Refusal

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

----

Twilight Sparkle, element of magic, Princess of Friendship and currently the youngest Alicorn in Equestria stood in a dark kitchen, a notebook of scribbles beneath her.

She was trying, remembering countless research papers, magical theories and even the events from her daily life in Equestria. And nothing seemed to stick!

The magic of harmony was here, she knew that! But what she didn't know was what kind of power coefficient it worked on here, if it was the same as back home or if somehow this world the same magic could accomplish more, less, she didn't know!

And triggering it. Friendship was the key, but she had always assumed that the elements were akin to the latch on the doors to her friends hidden powers.

Or something.

She wasn't always good with metaphors.

So maybe instead if they managed to join together in harmonic pitch, using each other to amplify their own isolated...

Twilight spat out her pen, that wouldn't work either.

"That's not gonna work!" She rubbed her eyes, long since exhausted.

Tomorrow was minutes away and she'd been up early as it was.

"Hey Twilight?" A voice spoke from a darkened doorway, spooking the teenage girl. "You're up late."

Sunset Shimmer sauntered into the kitchen, heading for the fridge.

"Just looking over the counter-spell." Twilight pulled Fluttershy's notebook under her arm. "We only get one shot at this and it has to be perfect."

She held the notebook open, looking over the scribbled out numbers and notes.

"We really are alike." Sunset pulled open the fridge.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me."

"Who could possibly use this much whipped cream?" Sunset leaned forward, looking for one can, just one can that was already open. "Must be nice to have everyone always looking to you for answers to their problems."

"Yeah... Sunset?" It'd been bothering her all day.

"What's up Twilight?" Sunset finally gave up and grabbed a fresh canister of compressed dairy product. She popped the lid off and sprayed a little on her finger.

"That guy earlier, Thorn. Who is he?" Everyone had seemed to think she should know him. They all said he'd been there when she and her friends had proven Sunset wrong.

And he wasn't! She'd remember, she would!

Wouldn't she?

Sunset had paused, one finger in her mouth as she seemed to think on the question.

"No-one is really sure. He-ah!" Sunset had closed the fridge and jumped at the sight of an unexpected eavesdropper.

"Boulder was hungry." A girl, stoic and blase held up a rock as she spoke. Her other hand opened a cabinet overhead without looking and grabbed a box of crackers.

Which she began pouring on her rock.

She left behind a trail of broken crackers as she walked away without a word.

"I still can't get over the fact that she's related to Pinkie Pie!" Sunset said to Twilight in a fervent whisper.

"I know!" Twilight whispered back.

"Totally different... Right. Thorn." Sunset crossed the room and leaned against the counter in front of the sink.

"You said nobody is sure who he is?" They'd all been friendly though.

And worried.

In Sugarcube Corner the boy had looked pale and thin, his skin drawn tight across his face in a constant grimace.

Pinkie Pie had latched on to him as well and said he'd been running a fever.

"Yeah. He was waiting outside the portal when I came through the first time. Back when I... Yeah. He helped get me on my feet and walking like a human, showed me how to use my hands and then pulled a prank on me after I'd shot off at the mouth a bit. Definitely taught me that this world wasn't just a parallel of home." Sunset looked to her left, looking back.

"A prank? You'd only just got here, right?" That sounded incredibly mixed. Helping someone before being mean to them?

"Yeah, and I'd already accused him of practicing dark magic and being an idiot. His 'Prank' was waiting to tell me bacon was made of pig meat until after I'd eaten some." Just the thought of that delicious, crispy, greasy strip made her mouth water and her stomach turn.

"...Eww."

"Yeah, eww. After that we went our separate ways. I never figured it was important enough to find out where he lived or what he was doing, especially with how much effort I had to spend to learn everything I could about this world. I might be queen bee of the school now, or was, but I had to claw and scrape every single grade for it." And it'd been worth it, those difficult assignments would be cake for her now.

"Then Princess Celestia wrote me a letter. Actually she wrote me a lot, but this one was important. She told me that Luna was coming back and that she wouldn't be strong enough to fight off her little sister. I guess... Maybe it was her way of asking for help? Offering me a chance to come home and prove I'd grown up a little? Didn't matter. I'd seen Thorn a few times at the local library and tracked him down. Offered to help get him through the portal if he'd turn his dark magic to helping me. Know what he did?"

"He said no?" Considering there wasn't a unicorn despot in Equestria.

Anymore.

It was a fair bet.

"Said no and asked me how much I'd like to rule over a dead planet. No sun, he said, meant no plants, no food, no life. He said he hoped Luna, and he specifically said Luna, not just Nightmare Moon, would remember... Geeze, how'd he say it? Something about the morning's comfort."

"He knew that Luna was Nightmare Moon?" That didn't make any sense! He would've had to have been banished almost a thousand years ago to know about that and have been here before Sunset!

"And Discord, the Schmooze, Sombra and, get this, Tirek. Said Sombra, Tyrant Emperor of the Northern Wastes had nothing on a Tirek jumped up on alicorn juice." Sunset turned around and opened an overhead cabinet, pulling out a pair of glasses.

"He... What?" Twilight accepted the glass of water as her brain misfired.

That...

That...

Wasn't really wrong, now that she thought about it.

"That's what I said." Sunset drained a third of her own glass in one pull.

"How long has he been here? When would he have been banished through the mirror?!" He looked like a teenager! There was no way he would have been able to witness everything he said he did!

"Don't know, he never said. He also never said he could still use magic on this side of the portal, either." And hadn't Sunset been miffed to discover that?

Actually, she'd been half mad when she discovered that. Miffed would have been preferable.

"What? No, seriously. I... I don't know what else to ask."

"It's alright. I wanted to ask him a lot of questions today. A lot. But with how bad he's looking, I don't know if he'd have been able to focus long enough to answer anything." Sunset finished the rest of her water, though she didn't set down her glass.

"You said he was using magic. What all did he use?" Twilight was too many different kinds of frazzled.

It wasn't supposed to be possible. This was supposed to be a world without magic!

"Basic telekinesis and short-range teleportation. He didn't do anything that moved him farther than line of sight until... Well, until he had me held in place and we both got hit with the power of harmony."

"He was holding you when the harmony went through you?"

"Yeah, had a hold of both my hands. Think he said something too before it hit, but I couldn't hear it over you monologueing." It had been bothering Sunset Shimmer ever since, too.

"Sunset. I don't mean to sound like a broken record but..." Twilight took a deep breath. "None of this makes any sense!"

"I know, Twilight." Sunset grabbed the empty glass out of Twilights hands and put both it and hers in the sink.

"I've been thinking that since I met him."