"Thanks for the ride!" Sunset said, waving goodbye to Rarity, who had driven her over even though it technically wasn't her turn to give Sunset a ride.
"No problem at all, darling, I'll try and swing back around to give you a ride home when you're ready," Rarity said, waving. "Have fun with your friends!"
Rarity drove off, seemingly convinced that 'fun' was what Sunset planned for. Sunset, with a great feeling of trepidation, turned and walked to the door of Vinyl's and Octavia's house. She hesitated, then knocked three times, firmly, on the door.
After a second of hearing Octavia shout something--probably asking Vinyl to get the door--she heard Vinyl's voice whine, and then the door opened. Vinyl wasn't wearing her glasses this morning, and was dressed in shorts and short-sleeved T-shirt that was almost two sizes two big for her. Vinyl stared at her for a solid ten seconds before bursting out with, "Holy shit, Sunset, you look like hell."
Sunset had ignored Rarity's attempts at using makeup to cover the bruise. The entire right half of her face was a light purple instead of her typical yellow, there was another bruise on the base of her neck, and her right hand was still wrapped like an Egyptian mummy.
Octavia turned away from her stove, then her eyes widened and she let out a gasp."My word, Sunset, is everything alright?"
"Yes and no," Sunset said slowly. "Can I come in? There's...something we need to talk about."
Vinyl stepped aside. "Oh, boy," was all she said.
Sunset smiled at her as she stepped inside the cluttered room. "You have a guess at what happened, don't you?"
"Lu-lu told me everything," Vinyl said, waving it off. "The whole of everything."
"Lu...lu...?" Sunset blinked, sitting down on the sofa in front of the TV.
Vinyl jumped over the back of the sofa, landing in a seated position. "So...yeah," she said.
There was an awkward moment of silence. "Just so we have the air cleared between us, and no confusion...you are a vampire, right?"
Vinyl opened her mouth, making an exaggerated 'ah' sound while she exposed fangs to match Fluttershy's. "Yah, tha shums i' up," she said with her mouth open.
"Vinyl," Octavia scolded.
Vinyl closed her mouth, but the fangs stayed. "So, you had something more to ask about, I'm guessing?" Her confident grin remained ever-present.
"Yeah. She...kind of lost control of herself, and...I don't know how to help her. Do you know any tips and tricks that I could pass on?"
Vinyl stared at her, smile wavering. "Um, how old do you think I am, like, compared to Fluttershy?"
Sunset blinked. "I mean, I think they mentioned something about her age, but, I was a little distracted..."
"Riiiight," Vinyl said slowly. "Sunny, I'm forty-eight years old. Very young, as far as vampires are concerned, right?"
Sunset nodded. "Okay."
"Fluttershy is...ah, old. Like, really fucking old." Vinyl ran a hand through her hair. "I think a little over a thousand years, at this point, but I wasn't raised by vampires. The only things I know are what I found out myself, and what Celestia and Lu-lu told me."
Something about that statement confused her. "You weren't raised by vampires? I mean, what about whoever turned you into one? Is...is that not how it works?"
Vinyl leaned back on the sofa. "That is how it works, but....it's a bit of a long story. Basically, around fifty years ago, Celestia and Luna were taking out this really bad vampire together. I think he was calling himself...'Discord' or something like that? But in any case, the fight was going well, but as he died, the place caught fire. They were rushing to get out, but, they hear this baby crying. They rush into one of Discord's rooms, and they see, sitting in a crib, a naturally born baby vampire. Me." She gave a smile and a wave.
"From what they said, everything about that should have been impossible," Octavia said, handing a plate of food to Sunset.
"You didn't have too--"
"I wanted to," Octavia interrupted. "Eat up."
"'Tavi does what she wants," Vinyl said, waving it off. "Anyhoo, they bring me out of there, and struggle figuring out how to raise me. I don't remember much of back then, but--" She shrugged. "As far as I know, no one turned me into a vampire."
"Wow," Sunset said. "Is...that why you call her 'Lu-lu'?"
"Eh." She shrugged. "Probably. Auntie never objected to it, so it kind of stuck."
"Hmm." Sunset sighed. "So, anything you know about vampires, Fluttershy also knows, right?"
"Certainly. In fact, I've kinda wanted her to teach me several times, but...she was never open to the idea. Maybe...you could ask her if she'd be willing to?" Vinyl gave a hopeful smile.
Sunset chuckled. "Alright, I'll let her know you asked."
Vinyl laughed, throwing her arms around Sunset in a bear hug that left her gasping for breath. "Thank you thank you thank you!" Vinyl shouted.
"Okay--um--I need--air," Sunset croaked.
Vinyl let go, cheeks turning pink as she sheepishly ran a hand through her hair. "Sorry."
"One more question," Sunset gasped, rubbing her side.
"Shoot."
"I can't help but notice that I am completely lacking of any memories of bullying you," Sunset said slowly. "And Luna said that vampires have hypnosis..."
"Yeah, you were a real bitch back then," Vinyl said. "I figured, 'why put up with it?'" She shrugged.
Sunset glared at her.
"What?" Vinyl said. "I mean, Celestia and Luna always told me not to use it unless I have to, so but, in my defense..." She gestured at Sunset, like that was justification.
"I...probably can't blame you, anyway," Sunset said slowly. "I really was awful, wasn't I?"
"Hey, don't beat yourself up too hard! Everyone does things they're not proud of!"
"The simple fact of the matter is that it is the past, and the past cannot be changed," Octavia said, slicing a bite off her own plate of pancakes. "You can only really change your future, for better or worse."
"Whoa, deep philosophy," Vinyl said. "You been reading that Plateau dude again, 'Tavi?"
"Plato," Octavia said sternly.
"Regardless," Sunset interrupted. "Have you...ever had trouble with..." Sunset gestured to her bandaged wrist.
Vinyl shook her head. "My adoptive parents made sure that never happened," she said. "They still check up on me to make sure I'm feeding regularly."
"But I was under the impression that vampire bites heal quickly," Octavia said slowly, examining Sunset's injury.
"Uh, yeah, if I just poke my fangs into you," Vinyl said. "If I'm being careful, nothing bad happens. If, however, a starving vampire bites someone, they'll probably not be careful."
"Is...Octavia your...uh, donor?"
"I thought the term was bloodbag," Vinyl said. "And, irregularly, because doing it on the same person every week can be bad."
"That's good to know, for scheduling purposes," Sunset said slowly.
"Any other help you need, feel free to drop by," Vinyl said. "Though I feel like here lately, we haven't gotten to hang out except when you needed something important."
"Hmm. We could hang out now? I'm not needed anywhere, so..."
"You play any video games?" Vinyl asked.
"Uh--yeeees," Sunset said tentatively. "But I have something of a 'gamer temper', so maybe we could stick to co-op?"
"Ha, no thanks. In my house, trash talk is expected, you frikkin' poser," Vinyl said, red eyes flashing as she grinned.
"It is on," Sunset growled back.
Octavia sucked in a deep breath. "Oh, boy."
As she walked to school on Monday, Sunset's phone let out one of the annoying pings that were oh-so-popular amongst human devices. She pulled it out, seeing a message in the group chat with her friends.
Fluttershy: So, uh, I'm gonna need food again tonight.
RaiDash: rly? i thought u fed like just last night
Fluttershy: It's just a temporary thing until I get some blood back in my system.
P!nk!eP!e: We could hang out at my place! SLEEPOVER TIME!!1
Rarity: Pinkamena, darling, why the '1'?
P!nk!eP!e: My finger slipped.
AJ: How the hay does that explain anythin?
Sunset chuckled to herself, then decided to pocket her phone as she headed up to the school's front doors.
Something about how the past few days had been going made her pause, however. She had learned very well how to tell if she was being watched, and as she looked about her, she noted all the students staring at her.
Well, they always did. Sunset had always ignored the whispers, the looks, all of it. Except, with having recently been stalked, even if it was just by one of her friends, Sunset was feeling rather jumpy.
Well, acting like this only seems to be making the stares worse, she thought to herself. In fact, constantly looking over her shoulders seemed to be attracting a lot more looks. Why--
She reached up and felt at her face. It was still sore, and when she'd looked in the mirror that morning, a dark purplish-yellow. They had, in fact, noticed. What was the cover story Luna had thought up again...?
She bumped into a pair of students. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said quickly. She'd bumped into students a couple of times, since the Fall Formal, and none of those had ended well.
"Oh, don't mention--" Lyra stopped mid-sentence as she realized who she was talking to. "Holy crap, what happened to your face?"
Bon Bon looked visibly disgusted. "Are you telling me," she said slowly, as more students gathered nearby, "that after Twilight's whole big speech about forgiveness and repentance, after she let you off the hook for all of that--"
Wait! It isn't like that!
Sunset flinched back, not looking up at any of them.
Bon Bon hesitated. "--someone beat the crap out of you?" she said, still clearly disgusted. "I mean, you're not my favorite person, but...come on!"
Several murmurs rang up from the nearby students. Sunset caught a few statements, namely, "Uncool", and, "They should be expelled."
"Whuh?" Sunset blinked, jaw dropping in surprise.
"For crying out loud," Bon Bon continued. "I--I can't even. Who? Who did this to you?"
"Um--I--"
"Trixie knows whose at fault for this!"
Sunset was ninety percent certain Trixie didn't, actually, but the massive smoke cloud that suddenly appeared in the midst of them left her coughing too much to say anything. Trixie took a moment to relish being the center of attention a moment, before continuing her spiel. "Clearly, a student has taken their opportunity to enact some petty vengeance upon Sunset Shimmer."
"Yeah, we got that," Bon Bon said, raising an eyebrow.
"But we all know that Sunset would be perfectly capable of defending herself!"
You could have just, y'know, not brought that up? Sunset thought to herself.
"But she couldn't, or it would simply look like she attacked the other student!" Trixie continued. "And she must have thought that none of us would believe her, because all of us ignored Twilight's decision to forgive her! None of us ever made any attempt to approach her!" She took off her ridiculous magician hat, holding it over her chest. Her voice wavered slightly, as she finished with, "We are all at fault for this."
That got the entire student body to pause. Most of them thought about it a moment. Several people sheepishly ran a hand through their hair or rubbed their elbows in an ashamed manner.
"But! Trixie will make amends! She will be the first to sign your--" She patted her pockets, then paused. "Give me one moment," she continued, patting her sleeves. She even checked behind her ears, then noticeably deflated. "Okay, can I borrow someone's pen so I can sign her cast?"
"I hadn't even noticed the cast!" Lyra burst out, leaning closer. "That--that's just brutal! Who the hell did this to you?"
"It--she didn't mean too--it's not like--" Sunset paused. "You--you guys actually care?" she whispered. "Rainbow Dash...or...one of the others, they didn't put you up to this?"
"Of course not!" Bon Bon said firmly. "I--I'm sorry that I made you ever think that we wouldn't care if someone did this to you. Maybe we could start over?"
Sunset blinked, feeling wet, moisture running down her face. She looked into Bon Bon's earnest face, then at the rest of the students. All of them...they cared...
The dam finally burst. Sunset broke down, throwing her arms around Bon Bon and sobbing uncontrollably.
"What's going on here?" Rainbow's angry voice demanded, the owner coming around the corner. She paused, seeing Sunset hugging an incredibly awkward looking Bon Bon while openly crying in front of the assembled students.
"Um," Bon Bon said, cheeks turning a light crimson.
"Everything's fine," Sunset said, letting go of Bon Bon. She wiped the tears from her face with her sleeve. "S-sorry, I just...got so emotional. I..."
"Don't worry about it," Bon Bon said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Any one of us could have put in the effort to, you know, talk about things at any point. Trixie's right--we're all to blame for you getting attacked."
Rainbow Dash blinked in a confused manner. "Er..."
"Ahem."
Rainbow Dash jumped aside, revealing Vice Principal Luna behind her. "As pleased as I am to see all of you so concerned for Sunset, I do need to see her in my office real quick."
"Please, Vice Principal Luna," Lyra said slowly. "Who did this to her?"
"No one," Luna said. "It was an accident, but I will let Sunset fill you in on the details later. The rest of you, off to class."
Sunset breathed out a sigh of relief as the students began shuffling off to class. "See you at lunch," Bon Bon said, giving her a wave.
"So will Trixie, as soon as she finds her pen," Trixie said, putting her hat back on. "Trixie, awa--"
"What have I said about smoke bombs in the halls, Trixie?" Luna demanded
Trixie stopped, hand raised to the sky with a smoke bomb held in it. She cleared her throat, stowing the offending item away, and, with a nervous chuckle, sprinted off.
Rainbow Dash ran a hand through her hair. "I heard you sobbing, and I thought--geez, I don't know what I thought."
"Regardless, you should avoid answering questions about Sunset's accident," Luna said. "Let the others know. Meanwhile, I'm going to tell Sunset a proper cover story in my office, as I don't believe she listened or cared that much the other night."
"See you later," Sunset said, following Luna. After Rainbow Dash went off, pulling out her phone to call the others, Sunset said, "Thanks for the save. I don't think I could have thought something up there."
"Don't mention it. Regardless of it simply being common courtesy, the fewer people knew about vampires, the better."
"So...my friends and I..."
"'Tis fine. I was of the mind that she should have told you sooner. Would have saved us all some difficulty."
"Ah."
Luna stepped into the office, and Sunset hesitated in the darkness. As usual, Luna had the blinds pulled tightly over the window, and the lights turned off, leaving minimal light.
"Is something wrong, Miss Shimmer?"
Sunset closed the door behind her. "Are...are you a vampire, too? You mentioned that you were immortal..."
"No, I simply do not mind the dark. It certainly helps when dealing with misbehaving students," Luna said casually.
"If...you don't mind my asking, what are you? Are you an Equestrian?"
"Just so we're clear, I do mind," Luna said slowly. "That is a long tale that is better off forgotten."
"O-oh. Sorry, I--"
"Do not apologize. Regardless, we should move on with the task at hand." Luna folded her hands together, fingertips resting against each other. "I thought it might be prudent to make up some sort of attacker, but Celestia said that making a story without a villain would be better. She came up with saying the injury was caused by a playful prank, gone horribly awry, and we do not wish to disclose the name of the miscreant as no harm was ever intended."
Sunset chuckled to herself. "Verily," she answered.
Luna narrowed her eyes.
"Sorry, I--"
"Apology accepted," Luna interrupted coldly. "Do you find the cover story acceptable?"
"Yeah. I don't really have anything to add. Is...that all we were doing here?"
"I was planning in case you wanted to discuss it at length, and besides--no matter how quickly we got it over with, it would be best to discuss it all in relative privacy."
Sunset pointed over her shoulder at the camera in the corner of the room.
"The security guard knows enough to edit out certain odd comments we make regarding mythical creatures from fantasy stories," Luna said casually.
"Oh..."
"Since that was all, I recommend you head off to class now," Luna said, opening one of her drawers.
"O-okay." Sunset got up, thinking back to the cover story. It sounds believable. "What kind of prank would bruise up my face and throat, and leave my arm swaddled in bandages?"
"One we do not wish to explain the nature of for the protection of certain semi-guilty parties, as absolutely no harm was intended on their part," Luna said simply.
"Convenient."
Luna smiled coldly. "Verily."
Sunset wasted no further time rushing off to her class. She slipped into the room, pausing as Cranky Doodle did to look at her, but he said nothing. Sunset tried to ignore the whispers, and the looks from her fellow students as she set up her desk. Most of them hadn't even been there five minutes ago, how could the story of everything of already passed? Those were clearly looks of pity she was seeing.
Her pencil rolled off the table, bouncing on the ground. "Shoot," she muttered.
"I GOT IT!" Lyra and Bon Bon shouted. Both lunged for the fallen pencil, slammed their heads together, and fell away, leaving Derpy as the one to pick it up and hand it to Sunset. The cross-eyed girl seemed to not notice her friends.
"Here you go!" she said in a chipper tone.
"Thanks?" Sunset said hesitantly.
"Don't worry, I drop stuff all the time," Derpy said with a grin.
"Everyone alright over there?" Cranky asked.
"Yeah," Bon Bon and Lyra muttered, returning to their seats while blushing furiously.
That settled, Cranky returned to the lesson, which Sunset found herself some difficulty paying attention to. Granted, math was math, in Equestria or Canterlot High, so she could do it easily anyway. Barring distractions.
As she went about her classes, she put up with everyone stopping to give her well wishes or, even worse, apologize for never giving her a chance. Sunset did make sure that Luna's cover story spread around, so hopefully, people would stop thinking that someone had beat the crap out of her.
The irony that Trixie was actually mostly right and that Sunset was doing her best to make sure everyone didn't know it was not lost on her.
Sunset paused, stopping right before she ran right into another student. "Oh, sorry," Sunset said, flinching back slightly out of reflex. Where'd your spine go? part of her mind demanded. Even now, when no one really even seemed angry at her, she was still flinching back from people.
The green-haired woman glared ferociously at Sunset. Okay, so, some people don't seem to care to much about my injuries. It should have been a relief, but, Sunset reflected, she seemed to be in a lose-lose situation.
"Would you shut up with the fake apologies?" the woman growled.
"They're not fake; I really didn't see you there," Sunset said slowly.
"Oh, I bet you really did--"
"Oh, Wallflower!"
The woman stopped abruptly, face paling as Fluttershy stepped over, smiling sweetly. But her back was to the room, to any other students who might see her eyes. Vivid, glowing red eyes that were full of fury. "It's good to see you again! How's it going?"
Wallflower backed away, but Fluttershy took a step to intercept her. Wallflower froze, looking around to see that the rest of the hallway was strangely empty of students.
"Fluttershy? It's okay," Sunset said. "I--"
Fluttershy held up a hand to silence her. "She apologized, Wallflower. What do you say when someone apologizes to you?"
Wallflower muttered something that Sunset couldn't hear.
Fluttershy punched the wall by Wallflower's head, denting in the locker. Wallflower jumped, then slid down to the ground. "I-I forgive you," she stammered hastily.
"Fluttershy," Sunset snapped. Fluttershy paused, then stepped back from Wallflower.
Sunset extended her good arm to help Wallflower up. Wallflower looked at her, then accepted the hand without a word. "You alright?" Sunset asked.
"'mfine," Wallflower mumbled, looking away.
Sunset glared at Fluttershy. "What was that about?"
Fluttershy turned and walked away slowly. Sunset glared at her back, then sighed. "She's had...a rough few days, okay? Give her a little bit of a break."
Wallflower said nothing.
"I'm--I'm Sunset Shimmer, though you probably already knew that," Sunset said. "It was Wallflower, right?"
"Wallflower Blush," she said. "Not that you'll remember it..."
Sunset suppressed a sigh. "Look, I really am trying to do better, okay? You may think that I'm faking, but, I really am sorry. For everything."
"I...guess I am, too," she replied. "I...the reason why she was so mad at me was that..." She hesitated.
"You don't have to--"
"I found a magic rock and was using it to wipe people's memories of me," Wallflower said quickly. "Every single awkward moment, every single conversation that started wrong. Just wanted to make a good impression, y'know?" She shrugged. "Except when I tried doing it on her, it...didn't work. I still don't know why."
"I'm willing to bet you found an Equestrian artifact of some sort," Sunset breathed slowly.
"Equestrian--the horse place that the Princess-person came from?" Wallflower asked. "Messing with it was probably stupid, yeah..."
"This is amazing!" Sunset said. "I mean, I always knew they just dumped random artifacts here so they wouldn't have to deal with them, but...the fact that it kept its power after all these years...oh! Do you still have it? I want to see it! Which one is it? Should I send it to Princess Twilight? Portal's closed anyway. Ahhh! This is so exciting!" She paused, blushing. "Um, ahem. Sorry."
Wallflower stared at her. "Uh...Principal Celestia took it."
"Aw."
"You're...not even a little mad?"
"Do you even realize who you're talking to?" Sunset said, raising an eyebrow.
Wallflower chuckled, then covered her mouth, suddenly remembering she wasn't supposed to like Sunset.
"I'm gonna head off to lunch now," Sunset said. "I enjoyed talking, Wallflower. And I'm sorry for everything I--"
"TRIXIE--" A smoke cloud rose up between the two of them, sending them both into a horrible coughing fit. "--HAS FOUND HER PEN!"