A Lunar Sunset

by ed-stoneman

3 - Questions Without Answers

Sunset Shimmer walked down the hall to the school entrance. The first meeting with Luna had taken less than an hour, and she was already excused from her first class. Stepping through the front entrance, Sunset made her way to the parking lot, and a beeline for her car. There was a lot of information to process through and she had nearly an hour to kill before moving on to her next class.

Getting into the car, Sunset rolled down the windows and turned on the stereo. Despite all appearances, the young woman enjoyed the sounds of a time long past and tuned the radio to a local jazz station for their morning programming. The music flowed out of the aftermarket sound system, and Sunset leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes.

Principal Celestia wanted Luna to find out more about magic. Luna obviously didn’t want to, but was concerned for the greater good. Could Sunset do any less? Once she committed herself to being a better person, the moral dilemmas came along with relative frequency. Over the last year, things had settled down and became easier for her to align her moral compass. Where Sunset was concerned, the Pandora’s Box of her being a troublemaker had closed. Now she was being asked to re-open it, and take a hard look at her own personal shame.

The thought was discomforting to say the least. Normally she would have gone to her friends to find some kind of idea on how to handle this. But Luna had asked that she keep this under wraps for the time being. While she didn’t necessarily agree with the fact, Sunset did respect the elder woman’s decision in the matter. She knew all too well how things tended to get out of control at CHS when magic was involved, and involving more people than were necessary was just asking for trouble.

“Ugh. What have I gotten myself into?” Sunset asked of nobody in particular.

“I don’t know, what HAVE you gotten yourself into?”

Sunset jumped out of her seat, and smacked her head on the roof of the car. Pinkie Pie was lying on the roof, and her head was hanging upside down in the open driver side window. Her mop of pink hair was totally unaffected by gravity.

“PINKIE! What in the… how… why are you on my car?”

“Oh I was just walking by because I got to class and then I realized that I don’t have class until second period so I thought that I would come outside and enjoy the sunshine and see what people were doing and you came out and I called to you but you didn’t answer and I saw you turn on the music and I wanted to listen too and I didn’t want to interrupt you so I decided to just listen and then you asked your question and here we are!”

Sunset just stared at the inverted head in her window.

“So what have you gotten yourself into? Is Vice-Principal Luna okay? What did she want to see you for? OH NO! THE BELL!”

Pinkie Pie zoomed off toward the school without even waiting for an answer to her questions. Sunset turned off the car and made a more sedate pace back to the school building.

The remainder of the day passed without incident, and Sunset was glad to think about heading home. As she walked out among the other students, she noticed the rest of her friends waiting around her mustang. Smiling to herself, Sunset walked over.

“I suppose you all want to know how things went this morning?”

“Um, DUH! Like, why in the world would you be called into a secret meeting with Vice-Principal Luna and then expect us to NOT want to know what is going on?”

Rainbow Dash was obviously impatient. She was standing still and focused totally on Sunset.

It took only the briefest of moments to decide what to do. Sunset refused to lie to her friends, but she also couldn’t reveal the truth because Luna had asked for her not to.

“I was asked to not discuss it for-”

“Oh! COME ON! That’s totally lame!”

Rainbow was clearly frustrated, and Sunset couldn’t blame her for it. But if what Luna had said was the truth, she also didn’t want to put her friends in danger. Magic was unpredictable at the best of times, and at CHS it had shown to be downright hazardous.

“C’mon now Rainbow, ahm sure there is a reason that Vice-Principal Luna asked Sunset to keep a lid on it.” Applejack was much more subtle about her prying into the matter, but no less curious.

“Vice-Principal Luna asked that I do some research with her, and that for now it needs to remain private. That’s about as much as I can say. “

“Oh COME ON!” Rainbow allowed her frustration to boil over.

“Rainbow Dash, we really ought to not put ourselves in the middle of Vice-Principal Luna’s business. Really, darling, some privacy is to be expected.”

Sunset shot a thankful glance at Rarity for the save.

Rainbow Dash grumbled but let the matter drop. The relief on Sunsets face was evident.

“So, when are y’all meetin’?” Applejack was forthright in her question, though the subtext was clear - if they couldn’t know WHAT was going on, they darn sure would try to know everything else.

“She is coming to my house on Saturday morning. I have some books available that might make this go a little easier.”

The information was so suddenly dropped that the other five girls just looked shocked. Even Pinkie Pie had stopped her bouncing and looked on in surprise.

“My dear, you are having Vice-Principal Luna, the second highest authority in our school, over to your home, on a weekend. Isn’t that a little… unusual?”

“Yes, Rarity, it is. But given the circumstances, I don’t think that there is any other choice.”

“Um… Sunset… If you don’t mind, can... is there anything at all we can do to help? I know that we are asking questions that you can’t really answer, but, um, is there anything you can say?”

Fluttershy asked the question more to the hood of the car than to Sunset, but the whispering from the pink-haired girl had the desired effect of changing the subject.

“I honestly don’t know yet. To be perfectly clear, I don’t even know all of the details of what we are looking into or how I can help. But I will ask Luna on Saturday, does that sound good to you?”

Fluttershy nodded and smiled.

“Wait. Did you say ‘Luna’? Awwwww yeah, getting all chummy with the VP, you go Sunset Shimmer!”

Rainbow Dash latched onto the wrong bit of information while Sunset put her face in her hands and blushed furiously.

----------------

“Any luck with that little project I asked you to take on?”

Celestia leaned on the doorframe of the office, without knocking of course. The woman thought that the world was hers to command.

“I met with Miss Shimmer this morning. We will be meeting on Saturday at her home, as she apparently has a number of books that may prove useful on the subject. Given the nature and how volatile magic has shown to be, I think it might be in the best interest of safety to keep any research away from the general student body. And, the privacy of her home should lead to more honest discussion since she may be more at ease there.”

Luna didn’t even bother to look up from the paperwork in front of her. If Celestia wanted to play high-and-mighty ruler, Luna wasn’t going to buy into it.

With a final signature on the paperwork, Luna packed it away into her files to send off to the school board tomorrow. Another request for funding for her own pet-project. It would be nice to have an expansion to the library, and Luna was bound and determined to see that it happened. While she may be an administrator, she was a teacher before anything else, and you couldn’t teach without proper books. The penchant for technology in the classroom rubbed her the wrong way.

Celestia cleared her throat. Luna had all but ignored her.

“I’m sorry, was there more to the Sunset situation that I neglected to cover with you?”

Celestial rolled her eyes. Her sister was an expert at snark when needed, and Celestia knew that the project was not an appreciated burden.

“Just, be careful sister. With your own temperament, as well as Sunset Shimmer having a history of being a…. Volatile young woman, I worry. And let’s not forget that you have your own history of volatility.”

“That was quite a long time ago Celestia, and I believe that we had agreed to leave that particular matter behind us.”

Luna’s tone was sharp enough that it stopped her sister cold in the middle of her thought. Luna disliked recalling that particular incident, and every time it was brought up by her sister, it was shut down quickly.

“I know, sister. I just worry. Can you blame me?”

“Enough Celestia! You have assigned me a task, and I shall see it through, despite how ludicrous I believe it to be. Unless you wish to rethink this task and leave well enough alone, I will continue as you have requested, and that will be the end of it. Now, if there is nothing else, I have my own business to attend to.”

Without waiting for a response, Luna pushed past her shocked sister and left the school. Going home was probably best at this point, as she was very suddenly pushed into an attitude of anger and self-destruction.

Every time Celestia brought up the past, it angered Luna to no end. The fact was that Luna struggled every single day to reign in that darker side of herself. And if she were to examine the truth of the matter, Celestia’s concerns were well founded. That was the cold fact that truly caused her to second guess this project.

Turning toward home, Luna decided to make a quick pit-stop for dinner. Take out was preferable to dealing with cooking tonight. And Luna didn’t trust herself around the kitchen knives.

Author's Note:

This is an interesting twist!

Luna has her own darkness to contend with, and we take a glimpse behind the curtain.

Comments

[aceina]

ok i just cant read this a authority figure dating a student is just wrong i tried to give it a chance i did but this chapter just made it clear how sick it is and you are aware of that and are just making jokes of it

[ed-stoneman]

8386142
Everybody can have an opinion. If the story isn't for you, that's just fine. I write from experience on some things. And your issue with the student/teacher relationship is actually addressed in a later chapter.

I hope you find something to your liking even if it isn't my story.

[Wanderer D]

Oh Celly, being so overbearing usually makes things worse