Sunset didn't pretend she knew much about the proper etiquette, but she knew one thing: Twilight was NOT behaving like a princess should behave. What did this mean? Well, the three princesses were having dinner, with all kinds of five star meals Sunset never heard about and Twilight here was wolfing everything down. Rarity would say she behaved like a pig. Celestia didn't comment on it, so it had to be a common thing.
Sunset decided to keep her focus on her salad, instead of commenting on Twilight's eating behaviors. Besides, she just couldn't come up with a good joke at the moment.
The three alicorns and dragon simply ate in silence, Sunset having a hard time not to moan with each bite, for some time until Celestia decided to speak up. "So, how was everypony's day so far? I already heard Sunset's day was rather exciting."
"Really?" Twilight asked, looking over to her sister. The fiery mare needed to swallow before telling what happened. "I kind of got myself in a situation. I wouldn't call it exciting...although...it really depends on the viewpoint. Anyways, I was just walking down the street, when I found a mare and a stallion arguing. It turned out she owed him money from the orphanage she was running. The stallion ticked me off a little. He didn't really care that all the foals and fillies would be homeless."
Twilight's expression turned into a mixture of surprise and disgust. Taking some quick bites, Sunset continued. "Long story short, I paid for everything without really thinking. The owner, Caring Heart is her name, pointed out that I put myself in a troublesome situation. In order to get out of it I...well,...I own the place now."
Twilight choked on her rice. Spike almost spit out his juice, but, managed to kept it in his mouth and swallowed it. "You what?!" the drake exclaimed.
"Really? That's so nice of you!" the lavender mare exclaimed. "You really are the nicest pony in all of Equestria."
"Oh, come on Twilight. You're a way better pony than I'll ever be." Sunset retorted, blushing at the compliment. Twilight mimicked her sister's behavior and looked to the side. "Please, what have I ever accomplished?"
"You hatched a dragon, when you were 6 years old." Celestia pointed out.
"Besides, you would have done the same." the yellow alicorn said. "I mean, all I did was spend money, from which we have more than enough for our personal comfort. I could feed Spike with the gems from my jewelry for a year."
"Oh please. He would be done within an hour and still ask for more." Twilight retorted.
"Hey!"
Everypony laughed a little, Sunset adding a joke about Spike getting too fat and desperately in need of a diet.
"At least I don't eat ten cakes each day." He huffed, looking at Celestia. The oldest of the bunch replied by stuffing a piece of cake into the dragon's throat.
"I bet she burns all the calories in her sun. Would explain everything." Sunset muttered. It took her a few seconds to notice that the table had fallen completely silent. She then realized that everyone else present had heard her little statement.
Spike fell of from his chair, laughing his scales off. Twilight tried to suppress a snicker, putting a hoof in front of her hoof. It was a futile attempt, as eventually the snicker turned into a full fledged laughter.
Celestia's reaction was not as extreme as it was with Spike. In fact, she didn't react at all, which in retrospect was all the more terrifying. It meant she was planning. Planning her revenge on Sunset Shimmer. It wasn't a question of IF Trollestia would strike, rather WHEN she would strike.
[This is all an excuse for me not being able to come up with a good joke. I'm up for suggestions.]
After everyone recovered from their laughter, Celestia decided to put the topic back to Sunset's orphanage. "Back to the matter at hoof, I thought it would be a good idea for Sunset to show us the orphanage."
"What? But I still have a lot of reading to do, not to mention-"
Twilight was interrupted by Celestia placing a hoof on her shoulder. "Twilight, it's been some time since the four of us actually spent some family time together. Besides, it's not healthy for you to stay day in and out in the castle surrounded by your dusty old books."
"But-....but....! Fine..." Twilight sighed. Sunset raised an eyebrow at Twilight's behavior, but filed it away for later. She didn't know Twilight that well. It could be that her sister (now even she was thinking of Twilight that way) simply didn't like children or didn't like being interrupted in the middle of her studies.
XIII
"Come on, Twi. You're acting like it's the end of the world." Sunset stated as they walked down the street without an escort one should say. It was pretty surreal, but Celestia had insisted.
Twilight looked up to Sunset, her face almost being serious. "Actually, if I'm right with what I have found and I certainly hope I'm not, then we might have a problem in the foreseeable future."
Sunset's ears dropped. From her (brief) experience, Twilight's studies about world doom bringing entities were pretty accurate. However before Sunset could ask Twilight what she actually had been researching the entire day, Celestia walked between the two. "Now, don't be so glum, you two." she brushed them with her wings playfully. "I have to deal with enough serious issues in the throne room."
"Blublood's shampoo supply?" Spike offered, causing Celestia to giggle.
Sunset looked over to Twilight again. "You know, let's talk about this when we're back. There's something I've come across today too and I wanna share it with you."
Twilight's eyes lit up at the suggestion. "Really? What are we waiting for? Let's go already!" The lavender alicorn skipped ahead. "Twilight! The orphanage is the other way!" Sunset called out. Embarrassed Twilight turned around and walked back to her family.
"I think it's better if I lead the way." Sunset stated. Wow, she really must be looking forward into spending time with me. The fiery maned pony walked ahead, trying to ignore the ponies who either stared or bowed to the trio.
She noticed Twilight moving closer to her, when they entered the side-street. It was a little darker, since the buildings were closer together and the road in itself a little more narrowed, but it certainly wasn't your run out of the mill dark allay like you see in the batman comics. Or rather batmare in this part of the universe. Sunset mixed there some stuff up.
Reaching the building, the new owner mentally added an up-stroke to the to do list. Celestia as always didn't show any signs of having prejudice thoughts on the poor state the building was in. Most likely the older mare already expected something like this to be the case.
Without further ado, Sunset Shimmer walked up to the door and knocked three times. It took some time until somepony actually came. Sunset was about to knock again, almost hitting Caring Heart in the process. "Whoops, sorry about that."
"Y-your highness! I wasn't expecting you to be back so early." The older mare stated.
"Me neither. But mom wanted to see what exactly I had gotten myself into."
"M-mom?" Caring repeated. Sunset stepped aside giving view to Celestia and Twilight. Sunset was sure that the mare in front of her would hit the floor. Luckily she only touched the floor with her muzzle, as she bowed deeply to the two other princesses.
Celestia walked up towards the mare. "Rise my little pony. I'm sorry we arrived here without telling you beforehoof."
"I-I-It's no problem at all, your highness. Please come in! Can I bring you something? Tea perhaps?" she hastily asked.
"Perhaps later." Celestia replied. "We're merely here for a friendly visit. May we come in?"
"O-of course. P-please, make yourself at home."
"Why do they always have to act that way?" Twilight whispered to Spike, loud enough to hear Sunset to hear. The fiery mare glanced over to the alicorn and the dragon.
"What are you expecting? You just need to say a word and nopony is going to see her ever again." he pointed out.
"Yeah." Twilight sighed. "Sometimes I wish I wouldn't be a princess."
...Talk about a stereotypical situation. Does all of this is actually happening, just because some higher being is bored and wants to open up old wounds? I swear...
"Come on, Twi." Sunset spoke up. "Don't worry. The kids won't be scared of you banishing them to the moon or something."
Twilight looked over to Sunset and sighed. "Alright. How bad could it be? I mean, they're just children."
Sunset couldn't help, but laugh out loud. "How bad could it be? Aside from the fact that you're just asking for trouble, have you ever dealt with children? When they see a princess...oh mare, keep a close eye on your wings. I got lucky today, but I'm pretty sure they won't miss another opportunity on getting something they can brag about."
Twilight gulped. Sunset snickered. "Oh don't be like that. I'm sure as long as we're around Celestia, I'm sure they'll behave. And hey, kids can be a lot of fun."
"If you say so..." Twilight said still unsure.
The two walked inside, following Celestia and Caring Heart down the hall. They didn't came far, before some foals and fillies came running down the stairs, playing a game of tag. The first foal came to an abrupt halt, causing the others to crash into him, as the princesses came into view.
"It's the princess!" One of the foals exclaimed. "The princess is back!"
Their game forgotten, the foals rushed forward until they almost crashed into the royals. Twilight instinctively took a few steps back. "Look another princess!"
"Are you going to adopt me?"
"Wow, a dragon!"
"Is he your pet?"
"Does he bite?"
"Hey, I'm not a pet!" Spike exclaimed, effectively scaring the foals, who were now all hiding behind Sunset.
"It's going to eat us!"
"Safe us princess!"
"Urgh..." Spike facepalmed, causing Twilight and Sunset to chuckle.
"Don't worry." Sunset ruffled one of the colt's manes. "Twilight trained him well. He's even toilette trained."
"Hey, what did I do to you?" Spike exclaimed, waving his tiny arms up and down.
A chuckle from the other end of the hall, caught the attention of everypony. Celestia and Caring Heart were standing at the end of said hall, watching the exchange. "Well then, if you two could please gather everypony? There's something I want to speak with Miss Heart about real quick."
"Okay." Sunset levitated one of the foals onto her back. "Alright, you heard your princess. Let's gather the others."
"Yay!"
The other foals looked up to Twilight with big puppy dog eyes. Letting out a sigh, Twilight levitated the other two foals onto her back. "Uff, why do I have to carry two and you only one?" Twilight complained.
"Tsk, tsk, Twilight. If you ever want to look as good as me, you need to do some workout."
"W-what?" The foals and Spike laughed at her, while Sunset gave Twilight an apologetic smile. Twilight in return pouted like a little filly.
Sunset still knew where the playroom was, so she walked ahead, leading Twilight and Spike just there. Before they reached the open double doors, they could already hear the fillies and colts laughing and occasionally a caretaker calling out one of the kiddies. Mentally bracing themselves for the attention they would be getting, the two alicorns and one dragon walked up and stopped at the door frame. The effect was almost immediate, as the foals stopped playing with each other, looking with wide eyes towards the two princesses.
Oh crap. I forgot I promised to bring chocolate. The yellow alicorn reminded herself of her promise. Luckily none of the children seemed to remember, as they were more surprised upon seeing not only one, but TWO princesses. Before anypony could say anything, the two princesses found themselves surrounded by fillies and colts, all wanting to get their attention. Neither could understand one word and it only got worse, as word spread out about the royal visit throughout the entire building. Soon there was no escape left for the two, not even through the air, since some of the young pegasi could already fly. The caretakers did their best to calm down everypony. It didn't work in the least. One of the fillies, who had a comb as a cutie mark, already started styling Twilight's tail, which the latter noticed a little too late, when the thing already had several knots and ribbons on it.
Twilight let out a shriek as she noticed what happened to her tail, causing the kids to erupt into loud laughter. Sunset suppressed her own laughing fit, thinking Twilight already had enough small humiliations for the day. Instead she helped her sister getting her tail back to what it used to be.
It wasn't until a princess Celestia appearance that things finally calmed down. Her mere presence had an effect on each of the foals somehow, calming everyone down in an instant. The caretakers silently sighed in relief, while bowing to their monarch. Caring Heart stood behind her, not really looking all that calm. In fact she looked like, when she first met Sunset Shimmer today.
"Now that everypony has calmed down" Celestia spoke in her usual motherly tone "I want to ask a question. Is everypony present?"
The caretakers looked around a little, before stating: "Y-yes. Everypony is here your highness."
"Excellent." Celestia made it herself as comfortable as possible on the ground, numerous foals surrounding her and leaning against her. Her daughters mirrored their mother and soon they found themselves used as makeshift pillows.
"Now then, I'm sure you're all quite surprised from our little visit. Well, I myself was surprised, when I found out that one of my daughters decided to help this orphanage. And how could she not, with such wonderful fillies and gentlecolts living here?" The sun princess nuzzled one of the smaller ones, causing the filly to giggle. "I have an idea, how about we read you a book and after this, you can ask question and we can also play a few games."
The kids cheered upon hearing that and immediately started to argue what story the princesses should read them. Before things got out of hoof, Celestia managed to calm everypony down, by doing it like in school: raising hooves and letting everyone speak. After gathering some ideas, the kids voted and chose a ponyfied version of Snow White. Heck, even the title was the same.
Every princess read one third of the story. And Twilight absolutely nailed it. She caught up everyone during the final act, raising her voice when necessary, increasing in pace during the chase scene of the evil queen. At the end, everypony stomped with their hooves, cheering on Twilight.
The second half of their stay, the princesses played with the kids, although Twilight did it rather reluctantly. Spike played the obvious game with everypony: being chased by a dragon. Celestia was reduced to a makeshift mountain, while Twilight somehow managed to gather a couple of kids into a corner and reading books for them.
As for Sunset, she played board games with everyone. She tried talking with the older orphans, but things got awkward the moment she spoke up, so she decided to try another time. She knew firsthoof that closing oneself off from everypony else was unhealthy. Sadly she didn't have the time today to actively try as the princesses and Spike needed to leave.
"It wasn't THAT bad."
"No, it was worse. How can our youth be so uneducated?!" Twilight complained.
"You can't expect everypony to be a genius." Sunset retorted. "This way." The fiery maned pony pointed at one direction. It was evening and the moon was about to be risen at any moment. Sunset wanted to show her sister the mirror, since Twilight also wanted to do some stargazing tonight, along with showing Sunset her own results of her research.
There weren't as many servants running around, as in the morning, but still occasionally the two would meet another pony. Spike was in Twilight's room, not in the mood to go into the cold cellar again.
"Yes, but still. I'm going to talk to mom about this. Who knows, I'm thinking about getting my own school and set a new standard. Maybe I should start with a grade school."
"Copycat."
Twilight simply stuck her tongue out.
Finally the two arrived at the storage room, where the mirror was located. Nopony seemed to have touched it ever since this morning.
"A mirror? That's what you wanted to show me?"
The other princess shook her head. "Not a simple mirror. I couldn't quite get enough information, but what I'm sure about is that this is a portal to another world. A parallel universe."
"A...a...PARALLEL UNIVERSE?!" Twilight exclaimed, gaping at the mirror. Sunset nodded, walking up towards the mirror. "Starswirl the Bearded used it to banish creatures known as the Siren's into a realm without magic, well supposedly without magic. The mirror activates only every 30 moons for 3 days. I personally speculate that there's not enough magic on the other side to keep it constantly open."
"This...is...AMAZING!" Twilight squealed. "Imagine what could be on the other side? We could come into contact with a complete alien species!"
"Yeah." Sunset chuckled. "Too bad the thing is closed and I have no idea when it's going to open. But I placed a charm that will inform me, when the thing is going to open."
"Really? Oh, you have to tell me, when it's going to open!" Twilight beamed with excitement.
"I will, don't worry." Sunset reassured. "So, you wanted to show me something? Uhh...I think I'll go to the little filly's room first."
This place has way too many hallways. Sunset complained inside her mind, as she finally had found her way to Twilight's personal chambers. They weren't that far away from her own, luckily. Just around the corner.
She was about to enter Twilight's room, when she heard she and Spike talking about her.
"-different. It's like she's a complete other pony!" Spike said, really loud.
"Oh Spike, you've read too many of those dumb science-fiction comics." Twilight replied. "Next you're going to say that she's been replaced with an alien."
"I'm not saying that, although it would be really cool." Spike's voice trailed off. "A-anyways, what I'm saying is that she's totally not herself. She's so...friendly! She didn't make any snark comments about the "lower class", she wasn't holding her head high, she gave a huge tip, she didn't try to incinerate me-"
"Spike, you're fireproof. You know she'd never hurt you on purpose. It's just....her kind of humor, that's all."
"Uh huh and the way she's acting?"
"Oh please, Spike. Sunset is always friendly and helpful."
"She's always friendly to YOU and ONLY YOU! I tell you there's something wrong with her."
"Well, maybe she's acting a little different. After all, she had a magic spell accident, which caused her to have slight temporary amnesia. But I wouldn't say she's changed to the extreme. Just a little confused. Anyways, I need to go now. Sunny and I are going to be stargazing!" Twilight squealed. "And then I'm going to tell her-"
Sunset could hear Spike's facepalm. "Again Twi? The mare in the moon? You really need to get out more often."
Twilight let out a huff. "You'll see, she is going to belief me. Now where..." The rest Sunset didn't understand, as she was rushing to her own room, quickly entering her own balcony and looking into the night-sky.
"Fuck me." the human curse slipped out.
What...just....okay. STAY CALM!! Plausible explanation: magic surge from the Sunset of this universe; I got here; mirror involvement; time travel?
...
This is just getting more and more messed up.
Okay, okay. Remember what Twilight told you. She was send to Ponyville, found the Elements of Harmony (pony and gems) and freed Princess (Aunt??) Luna. Bam, perfect fairy tail material. You'll just have to let it play out like it was supposed to be!
...
No, no. I'm not going to think about the possible changes my presence alone could cause. Not going to think about time paradoxes or anything-
"Sunset?" Twilight knocked at the door. "Are you in there?"
"Coming." Sunset calmed herself down as much as possible and then opened her door.
"Hey! ready to go?" Sunset asked, maybe a little too chipper. Luckily Twilight was just as excited.
"Of course! Let's go!"
"The mare in the moon?" Sunset asked, acting all oblivious. "I know you wouldn't bring an old pony's tale up, if you haven't found something important."
Twilight let out a sigh of relief. "Finally, somepony actually listening! I knew you would belief me."
"Easy there Twilight. So, what do you have?"
Along with star charts and a telescope, Twilight brought a tome with the legend of Nightmare Moon in it, along with some notes. Sunset placed herself next to Twilight in the grass field, as Twilight started explaining eyewitnesses accounts of the old days, diary entries, old history books, stories from mad ponies and how she gathered all the information together and sorted through. Much of it was just a bunch of hayseed, but even Sunset could see the pattern Twilight found.
"On the thousandth day..." Sunset said slowly "that is..., when exactly?"
Twilight levitated a stack of papers over, showing multiple calculations. "It's on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration in two weeks."
Two weeks?! Sunset exclaimed in her mind. We have two weeks to prepare ourselves for a mad goddess, ready to cause a nuclear winter?!?!?! Sweet Celestia... "Guess we're going to meet aunty soon..." Sunset joked half heartily.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Twilight asked confused. Her sister needed to resist the urge to facehoof. It was so obvious, how could she have overlooked it?
"Alright Twi. In the story, there're two alicorns. One raises the sun and one the moon. One gets banished. Who raises the sun and moon today?"
Twilight's face paled.
"My daughters" Celestia sighed, as she watched the two from her hidden spot "so smart. Maybe a little too smart." she chuckled dryly. "Both have the potential to become the Element of Magic. But...no. I can't endanger them. Not my own daughters." Celestia looked up to the moon. "Maybe I don't have to..."