Sunset gazed at the moonlit sky, wondering about her best friends. After the Fall Formal, when she thought she had lost everything, they appeared and guided her, even though she had hurt almost all of them in the past.
However, one of them didn't have anything to do with that event. Her name was Twilight Sparkle. Not the purple pony princess, but the human.
The day they met, she knew it wasn't the Twilight from Equestria. She was fairly different, not only in appearance, but also in her way of thinking. "Human Twilight" was what Princess Twilight would have been, hadn't Celestia sent her to Ponyville. That's what she told Sunset, at least. After a while, Twilight opened up to them, little by little. The hardest part was explaining the whole "Magic of Friendship" thing. She was highly skeptical of it, but a quick peek at the portal helped convince her. Now they were just like childhood friends; Twilight was now Sunset's closest friend.
However, now that their summer vacation started, she hadn't seen any of her friends for a while. Applejack was busy helping her family at Sweet Apple Acres. Fluttershy was taking care of pets for some families that were travelling, so she didn't have much free time to meet her friends. Rainbow Dash was training as always, and was even more focused now that she didn't have classes to "interrupt her training schedule". Rarity was taking care of her sister while designing her new clothing line. Pinkie Pie was traveling with her family, but Sunset didn't know where to.
"I wonder where she is by now," Sunset said. "The only thing she told us was the trip would 'rock'."
As for Twilight, she was at home as always. "Never leaves her 'nest', that girl."
Sunset then looked at her phone. "What? 03:27 AM already?" she said, surprised. "At least I don't have classes tomorrow." Sunset yawned and lowered herself into bed. As soon as her head touched the pillow, she fell asleep.
The next day, she woke up and started making herself breakfast. As always, she put bread in the toaster, cracked some eggs, fried them, retrieved the now-toasted bread, got the juice out of the fridge and started eating. Even though it was routine, she never got tired of it.
After eating, she had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Her vacations were always like this. Except now she had her friends.
"Hm, I think I'll call Pinkie and see if we - goddammit, Sunset, wake up!" she told herself as she noticed her mistake. "Why am I always like this at mornings?"
After some time thinking, she realized something.
"Wait... Twilight isn't doing anything today. Well, hopefully not. Maybe I can come over so we can do something."
Sunset decided that she would call Twilight after lunch, so it wouldn't seem like she was just desperate for food. As time passed, Sunset ordered lunch, and immediately gobbled it up like a parasprite when it arrived.
After lunch, she called Twilight.
"Hey Twilight," said Sunset.
"Hi, Sunset, how are you?" replied the voice on the phone.
"I'm fine, thanks. Just bored. I was wondering, maybe I could come over to your house right about now, so we could maybe do something?"
"Actually, that would be great! I don't have anything to do right now, so if you could come now, that would be appreciated."
"There's no need to be so formal, Twilight. I'm heading out now, so I should be there in about five minutes."
"Okay, see you then!"
"Bye Twilight." Sunset started to walk to her friend's house. Fortunately, it wasn't raining and Twilight lived close by, so she wouldn't need to ride her car to reach her destination.
Sunset knocked on the door when she arrived, and much to her surprise, a guy she didn't know opened the door instead of Twilight.
"Can I help you?" asked the man. He looked just a bit older than Twilight, but he couldn't have been Twilight's dad, whom she had met before.
"Erm, I'm Twilight's friend, and we...we kind of-"
"Oh, hey Sunset," said Twilight from behind the man. "She's the friend I told you about, Shiny."
He let Sunset through the door.
"You don't know my brother, right?" Twilight introduced her friend to her brother. "Sunset, this is Shining Armor. He's my BBBFF. And Shiny, this is Sunset Shimmer. She was the one I was on the phone with earlier."
"Nice to meet you...Mr. Shining," said Sunset, unsure of how to address him and unsure of what a "BBBFF" was exactly. She'd have to ask Twilight about it, but she decided she would do it later.
"Twiley does talk a lot about you." Shining Armor shook Sunset's hand in a firm albeit gentle way. "And you don't have to be so formal, just Shining is fine."
Sunset thought that was actually funny, in a cosmic sort of way.
"Okay then, Shiny, if you need anything, we'll be in my room," said Twilight with a smile on her face.
As Sunset and Twilight were heading to her room, Sunset saw someone else she didn't know. She was a woman with pink skin and an aura that seemed to fill the room with love. Not wanting to seem rude, Sunset waved shyly and decided to ask Twilight about her.
But now wasn't really the time for that. They had to decide what they would do first.