A Queen's Perspective - Equestria Girls

by gerandakis

Tensions and Confrontations

In the throne room of the Crystal Spire, Steel Gaze gave his latest status report.

"My queen has discovered further counterparts, both of you Dame Pinkie Pie and of you and your brother Dame Applejack. She has also now officially entered as a candidate to win the crown."

"I see." Princess Celestia stated simply.

"Ahr Coun'erparts? How were they?" Applejack looked upon the queens guard with renewed interest.

"According to my queen's descriptions, much like yourselves, safe for the obvious differences, however my queen noted some details." Steel looked around the gathered ponies before elaborating. "First of all, every counterpart she identified so far had a skin color matching the coat color the pony counterpart has here. There is, however, one exception." He turned towards Applejack. "Your brother. His counterpart has a much lighter skin tone, his clothes match far better."

That remark brought about some puzzled looks but everypony remained quiet waiting for Steel to continue.

"The second note she made is significantly more troubling. It seems that your counterparts are not the same group of friends you are here." After a few shocked looks he continued. "So far my queen has discovered tensions between the other world's Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy as well as Applejack and Rainbow Dash."

"Oh, so I have a counterpart there too, huh? How is she?"

"The other Applejack described her as unreliable, she is also the captain of every sports team at the school"

While Rainbow Dash and Applejack exchanged confused glances, Rarity let out a short giggle. "Oh my, I keep forgetting that our counterparts are highschoolers."

"Anything else?" Shining Armor spoke up, worry for his sister clear on his face.

"My queen believes she is about to encounter Sunset Shimmer."

"And what brought her to that conclusion?" Cadence inquired.

"Miss Shimmer is basically a walking beacon of anger and resentment, easy enough to locate."

---

Twilight leaned against a locker in one of the school's hallways, several lights above her head were flickering or completely broken. Spike was looking out of her backpack up and down the hallway. After a few moments of waiting Twilight spoke quietly to her assistant/small brother/temporary pet. "She's coming."

Spike quickly pulled his head back into the bag and watched as the backpack closed on its own. Twilight meanwhile turned her head to the side and spoke up, louder this time. "I was wondering when you would come talk to me, Sunset."

Twilight savoured the brief moment of shock from her opponent, but Sunset recovered quickly, giving her a superior smirk. "Princess Twilight" Her words were tinged with barely contained sarcasm.

Now it was Twilight's turn to be surprised. But she recovered equally quick. "Princess? You think I am a princess?" She gave an uncharacteristic low chuckle that had spike's fur stand on end.

"Are you not?"

"No. I guess you saw that I had a crown, an Element of Harmony no less, and assumed I was Equestria's newest princess." She let out a soft sigh. "Perhaps that could have happened. I was Celestia's protégé like you were. But, like with you, things took a different turn."

Sunset was thoroughly confused at this point. She was glad that Twilight was the only other person here and seemed to herself be caught up in her own thoughts and memories, because her mask of the bad girl was slipping and the buried need for knowledge from her days under Celestia was pushing her to ask more questions. Her attempts to reign it in were only partially successful. "But, you have a crown."

"Until it was stolen from me, yes. But I am no princess." Twilight now stood upright and focused Sunset with a look of pride and determination. "I am a queen"

Sunset gave her a look of scepticism. "A queen?"

"A changeling queen, yes."

Sunset's scepticism only grew. "What's a changeling?"

"A shapeshifting equine insectoid that needs to supplement their diet with love."

"Love?"

"Yeah, I could go for some right now. This also means that we can sense emotions, which brings us back to you." Once more Twilight faced her fellow equestrian.

Sunset grew defiant once more. "What does you being weird have to do with me, huh?"

Despite having grown used to such sentiments during various visits to Equestria throughout the last year, Sunset's words still stung, but Twilight wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that. "That means I can sense your anger. The resentment you hold for her. What happened between you two?"

Sunset, knowing immediately who Twilight was talking about, hid her emotions as well as Twilight had, but to an empath they were clear as day: anger flaring up once more, confusion and worry growing alongside it. But for the first time Twilight picked up something else from the girl, a hint of uncertainty and a deeply buried core of loneliness. Suddenly she understood what had happened. So that's what Celestia did differently with me.

Sunset however remained defiant. "That's none of your business."

At that Twilight gave only a short sigh. "Fine then, I'll get the story from her." Your emotions speak clearly enough anyway

For a split second, it seemed like Sunset would answer, like she wanted to justify herself, but then she simply let out a grunt of annoyance, before turning around and stomping off before turning a corner and disappearing from sight.

"How'd you learn to do that?" Spike said in awe, as he poked his head out of the backpack once more.

"Summit of the Queens. After a few hours of dealing with the likes of Chrysalis and her sisters, you learn a few things on how to deal with grating personalities."

"Your empathy thing pick up anything on her?"

"Perhaps. She's hiding it well, from herself more than anyone, but she's lonely. That may be something we can use to get her to embrace friendship, but it won't be easy. Her pain runs deep, and a few years alone in this world can't have helped."

---

"So why are we here again?" The voice from her backpack didn't really surprise Twilight, she had been sensing Spike's boredom for some time now.

"If I want my crown back, I'll need to win the vote. I can't do that if I don't know anything about this world, so it's time to do some research."

"Just like old times, huh?"

After a short chuckle from both of them, Twilight nodded before realizing that Spike could hardly see that from inside a closed backpack. "Pretty much. We should probably be quiet though, this is a library, and I don't think I should be seen talking to a backpack."

Spike grumbled for a moment but remained quiet otherwise. Several books on various subjects later, especially on those that were obviously different in this world like biology and engineering, Twilight noticed something. For a while now she had noticed two emotional signatures nearby. Both were feeling a combination of childish glee and malicious enjoyment.

She hadn't paid it any mind at first but after the signatures had repeatedly shown a tinge of satisfaction, sometimes when she gave a short remark to Spike, sometimes when she accidentally dropped a stack of books and once even when she gave a confused glance to one of the machines standing on a table in the center of the library's lower floor.

After another time she felt this, she got up and decided to investigate.

---

Snips and Snails had been shadowing the new student for some time now. They had gotten some bits of video of her talking to her backpack, dropping a stack of books that no normal person could hope to read in a week and even walking past a computer before going on to return to her books.

They had both agreed that no one normal would rather learn from a book than from the internet. Of course neither one of them would learn at all if it could be avoided.

They had just managed to film her looking at her hands for several moments before quickly picking her nose and going back to her books, as the girl looked up as if she had heard something. The fact that she looked right in their direction didn't really help quelling their worries either. A moment later the girl stood up and walked off. They both breathed a sigh of relief and exchanged glances before returning to looking at the girl. When they did however, she was gone. They looked around for a moment, not seeing her, then returned their attention to where she had left her books, waiting for her to come back.

"May I ask why you're shadowing me?"

They both let out a short yelp of surprise at hearing the girls voice right beside them and jumped away from her.

After a short moment a 'Shhh' could be heard from somewhere beyond the books. As they turned around they saw the girl they had been shadowing the entire afternoon, an unamused frown on her face. Both very suddenly grew sheepish faces and started sputtering apologies.

Twilight heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. "Look, just stop, okay? You're really distracting."

They both gave short nods before running off, only to hear another 'Shhh' at the sounds of their loud footsteps.

After they had left the library at a more measured pace, they looked at each other before Snails spoke up.

"That was scary -"

"-but awesome"

They both grew malicious grins before running off to find Sunset.

---

[The library will be closing in five minutes.]

As the announcement rang throughout the library, Spike was pulled from his slumber. After a yawn he realized something. "I hadn't even thought about where we're gonna sleep tonight!"

"Way ahead of you." At the voice he looked up to see Twilight standing next to what could only be described as a makeshift bed. Books stacked on the ground, many of which he recognized as ones Twilight had read parts of over the day, overtop them lay various seat cushions she likely gathered from around the various reading areas, all covered by a blanket of which he truly couldn't guess where she'd found it.

"It's a little dusty. But it doesn't seem like anybody comes up here." Spike said, interrupted by his coughing.

A few minutes later, after the library had officially closed, Twilight and Spike sat down on the makeshift bed looking at a book.

After he had recovered from his coughing fit, Spike spoke up again. "So, how'd your research go?"

"I found this book." Twilight opened the tome she'd been holding. "It's called a yearbook. It seems to be something they use to keep a record of things that have happened at the school." It only took her a few moments to open the book to the page she had been looking for. A page with a photo of five girls. Three of them were clearly younger versions of the three counterparts of her friends they had already met, the fourth leaning into the picture at the far left had very recognizable rainbow hair and cherise eyes which were already enough to identify her, the fifth, meanwhile, sharing a bench with Fluttershy, had pale white skin, and very familiar deep purple hair. "Look. That's Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, and I'm gonna bet the girl on the far right is Rarity."

Spike nodded to that, letting her continue. "They look like they're friends."

"They do look like our friends. But I thought we'd figured that out already."

"No, I mean ... they look like they're friends with each other. But it doesn't seem like they're friends now. I could feel the resentment some of them hold for eachother. I just can't help but get the feeling that Sunset Shimmer had something to do with it."

"I wouldn't put it past her. But she wanted your crown 'cause she's planning on doing something even worse! If you're gonna stop her, you have to focus on making friends here. Can't worry about why these girls aren't friends anymore. Even if they do remind you of your Ponyville friends."

Twilight heaved a sigh. "You're right, Spike. Eyes on the prize."

---

The sun was setting over the Crystal Empire, painting the throne room a beautiful golden color. A few minutes earlier Gilded Shield had come in to take over Steel Gaze's post for the night. The Princesses and the Element Bearers were having dinner on a table that had been brought in.

"Good evening, Sister, my friends, how is Twilight Sparkle faring?"

All eyes turned to the door where Princess Luna had arrived to take over for her sister.

"Ah, Luna," Celestia spoke up happily. "She's doing quite well so far.

Over the rest of dinner, or breakfast for Luna, the Princess of the Moon was filled in on all the details and events she had missed throughout the day.

After the others had departed for bed, Luna and Gilded sat in the throne room in relative solitude. Sometimes a crystal guard would come in to report to Luna, sometimes a changeling guard would report to Gilded over the link. After half an hour or so Gilded saw Luna opening her eyes after one of her trips into the realm of dreams, bearing a soft smile, doubtlessly out of satisfaction of a job well done.

"Say, can you access our dreams, princess?

"Pardon?"

"The dreams of changelings, can you enter those or can your powers only access the dreams of ponies?"

"I can access the dreams of intelligent changelings, at least as long as they are in Equestria. I'm afraid your hive is too far away for me to reach. Otherwise I would have known about it sooner."

"Can you reach her?"

"Whom?"

"Queen Twilight. I know she's asleep right now. I was just wondering if you could sense her dreams in the other world."

"I suppose it might be worth finding out." Closing her eyes once more a string of white light ran up the spiraling groove in Luna's horn before rising upwards and dispersing in a soft white mist. A few moments later the string seemed to bend and it's end solidified before it disappeared out of the window in the direction where the Column of Spring was currently parked, the quiet whooshing sound of it's engines keeping the Q-ship aloft interrupting the otherwise quiet night. After a few more moments the string faded away completely and Luna reopened her eyes. "I cannot reach her directly but if I access the dreams of the sleeping changelings aboard your ship I can make use of your hivemind to access hers."

"Clever. I don't know if I would have thought to try that." Gilded said, bearing a genuinely impressed expression.

"Well, we – I – have been doing this for quite a long time now."

"True" Gilded remained silent for a few moments. "Is she dreaming well?"

"She is." Luna gave the Queens’ Guard a rare smile. It took only a moment before Gilded replied in kind.

Comments

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

Nice to see Sunset shaken. And i am getting Celestia really screwed up with Sunset.

[gerandakis]

8916809
Yes, that was kinda the main idea, mainly given that otH indirectly describes Celestia as the second of Twilight's three mothers. This is based of the assumption that Celestia went for this approach with Twilight after a much more hands-(hoofs)off approach so utterly failed with Sunset.

Sunset doesn't understand friendship at this point, Celestia knows that which is why she made sure Twilight did.

[Greenhorn]

Having Changeling's sense really was a big plus in human world where everyone tend to hide behind a mask. Now have to see what she would think about Flash this time.

[zarryis]

"I found this book." Twilight opened the tome she'd been holding. "It's called a yearbook. It seems to be something they use to keep a record of things that have happened at the school." It only took her a few moments to open the book to the page she had been looking for. A page with a foto of five girls."

...foto... learnenglishorstarve.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/grammar-nazi-image-61a.jpg

[Blaze Song]

They had both agreed that no one normal would rather learn from a book than from the internet. Of course neither one of them would learn at all if it could be avoided.

*hisses at Snips and Snails* "No dissing books!.. what if your internet is down? Then how will you learn? Hmmmm"

[LucarioFan2066]

and I don't think I should be seen talking to a backpack."

Why not? Fluttershy probably does this often enough; I don't see the problem.

They had both agreed that no one normal would rather learn from a book than from the internet.

I quite liked my high school textbooks; plenty informative, and interesting reads. I still have a couple of them, in fact.
...I'd rather return to high school than continue through university; more structured timetable, multiple classes each week instead of just one, set and reliable hours, and having a specific group of students you see every day that remains more-or-less intact for six years (instead of having a different and smaller group for each subject, and each group only lasts for twelve weeks - twelve individual classes - before it disbands and you practically never see anyone ever again).

At least I knew people in high school, even if I was only friends with a handful (since I'm an anti-social introvert). Now that I've been in uni for five years, I can confidently say that I've gotten to know absolutely no-one, much less made friends. Which kind of sucks, since those high school friendships kinda fell apart afterwards...meaning I've got no friends whatsoever...sigh.