants of her own unique thaumic signature to track her. I may still be a rookie, but I took my training seriously, and just so happened to be particularly good at tracking magical signatures.
I was also pretty adept at teleportation myself.
What followed was a sort of cat-and-mouse game that lasted for at least a good twenty minutes. She'd teleport all over the castle and I would use her thaumic signature to track and teleport right after her and the cycle would repeat itself endlessly. Neither of us spoke to one another during the whole thing, but the funny thing was that neither of us needed to. This might sound strange to anypony who isn't a unicorn or has much interest in thaumotology, but during our little game, I think Sunset and I ended up... connecting somehow, like through our magic rather than words.
I felt it in the way she would try to trip me up by suppressing or artificially changing her thaumic signature or adding other magical twists and turns to throw me off. Chasing her was like trying to solve an ever-changing puzzle that got more difficult each time I found the answer. By the end of the chase, a mutual sense of respect had grown between the two of us. That's not just me interpreting what I want either; Sunset had said as much after my partner (and brother of all ponies) stepped in and finally ended the game.
In the span of about half an hour or so, we'd gone from frustrating one another to Sunset mocking and frustrating me, to just playing a fun game of extremely advanced teleportation tag. It was incredibly foalish I admit, but it really was fun in the end and I think I might've made a friend out of Princess Celestia's protégé in the process. We talked for a bit after that and though she had her... less adorable qualities, I realized we had a lot in common.
The mare was every bit the thaumatological whiz kid the stories made her out to be and she knew it too. On top of her excessive confidence in her own magical capability, I also noticed she had a nasty habit of looking down on others. Still, neither her arrogance nor her conceit was so bad that we couldn't get along, and we did. Not a lot of agents bothered to make friends outside of the agency and those that had friends before then tended to cut ties with them—something about never knowing when you might die a horrible death and leave them behind.
I myself had never really been a social butterfly and hadn't gone out of my way to make any friends, but I realized today that sometimes friendship can just happen. Like, out of nowhere when you least expect it and with ponies you never expected to be friends with in the first place. Well, maybe it's a bit too early to call Sunset a friend, but the potential is definitely there, and you know what? Celestia willing, I think I might actually pursue that friendship.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, there was something I overheard the Princess talking to Sunset about as my partner and I were leaving that I found a bit strange. She had asked if Sunset had fun, and while that sounds like a benign enough question, something about the way she said it stuck out to me. I looked back to see Sunset rolling her eyes at the question as though she'd been asked that kind of thing a hundred times, but it was the Princess' look that caught my attention.
She had this weird smile on her face, the kind of smile that hid a thousand and one secrets. I'd learned to read faces during training and I'll be damned to Tartarus if Princess Celestia wasn't wearing one then. What was even stranger was that she'd noticed I was watching and gave me the same smile. Now it might just be my imagination going wild, but I'm starting to wonder if she'd planned the whole thing to play out the way it did...
No, that's stupid.
Not only does Princess Celestia have better things to do with her time, but what would even be the point? Maybe some kind of practical joke? A prank played on the castle staff? Nope, I just can't see that being the case, but at the same time, I know I didn't imagine the look she gave me. I don't know, maybe I'm just looking too deep into it. I'm tired and I tend to overanalyze everything when I'm tired.
I guess that's my cue to end things here for the night.