Her time in the toilets had calmed her. At least in one regard. Now however she was scared more than angry. That being said, she wasn’t horrified, just nervous. History was her next subject and though it was her favourite, her teacher seemed to be a time-traveller and one of her classmates was an interdimensional witch. Come to think of it, she’d met a white haired girl with glasses while reading something… she had a sudden urge to join and take over the Literary Club. It was either that or go completely melancholy.
Having finally packed away her books from Biology, taking long enough that the next class had started to arrive and file inside the room, Twilight began on her way to her next class. She arrived in time to see Star Swirl taking the role on his PDA as almost everyone was already in their seats. Most notably, missing from them was Sunset Shimmer. Twilight had dreaded her being there the most… so why did it seem even worse that she wasn’t?
Twilight took her seat on the same row as Rarity but still on the far side from her. She was still mobbed by boys [and one girl] all warring for her attention and favour. “Eh-hem!” Star Swirl cleared his throat loudly, getting most of the class to be quiet and attention on him. It was quickly pulled away though as Sunset came shambling through the door. Simply put: she looked like crap.
Haggardly, she looked over to Rarity, only to see all the seats around her filled. That’s when Twilight noticed the seat in front of her was empty. Quickly looking around, she found every other seat was filled too. What were the odds? I mean really? It’s like it was a overly forced scene from a bad animu. Which BTW, is what I see this story as.
As Star Swirl began to address the class, stating “Today we’ll be learning about the Appleloosen war of thirteen thirty-seven and what were the factors contributing to the extinction of the Appleseed and Air Nomads.” as Sunset made her way towards Twilight. she looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept last night or as if she’d run a marathon before getting here.
Once she finally arrived at her seat, she pulled out the chair and practically dropped down into it. “Hey…” she weakly said as she turned towards Twilight. She took off her bag, rummaged through it for a second before plopping a book down on her table and dumped the bag under her chair. She briefly glanced at Twilight and though she looked exhausted, her eyes showed no signs of it at all. Instead they looked focused, as if she was concentrating on something Twilight couldn’t see.
“Hi.” Twilight replied with obvious confusion. “Is everything alright wi…”
She couldn’t get any further however before Star Swirl called out to Twilight. “You’ll have plenty of time to speak at the end of the class with once again time to spare. Four minutes and eighteen seconds to be precise, including the time to tell you this and giving leeway for questions and clarifications should they arise. Now if you’d please, I’d like to finish this lesson with in that time frame!”
It was an odd argument… but it shut Twilight up. She didn’t come away from it empty handed though, Sunset gave her a reaffirming smile and nod before she turned to face the front of the class. She did however glance back at Twilight quite a bit during the lesson, which since Twilight was facing both Sunset and the front of the class was pretty unmissable by her. In that time, even with resting in her seat for over an hour, Sunset never seemed to recover.
After the lesson, in which Twilight learnt the Appleloosan war was primarily started by the Injens stealing a pony named Bloomberg, Star Swirl concluded the lesson with “Though some historic texts indicate it was actually a tree, it is generally accepted that Bloomberg was a pony… I’d like it to be a tree. But I digress. As aforementioned you may spend that time speaking amongst yourselves. There is still four minute and eighteen seconds of time before the class ends starting now.”
The class quickly erupted into everyone talking amongst themselves and a few, if not all, of the boys [and that one girl still] heading over to speak with Rarity. For the brief moment Twilight could see through the crowd towards the fashionista, she looked exuberant with joy from all the attention she was getting. Albeit not necessarily all the type she truly wanted. Sunset however, still looked like crap.
She hadn’t moved, literally hadn’t moved. The girl was still somewhat slumped in her chair, leaning on her desk with one arm helping support her. After a few moments of just staring at her, Sunset turned to Twilight and caught one another’s eye line. “So… how are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m good.” Twilight replied sheepishly. “You don’t look so good yourself though. How are you going?” she asked, her mild fear of this girl completely gone at the moment, replaced by concern instead.
“It’s nothing, really. I’m just a little exhausted is all.” she told Twilight, who chose to ignore the oxymoron of ‘little exhausted’ but still held a worried look on her face. “It just takes a lot of energy to… you know.” she whispered the last part.
“Uh, if you’re talking about magic and trying to keep it a secret, from what I’ve heard pretty much the whole school knows you’re a… something.” Twilight didn’t want to call this demon a demon. Not to her face at least.
“Right…” Sunset let out a huff. Not of annoyance but of sheer lack of energy. Unbeknownst to Twilight, at least not yet [possible foreshadowing? Or just trolling?], Catra, or Chakura as noobs call it, was pulled directly from the body. Translation: casting a spell was like running. You can do it for ages, it just gets more taxing on the body the longer you do so. It channeled energy from all the muscles of the body and burned a large number of calories in the process. That’s why mages are so known for their strength. “You remember what I said to you right?”
“Mostly, yeah. You… wanted me to be friends with Silverspoon. And you got your magic from friendship. III-’m not quite sure what that has to do with anything though.”
“No. I mean how I cast a spell to redirect attention from you to her.” though it was technically a transmutation. Sunset was starting to get flustered by this. It didn’t help that she had a not-quite-painful but constant headache as a result of it. “It’s hard to maintain, but I can keep it up.” to Sunset, doing this was an equivalent exchange for what she’d put Twilight through because of her.
Twilight didn’t quite know how to respond to that. On one hand Sunset was helping her out, even if she may not directly see the effect compared to what her normal life would’ve been like here. On the other hand… “Stop.” she stated.
“Huh?”
“Stop casting the spell. I am grateful, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want to do… this...” she said, pointing a finger up and down at Sunset “to you just so I’m not- I’m not… I’m not exactly sure what I’m not. But I don’t want you to feel horrible just so I potentially don’t.” Twilight finished with a worried expression still on her face. Not worried about how Sunset’s current condition, but worried that she would continue putting herself in that condition even still.
Despite her strain, despite her exhaustion and severe discomfort, Sunset smiled. “You may be different people, but it’s no wonder the other Twilight is the Element of Friendship.” she said merrily as though there wasn’t an ounce of pressure on her for just a moment. “Are you absolutely sure? Everyone will notice you nearly ten times as much as they are now. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to reignite the spell for a while if you change your mind.”
“I’m sure.” she answered happily. And with that Sunset raised her hand to her forehead, pointing a certain magical index finger at the centre of it. A faint orange glow appeared around both it and her eyes for a fraction of a second before the seed burst and her eyes seemed to soften. Sunset nearly collapsed, only just catching herself on the desk. With her face. So on second thoughts, she didn’t exactly ‘catch herself’ per se. “Are you alright?” Twilight asked as she leant over her table.
“Yeah. Yeah I’m good.” she said before taking a deep breath and holding it briefly, then letting it go in a heavy, relieved sigh. “I’m much better actually.” neither of them noticed, though Sunset had expected it to happen, but the outer crowd around Rarity began to wonder off. Back at the table though, Sunset may’ve felt a lot better but she was still not exactly in a great state to begin with.
“So… that’s it? I don’t feel any different.” Twilight said, looking herself over. “Well thank you for that. I don’t know if I really need it, but thank you nonetheless. It’ll make my decision easier now.”
“Decision?”
“Oh, well, I’m not sure I’m going to be staying at this school.” Twilight told Sunset. She didn’t try and sugar coat it at all. She didn’t really think of it as a big deal to anyone but herself. “I haven’t quite decided yet, but I’m leaning towards going back to my old school, because, no matter how I look at it, it’s your fault I’m popular. But without this spell, I’ll know exactly what it’s like here and I can make a properly informed decision.” Twilight’s rational mind completely overlooking the emotional at that moment.
“Oh…” Sunset oh’d. “I… well, I thought that you were… no. If you want to leave that’s your choice. I’d like you to stay but if it’s what you want to do, I won’t try and stop you.” Sunset tried to say confidently but a small amount of disappointment got through all the same.
“You think I should stay here?” Twilight asked. The only other person she’d asked was Principal Celestia and although she seemed to genuinely have Twilight’s best interest in mind, she couldn’t help but feel, with a bit of pride I might add, that Celestia had a vested interest in keeping such a great student at her school. Admittedly, she had no idea if Sunset had a reason for her to stay here too.
“No.” Sunset answered. “I want you to stay.” she backpedaled. “But no. I don’t think you should if you don’t want to.” she rebackpedaled… is that even a thing? “It’s a stand alone complex. I’d like you to stay, but I can’t make a choice like that for you. And I wouldn’t presume to know what’s really best for you. Maybe you’d like it here once things settle down or maybe they never will. And… I think we’re about to find out.”
“Huh?” Twilight asked as she followed Sunset’s line of sight to the crowd around Rarity all but dispersing [all but that one girl precisely] and a few of them looking over at the two of them.
“Geez, remember last year, those too Super Saiyan’d out and fought in the courtyard.” she overheard one of them say to another.
“Yeah, and now they’re just sitting next to each other…” Interchangeable Guy #2 said to Interchangable Guy #1.
“No, didn’t you hear? It’s not her. It just looks like her.”
“Oh right… that must suck. Think we should ask her about it?”
“For the sake of Plot Convenience, no.”
“For the sake of what?”
“Plot Convenience. Isn’t that the name of that rainbow babe who threatened to punch anyone who bugged her about it?”
“Yeah I think so.” and with that the bell rang.
“I think I’ll be fine” Twilight said to Sunset. Star Swirl dismissed the class and people began to leave to get a quick lunch in before the school sports assembly.
“Would you like to join us for lunch?” Sunset asked.
“Sorry, but I’ve got plans already. Remember Silverspoon? Well I’m meeting with her, another friend and another person.” Twilight told… her friend. Yeah, they were friends. Not great friends but friends nonetheless. Honestly probably the same level of friend as the ones from her old school she never really spoke with but… whatever. “So I’ll catch you around then?”
“That’s wonderful to hear. Then yeah, I’ll catch you some time.” Sunset said as she waved and talked over to Rarity.
“Ah, Sunset dear!” called Rarity, completely unaware the spell had been taken off of her, let alone been on her for over three days now. All of the people who’d been suddenly oddly attracted towards her had left now. All but one. She’d just thought it was something about her persona. “I’d like you to meet this wondrous girl here: Coco Pummel. We’re going shopping at Junes later this evening”