Animal Shelter Troubles
It had been a week since the portal closed. She was stuck here Sunset thought, and with no magic, she felt as if a part of her was missing, it had been her special talent after all. She also regretted leaving Sunburst behind; her brother would grow up with her only as a memory. She was going to miss most of his life she realised with a tear in her eye. Sunset hated to admit it but Sunburst was very important to her, and she was going to miss him.
She wiped away the tear and focused on her friends. Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy and herself were on their way to the animal shelter to sign up as volunteers. Applejack was at Sweet Apple Acres learning how to manage the farm, as her brother would soon leave for vacation during the break between the first and second terms. Rainbow was training for the air force cadets; she knew that she would have to be the best if she ever wanted to join the Wonderbolts.
"What does the flyer say, Fluttershy?" Rarity asked her
"Oh, um it just says that they need volunteers, thank you for helping me with this," Fluttershy answered.
"Oooh, I wonder if they need a party to attract adopters." Pinkie said joyfully in anticipation of preparing a party.
"I don't think they need volunteers to do that Pinkie," Sunset laughed.
"But they might never lose hope Sunset, NEVER," Pinkie responded. The rest of the group just laughed at the pink party planners antics as she bounced towards the door of the building they were heading too.
"Hello dudettes, I'm Treehugger, how can I help you?" The guy behind the reception desk asked with a stereotypical San Prancisco accent.
"Hi, we were wondering if we could sign up as volunteers to help the animals," Sunset told him.
"That's radical. You just have to sign these forms here, and I'll get you started," Treehugger instructed. After the girls signed the forms, he led them to the back room. "Alright dudettes, I'll need one of you to feed the animals, one of you to clean them and the others to play with them to exhaust them.
"Okay, so who wants to do what?" Sunset asked them.
"Um if it's okay with you I would like to feed them," Fluttershy answered.
"I cannot stand for how dirty these creatures are, I will clean them," Rarity told them.
"That leaves Sunny and me to play with them," Pinkie shouted joyfully.
Problems immediately arose as Rarity forwent cleaning the animals over making them look beautiful. Rarity spent most of her time on a single dog grooming, brushing and perfecting its coat leaving that dog in the best condition possible, but ignoring the rest of them. She also ignored that part of her job was cleaning out the cages keeping them in a horrible state.
Pinkie riled up the rest of the animals by being too hyper, energising them instead of tiring them out. This led to the creatures destroying part of the animal shelter and turning away countless people who wanted to adopt calm animals. Sunset tried to stop Pinkie but was only caught up in the carnage resulting in her hair frazzled and clothes damaged.
Finally, Fluttershy gave the animals whatever food they wanted, not just the food they needed. This led to multiple animals getting food poisoning and having the shelter call the veterinarian to heal the sickness. With the amount the animals ate, the shelter soon ran out of food leading to the more relaxed animals, who didn't bother Fluttershy going hungry. In particular, there was a small white bunny that took advantage of Fluttershy's weakness towards animals for his own benefit.
"This is a disaster," Sunset called out.
"Better luck next time dudettes, but if this continues then I'll have to ban you from volunteering," Treehugger said as they left the building.
"No, I won't be banned from seeing the animals," Fluttershy resolved.
"Well then we should hope that it goes better next time," Rarity told them.
"I think we should create a plan to organise ourselves," Sunset suggested.
"Oooh, that's a good idea, maybe we should do what we're good at not what we like doing, cause that dog looked great Rarity."
"Thank you, darling."
"But you completely forgot about the other animals and their cages," Pinkie told her.
"Are you telling me I should be less fabulous?"
"Hmm, yes." Rarity's eyes started to twitch at this, but before she could say anything, Celestia arrived in her car to pick Sunset up.
"Goodbye girls I'll see you tomorrow at the Sugarcube Corner," Sunset told them as she entered the vehicle.
"How was your day Sunset?" Celestia asked her.
"It was okay, the volunteering could have gone better, but other than that I had a great time with my friends."
"You know I still can't believe that you decided to stay with us."
"Well you're the closest thing to family I have in this world," Sunset told her.
When they got home Luna was in her room; Sunset could hear racing sound effects coming from it; she smiled knowing that Luna was playing video games something the vice principal tried to hide. To freak her out Sunset went up to her door and knocked loudly "Hey Luna what are you doing?". Immediately the noise died down, and a movie started to play instead.
"I'm just watching a movie." Luna lied "I thought you weren't coming home until later."
"Well, I'm home now. I wanted to talk to you about something."
"Sure come in, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"How attached are you to this house?"
"Well we had to move from our old house a couple of years ago when Celestia and I were promoted and had to transfer schools, so I'm not very emotionally attached to it. Why do you ask?"
"I was wondering if I could convince you and Celestia to move into a bigger house now that I'll be living with you."
"Hmm, that's not a bad idea. It would allow me to get a bigger gaming cent- I mean entertainment system you know for movies and stuff."
"You know Luna I don't think being known as a movie geek is any better or worse than a video gamer."
"How didst thou know about my love for video games?" Luna switched into her role-playing dialect due to her surprise.
Sunset rolled her eyes at that proclamation "I mean it's not like you hid it very well. I could also hear the games from outside your room."
Luna sighed at this "could you not tell anyone, I would like to keep my reputation, it makes my job easier."
"Alright Luna, but I have to ask do you want to move house?"
"While I would prefer not to, I agree that it makes sense now that you're living with us and that we have the money to do so. Have you talked to Celestia about this?"
"No, I haven't yet but I will soon I just need to find the right time to do so."
"Why don't you right now?"
"She's very busy with the start of school; I haven't been able to get her alone long enough for a serious talk."
"I'm sure she could find the time to talk with you about it. Since you already know my secret, do you want to join for a game?"
"Yeah sure."
The next day after school 6 girls entered the Sugarcube Corner, a bakery that was becoming a favourite hangout spot for them. The building had a gingerbread house motif on its side and was a mere 3 minutes walk from the school entrance. The girls sat down to order drinks in the corner booth that they would regularly occupy and ordered their usual drinks.
"Hey girls," Pinkie said "Could you help me with my resume? I wanna get a job here like Bon Bon.
"Sure I could Pinkie, what do you have so far?"
"Weellllll, I wrote that I reeaaally like parties and that I can bake well."
"You should include some of your positive attributes like the fact that you're a friend to everyone," Rarity told her.
"Hmm, that's a good suggestion, any other ideas?"
"Just give them the resume already, it sounds good as it is."
"Okie Dokie"
"Rainbow how did the cadet's thing go? You haven't told us about that yet," Sunset asked.
"I got to meet Captain Spitfire of the Wonderbolts; she was awesome, too bad she was only there for the 1st day. Maybe she'll come back on Saturday, but she was still awesome. We learned some of the drills that the military does."
"Cool, how was your weekend Applejack."
"Mah weekend was fine thank you, like Ah said before Ah had to learn how to run the farm. The only interesting thing that happened was when Ah won a bet with Big Mac, and he had to wear a dress yesterday." The girls laughed loudly at this.
"Could you keep it down, some of us are trying to focus," Bon Bon shouted over the noise. She came over to them "Sorry about that I was just finishing some candy and the noise almost made me put too much citric acid in it. It would have been inedible if I had". All of them except Pinkie shuddered at the thought of such sour candy.
"We're sorry about that, do you think you could help Pinkie? She's trying to get a job here." Sunset asked her.
"Of course I could, we need another baker and Pinkie is definitely the person who I would recommend for the job."
"Thank you, Bonny." Pinkie told her happily "I'm glad that my friends were able to help me."
Sunset suddenly shouted "THAT'S IT" as she had an epiphany. Everyone stared at her as she started to blush from the attention; she smiled sheepily "Sorry, I was thinking about what happened over the weekend at the animal shelter. Pinkie you're a genius."
"I knew that silly, but what are you talking about?"
"We split up the jobs and ignored each other, that's not what we should have done. We should support each other in our tasks to make them easier," Sunset explained. At that point, Pinkie finished writing her resume on her laptop (somehow she managed to do that while paying attention to the conversation around her; as always Sunset didn't question it) and emailed it to the Cake's the family that owned the Sugarcube Corner. She almost immediately got a reply saying that they wanted to meet her for an interview on Sunday.
"I'm sorry Fluttershy, but I can't help out on Sunday, I just got a job interview."
"Oh um, that's okay." Fluttershy was visibly disappointed by the news but didn't want to ruin Pinkies dream.
Soon it was Sunday; Celestia was once again driving Sunset to the animal shelter for hopefully not the last time. The threat of being banned weighed heavily in her mind as they got closer and closer to the animal shelter. She was nervous that her plan of taking on one task at a time and supporting each other wouldn't give them enough time to finish all the jobs. Fluttershy and Rarity were outside waiting for her to arrive when she got there.
"Hello, Sunset."
"Hi Rarity, are you ready to work with the animals again?"
"As ready as I will ever be," She said as they entered the building.
"Whoa duuudes you came back" Treehugger exclaimed. "That's rad, but I wasn't expecting it after what happened last week. You'll have the same jobs as last time, try not to destroy the shelter this time."
The 3 girls started to work together. First Rarity and Sunset distracted the animals by playing with them allowing Fluttershy to clean the cages. Then they put the animals back into the now clean cages and had Rarity feed them while Sunset and Fluttershy cleaned the animals themselves. This allowed Fluttershy to be kind to the animals like she wanted to without jeopardising their health while completing the tasks that Treehugger set for them. The white rabbit from the previous week still seemed to be attached to Fluttershy who was starting to think about adopting him.
Soon all the tasks were finished with Sunsets worry about time management completely unfounded. Treehugger looked very impressed at their performance compared to last week. "I don't think I have to ban you girls. What you did today was radical, I hope you can come back next week."
"Oh, I'll definitely come back," Fluttershy exclaimed. The other 2 looked less enthusiastic as they enjoyed spending time with Fluttershy and the animals but had other commitments they need to attend to such as the Carousel Boutique.
"I'm sorry dear, but I need to work at the Carousel Boutique and design some new dresses. I couldn't possibly spend another weekend looking after the animals, enjoyable as it is."
"Sorry Fluttershy, but I want to spend time with all my friends, not just you. I also need to start looking into technology for Celestia."
Fluttershy again looked disappointed at the statements but understood the reasoning behind them. She was just happy to have more friends than just Rainbow Dash finally. These new friends would protect her from the mean bullies as they did with Gilda 2 weeks ago. Friends that would always be there to support her like they did today at the animal shelter.
Later that day Sunset was in her room watching a video on how to play the guitar. She was learning to play it for 2 reasons: the first being that she wanted to play an instrument; the second being that playing the guitar helped her to learn finger manipulation. She had not yet gotten used to the awkward movement required for some everyday tasks that she would have completed with magic in the past. She heard a knock on her door and shouted "Come in" to Celestia who entered her room.
"I heard from Luna that you wanted to speak to me."
"Yeah I did, but you were too busy with the start of school, making sure pupils had the right classes and that every teacher was teaching the right class."
"Sunset, you should know that you can come talk to me anytime you want. As my student, your wellbeing is very important to me."
"I wanted to ask about moving house, I'm taking up the only guestroom you have, and Luna wants a better gaming rig."
"Did she talk in that weird dialect when she realised you found out about that."
"Yeah she did, do you know why she does it?"
"It's a nervous tick that comes from her roleplaying games. Whenever she does it, you know she's angry or surprised."
"You're avoiding the question, Luna and I would like to move into a bigger house, but do you?"
"I don't know Sunset I'll think about it, but some change would be nice and if your friends come over, we'll need the extra space."
"Please agree to it; it would be a positive change for us all. Celestia knows we need the extra space, especially if I'm going to invite them over for a sleepover which Pinkie told me was a mandatory activity". Celestia smiled at her name being used as a curse. "What's so funny?" Sunset asked her when she saw the smirk on the adult's face.
"Nothing, you just used my name in vain."
"Oh sorry, it's a bad habit I have. That reminds me I have to write a message to her."
"You do that, I'll make some dinner for the 3 of us," Celestia told her as she left.
Sunset started to write, and after half an hour she had the final draft of the message she wanted Celestia to read.
Dear Princess Celestia
Over the last couple of weeks, I learned that friends need to support each other in their activities. Pinkie wouldn't have been able to get her job at the bakery if it weren't for our help in creating her resume and showing all her positive attributes. Of course to prove something it needs to be repeatable and volunteering at the animal shelter was the perfect problem for us to solve. Here's some context for you: Fluttershy's an animal freak, there's just no other way to put it; she asked us to volunteer at the animal shelter last week; it went terribly. So this week I put the theory that friends should support each other into practice, and what do you know it went great. The humans have a saying here: "Teamwork makes the dream work" it captures what I want to say in its entirety. Before I end this message to you, I have some questions about how it's going back in Equestria. First and foremost, how is Sunburst doing? Does he have his cutie mark yet? My other concerns focus on how the duchy is doing; I would not like my absence to affect the lives of those ponies negatively.
Sincerely your Ex-Student Sunset Shimmer
In Canterlot a little purple filly was waiting for Celestia in her room when suddenly a book started to vibrate. Hmm, she thought, her mind immediately went to the worst case scenario: the book could overload with magic and explode. "Oh no, what do I do? Maybe it's a test, yes it must be a test," the filly said out loud. "What would the Princess do? Oh, she would save as much knowledge." She shuddered as she thought about the loss of precious books; she levitated the tome onto the ground where it wouldn't be able to do much damage. Then she opened it to copy everything before it exploded hopefully.
The book stopped vibrating as she opened it, intrigued. She quickly read over the pages. It seemed to be a journal of some kind. She studied the last passage and ended up with one question: who was Sunburst, the writer seemed to care about him a lot, but she had never heard of anypony of his name. Maybe she could ask the book, so she wrote that very question on the paper in front of her.
Sunset was surprised when she got a quick response to her questions, but what she read shocked her even more. Why would the princess ask who Sunburst was; the writing was also not in her style. So she quickly scrawled the question: who is writing this? The response she got didn't surprise her, of course, the princess's personal student would be curious to a vibrating book. This gave her the idea to pull a prank on what she assumed would be a naive young filly. So she wrote: I was the previous student of the princess; I failed her, and she turned me into a book, of course punishments are unique to the individual, so it's more likely that you will be sent back to magic kindergarten than what happened to me.
Twilights eyes went wide at what she read. Would the princess really turn a pony into a book if she failed her? She answered her own question immediately: of course, she would, who was she to question the princesses actions? Oh no, she thought, I intercepted a private message to the princess that magic kindergarten punishment seemed all the more likely every passing second. She couldn't erase the evidence as she wrote in pen, that was a boneheaded mistake she wouldn't live down.
Twilight pondered the consequences of her actions when suddenly the Princess walked in. "Hello Twilight, are you ready to start your lessons today?"
"Umm, yes Princess" She answered nervously, something that the Princess immediately picked up on.
"What's you're reading on the ground?" Celestia asked her suspiciously.
"Nothing" Twilight quickly answered, hiding the book as she answered.
The princess levitated Twilight and the book up to her face. She recognised the book as her connection to Sunset, realising what happened, Celestia read through the newest passages. She laughed the hardest she had in over a century as she understood why her student was terrified. Twilight, however, was very confused about this development. "Twilight" She chuckled after a minute "It seems my previous student decided to prank you. She wasn't turned into a book; it's a communication device like Spike's flames are for you." Twilights cheeks flushed red as she realised that she had been pranked. "Let me quickly write a response to her questions; then I will teach you. Alright?"
"Yes, princess."
Dear Sunset
Twilight, my student, was terrified when I walked in, I believe you can answer why that is. In other news, Sunburst was recently admitted into my school for gifted unicorns. He still doesn't have his cutie mark but I believe that it will appear soon, most likely in researching or studying, he's very gifted at that. The Duchy of Ponyville is under the leadership of Count Rich the highest ranked noble after you in the duchy. He usually has control over the Barony of Ponyville, the capital of the duchy. I will keep a close eye on him in the coming years to make sure he doesn't abuse his position.
Sincerely Princess Celestia
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...Treehugger is female.
9282855
I know, I just felt that the character made more sense as a male in this situation.
9282888
Fair enough.
Oh. Wouldn't have to worry about Filthy Abusing it... His future wife However...
9285089
You mean current wife.
DT is the same age as the CMC and whit AJ parents gone that means Bloom is allredy born.
9294839
In Where the Apple Lies, a Flashback Episode, we see Filly Applejack with her Cutie Mark in Ponyville meaning it is after the Rainboom, and we Also see a Younger Filthy Rich and a Younger Spoiled Milk. Who is his fiancée. Meaning that currently there is No Apple Bloom or Diamond Tiara in Equestria. Remember: One year in Hairless Ape Land is 4 Years in Equestria when the portal is closed.
9295387
My storyline timeline has DT and AB along with the others born the year of the Rainboom. DT's parents will get married the year she is born and are engaged right now. SS hasn't received that info yet, but will in the next message from Princess Celestia. AB's mother dies in childbirth, and AB's father dies from Timberwolves earlier in the year. This trauma leads to AJ leaving for Manehattan.
why did you turn treehugger male if you wanted a guy for this why not use sandlewood
9445125
Sandalwood is a student and the shelter needs an adult to run it. Writing for Treehugger is also easier and more fun since we don't really know what Sandalwood sounds like.
I see someone's a fan of the Sunburst and Sunset siblings theory
9477535
Yeah, it doesn't really affect the story though. Fire ponies are best ponies (Sunburst, Sunset, Spitfire)
9282888
Treehugger is female