• Published 28th Apr 2017
  • 5,073 Views, 224 Comments

The Eye That Floats, Silent and Unblinking, in Sunset Shimmer's Kitchen - Posh



Sunset Shimmer's apartment is invaded by a giant, cosmic eyeball, which is generally kind of a bummer, and almost as annoying as the constant advances Twilight keeps making toward herself.

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3. Me, Myself, and Eye

Twilight spat the pencil out of her mouth and lifted her head from her notebook, wincing at the stiff, painful sensation that shot through her neck. Working without the benefit of magic meant mouthwriting everything – every note, every diagram, every marginal doodle – which further meant hunching over and craning her neck down to put pencil to paper. Terrible posture, really, and it put undue strain on her human spine and muscles.

Admittedly, she could ameliorate her problem by doing her work at her counterpart's desk, rather than on her bed. But that meant missing out on the many, many creature comforts that the bed offered – the plush pillows, the downy blankets, and, most of all, the mattress.

Sweet Celestia, the mattress. It was soft and spongy, yet somehow still springy, the product of some miraculous human invention called "memory foam." While there were probably some ethical and logistical issues with transplanting unique substances from one world to the other, part of Twilight wanted nothing more than to rush through the portal and invent this life-changing material in Equestria. Just thinking about it made her salivate.

I'm sure no one would mind me bringing back a tiny sample...

Thinking about it didn't help her neck any, though. Twilight leaned back against the headboard, rolling her shoulders and sighing with relief. Her legs, bent at the knee and drawn up close to her body, served as a makeshift table while she worked, and she stretched them out flat against the bed. The notebook was shaken off her lap by the motion, falling among the semicircle of identical notebooks surrounding her – Bespectacled Twilight's meticulously gathered research. Reading through it all had taken up half a day; reading it ten more times and revising it with her own analysis took another. All time well spent, of course, but it left her mentally and emotionally exhausted. Not to mention lonely.

She hadn't seen anyone besides Bespectacled Twilight and her Spike since that first day, and even then, only in mornings and evenings. The rest of the time, she was alone in the house, surrounded by books, munching away at processed snack foods, and kicking herself for leaving Spike behind. He'd volunteered to accompany her, of course, had been more than willing to run to Sunset's rescue, but Twilight declined his company. There was no telling how much of a shut-in Starlight Glimmer could become if she didn't have someone under the same roof as her.

...Then again, maybe it isn't Starlight I should be worried about.

Twilight folded her arms across her knees and rested her chin against them. She needed a break.

"Hey!" her own voice called from the bedroom's open door. Twilight glanced up to see Bespectacled Twilight poke her bespectacled face into the room. "Are you decent? I mean, if you aren't, then whatever; it's nothing I haven't seen before, but I figured it'd be polite to ask before I—"

"Stick your head in and gawk at her?" Spike interrupted as he pranced into the bedroom. "'Cuz, like, usually, you ask that question before you look."

Twilight stifled a chuckle and leaned over the bed to lift Spike onto her lap. Hearing the little dog speak for the first time had been a bit of a shock to her system, but she was grateful for his presence once she adjusted. He wasn't her number one assistant, but he was still Spike, and his sharp wit made her feel a little more at home than she might have without him.

Spike circled Twilight's lap, once, before curling up and yawning. "Y'know, it's funny – you and my Twilight are basically identical, but your lap feels kinda different from hers. It's a subtle, but notable, difference. Provided you know what to look for."

The busting of her chops, though, she could do without.

Please don't give her any more ammunition...

"How was school?" Twilight asked, hoping to preempt Bespectacled Twilight from pursuing Spike's line of thought.

"Noisy, and full of people." Bespectacled Twilight approached her desk, unslinging her backpack as she walked, and dropped it in her desk chair. She gave it an idle spin before wandering over to her closet. "There was an earthquake drill today, so we all had to hide under our desks, and whoever was running the show forgot to give the all-clear. We were stuck for, like, half an hour, with nothing to do besides count the chewed-up gum wads stuck under our desks. Nineteen, before you ask."

Twilight had not been planning to ask.

Then Bespectacled Twilight whirled around. "Oh! But while we were down there, Derpy made eye contact with Flash Sentry by accident, and he just completely freaked out – ran out of the classroom screaming. Ms. Cheerilee found him in a janitor's closet half an hour later, sobbing and hugging an old mop."

Twilight's fingers clenched. Perhaps she should have let Spike's comment stand – in trying to head off a lap-related line of conversation, she'd accidentally landed on a less comfortable topic.

"Anyway," said Bespectacled Twilight. "I'm only home long enough to shower and change. I'm meeting Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash for soccer practice at school."

"I didn't know you played soccer," said Twilight.

"I don't, not usually. But Rainbow has some new training regimen in mind for Scootaloo, and she thinks my powers will be a big help." Bespectacled Twilight turned back to her closet, rummaging through it for a fresh outfit to wear. "Fluttershy'll be riding the bench, though. You should come with – keep her company."

Well, she had just been pining for a break in routine. "Is Sunset gonna be there?"

Bespectacled Twilight tossed a maroon cardigan with C.P. embroidered in gold, cursive script over her shoulder. It landed at the foot of the bed and dangled off the edge.

"No... come to think of it, we haven't seen a whole lot of her this week. She's gone straight home after school every day since the Eyeball showed up. I don't think she likes leaving it unattended for too long."

Moments like this made Twilight grateful that her human ears couldn't visibly droop. It made it easier to hide disappointment. She and Sunset hadn't had a real conversation since that day in the classroom, and Twilight had the distinct feeling that she was being avoided. It hurt.

It annoyed the heck out of her, too.

If she would just sit down and talk to me, we could work this out, but she insists on acting like a jealous schoolfilly...!

Spike whined and pawed at Twilight's tummy. She sighed and scratched him behind the ear. Thoughts of Sunset and feelings of irritation melted away as his tail thump-thumped contentedly against her leg. What was it about dogs that made petting them so darn therapeutic?

I should ask Applejack to bring Winona by the castle sometime...

"Anyway, how are things on your end?" Bespectacled Twilight asked. She emerged from her closet with a T-shirt and shorts, both emblazoned with the logo of that camp she'd attended with the others. "Are you making any progress?"

"Actually? Yes." Twilight brightened – after educational environments and pancakes, science-talk was the most reliable method of elevating her mood. "I gotta say, I was a little skeptical about your plan the first time you told me about it. But I've run the numbers, and checked your figures, and I think you're on to something – I think the seven of us can generate enough power to stabilize a transdimensional rift long enough to send Sunset's new roommate back wherever it came from."

"Told you so." Bespectacled Twilight approached the bed, picking up and folding the discarded cardigan over her arm. "Honestly, stabilizing the rift won't be the tricky part. Creating the rift in the first place, on the other hand? Doable, don't get me wrong, but dangerous."

"Yeah, I vaguely recall someone trying to do something like that before, and nearly toppling the barriers separating Equestria and the human world by mistake." Twilight smirked.

Bespectacled Twilight's face burned, and she pulled the cardigan close to her chest like a security blanket. "Hey, that's— that's not fair. Those were unique circumstances. D-Difficult circumstances! Uniquely difficult—"

"Not disputing that."

"I mean, i-it was all very stressful." Bespectacled Twilight brushed some of the notebooks on the bed aside, creating enough space to sit next to Twilight. "There was singing, and chanting, and choreographed circling—"

"She was peer-pressured," Spike added, yawning.

"Exactly, see?" Bespectacled Twilight nodded. "I was peer pressured."

"I'll do my best to avoid leading any choral harmonies. No guarantees, though – sometimes they just kinda happen around me." Twilight snickered, then sighed. "That said, I ran into an unexpected problem while I was checking your research. It's nothing catastrophic, mind you – for our purposes, it's just an unexpected variable we should account for."

"Ooh." Bespectacled Twilight leaned closer to Twilight, the better to read over her shoulder. Twilight scooted away, feeling a spike of irritation when Bespectacled Twilight didn't take the hint and leaned in closer.

"I've checked and double-checked your work a grand total of eleven times now," said Twilight, her annoyance straining her voice. "And while I don't disagree with your theory of how realities coexist, I don't think your model is entirely accurate."

She reached for the notebook she'd been working on and flipped open to a page with a diagram of two circles, a duplicate of the one Bespectacled Twilight had drawn to first demonstrate her theory.

"So this is the model as you presented it. Equestria here, human world there, shared border... hereish." Twilight traced the space where the two circles brushed against one another. "Right?"

"Pretty much." Bespectacled Twilight put her hand on Twilight's shoulder, ignoring Twilight's attempts to shrug it off.

"Well, I've gone through a number of equations..." Twilight flipped to the next page, filled with complex formulas and figures, which Bespectacled Twilight quickly scanned, lips moving wordlessly. "The results don't support the model you're postulating."

Twilight ran her finger down the page, to a lopsided Venn diagram at the bottom that had been filled in with colored pencils. Pink for the left circle, black for the right, purple for the overlap between the two.

"Keeping in mind that this is a crude, two-dimensional sketch of a highly theoretical model of metaphysics that hasn't been mapped in either of our realities..." Twilight winced at the faint sensation of her counterpart's breath on her cheek. "If I'm right, then this is actually how Equestria and the human world play against one another."

Bespectacled Twilight studied the diagrams in silence for a moment before speaking up again. "So... wait, one of these is Equestria, right?"

"Correct. But this, right here?" Twilight pointed to the overlap. "This is you. Or, uh. Us, right now, I suppose.

Bespectacled Twilight nodded. "And the other is...?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe that's where the Eyeball really came from, or maybe it's some other dimension altogether." Twilight shut the notebook. "If you want to check my math on this, then feel free, but I'm telling you – there's some other universe-sized mass that's not accounted for in the model that you drew up. And, if I'm correct, this world exists somewhere between it and Equestria."

Bespectacled Twilight whistled, leaning closer. "What does that mean for us?"

"Well, it certainly restricts our margin for error. Assuming you're right, of course, and this thing actually came from the space between realities."

"Farther-out-there—"

"Anyway, assuming that still holds up, and that it didn't actually come from this other mystery mass, then the points of contact between our realities are far smaller than initially assumed. Before we can even think about opening another rift, we need to be absolutely certain, and nail down our calculations precisely. Otherwise, we run the risk of—"

She heard a sharp intake of air, and a puff of breath just above her head, and recoiled. Bespectacled Twilight wasn't hovering over her shoulder anymore. Her face was poised just above Twilight's hair, her nose nearly touching her scalp.

"...Did you just..." Twilight's nose wrinkled. "Sniff me?

Bespectacled Twilight's face was pale and expressionless. Pinpricks of sweat beaded on her brow.

"...Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes." She blinked. "Um. I-I was just trying to get a whiff of that shampoo you're using. Wh-What is that?"

She sniffed again. Twilight scooted to the very edge of the bed, dislodging Spike by accident.

"It was in your shower," said Twilight grumpily. "You tell me."

"Right! Yes, of course. Silly me. Heh." Bespectacled Twilight backed away. "Um, y'know, I think I'll just... maybe... go use some of that right now."

She dashed for the door, dropping the cardigan in her haste.

Twilight groaned and buried her face in her hands, massaging her eyelids gently. She felt the bed creak beneath Spike's weight as he moved about, and lowered his body over her bare feet. His fur was warm, and silky, against her toes, and she wiggled them in his loose belly fluff.

"Chin up, Princess Twi," said Spike. "You don't know weird until you catch her moaning her own name in her sleep. Now that's awkward."

"...It really, really is."

Spike's eyes widened, before narrowing slyly at Twilight. "What, you mean..."

"That she's crept into my bed every night since I've been here to spoon with me?"

"That much, I figured – her bed's always empty when I wake up. Didn't know about the other part. That just adds a whole extra layer of hilarity to it."

"For you, maybe," Twilight said glumly. "For me, it's just like you said, Spike. Awkward."


"Like a phoenix burning briiiight, in the skyyyyy..."

Sunset Shimmer entered her home, singing to herself with a smile on her face. Her backpack was stuffed with recently purchased supplies; the material bulged against a rectangular shape, and the head of a squeegee poked from its partially unzipped top. In her left hand was a paper bag that she gripped loosely around the middle.

"...I'll show there's another side to meeee, you can't denyyyyyy..."

She tossed her keys and phone onto the couch, pushed the door to her kitchen open with her shoulder, and greeted the Eyeball with a grin.

"Hey! How was your day?"

The air around the Eyeball shifted and shimmered, like an asphalt road on a summer's day; the room remained lukewarm, yet glowed with a subtle light from the thin red blood vessels spiderwebbing across its surface

"Don't know why I even bother," Sunset said good-naturedly, with a chuckle and a shake of her head. She dug into her paper bag and retrieved a burrito, piping hot and wrapped in yellow paper.

"I thought you might be sick of bean and cheese, so I decided to mix it up a bit – got you the same order as me. It's fried okra, rice, and onions, with chipotle mayo. It's the best vegetarian option on the menu."

Sunset tossed the burrito into the Eyeball's pupil. It made a faint plop sound before being swallowed by that sea of oily darkness.

The Eyeball's iris pulsed, once.

"Think nothing of it," Sunset replied warmly. "So, listen, something occurred to me today in chem class. I noticed your blood vessels keep getting redder, and more prominent, the longer you're here. I guess you don't have any way to moisturize in this reality, right?"

The Eyeball's pupil constricted to a pinprick before expanding outward rapidly again; the red light vanished, bathing the room in the cold blue tones from its iris instead.

"That's what I thought. So I was thinking, maybe I could help you out with that. On my way home from school, I made a couple of extra stops and I picked up some stuff to, uh... moisturize you."

Sunset shucked off her backpack and dropped it on the counter, beside a coffee pot filled with some white, creamy substance. That wasn't unusual; the Eyeball seemed to enjoy filling the coffee pot with random fluids for Sunset to discover. Yesterday afternoon, it was motor oil, and dish soap when she woke up that morning. This time, it seemed to be mayonnaise.

At least, I hope it's mayonnaise.

Sunset snorted with amusement as she emptied her backpack of the supplies she'd purchased – the squeegee, a bottle of eyedrops, and a tin paint tray. She poured a generous amount of the eyedrops into the tray, and dunked her squeegee into it.

"I'm not sure what'd work best on you, since, you know, you're an Eyeball from outer sp— or farther-out-there space, rather. But this stuff's supposed to be for extra-sensitive eyes, so I figured, when in doubt..."

For several seconds, the Eyeball vibrated rapidly, with thick lines like cables undulating across its pearly white surface.

"Uh. Cool." Sunset suppressed a shudder. While the Eyeball certainly seemed benign, even friendly at times, some of its actions and responses were nevertheless highly unnerving. "So... do me a favor and hold still, alright? Lemme know if I cross any lines."

She raised her squeegee, droplets sprinkling into the fluid-filled tray.

The Eyeball didn't move at all as she circled it, gently stroking her squeegee over its rubbery surface. Either it understood her request, or it intuited that it needed to remain still for the procedure. Now that Sunset thought about it, that would indicate that it was capable of intuiting that the procedure would be good for it, and that it didn't mind being subjected to gentle, yet thorough, moistening. Did it understand her explanation? Did it trust her enough to assume that whatever she did would be beneficial?

One thing was for sure; it understood her more than she understood it.

"Y'know, I'm learning quite a bit about you right now," Sunset muttered. "Which is great, because I feel like you get my world a lot better than my world gets you. Of course, I maintain that we'd have bonded faster if we could just chat over coffee like regular people. Too bad the machine's still on the blink. Meant to get it fixed, but then I spent my coffee maker funds on that wine."

For all the good that did me. The unwashed wine glasses still sat side-by-side in her otherwise empty sink, their bottoms stained a dark red from the dregs of Sunset's illicitly purchased Merlot.

Sunset sighed and tried not to think about it. She dipped the squeegee into the tray again, and squatted to rub the Eyeball's underside. "It's... whatever. There's no reason to assume you'd even like coffee. Burritos are one thing, but coffee – that's an acquired taste. For all I know, you'd just spit it right back out, or..."

Sunset trailed off and rose slightly, looking into the Eyeball's pupil.

"Personal question... where does your food go once you ingest it?"

The Eyeball's pupil dilated slightly.

Sunset shrugged and squatted again, returning to her work.

"Just asking. I could find out if I wanted to, I guess, but I'm not sure I'm prepared to take this little experiment quite that far. Although I guess it'd be a good way to get myself published. Make a name for myself in cryptozoology, or whatever. Which isn't a field I really saw myself going into as a filly, but... what else do I have to look forward to out here in humanland?"

Finished with its underside, she rose and dunked her squeegee in the tray again, and began working her way to the top of the Eyeball.

"It occurs to me, and not for the first time, that I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna do once high school is over." Sunset stood on tiptoe to reach the Eyeball's apex. "I mean, I didn't really have any long-term game-plan besides 'amass phenomenal power' when I came here from Equestria. Now that I'm not at risk of becoming a psycho she-demon anymore, I guess the sky's the limit, but what the heck would I even do?"

Sunset caught a glimpse of her warped reflection in the Eyeball's surface and paused, lingering over it. It suddenly winked and pointed a pair of finger-guns at her, and Sunset quickly drew the squeegee down over the image of herself, trying especially hard not to think about it.

"Sometimes I wonder if I should just go back to Equestria and try to pick up my old life again, but I have even less of an idea about what to do with myself there than I do here. I can't face Celestia, not after the way I left things. Maybe I could work something out with Twilight – live with her for a while – but with Starlight in the picture..."

The Eyeball's surface hissed and sizzled, trails of steam rising along random spots where Sunset's solution flash-boiled. A droplet splattered against the floor, fractaling into non-Euclidian patterns that dissolved into nothingness almost as soon as they appeared.

"Yeah, so maybe I am being petty about Starlight freakin' Glimmer. So what?" Sunset cocked her hip just so, adding a touch of Queen Bee in her posture to better reflect her defensiveness. "I know it. I own it. I don't need to have it pointed out to me."

The fridge door opened, and the bottle of wine floated out to dance in front of Sunset's face. She bit her lip, tempted, before turning her back on the Eyeball and dipping the squeegee in the tin again.

"...I shouldn't have snapped at you like that," she said, after a moment's silence. "I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with you, okay? Or even Starlight, when you get right down to it. It's..."

Sunset released the squeegee and wrapped her arms around herself with a sigh.

"It's about Twilight."

She felt a crawling sensation on the back of her neck – it usually meant that the Eyeball was staring at her. Sunset popped her jacket collar and pulled it closer against her skin.

"Don't get me wrong; I love all my friends to bits. But I feel a lot closer to Twilight than I do to the others. There's stuff about me that only she could understand, that only she could relate to. And I thought she felt the same way about me – that we were special to one another. Finding out that she had someone else... somepony else in Equestria, somepony that she has the same kind of relationship with that she has with me... As stupid as it is, I feel like I'm less important to her now. Or maybe that I was never as important to her as she is to me."

She turned to face the Eyeball, leaning against the countertop. In the corner of her eye, she saw the wine return to the fridge, and the door gently shutting.

"The other day, when I saw her, she insisted there was nothing to worry about, that I was just being paranoid and jealous for no reason. Which, like, yeah, I'm totally being a catty little shit, but I can't just switch my feelings on and off on command. And maybe there's something to it, too, y'know? Ever since Starlight came into the picture, I've felt like Twilight's slipping away from me. She doesn't visit, she doesn't write back as often as she did before... things just aren't the same between us anymore.

"And that's not even getting into the fallout from this thing with Flash, which I knew was a mistake on many different levels. Not the least of which being because he and Twilight habitually collide with and make goo-goo eyes at one another whenever they're in the same reality. But after what I pulled the other day, I'll be lucky if Twilight even still wants to have me in her life."

The wine in the fridge tempted her again. Sunset shook the urge off.

"In retrospect, that was one booty call that I should never have made. So stupid of me to do that. But I needed someone to be close to; I needed to feel..."

She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

"I needed to feel. And he was there, and willing, and... and have you seen his ass?"

The Eyeball's pupil exploded into a six-pointed star, before normalizing back into a head-sized circle.

Sunset laughed again, with humor this time. She wiped away what tears she'd shed, picked up the squeegee, and playfully flung droplets of solution at the Eyeball.

"'Course you have. Silly me."

The droplets remained stuck to the Eyeball's surface without dissolving.

Sunset wiped down the front, the squeegee squeaking with every pass, until the entirety of the Eyeball shone and glinted in the dim, fluorescent light of her kitchen. The prominent blood vessels had faded, and the Eyeball was bright and perfectly pristine. Sunset leaned from left to right to examine both sides of the Eyeball, nodding with satisfaction at her work.

"You feeling as good as you're looking right now?"

The Eyeball's iris glowed vividly before flickering out.

"I'll take that as a yes." Sunset replaced the squeegee in the tray and grabbed her backpack. She moved to exit the kitchen, pausing in the doorway to look over her shoulder at the Eyeball.

"You know... I haven't opened up like that to anyone in the longest time. Especially not about this stuff, and for good reason. But with you, it all just came out so easily. Maybe it's 'cuz I know you won't tell anyone, or because you're an outsider to this whole situation... but whatever the reason, you're surprisingly good company. Thank you for listening, for letting me get all that off my chest."

The Eyeball's skin vibrated.

"Right back at you." Sunset shook her head bemusedly. "Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to send you back to where you came from. Talk therapy ain't cheap, but you? Stick around another few weeks, and we'll probably have all my emotional baggage sorted out."

As the door swung shut behind her, Sunset swore she felt a low rumble from the kitchen – a foreboding vibration in the floor. She peeked back inside, and saw the Eyeball, floating, a silent, ocular colossus.

Mildly unsettled, Sunset shrugged it off, and retreated to her room, and the mountain of homework that awaited.


The bleachers were made from decades-old wood, and slathered in multiple coats of chipping and peeling paint. They creaked and groaned every time Twilight moved, which, given how badly they chafed against her thighs, meant that they creaked and groaned like Granny Smith's hip at a square dance. Splinters poked through her skirt and stung her skin, itching her dreadfully. Human hide was so thin and easily damaged – come nightfall, she'd need someone to pick splinters out of her backside with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass.

And, lucky me, I have an able and willing volunteer. Provided she survives practice.

Bespectacled Twilight had traded her glasses for a pair of thick goggles, and stood in front of a plastic-framed practice goal on the soccer field. Rainbow Dash had drafted her with the belief that her telekinetic abilities would make an interesting training challenge for Scootaloo. Thus far, her assumption had not been borne out.

Scootaloo lined up another shot and thwacked the ball, sending it hurtling through the air toward the goal. Begoggled Twilight shrieked and ducked, and the ball sailed over her head and into the goal unimpeded. On the sidelines, Rainbow Dash smacked her forehead and groaned; the collision of her hand with her face was hard enough to be audible from the bleachers.

"Does she... not remember that she has telekinesis?" Twilight asked, idly patting the little dog on her lap.

Beside her, Fluttershy shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of her tomato-and-watercress sandwich. "In her defense, soccer is a very stressful and intimidating sport. I don't blame her for forgetting, under the circumstances."

"Historically speaking, Twilight hasn't handled balls flying rapidly toward her face very well," Spike added, raising his hind paw to scratch inside his ear. "She'd make a terrible dog, if you ask me."

Twilight looked down at him. "Are you trying to give yourself an ear infection?"

Spike paused and looked up at Twilight plaintively. "It itches," he whined.

"You know what'd really itch? An ear infection. Now stop it."

Spike frowned and rose, hopping the narrow chasm between Twilight and Fluttershy to settle on the other girl's lap.

Fluttershy scratched Spike on the bridge of his nose. "It's very kind of you to come out and keep me company, Twilight. But I know you're here on business, not pleasure, so if you'd rather be working right now—"

"I've been staring at charts and notes and diagrams for so long that I'm starting to dream in bullet points. Which is a lot less fun than it sounds." Twilight huffed. "I need a break. And some conversation with someone who isn't a sarcastic dog."

Or with someone who isn't one miscue away from jumping my bones.

"If you're certain, then I won't push you," said Fluttershy. "And I'm not going to complain. We've all missed spending time with you since you've been here."

"Yeah, sorry." Twilight chuckled self-consciously. "I've been a bit of a hermit, I know."

"At least you're being a hermit for a good cause. You'd never neglect any of your friends – anyone who knows you knows that for a fact."

Twilight looked warily at her friend. Was this some sort of passive-aggressive guilt-trip, or was Fluttershy just being Fluttershy?

"Are you implying something, Fluttershy?"

"Like what, Twilight?"

Fluttershy took a small bite of her sandwich and brushed off the breadcrumbs that peppered Spike's coat.

Who am I kidding? She's just being Fluttershy.

"...I'm sorry," said Twilight. "I guess I've just come to expect guff from people over my friendship with Starlight Glimmer. It's made me a little defensive."

"Well, I'd never dream of giving you something as awful as guff, Twilight."

"I know. Or I should have known. So." Twilight looked down at the field in time to catch a glimpse of Begoggled Twilight extricating herself from the goal's net, which she had somehow entangled her ankle in.

"I'd totally give you guff though," said Spike, breaking the silence between the three.

Twilight glared at him. "Of course you would. You're Spike. Guff-giving is integral to your nature, no matter what reality you're from."

"Spike," Fluttershy admonished gently. "Please, we needn't be so—"

"I don't see how the direct approach is any worse than being all passive-aggressive about it."

"I was not being passive aggressive," Fluttershy insisted, holding a hand to her chest.

"Aw, c'mon," Spike said with a conspiratorial smirk. "I know you wanna talk about this as badly as I do. You can't convince me otherwise."

"Well... yes, granted, I would like to have a frank and open conversation with Princess Twilight..." Fluttershy blushed and averted her eyes. "But I'd never be passive-aggressive about it. I mean, passive aggression is just so... aggressive."

"Easier for you to do than active aggression, though, right?"

"How about," Twilight snapped. "How about we, you know, avoid aggression altogether. Just a thought? I swear, if Other Me invited me along just so that my friends could ambush me, I'm going to be very nettled."

"Well, I can't speak for what Twilight – um, Other Twilight – or, no that sounds awfully exclusionary, if she's Other Twilight and you're just Twilight..."

Spike snickered.

"...I can't speak for her intentions," said Fluttershy. "But I was hoping we could talk. This seems as good a chance as any."

"If we're talking about what I think we're talking about, then I'll tell you what I told Sunset. There's nothing to talk about. There's nothing to be jealous about. She's making a fuss over nothing. End of discussion."

"But Twi—"

"End. Of. Discussion!" Twilight flung her hands onto her lap with an air of finality.

On the field, Begoggled Twilight gave her ankle a final tug, only to overexert herself and fall on her back, dragging the goal down with her. Trapped in the netting, she flopped like a fish as Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash rushed to her side.

Fluttershy swallowed another bite of sandwich and cleared her throat daintily. "She talks about you, Twilight. You and that Starlight pony? Not very frequently, and usually in veiled terms. But she does it often enough to make it clear that she's envious of the position that Starlight holds in your life."

Twilight sagged in her seat. "And we're still doing this."

"I'm afraid so." Fluttershy patted Twilight on the knee before continuing. "We spoke about it a little bit the other day – it was the most open she'd ever been with any of us about her feelings on the matter. Now, maybe you're right, and maybe she shouldn't feel the way that she does—"

"Yes, exactly!" Twilight cried, bolting upright suddenly enough to startle Fluttershy. "She's being absolutely ridiculous!"

Fluttershy blinked, nonplussed. "Twilight, I wasn't exactly endorsing your position—"

"I mean, between her and I, I'm not the only one who's gone out and gotten a shiny new purple friend, am I? And hers is literally me, but with glasses! Plus this whole schoolgirl plaid look that I really don't see myself pulling off, either as a human or a pony—"

"Eyes on the prize, Twilight," Spike muttered.

"The point is..." Twilight shot Spike another glare. "I could get all jealous about it if I wanted to. But I don't. Because I am a grown-up. And grown-ups do not get jealous over silly little things like that."

"Isn't she, like, older than you?" Spike leaned up to nab a drooping leaf of watercress from the back of Fluttershy's sandwich, chewing it greedily while she booped his nose in playful admonishment.

"Irrelevant, Spike," said Twilight acidly.

Spike shrugged, an awkward gesture when performed by a dog's body. "Okay. So. You do the friendship mentor thing with Sunset, and she does that with Twilight – with my Twilight, that is. That really doesn't bother you?"

"No. Why would it?" Twilight snapped. "She's paying forward the kindness I showed her, helping someone else the way that I helped her. That's, like, my thing. That's what I'm all about! Why in the hay would that ever bother me?"

"...And if it were Starlight Glimmer in that position?" Fluttershy looked pointedly at Twilight. "It wouldn't bother you then?"

Twilight hesitated for a moment, watching in silence as Rainbow and Scootaloo set up the practice goal again, Begoggled Twilight standing awkwardly to the side.

"Twi? Got an answer for my girl here?" Spike nudged her knee with a paw. "Because your silence is kinda sayin' volumes right now."

Twilight sighed. "You're gonna make a big deal over this, but... Starlight and Trixie, they have a whole thing. They're 'best friends.'"

"Like, in the Lyra and Bon Bon sense, or...?"

"No, the literal kind." Twilight frowned. "I think. There's no mentorship involved, though. Not like me and Starlight, or Sunset."

"Ah." Spike nodded. "And... that bothers you?"

"No!" Twilight said quickly. "Not... inherently."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

"Why do you keep—"

"Twi, I can hear the air quotes in your voice."

"It's true," Fluttershy added, dabbing her mouth with a paper napkin. "They're very nasal and aspirated."

"Yeah, thanks for the linguistics lesson, Roan Chomsky." Twilight rolled her eyes. "Okay, so, yeah, I'm a little uncomfortable with it. With Sunset and Other Me, I've been where both of them are. I've been the mentor and the student. Their dynamic makes sense to me. But Starlight and Trixie bonded because they both used to be evil. Or, well, I guess Trixie was never evil, per se; she was always just kind of..."

"A bitch?" Spike offered.

"Language!" Twilight snapped. "But... yeah, pretty much."

Spike scoffed, giving his head a shake. "Like I said anything wrong. That's our word; I'll use it if I want."

Fluttershy finished the last of her sandwich, wiped her mouth and hands with her napkin, and stuffed the detritus from her meal into her lunch bag. "So. You're not jealous of Sunset's and Other You's friendship, because you understand the kind of friendship that they have."

"Uh..." Twilight looked uncertainly at Fluttershy. "I suppose? I made no mention of jealousy."

"But with Starlight and Trixie, you don't approve, because their friendship is based on something that you don't have personal experience with."

"That's... not exactly how I characterized it—"

"Which is somehow completely distinct from jealousy."

Spike snickered. "Careful, Fluttershy. Now you're leading the witness."

"I am not jealous of Starlight's friendship with Trixie," Twilight fumed. "That isn't what it's about at all. Sure, I've never been bad before; I don't know what it's like to eat crow in front of everypony, and spend all my time trying to make up for the terrible things I've done. I've never felt that particular variety of social isolation, so it's not something I can immediately relate to. And sure, they hang out together and giggle about me behind my back – probably – and sure, Starlight keeps spending her holidays with Trixie, instead of with me, but that has no bearing on the matter. I am not jealous of the two of them; I'm uncomfortable with it because... because, um..."

Twilight paused mid-rant to look closely at her friends' faces. Spike and Fluttershy exchanged a skeptical look, which they then turned onto her.

"Twi..." Spike leaned across the chasm between Twilight and Fluttershy to rest his chin on the Princess's knee. "Did that sound even a little bit convincing to you?"

"I..." Twilight stammered. "I'm not jealous..."

But Spike had the right of it. It didn't sound convincing to her own ear, not in the slightest. She made no secret of her dislike for Trixie, or her disapproval of her growing bond with Starlight. It was personal, on her part, and entirely based on their history together. She tried to keep that in mind, of course – to catch herself when she took personal offense at Starlight choosing Trixie's company over hers – and to take the high road whenever Trixie made some swipe at her.

But when she invited Trixie to her village's Sunset Festival, instead of her, Twilight hadn't been able to stifle her feelings quite so easily. Granted, Starlight hadn't meant to hurt her in the first place, and the changeling crisis ended up taking priority anyway, but the sense of rejection was still there. Even if the rejection was implicit. No matter how many times she berated herself for it, told herself she was being silly, and stupid, and that it didn't make her friendship with Starlight any less meaningful... the hurt was still there.

Irrational, yet utterly equine. And utterly human, too.

Twilight pressed her hand to her forehead, lacing her fingers through her hair.

"I've made a mess of things, haven't I?"

Fluttershy wrapped an arm around Twilight's shoulders and squeezed. "Assigning blame helps nothing, and no one, Twilight. What matters is where you go from here. What do you think you're gonna do?"

Twilight leaned into Fluttershy's hug and closed her eyes.

From the field came a crack – the sound of leather slapping hard against flesh – and a sharp yelp of surprise. Twilight looked down to see Begoggled Twilight on the grass, her arms curled around her stomach. Beside her, a soccer ball rolled to a gradual stop.

"Goddammit, Twilight, you can catch stuff with your brain!" Rainbow Dash shouted in exasperation as she raced toward her friend again, Scootaloo in tow.

"Better put a pin in that," said Spike, cringing. "You were saying something about messes, Twilight?"

He hopped off of Fluttershy's lap and bounded down the bleachers toward the field.


Shattering glass and a hissed curse wrenched Sunset out of her dreamless sleep, bringing her back to a darkened bedroom, lit only by the LED numbers on her alarm clock. It was 3 AM, and someone was in her home.

"Shut the hell up," a man's voice hissed, carrying up past Sunset's open bedroom door. "You wanna wake bacon-hair?"

Correction. Two someones. A pair of loud, incompetent robbers.

Sunset reached for her nightstand, for her phone, and groped for it in vain until she remembered that she'd left the thing downstairs, on her couch. If anything, the intruders'd probably pocketed it.

"Screw it," Sunset muttered to herself. "I'm not helpless."

She slid out of the covers and reached under her bed for the field hockey stick that served as her primary home defense implement. She'd never played; it was something she'd lifted during her phase as Canterlot High's resident bad girl. It had no place in the life of the new Sunset Shimmer, of course, and she fully intended to return it... eventually...

...Once I'm old enough to legally purchase a revolver...

Sunset crept silently to her door, gripping the stick tightly and leaning it on her right shoulder.

"Ooh! Lacy. Check it out – think these'd look good on me?"

Sunset scowled. Even hushed, whispered, she recognized the voice of the girl who loitered on her steps the other day.

She must've really liked that cigarette.

"What the hell, sis?!" the first voice growled. "I don't wanna think about that! Put 'em back where you found 'em; you might've just given yourself herpes, for all you know. And wash your hands before you pick up anything else."

Sunset flushed – now she wanted to brain them on general principle. She crouched and carefully stepped through the doorway, creeping on tiptoe to the stairs.

She heard the kitchen door swing open, and a loud, shocked gasp from the woman. "Dude, get over here right the hell now. Right the hell now! Get a look at this!"

"Get a look at— Whoa! Sweet mother of—"

"I know, right? Frickin' sweet, isn't it?"

"It's frickin' something, alright. A stupid, pointless, worthless-ass kitchen island. Damn hipsters these days with their damn hipster decorations. C'mon, let's keep looking around."

Sunset edged to the stairs and knelt, keeping her body low to avoid being seen, heart thumping in her chest.

"...Nah. Nuh-uh. We're taking this," said the girl.

"What? Shut up; get serious."

"I am being serious. I want this and I'm taking it home. Help me get a hold of it."

"Are you out of your – what could this possibly be worth? The TV might get us a couple hundred; the cell phone definitely will, and the chop shop'll pay hard cash for the bike outside. But you really wanna waste time jackin' this... this... whatever the hell it is?"

"It's an eyeball, dude. Duh."

"Duh yourself. I wash my hands of it. Speaking of, don't forget to— uh, what's it doing?"

"I dunno. It wasn't doing it when I came in, though. I'm not sure if—"

From the kitchen came a red glow. The air thickened – Sunset had no other way to describe it; the air itself felt solid and tangible, like wading through molasses. Then a cry of terror came from the woman, shrill and blood-curdling.

"Get it off of me! Get it off!"

"Oh my god, oh my god, uh – I'll get a knife. I'll get a—"

"A knife?! What good's that gonna do?!"

"Well if someone hadn't sold our guns to buy these stupid masks and turtlenecks—"

"They're designer, you ingrate! Shit costs money! Now shut up and – no, no, no no no no!"

A slurp and a plop echoed from the kitchen – familiar sounds that made Sunset's stomach turn.

"Killjoy! You miserable freak; that's my sister! You killed my— Ah, shit, no, lemme go! Lemme go! I don't wanna die! I don't wanna—"

Another slurp, another plop, and silence fell, the air thinning to normal. The light from the kitchen faded, and vanished.

Sunset gulped and crept downstairs, the stick clutched tightly in her hands. She tiptoed to the kitchen, shutting her front door as she went – the robbers had left it ajar, and the lock was probably picked or broken.

Sunset shouldered the kitchen door open.

The eye floated serenely in the center of the room, its iris glowing with a pale blue light. Of the robbers, there was no sign.

Sunset fainted.

Author's Note:

I had a different eye pun title for this chapter, but mastermenthe suggested the current one, and I was like "damn, that's good; I should use that instead." Everyone buy him milk and tendies.

As long as I have your attention (who am I kidding, of course I don't), I should clarify something for readers of Equestria Gear Solid who might recognize the character of Killjoy in here. Also, the fact that SciTwi (or "BiTwi," as someone in the Writeoff dubbed her. CoffeeMinion, I think) has nearly identical characterization as she does in EGS..

My intent when writing both that story and this'un was that they would be in continuity with one another, and that this would be a (partial) sequel to EGS. I changed my mind eventually on the grounds that its portrayal of Crystal Prep is probably too outlandish in its terribleness to function in the same universe as this story. Which is, at least nominally, supposed to follow the movies' canon, where crippling your classmates would probably get you expelled, and where Cadance is demonstrably not a boob.

(although Cinch probably does force her to buy her tacos in reality)

Editor Man disagrees, because he is a dark and terrible man, and you're welcome to headcanon a connection between them. But I don't think I like the idea of this version of BiTwi being a rapist who impregnated herself with Solid Snake's baby because magic bacteria overclocked her sex drive. As hilarious as that is, it kinda makes it hard for me to write even a semi-serious story with her in it.

Anyway, that's all for now. More Eye-related content coming your way forthwith!