A destitute orphan moving to live in an opulent castle is in for many experiences, some with a stinging feeling of familiarity, others not, some filling one with elating feelings of hope and opportunity, others… not.
Princess Celestia sighed, as she sat on her balcony, deep in melancholy and worry despite the refreshing night breeze.
She thought back to her own humble origins, a family of ordinary peasants long ago, when Equestria was different, darker, and that word, peasant, was commonly used.
She searched in vain for something she could use to relate to her wayward student, shared experiences, longing, something to help impart the wisdom she had learned all those centuries ago.
But she mentally kicked herself at every idea. Orphans aren’t similar to each other just because they’re orphans. Something else was needed.
Sunset Shimmer’s headstrongness had become an iron will, and eventually an indomitable determination. Her desire for knowledge and power had become ambition, and eventually obsession.
All points against Sunset’s character, to be sure, but…
Celestia sighed again.
… Not everypony can gracefully see the path to becoming an immortal alicorn, and then be denied it, even temporarily.
Celestia could. In her great wisdom, forethought, and patience, granted to her by her nigh-incomprehensibly long life, she could stand to wait, and let ascension into an alicorn come when she was ready.
The bitter irony was not lost on her.
She looked up into the night sky, to the fabled Mare in the Moon, and saw her sister staring back at her.
Lessons had to have been learned. It could not all have been in vain.
She stood up, she would send for Sunse– no! She would go to Sunset. The young archmage’s behavior could be infuriating beyond words, and could send even the most unflappable of ponies bristling, but humility was needed. Patience, and understanding, and love, was needed. She did love Sunset Shimmer.
That was when the alarms on the forbidden section of the castle tingled inside her mind.
“No!”
—
The core faculty of Hogwarts reached the innermost chamber.
“And this room is where I will be placing my contribution,” Albus Dumbledore said, calmly.
“While we appreciate the vote of confidence, this is You-Know-Who we are talking about,” said Pomona Sprout. “Any... danger course we will be able to think up will be useless against him.”
“Certainly not,” Dumbledore kindly asserted. “And false modesty is of no use here.”
“I have to also voice the same concerns,” said Filius Flitwick. “It will, at most, be a delaying tactic.”
“Ah, but a little delay can mean so much. And besides, he cannot be everywhere at once, he did have his cadre of followers for a reason.”
Dumbledore did not glance at Severus Snape, Flitwick and Sprout did however, as did Minerva McGonagall, though it was barely perceptible. Snape’s expression did not change.
“And so that will be your task between classes. A bit of… homework, as it were,” Dumbledore added, jovially, as they turned around and started walking back towards the entrance. “My old friend has entrusted us with the safety of his great accomplishment. Let us not disappoint him. Walk with me if you will, Severus. Minerva, please join us at the mirror.”
“Yes, professor Dumbledore,” McGonagall said.
The staff of Hogwarts filed out of the corridor on the third floor, and walked their separate ways, except for Snape and Dumbledore, who calmly strolled down the hallways together.
Dumbledore broke the silence. “Despite the circumstances of the Dark Lord’s temporary demise, we must assume you are of course still in his favor.”
Snape’s expression hardened. “... I have not spoken to him since before his… misfortune.”
“You are valuable to him however, or so he is convinced.”
“He is vindictive.”
“Yes… but you were not alone in clearing the path he walked. Blame can be shifted onto others.”
Snape’s mouth twitched as he fought down both a smile and a snarl as he realized who Dumbledore was talking about.
“Even so, be mindful of what you do and what you say. His servants will do their best to cloak their allegiances. Use that, and do not let them reveal to you that they are out to do his bidding.”
“Of course,” Snape said, with not a hint of emotion in his voice.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, until they reached the empty classroom, in a far corner of the castle, where Minerva McGonagall was approaching them.
“I trust I am not interrupting.”
“Not at all,” Dumbledore said, in a kind voice, as they entered the room with the mirror of Erised. “I assume another barrage of owls sent to the young mister Potter won’t be of any use?”
“No, as expected. Rubeus is ready to leave tonight. I’m sure he will be convincing enough.”
“As am I,” Dumbledore chuckled.
“Unseemingly demanding of the boy,” Snape sneered.
“You know it is not him,” McGonagall chastised Snape, who said nothing.
“Ah, but we must leave the subject of non-magical relatives for now,” Dumbledore said, and stood with his back placed against the mirror, and Snape had to sidle a bit to not get a clear view of it himself.
“Now, as for my plan concerning this–”
That was as far as Dumbledore got before the mirror started glowing intensely, instead of showing what it normally showed, there was a whirlpool of lights and mists, before a blinding light positively exploded out of it, making the two wizards and the witch avert their eyes.
When next they looked, the mirror was back to normal, and Snape had to jerkily avert his eyes from it. That was easier than expected, as there was something else demanding their attention. At the foot of the mirror was something that made even the unflappable Albus Dumbledore open his mouth in surprise for several seconds before he shot forward with a worried frown.
A young girl, with an eye catching mane of fiery red hair with blond streaks running through it, was sprawled on her belly, wearing a set of robes and a shoulder bag, her head to her side, revealing a troubled expression.
Dumbledore quickly drew his wand and wordlessly motioned it over the unconscious girl, his free hand a small distance from her mouth to confirm her breathing.
“Albus?” McGonagall said, in a worried voice.
“Alive, and seemingly unharmed.”
“Who is she?” Snape asked, evenly.
“I do not recognize her. Minerva?”
“No,” said McGonagall. “How could she…? That was not apparition, or phoenix fire, and it was not a house elf.”
“No,” Dumbledore concurred. “Regardless, I believe the medical wing is our next destination.”
Showing a surprising strength, Dumbledore lightly picked up the young girl, and walked out of the classroom, his staff in tow, with only Snape stopping in the doorway to cast one more suspicious glance at the mirror.
—
Poppy Pomfrey liked her job, but disliked actually doing it. It meant, after all, that there was demand for it. Nevertheless, she dutifully patched up the students, and sometimes faculty, of Hogwarts through the years, mending scrapes and lesions, setting bones right, restoring mis-aligned teeth…
... Neutralizing mis-brewed love potions, moving ears from heels back to the head, re-inserting brains into skulls, and once, safely removing a schooner from a nostril.
“Madam Pomfrey?” Dumbledore had gently called from the entrance to the medical wing.
Poppy Pomfrey had looked up from her weekly issue of Time Travelling Monthly and seen the man in question and the reason he was coming to visit. A quick glance at his face had told her she did not literally have to spring into action however.
“Really, headmaster. The semester has not even started yet.”
The headmaster chuckled to himself in his office. Now that the mysterious girl was being cared for, he felt confident that recognising the levity in the situation would not be tasteless.
It had been established that the girl had magical talents, or the wards of the castle would have informed him otherwise. That was good, because it meant he did not have to turn her over to muggle authorities and let them take care of it, even though he had more confidence in their abilities than many others born into the magical world.
Of course, it also meant that it fell to him and his staff to locate the girl’s family.
She looked somewhat like a Weasley with her fiery hair, but Dumbledore felt confident she wasn’t one, as all but two of the Weasley children were attending or had attended Hogwarts. Even so he had penned a quick letter to Molly to affirm the whereabouts of her remaining two children, and not to worry if they were present. The inquiry included Ronald, in case he was under a shapeshifting spell- like the girl, he was supposed to be rather tall after all, like Percival and William.
The headmaster brought the bag the girl had carried with her up to his desk, and gently opened it. She had not had a wand on her person, nor did it seem one was in here.
The contents still gave him pause however. A book and some coin were not the most unique of contents to find in a shoulder bag, but these were not ones Dumbledore was familiar with.
The book was a fairly stout one, with a picture of a red and yellow sun on the cover, the colors matching the girl’s hair. Dumbledore inspected it closely, and there was magic on it.
Whatever spell was on it was powerful, but Dumbledore did not recognise it. Being a rather well-informed wizard, and an old one, and well-schooled in many forms of magic even for his age, Dumbledore was somewhat taken aback by how utterly unfamiliar it felt.
It could have been one he had missed in his many years of study of course. It wasn’t impossible, just… unlikely.
Unlikely to the point where he felt confident enough to dismiss that possibility. Another possibility was that it was particularly old, and from a culture of magic he wasn’t familiar with. In his myriad quests over his life, the older magical arts of Mali for example had never become very relevant.
So if not particularly old, then some magical culture he was particularly unfamiliar with. He opened the book, and saw the contents.
Everyone tended to develop their own style of cursive writing, and some ended up being tricky to decipher, but he did not suspect that this… graceful, to say the least, style of writing was the result of sloppy crow’s feet style of jotting down words. This was a foreign language.
He gently tapped his wand against the pages, and again, and again, a myriad of translation spells slid past the signs on the page, not recognising any of it as forms of communication.
Dumbledore sat deep in thought for a moment, before reaching into the bag again and retrieving one of the gold coins. On it was more writing he did not recognise, and more particularly, the side profile of a serene-looking unicorn with closed eyes, an impossibly lustrous mane, and an incredibly long horn.
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair.
An unfamiliar culture indeed.
After a while, he rose to his feet, and walked over to a large, stout cupboard.
Inside, there was a chamber that was larger than the furniture. In that chamber was only one thing- an open book resting on a pedestal, with page after page filled to the brim with names.
At the bottom of the current page was a name that had not been there the day before.
—
Sunset Shimmer was sprawled across a bunk in the medical wing, snoring loudly, her hair looking like a grenade had gone off in it.
To Sunset, waking up and starting to function did not happen at the same time as she gained the ability to form conscious thoughts.
She sat up, smacked her lips loudly to try and dislodge some half-dried saliva, and raised her hand to use digits she had never had before to dislodge the eye-boogers from the bridge of her nose as she blinked her eyes out of sync.
She didn’t remember going to bed with a white curtain like in a hospital around her. In fact, she didn’t remember going to bed at all.
She looked down on her unfamiliar body, and figured that might have something to do with it, before she let herself fall down on her pillow again, not caring enough to get up until she gets ten more minutes.
After a short while, her eyes shot open, and she sat up with lightning speed, but was too scared to actually look at herself.
Eventually, her still murky eyes looked down on her body again. She decided to deal with this later, and went right back to sleep.
Immediately after that, or so it seemed to Sunset, she was awake again, this time she didn’t have the comforting haze of half-wakefulness to shield her from what she had seen before, and deciding that third time's the charm, she made another attempt at inspecting herself.
“Okay, okay, different body. It feels… okay, not in pain. Hmm, no hooves. Paws?” Sunset whispered to herself, as she held her appendages in front of her, and flexed her jaw as she felt around it with her tongue. “No. No tail, no muzzle. These aren’t paws, they’re hands. Some sort of… simian, without a coat.”
After a few moments, she figured out the trick with opposable thumbs, and lifted the cover off of herself. She wasn’t a minotaur, as she had another version of hands at the end of her hindlegs, further showing that she was a simian.
“At least I seem to be a hygienic version of one,” she said to herself.
She actually had to admit that she looked better, a lot better, than she thought she’d look if somepony told her she’d wake up as a species that looked like cousins to great apes.
Her new body had distracted her for too long from her primary concern. She brought her hoof… hand, up to her forehead, and felt the absence of a horn.
This was a setback, but not necessarily more than a temporary one. She closed her eyes, and focused inward.
Her magic was still there. She focused on it, and it stood ready to respond. Without a horn, however, she’d need another outlet... another focus. It wasn’t a trivial task, but just about any part of the body could function as one. It took time, and knowledge, and willpower, but it could be done, and Sunset Shimmer was not some… fumbling novice- in fact, scratch that. Even when she was a fumbling novice, she could run circles around most anypony with her magic.
A pair of voices from beyond the curtain broke Sunset out of her musings.
“... Looks like a perfectly healthy young girl,” a mare said. “I would guess eleven years old, a little tall. The only two strange things I could find were her slightly pointed ears.”
Sunset’s brow creased. That was an old earth pony tongue. Not that it would present a problem of course. It was an efficient and comprehensive language enough.
“Hmm, I must admit I did not inspect her ears through her hair,” a stallion, definitely an older one, said. “Mayhap there’s some goblin blood in her.”
“Physical inheritance might not be my expertise, but judging by the rest of her I would think not. I’d say a nymph is more likely.”
“Perhaps,” the stallion said, sounding amused. “And the other?”
Sunset quietly put the quilt back over her and settled in to listen.
“Well, she’s… you must have noticed, professor, she looks lithe enough, but she is somewhat heavier than one would expect.”
Sunset’s eyebrows rose up from that comment, before falling back down into a scowl.
“May I speak with her?”
Sunset let her head burrow into her pillow again, and she closed her eyes, pretending to be resting.
“I will see if she is awake.”
Sunset heard the curtain being pulled back, and frowned a little at the light washing over her face.
She opened her eyes to see the mare looking at her with a concerned face, and the stallion a little ways behind her.
She blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the light, before sitting up and focusing on the two.
“Good…” Sunset glanced out the window, “... day.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?” the mare said.
“I said, I-uh mean,” Sunset said, quickly shook her head, and switched to the old earth pony language. “Good day.”
Dumbledore cocked his head slightly. That had been a very scant few words, but he did not recognise the language before she had switched over to English.
“Good day, young miss,” the headmaster said, smiling amicably. “And welcome, unexpected as your visit may have been.”
Pomfrey and Dumbledore couldn’t help but find the girl’s poised manners intriguing, as she calmly glanced around. “Thank you, sir. May I ask where I am?”
“You are in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in the medical wing to be specific.”
Sunset frowned slightly.“Medical wing?” she asked, and frowned a little more. Hogwarts?
“That’s right,” the mare almost-barked, and moved forward to lean over Sunset. “And I’ll have you lying still until I can see you’re unharmed, I will.”
Sunset, in her confusion, let herself be pushed back into a lying position. These creatures looked less like apes by the minute. Their balance and center of gravity being wholly different among many other things, and as with sapient creatures she knew from Equestria, they had a dignified bearing.
“If it helps, I feel fine,” Sunset said, not counting the wholly unfamiliar feeling of only having had a few minutes of conscious time with her current body.
“That’s good, so now we only have to worry about problems you might not feel.”
Sunset squirmed a little uncomfortably. Problems with her body were things she could identify and take steps to rectify. Problems with the mind were trickier. How do you fix a problem when the problem is you not realizing you have a problem?
“Look into the light, please,” madam Pomfrey said, and held up the tip of her glowing wand.
Sunset fought the desire to frown in thought as she did as she was told. This meant that they were magicians, able to actively control the arcane powers, like herself.
“Are you seeing this correctly, dear?” madam Pomfrey asked, a little concerned.
“The light at the end of the… your wand? Yes.”
Madam Pomfrey paused a little, and intensified the light. “Is this bright to you?” she asked, straining her own eyes.
“A little,” Sunset said, not showing any signs of discomfort.
Madam Pomfrey dismissed the light from her wand, and held out a finger in front of Sunset. “Please follow this.”
There was no indication from Sunset that she had stared into a normally uncomfortably bright light, and her teal eyes followed the finger in a relaxed manner.
“Well I… have to say that you seem healthy enough.”
“Wonderful,” Dumbledore said, as Sunset sat up in her bed. “I feel we have delayed introductions long enough. As I said before, welcome to Hogwarts, I am Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster, and this is my colleague, and the matron of the medical wing, Madam Poppy Pomfrey.”
“Thank you, and pleased to meet you, Albus Dumbledore, Poppy Pomfrey. My name is Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset said, nodding in recognition at the two creatures, just then realizing her name probably sounded as strange to them as theirs did to her, except the name Poppy. At least she hadn’t forgotten to translate it as she said it.
“That is a lovely name, Miss Shimmer,” Dumbledore said, assuaging her worries. “Tell me, how did you come to be here?”
This made Sunset pause. Recent developments back in Canterlot taught her to hold her cards close to her chest, but no effort was required to make her seem ignorant of the answer to this. How had she come here?
She looked down on the sheets covering her as she thought. “I… don’t know.”
“Curious, as neither do we,” said Dumbledore. “Now, may I ask where your parents are?”
“I don’t know. I never knew them,” Sunset said, shortly and easily.
Dumbledore smiled sympathetically at her, even though she showed no signs of sadness. “I apologize. Any other guardian or caretaker then?”
Sunset had noticed that she was of a somewhat smaller physical stature than these two individuals, and if they worked the way most animals worked, in that they stopped growing larger in adulthood, she could presume that she was now physically younger than she had been as a unicorn. It was hard to say how young, but probably not a small child- she suspected there would be more comforting language and reassurances if that was the case.
“Yes, a… tutor,” she said, and had to struggle not to let out a growl as she thought back to Celestia, who had taken her in, comforted her, taught her, trained her, loved her… then let Sunset catch a glimpse of the path to immortality, and denied it to her.
“A tutor? Of… magic?” Dumbledore asked.
“Well, yes, among other things,” Sunset said.
“Where is he, or she?”
“At… her home I suppose.”
“And where is that?”
There were several reasons Sunset didn’t want to tell these people who she was and where she came from. It was clear that she was now on another world, or even another plane of existence, and she had no idea how people here would respond to that. If she believed that, being locked away in a mental asylum might be the least unfriendly thing they’d do.
But really, the main reason Sunset to hold her cards close to her chest was that she had revealed her plans and intentions before, and been stopped from pursuing them. She would not make that mistake again.
“Uhm, it’s…”
Thinking fast about the etymology of the word for her home nation in the language she was currently using, she decided to try and confuse this... Albus Dumbledore.
<<Canterlot,>> she said, in Modern Equestrian.
Dumbledore cocked her head at the alien, but still beautiful name. “I see, and where is that?” he asked, in a kind voice.
<<Equestria.>>
Sunset thought she saw something glimmer in Dumbledore’s eyes, but perhaps it was just a trick of the light, as she also felt a little mentally scrambled, which was understandable considering her situation.
“Never heard of it,” Poppy Pomfrey noted, making Sunset high-hoof herself in her head.
“I assume you’d like to return there?” Dumbledore asked.
Her mind still racing, Sunset went for an answer that didn’t close off any paths while still sounding believable.
She let her gaze fall again, and nodded mutely. “... Yes, but… I’m not sure how to.”
Dumbledore slowly nodded as he considered the facts. “I see. Please forgive me for being blunt, but you are currently new in this land, with no guardian and no means, no?”
Sunset glanced up at his eyes, behind his half-moon spectacles, before her eyes fell down again. She nodded sadly to herself, and to her surprise found it wasn’t all an act.
“Then perhaps you’ll be pleased to know that you are considered eligible as a student at this school.”
Sunset looked up at the headmaster, and considered him for several seconds.
“What do you learn here?”
“The subjects for the first year students, which is what you would be, and there are seven years here, would be the practical subjects involving the direct implementation of magical abilities, they are Charms, Transfiguration, and Defence Against the Dark Arts, use and indirect handling of magical resources, which are herbology and potions, the theoretical subjects of Magical History, and Astronomy, and of course Flying lessons.”
That last part made Sunset pause, as she realized she still had no idea what the species she now found herself as was called, or if there was just one type like gryphons, or many kinds like ponies. Were there winged ones as well?
She focused on the matter at hand, and simply decided to keep her ears open to pick up as much as possible.
“I see,” she said, nodding to herself. “What’s the catch?”
Dumbledore cocked his head and considered the question for a moment. “Oh, well, there are of course certain rules when attending the school as a student, and conducts that are enforced. You will of course be expected to attend classes, obey curfew, and show respect and deference to the staff and faculty. Of course, besides the education you’d be receiving, there will also be a dormitory available during the semesters, including the winter holidays, as well as free meals, access to the school library, postal services, various things like that.”
“And what would this cost?”
“Nothing but your time and effort, should you wish it.”
Sunset looked at the headmaster for several seconds. “It sounds amazing. In fact, it sounds too good to be true,” she carefully noted. “And you know what they say about that I assume?”
Dumbledore simply smiled. “If it worries you, I’m sure some benefits can be stripped out for you.”
Sunset smiled wryly. “... Alright then, deal.”
“Wonderful!” Dumbledore said, and clapped his hands together. “I shall set my deputy headmaster to confirm the paperwork. When it does, I’m afraid you are going to have to start referring to the faculty as ‘sir,’ ‘ma’am,’ or ‘professor,’ so I recommend you get used to it soon.”
Sunset nodded. “I understand, professor.”
“Splendid. We will talk more later. Now, I’ve kept Madam Pomfrey from shooing me out of her wing for far too long.”
“You have indeed,” the mare said, and pushed at Dumbledore towards the door. “Not let the poor girl rest before lunch.”
The two… individuals, walked away. Walked, not swinging in branches and vines, Sunset noted.
As their footsteps echoed away into the hallways, Sunset simply shook her head in disbelief. “Second strangest morning I’ve ever had,” she said to herself, and set to familiarise herself further to her new body.
She gently heaved herself out of bed and set her feet on the floor, before immediately pulling them back up into the bed again. “Gah! That’s cold.”
She noticed the… black, vaguely L-shaped leather tubes on the floor, and assumed that the… whatever the hind hands were called, feet if she remembered correctly, goes in them. As she figured out how they worked, she noticed a bag on the table beside her bunk, and a small mirror.
Sunset looked into it, before nodding to herself, and her messy hair. “So this is how I look,” she said, and shook her hair into position. “Not bad.”
She opened the bag, and noticed it had the contents she had left Equestria with. It, like herself, had probably changed shape to be a little more appropriate.
Of course, she could also feel the scent of the old stallion inside it, and on her book. She immediately felt a little better about the previous conversation, as it was clear that she wasn’t the only one not revealing everything.
—
“Is something wrong, headmaster?” Madam Pomfrey asked.
“Hm? Oh, no, not at all,” Dumbledore said, relaxing his expression and giving his medical witch a relaxed smile. “I’m just trying to decide whether I’d currently like a lemon sherbet or a lemon popsicle.”
Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes. It was impossible to get straight answers out of the man when he was like this.
But he was deep in thought. The girl was hiding something. Of course, Dumbledore had worked in a school for the better part of a century, that children hid things were not exactly news to him.
But it was the way she hid them that was so intriguing, and perhaps worrying, if indeed it was she hiding them.
Dumbledore had always been accepting of the flaws in others, except when it came to actual malevolence and evil. His potions teacher, for example, had flaws that would outrage the most serene of souls, but Dumbledore tolerated them, because he did not want to be a hypocrite, and he was not above some morally questionable actions himself. Always for what he felt was the greater good of course, but never forgetting that they were just that, morally questionable.
Speaking of his potions professor, the girl reminded Dumbledore of Snape, both with how similar, and how different they were, when speaking with them.
Specifically when it came to the shields they had over their minds. Trying legilimens on Snape, or, for lack of a better term, ‘read his mind’ was like finding a tome with an imposingly stout iron lock on it.
Trying to read Miss Shimmer’s mind however, for the short time he had tried it, was like finding oneself in a messy bookstore at an airport, and you only knew a little bit of the language, and whenever you saw something you recognized, it gave you instructions to look elsewhere, which led to instruction to look elsewhere, which after several steps told you to go back and take a left instead, until it felt you were trapped in a maze, and you also had a plane to catch.
It was all he could do to not grunt in frustration when he managed to pull out, thankfully unharmed.
If this was a spell placed on her by someone else… Perhaps it was a good thing that her ending up in Britain, or even in this world, which was a notion Dumbledore couldn’t help but toy with, was a fluke. If it was she herself that was behind those fiendishly clever defences…
Dumbledore would just have to get to know her well enough to judge her character by traditional means.
An event as this could have come at a better time. Harry Potter was coming to Hogwarts, and there was still much more planning and preparation to be done.
Whether the girl would be a factor, and if so, what kind, remained to be seen.
But… Dumbledore was dedicated to the protection and wellbeing of his students. A little more paperwork and that would include the young Sunset Shimmer.