“Twilight…”
The voice permeated the restful sleep the former alicorn was having.
“Twilight….”
The voice, of course, belonged to her roommate, Sunset Shimmer, another former pony stuck in human world. The two have been friends for over a month. Living together, of course, strengthened that friendship.
“Wake up, ya lazy bum!” An ugly face appeared directly in front of Twilight’s.
Twilight tossed and turned in the futon she was sleeping on.
“You're a lazy bum”, The former princess groaned out sleepily.
“Excuse me,” Sunset exclaimed incredulously, “I’m not the one who’s going to be late for work.”
Twilight jumped straight out of the futon and ran to the one bedroom in the apartment she and Sunset shared. She quickly got her work uniform from the closet and laid it out. She then ran into the Bathroom to take a shower.
As Twilight was showering, Sunset took this chance to put Twilight's bedding away. Twilight then got out of the shower and started dressing herself .
“Why didn’t you wake me up sooner!?” Twilight exclaimed, rushing to button up her green work shirt.
“I would’ve thought a princess would be more aware of her responsibilities.” Sunset snarked sitting on the now folded futon.
“Don’t give me that!” Twilight went to pick up her cell phone. She poked at it unhappily “Well no wonder my alarm didn’t work! My phone is dead!”
“And whose fault is that?” Sunset asked playfully as she cracked open a book, while Twilight glared at her roommate.
Twilight just sighed, “Whatever, Don’t have time for this, do me a favor and charge my phone while I’m gone”. She tossed the phone to Sunset
“Whatever you say, Princess,” Sunset said dismissively, catching it.
“I’ll be back in a few hours, Talk to you later!” Twilight said as she barreled out of the apartment.
Sunset chuckled, it was nice seeing Twilight like this instead of how she was when she first learned that she was stuck here.
It was the day after the Fall Formal, early in the morning to be exact, Sunset Shimmer was laying down the bricks to the entrance of the school. Her muscles were burning from the repetitive motion, and the brisk morning autumn air was making her nose run. It was quiet, and despite it being early enough that the buses hadn’t even come yet, It was too quiet.
“Hi Sunny!!!” Pinkie shouted as she popped up in front of Sunset out of seemingly nowhere, solving the too quiet problem.
Sunset fell back from on top of the stairs, “Pinkie, Where did you come from!?” She paused, then tilted her head to the side “and Sunny? Really!?”
“We’re Friends now, Silly! That entitles you to the complete Party Pinkie Package, including a cute nickname and as a special bonus you’ll never leave my sight!” Pinkie rambled, while putting a pair of pink handcuffs on to Sunset.
Sunset stared slack jawed at Pinky, then adjusted her stare to the handcuffs, “Handcuffs? What? Is this necessary?”
“Yes!” Pinkie answered with manic cheerfulness., “Okay, Those may not be strictly necessary, but they’re fun…”
Sunset gave Pinkie her best glare.
Pinkie undid the cuffs and put them in her Mane of Holding, “ … But I was looking on the internet and the rest of the student populace is not happy with you!”
“Well obviously, I mean, not only was I a stereotypical mean girl and a raging she-demon that enslaved the entire student body. Kinda hard to forgive…” Sunset stammered.
“Aww…. Sunny, at least you’re admitting that you had a problem and that’s the first step. Although Twilight did make us promise to look out for you, so… Yeah!.... Never. Leaving. My. Sight.” Pinkie pie attempted to slap the cuffs on Sunset again, but as Sunset was ready for them this time she managed to get them attached to a nearby pole instead.
“Aww”
“How is Twilight doing?” Sunset asked, desperately diverting the conversation.
“Well, Last time I spoke with Applejack, she said that Twilight had woken up, at the very least, but was very quiet and refused to eat. Which is sad because Granny Smith’s cooking is SO good, Oooh someday we should go to AJ’s farm and have some food, oh the apple dumplings are to Die for!”
“Alright there, Pinkie, you can slow down there,” AppleJack drawled as she walked up to the school, Twilight in tow.
Twilight was taking slow deliberate steps, Her eyes downcast in such a way that it was hard to see them.
Pinkie bounded over to Twilight, the very opposite of slow. “ Hey, Twilight, Feeling better?”
It was the most delicate Pinkie could be, to be fair, and she couldn’t stand to see one of her friends sad.
“H-Hey Guys,” Twilight stammered softly, her friends stared at her expectantly. Twilight only had eyes for her own feet. “ I-I need to see Principal Celestia about my schedule.”
Twilight then ran into the gaping hole that was the entrance of Canterlot. While Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy walked up to the remaining girls, observing keenly.
“Oh, the poor dear isn’t taking this well at all,” Rarity sighed dramatically, hand over her mouth in faux horror.
“It must be horrible being stuck in a world that’s not yours” Fluttershy added.
“Pfft, What’s the big deal? It’s only thirty days, She’ll be back home in no time!” Rainbow Dash scoffed, quickly receiving glares from her friends and Sunset, “... What”
“First off, ‘30 moons’ means 30 full moons…” Sunset explained, only to be met with Rainbow’s blank stare.
“...Which only happens once a month?…” Rainbow’s face was still uncomprehending
“ She’s stuck here for about two years.” Sunset deadpanned.
Rainbow’s face brightened in realization, “Oh, that sucks!”
“Really, Rainbow, it doesn’t matter if it’s 30 months or 30 days, it still stands that she misses her home.” Rarity chided, crossing her arms, “Besides she did just save the entire school from being controlled by a She-Demon…”
Everyone looked at Sunset, who was looking to the ground and holding her arm.
“Erm… No offense, Sunset,” Rarity quickly added, patting Sunset’s hand, then brushing some dust off of her shoulder when she failed to stop giving Rarity a sour look.
“I’m going to hear that a lot from now on, Aren’t I?” Sunset asked in a laconic drawl.
The bell rang and everyone rushed awkwardly to class.
It was Lunchtime when everybody reconvened, although Celestia in her infinite wisdom did make sure that Twilight shared a class with at least one of her friends. The seven girls sat at the same table. Twilight made a small buffer away from her friends, sitting an entire seat away from the main group.
Twilight just sat there, picking at the salad Sunset got for her. She would mechanically take a bite once every few minutes, but at this point she was only playing with her food.
“Wow, You weren’t kidding when you said she wasn’t eating much,” Sunset commented to AppleJack. Sunset’s own appetite was unaffected by her recent time as a demon.
“She’s been like that all day!” Rainbow all but shouted, as she leaned over the lunch table “She just sits at the back of class staring off into space! I thought learning was her favorite thing!”
“There has to be something we can do.” Rarity said, looking sidelong to her friend, “Sunset, how did you adjust to living in this world?” she took Sunset’s hand in her own as she made the demand, pressing it against dramatically her heart.
Sunset carefully extracted her hand from Rarity’s and shrugged “I don’t know, When I came here, I was still in ‘evil empress mode’, I was just going to come here, build an army, and invade Equestria.” She whickered softly “man that sounds dumb just saying out loud.”
“It seems to be more emotional than acclimation, Maybe... she needs to talk about it,” Fluttershy offered, eyes staring at Twilight with incessant sympathy. Whenever Twilight glanced at Fluttershy, her own eyes darted away and she eeped softly.
“That’s great and all, but she’s barely spoken a word in two days!” Applejack stated, slamming her fist into her cupped hand for emphasis. “We need to do something in the here and now!”
The table got quiet as the six girls glanced once more at their friend, who was still preoccupied with poking her food and wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation.
“Hmmm… Changing subject: Where is Twilight staying tonight,” Rarity asked, placing her hand on her chin in an overblown replica of the thinking pose.
“Don't look at me,” Applejack replied, tossing her head to glance at Rarity, “One night was was enough, any more and we put her to work.” The sixgirls stared at her, “What? That’s Apple Family Policy. Friends are great and all, but there’s no room fer slackers on the farm. Hey. Someone else say something. Comeon. I didn’t say anything that outrageous. Yeah yeah. Pick on the farmer.”
Sunset coughed “Well, I can let her stay with me,” Sunset said, trying really hard not to make eye contact with Applejack.
“Where do you even live?” Rainbow asked, her tone edging towards ‘snottily accusing’.
“It’s just an small apartment in town, totally legit too.” Sunset said, hands up.
“Totally Legit huh? If it was totally legit, you wouldn’t feel the need to specify that it was” Rainbow shoved her face close to Sunset’s glaring deeply into the shocked whites of Sunset’s eyes.
Rarity gently took Dash’s shoulder and pried the other girl carefully away from sunset. She was stronger than she looked.
“For the sake of trust we’ll allow it,”.
“It just means we’ll have to keep an eye on you,” Applejack agreed, tipping up her hat with a finger demonstratively.
“Don’t think that we’ve forgotten about you because of Twilight!” Rainbow stated, rolling up her sleeves aggressively, only to find herself shackled to the lunch table by Pinkie Pie.
“I knew those handcuffs would come in handy!” Pinkie Pie danced happily in her seat.
Sunset nodded in more of a timid way than she would have liked. She forgot that even though Twilight asked them to be here friends, the would start out feeling more like wardens.
“I-I Need to talk to the Principal,” Sunset said as she excused herself from the table.
The Principal’s office was surprisingly quiet during lunch. Most times some of the more problem students would be there, either trying futilely to salvage their grades, or there to face punishment. Sunset was fortunate enough not to have to face punishment in here until the previous night. She may have been a mean girl, but she was also intelligent, she was never careless enough to get caught.
Sunset knocked on Principal Celestia’s door, and waited for an answer. Celestia’s voice called out,
“Come in.”
Sunset opened the door and tiptoed in gently.
“Ahh, Sunset Shimmer!” Celestia greeted cheerfully, looking up from the paper she was filling out, “To what to I owe the pleasure?”
Sunset winced visibly. She wondered if Celestia was purposefully twisting the knife. Of course, that wasn’t like Celestia, really, either version of her.
“Um… Well… I wanted to talk to you about Twilight,” Sunset stammered, while obsessively smoothing her skirt. How did the dratted thing get so wrinkled NOW?! It wasn’t nerves, it COULDN’T be nerves!She was Sunset Shimmer! She used to rule Canterlot high! She was going to rule Equestria! What had that rainbow done to her?
“Oh? How is Ms.Sparkle doing?” Celestia asked, giving her full attention to Sunset, hands folded primly on the desk before her.
“Not that well, to be honest,” Sunset said, plopping herself unceremoniously into the seat before the desk, in an effort to regain some comfort. Celestia belatedly gestured to her that it was fine to do so.
“How so?” Celestia was being particularly parsimonious with her words today.
“She barely talks, hardly eats, and she just walks around with no purpose!” Sunset was surprised to find herself leaning over the desk, crying for twilight.
“Sounds like she’s having trouble adjusting,” Celestia turned to her computer and started to Type, “ Luckily , we just hired someone for just such an occasion.”
Sunset fell out of her chair, “What.”
“The district has been trying to get this school a psychologist, and we just found Miss Cadenza today… Do… you need help getting up?”
“No, I can manage myself, once my legs start working again” Sunset said dryly. “You know, us ponies, keep forgetting how to walk on only two. Heh. Heh.” She faked an unconvincing laugh as she levered her trembling body off of the floor.
“Right… um.. heh heh…” Celestia, taken aback, faked laughter along with Sunset. “You might find a visit to her helpful yourself, you know.”
“What.” Sunset had managed, this time, to fall into the chair, so that she didn’t embarrass herself further.
“Well, I think the whole” She shuffled her paperwork to bring a file to the top and began to read from it. “Turning into a demon and trying to take over the school…” Her normally imperturbable face took on a perturbed air “I still can’t believe I can say that with a straight face… thing may have left some psychological effects upon you as well. There is no shame in it, you know. My sister and I have needed family therapy a few times, and I think I will be having a long talk with my own psychologist over the summer.”
“.. Maybe…” Sunset droned hesitantly, “But, right now, I need to repay some debts”
“Understood,” Celestia then switched the topic, “ So, I can arrange for Miss Sparkle to have a session with miss Cadenza this afternoon. Do you Know where she is staying? ”
“She’s staying with me, Actually”
“Oh, Perfect! She’ll talk with Miss Cadenza while you’re working on the school entrance” Celestia Beamed.
Sunset laughed weakly at that and Exited the room.