SUNSET'S APARTMENT - 2:55 AM, SAME NIGHT
I strive to fit in through my tight schedule between work, lunch, and my time with the girls. But my time to visit the library is scarce. Taking advantage of being awake in the middle of the night, is the only option, which I have been doing for some nights now. It felt like a religious habit that I need to forcefully set myself to routinely, unfortunately. In my usual pajamas, I sat by the counter-top by the kitchen, with a cup of hot green tea and biscuits on a small plate, and a notepad with an open book of the number thirteen. I read the prelude of the book, which conferred information of the curse in general, how it all began, and how it dismantled into every different various curses known to man. The Number Thirteen was one of the many curses. Having gathered much information so far, this particular curse, has its chink of its own armor. But the ripped pages in between is inhibiting me from finding the solution. Whenever I get a mental block, I take a sip of my tea with a bite of biscuit, and strive to gather my intellect once again. In my mental acquisitiveness, I glimpsed at the back cover of the book to find out who the author is: Ninjintonic. "Hmmm... That's a funny name. I wondered if the reason why he wrote this book is because he was affected by the curse too..." I turned to the penultimate chapter of the book. Aside from the passage that Twilight had pointed out to me a couple of nights ago, there was half ripped page of a passage conveying Ninjintonic's life story after the lifted curse. But of course, there were pages before it that were ripped. Whoever ripped the pages purposely, didn't want anyone to find out. What kind of a sick man would do this to anyone. With my palms tucked under the sides of my cheeks in front of the book, my concentration was diminishing, and my eyelids were getting heavy. At this point, I was in a line between giving up for the night, or to persist on through my weariness state.
"Hey Sunset."
The voice startled me back to my state of alertness that caused me to tip and spill my cup of tea over my written notepad.
"Oh... I'm sorry..." Lyra, who wore that same shirt that was triple her size, rushed in to grab a paper towel that was positioned against a counter wall, and ripped a large sheet that's well enough to absorb most of the spill of tea, "I got it.." She hastily wiped the counter-top, picking up the drenched notepad, and wiping under it.
"You're fine.." I said in a low voice. I picked up the cup in its proper position, ripped out a sheet of paper towel, and decided to help Lyra dry the table, "I uhhh.. Didn't see you there, hun."
"Well, I thought I heard some noises in the kitchen..." Lyra casually walked through the unlit kitchen, towards the trash can, then threw away the used, drenched sheet of paper towels. She kindly reached her hand out to do me a favor of throwing mine as well, "So... Any progress?" As she approached to the sink, turning the faucet on to wash her hands.
I faintly heaved out a blunt of laughter, "Wish I could say yes..."
Lyra turned off the faucet, and patted her hands dry from the kitchen towel, "... I'm sure you'll figure it out..." She sat on a stool next to me, then leaned against her side of the table and focused at the open book, then the partly-wet notepad, "You are progressing... I don't know what you're talking about..."
"You would think... But I'm really not getting anywhere with this..."
"...You're onto something here..." Lyra focused on my notes on the pad.
"What?..."
"What do you mean what... You're brainstorming for the possibilities of the cure..."
"They're nothing but scrap of ideas that's not going to work..."
"But they're still brainstormed ideas..."
"Yeah... Stupid ones... and I'm just ready to give up... It's like I'm walking in a wheel here..."
"No... Sunset lemme tell you something.." Lyra gently placed her hand on mine and continued in a pleasant tone, "Whenever you find yourself in doubt, just remember how far you've come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won and all the fears you have overcome. Raise your head and forge on ahead, knowing that you got this..."
I squinted at her with mystification after hearing Lyra's words of encouragement. I liked it. I delayed in response, "...Yeah... I got this.." Followed by my faint grin, "Lyra, you're really something..."
"Well, it's what I always say to my students." Lyra stood up from her stool seat, finalized with words before she headed into her bedroom, "Do it in moderation... It's three a.m, and you need energy for work too.." She eased into the bed room door, making sure she doesn't wake up Pinkie, and closed the door slightly showing a fissure. I watched her as she went.
I picked up my cup of tea, came to my realization that it's empty. I stood up and turned to the hot-water dispenser to fill my teacup of hot water. I easily pulled out a teabag from the tea box, then dipped it into my hot teacup of water, visualizing in deep thought as it briefly floated, and slowly sank into the bottom. I pressed the teabag down with my spoon with slight pressure, which allowed to disperse the green tea color in the water. I'm not getting much information from the book, aside from gaining knowledge of its origins and how it can ruin one's life, which does not help me at all. I stirred my tea in counter-clock wise motion, seeing this image of a mini whirlpool in my little cup that reminded me of the portal in my old school's horse statue. During the moment of observing my cup of tea in heedfulness, anything made from Equestria, exists here as well, but in a different form or action. In my inquiring mind, if Ninjintonic is a common author in Equestria, what kind of a person is Ninjintonic in this alternate universe? Which brought to my idea of more research. My eyes widened in this time of the night, knowing that it's already late, I promised myself and Lyra that I will just do a simple search on google about this man, and go to bed.
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SUNSET'S APARTMENT - 8:07 AM, FRIDAY
"Hey sleeping beauty."
I woke up to a voice, found myself plopped on a stool chair with a blanket laid around me, and an active laptop in front of me that's placed on the counter-top that had a moving screen saver of a cute animated dog running haphazardly around the screen of the monitor. I looked up, as it took a couple of seconds from my blurry vision to become clear, seeing Pinkie looking at me. She was tying her straight hair into a ponytail.
"What time is it?" As I stretched my arms out followed by a yawn.
As Pinkie finished tying her hair, she walked into the kitchen to grab a plate of breakfast for me, "Well... You're late for work, lets just put it that way..." She placed the plate filled with scrambled eggs, two strips of turkey bacon, hash browns, and two toasts of bread with butter in front of me, "Lyra left early this morning... We didn't want to wake you because we knew you needed all the sleep you can get.."
As I was still tucked in a blanket, I looked at the delicious plate, then grabbed the fork and began slicing pieces of scrambled eggs. I looked at Pinkie with a question, "Did Lyra cook this?"
"No, I did." Pinkie balanced back with a smile, but I remained a straight face with a raised eyebrow, to urge her to tell me the truth, which she finally confessed, "...Yeah.. It was Lyra.." I rolled my eyes, followed by a single head shake.
"I was gonna say, you're a baker, not a cook..." I coaxed a piece of scrambled egg with my fork, then ate it, "Thanks anyway.." With food still in my mouth.
Pinkie turned back to the kitchen to grab a blueberry muffin from the fridge, and gently yanked the drawer next to her to pull out a Ziploc bag from the rectangular packaging, "So are we still up for tomorrow?" As Pinkie placed the muffin in the bag, and zipped it closed.
I glanced at her while chewing my food, and swallowed, "Yeah.."
"Yeah?" With Pinkie's raised eyebrow, she tossed the bag of muffin lightly on the kitchen counter next to her, as her hand leaning against the edge of it, while her other hand was placed on her hip.
"What?... What else you want me to say?" I shrugged as taking a bite of my toast.
Pinkie let out a sigh and rolled her eyes, "...Nevermind..." She picked up her bag of muffin, and placed it inside her purse.
I was sensing that she wanted me to elaborate the discussion, which I did, just to ease her mind, "Pinkie, I will tell her about my curse and everything, if that's what you expected me to say.."
She continued rummaging through her purse, but left me with no words of response. I did speculate her thought that was what she wanted to hear. As she zipped her purse to a close, she carried it on her shoulder and concluded with words in a mutter before heading out the door, "I'll be home at five... C yah later."
"Stay out of trouble!" The door ordinarily closed as she exited.
I continued eating my food. It was tasty, especially the turkey bacon. While appreciating the flavors, I clicked on a random key on my laptop keyboard to presume from sleep mode. There were three famous and not-so-famous names under 'Ninjintonic' on google search. One was a fan-fiction writer at fimfiction.net; A heavy metal band called Ninjintonic; and last but not least, an author who wrote a book called: Happiness in your Life. Through my best analyzation of the three, I would say the author is the best choice. I googled the book to get a quick rundown of what the book entailed. It was a book about the Laws of Karma; Karma and Relationship, Karma and Judgement, and Karma and the World. Being occupied in front of my laptop, not realizing the time, I took a last bite of my toast, quickly closed my laptop monitor, and headed to the bathroom. Since I get off work at three today, I'll stop by Barnes and Noble on my way home to take a physical look at the book itself. Not to mention, I have an hour lunch today with Lyra and the choir teacher, which she had mentioned about a week ago. Though I'm not really looking forward to it, but I have to do what must be done.
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MULIA MILD'S PIZZERIA - 12:30 PM, SAME DAY
An appetizing scent of rustic tomato sauce, freshly baked dough, chopped onions and garlic circulated around this cute pizzeria. If anyone has yet to taste the best pizza in the world, I would say Mulia Mild's Pizzeria is the place to go. I looked around in this lowly-crowded place, and finally detected Lyra's waving hand from an average distance, and a guy who sat across from her. At this point, I wasn't quite sure how I felt, but this was a time to converge, and to make sure he's not of any threat. Crazy as it sounds, but I have to do what must be done. I casually walked towards them both. As I approached the edge of their table, I smiled at Lyra with my high pitched, cheerful tone, and grabbed her hand to pull in a hug, "Hey Lyra!" As we parted, I looked on my right to see the guy, one who calls himself a choir teacher. I remained the same smile with the same cheerful tone, "Hello there?! You must be the guy who I've been hearing about. I'm Sunset." I reached out my arm for an introductory handshake. He stood up from his seat, and accepted it, but by doing so, left a red bruising mark on his palm, which caused him to rub it.
"...Pleasure to meet you, Sunset, my name is Morning Dew..." With his standardized tone, and a spooked grin.
"Pleasure as mine." I sat next to Lyra's side of the booth.
Lyra looked at me with lowered eyebrows. She became slight flustered as to why I've acted the way I did. The atmosphere became awkward as the silence filled in between the three of us. Lyra took the plunge by initiating with words, "...So... Shall we order a large pie? I'm hungry."
"I'm down with that." I responded in a normal tone.
Lyra pleasantly asked Morning Dew, "Is that ok with you, hun?"
"..Oh.. Yeah, large pie sounds good."
Lyra called in the waiter to place an order. The waiter approached to us with a notepad and a pen, "You guys ready to order?"
"Yes, we're just going to have a large pie, half pepperoni." Lyra replied.
The waiter wrote down the order and continued with a question, "Alright... What about drinks?"
"I'm just going to have water."
Morning Dew and I nodded to the waiter as an indication that were having water as our drinks as well.
"Got it..." As the waiter concluded writing the orders down, "Large pie, coming right up." He turned to the kitchen and placed our orders in the POS system.
I tucked my hand under my cheek, and squinted at Morning Dew, "So Morning Dew, Lyra tells me you're a choir teacher?..."
"That is correct."
"Impressive... So... What are your deep intentions with Lyra?"
"SUNSET!" Lyra interrupted in a loud voice.
"It's ok, it's ok..." Morning Dew yielded at Lyra, as he's confident enough to answer my question. His response to me, "Well, I really think Lyra is very sweet, we share a lot of commonalities, her work ethics are beyond excellency, and she's just a wonderful person overall..."
"Aw, how nice, but you still didn't answer my question."
"I know... Because I'm not finish.."
I looked at him with raised eyebrow, and he continued, "... I really like Lyra, and I really think we could go somewhere with our friendship."
Lyra liked what she was hearing. This was actually the first time she heard Morning Dew expressing his true feelings about her. Talk about the right moment, when I'm present.
"Sunset, you don't have to believe me, but I would just like to let you know that I'm a faithful man who respect women. Now lemme tell you... I've been heartbroken so many times, and thought I will never love again. But when I met Lyra, I believe there's still hope for me."
The waiter approached with glasses of water, and placed them correspondingly on top of our table. Morning Dew continued, "Any man can love a thousand women... But a good man, as myself, loves one woman a thousand ways..."
After Lyra heard the sweet, comforting words by Morning Dew. Lyra couldn't help but blush, followed by a cute chuckle. I looked at her with straight-face, "Will you stop?"
"Sorry..." Lyra remained a bashful smile.
I then turned to Morning Dew once again, with a sigh, "Those are nice words, Morning Dew... But I still don't know you. If you ever hurt my best friend... I'm not gonna finish my sentence... Let's just leave it at that..."
"I understand. You're crazy."
"I beg ya pardon?" As my eyes widened.
"I meant to say, you're crazy protective over your friend, Lyra... Which is a good thing. There are a lot of men out there that give us good men a bad name."
"...Okay... As long as you understand..." I concluded.
The waiter approached our table with a sixteen inch pizza pan. He placed it on the center, which smelled heavenly. Our stomachs growled as we all couldn't wait to grab a slice, "Enjoy." The waiter had said as he walked away from the table. It was our lunch hour. We altered the subject then talked about how delicious the pizza was and how Lyra can eat a whole medium pie by herself, which brought our moment of laughter, and Morning Dew giving me a run down of his normal day with his choir students. He turned out to be a very pleasant and funny man. First impression does say a lot about someone.
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OUTSIDE OF SUGAR CUBE CORNER - 3:26 PM, SAME DAY
Twilight Sparkle decided to visit HuManehattan first time in a long time. She didn't allow herself to be noticed by anyone she knew, which is why she wore a gray hoodie sweatshirt, with dark sunglasses. She brought a round device that would detect any forms of energy that are present, which were none nearby. "I'm positive this was where the coordinates took me..." After ten minutes of stealthily exploring the area of the bakery, her round device finally lit up in green color, with an arrow directing to a point of location from where she stood. She walked towards the direction of where the arrow is pointing at, realizing that she began to advance herself away in a distance from Sugar Cube Corner. She took a couple of turns, through the back alley, couple of street crossings, then when she finally reached her destination, she found herself in front of a bookstore entrance: Barnes and Noble. "So the energy transitioned..." She looked around with wariness before entering the store.
Everyone immediately set their eyes at Twilight with scandalous remark as she entered the bookstore. Twilight didn't care much of the public humiliation, she was rather engaged in her own world of curiosity from the suspicious activity that appeared back in the lab terminal. Her device was still lit in green color, until it changed to a blue color, which is an indication that an activity should be nearby. As she looked straight forward, she saw me browsing through the bookshelves. Her eyes widened, and rapidly hid behind a bookshelf across from where I stood, "Was that Sunset Shimmer?" Twilight stealthily peeked through the fissures in between the books from the shelves she hid in, and took another glance, this time I was reading a book, "Sunset Shimmer grew up to be a very beautiful woman." Twilight's eyes lingered at me, as her feelings of nostalgia began to rush in. Just until a fat, short-height male employee with a name-tag: Snips, who tapped on her shoulder, "Hey ma'am, I don't mean to be rude or anything but, you're freaking every body out... Is everything ok? May I be of any help?"
Twilight in a low voice, "Oh no, I'm good." With Twilight's careless move that literally caused the corresponding books to falter down from where she hid, everyone in the area eyed at the sound of the fallen books, even me. Twilight was fast enough to turn around before I can identify the person in a gray hoodie. I did watch her as she hastily walked away towards the front store. Snips followed after her in a loud voice, "Hey! What is your problem ma'am?! I don't look all that scary do I?!" As I observed the person with a gray hoodie bolting away towards her exit, I let out a bark of laughter and continued reading the book.