The weather was a bit chilly, far too chilly for Luna’s personal liking; she had not bothered to head back inside of CHS to get her coat before following Sunset to the park. Finding Sunset curled up on the bench in front of her did little to put her mind at ease. Taking a step forward, Luna was able to hear soft but noticable crying coming from Sunset. Luna got as close to the distraught teen as she could before saying, “Sunset, it’s Vice Principal Luna. I would like to talk to you.”

Sunset said nothing. Her only motion was to tremble, though Luna didn’t know if it was because of the chilly air or because Sunset was crying. Wanting to help ease the girl's mind, Luna took a few more steps before kneeling down next to her. With Sunset's back facing her, Luna again tried to get the girl to talk to her. “Sunset, please. I just want to talk. Nothing more. I promise you I won’t hurt you or accuse you of anything.”

This caused Sunset to slowly sit up and face Luna, her face wet from crying. “Y-You're not going to drag me back to the school?”

Luna had a soft-hearted, kindly look on her face as she shook her head in reply. Satisfied, Sunset moved over, and Luna sat down next to Sunset. The two took some time to look out at the park together. The place was quiet and serene. Snow was very lightly falling around the pair as they both sat and looked out towards the manmade pond in front of them.

Sunset let out a stuttering sigh while shivering in the cold air. Luna noticed this, saying to her gently, “I know a warm place we can go to talk.”

At first Sunset didn’t say anything. She slowly stood up and took her coat off, letting it drop to the ground beneath her. Luna immediately got up as well. She knelt down and picked Sunset’s coat up, saying, “Sunset, it's cold out here. Put this back on. You're going to get sick.”

“I don't care.”

Sunset turned to walk away without her coat. As Luna started to walk after her, her sharp eyes instantly caught the mark on Sunset's right shoulder. Without thinking, Luna blurted out, “Fourteen."

Sunset stopped dead in her tracks, holding her arms around herself. Taking her chance, Luna came up behind Sunset and carefully draped her coat over her shoulders, saying, “That mark on your shoulder, the one that looks like a scar. It is the roman numeral for fourteen.” A cold breeze blew past the two. Luna shivered and said, “Sunset, it's cold out here. Please, let me take you someplace warm where we can have ourselves a proper talk.” At Sunset's wary look, Luna said, “I swear I won’t try to take you back to school, but I can’t let you stay out here in the cold.”

“A-Alright, I’ll go with you, but remember, you promised.”

Luna nodded. Stepping aside, she allowed Sunset to pass by her. As they started on their way, Luna said, “We can head down the street from here and turn right at the stop sign. We’ll come to my favorite coffee shop.”

“You like coffee, Vice Principal Luna?” Sunset replied, slipping her arms into her coat and zipping it. “I always thought you and Principal Celestia liked tea, not coffee.”

“Yes, I do, and you can call me Ms. Luna while we're not in school, Miss Shimmer.”

The two walked for twenty minutes until they both came to a stop sign. Looking at Luna, Sunset was about to say something, when Luna said, “I made a promise, Miss Shimmer, and I intend to keep it.”

Not saying anything further, the two soon found themselves inside a coffee shop. Luna wasted very little time in ordering coffee. Soon, Sunset found herself sitting in a booth, looking out to the street from a window next to the booth. She had taken off her coat again, placing it next to her. She looked down at the bare table in front of her, then out the window next to her.

Watching all the people walk by, she failed to see Luna coming up to the table and said, “It's all happening all over again. I was innocent then, and nopony believed me. And now, I'm gonna lose everything again, like I did when Musical Skies…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to choke back a sob. Feeling something soft and warm on her left shoulder, she looked up to see Luna standing next to her, her hands holding a tray filled with two cups of coffee, some doughnuts and two large cookies. Luna set the tray down on the table, then looked at Sunset with warm, soft eyes before taking her seat.

“I know what it is like, Sunset.”

“No, you don't! You don't know anything about it!”

“I know what it is like to be accused of something you didn’t do and to lose the ones you love because of that accusation.”

Sunset's anger slowly turned into sadness. Luna didn’t say anything. She only pulled the distraught teen into her, allowing Sunset to cry on her shoulders. “It hurts, Ms. Luna. After all we've been through, how could they just accuse me like that?” Sunset sobbed into the elder's shoulders. “I just want to go home, but I can’t. I can never go home.”

“Sunset, listen to me.” Luna helped Sunset back to the booth before continuing, “You can go home again. I am sure Princess Twilight will be more than willing to bring you back now that you have changed into a good person.”

“No, I can’t. You don’t understand. I don’t have a home in Equestria. I never did, and I never will.”

Sunset looked down at the table, trying to hide her guilt, anger and sadness, but Luna saw straight through it. Before Sunset could say another word, Luna took her by the hands and placed both hands over the sides of the Styrofoam cup in front of her. The cup felt warm and soothing. Sunset looked up with slightly teary eyes. Luna smiled and said, “Drink before you burst into tears again. Trust me, you’ll feel better once you have a sip.”

Sunset sniffed but complied, taking a sip of the coffee, then another sip. Luna spoke gently to her while Sunset sipped. “As I said, Sunset I know what it is like to be accused of something you didn’t do.” Luna looked down at her own cup, letting out soft sigh as she continued, “It was fifteen years ago. I was a rather brash student back then. Because of how I was, my sister didn’t really spend much time with me. In fact, she spent as little as she could with me.” Luna looked up to see that Sunset was looking right at her, her cyan eyes holding only kindness, not pity. Looking back down, Luna again continued, “One of our school's trophies went missing, and because I was such a loudmouth jerk back then, everyone, including my own sister, thought I was guilty. I tried, Sunset. I tried very hard to convince Celestia that I wasn’t the one who stole the trophy, but no one believed me.”

“What happened?”

“Well, a few weeks went by. I was suspended from school. Mother and father were not very happy with me, to say the least. Celestia didn’t even bother to talk to me during the whole time I was home. Every time I tried to talk to her, she would ignore me. By the time culprits got themselves caught, I was already in a deep depression.” Luna pulled back her right shirt sleeve, allowing Sunset to look at her right forearm which was marred with faded, though clear, scars. Some crisscrossed, others were small, and some were thick and long. But it was the two over her wrist that caught Sunset's attention the most. One was light, while the other was jagged, as if it had been made by something with a serrated edge. Unlike all the other scars, those two were running along her forearm rather than across it.

Luna waited for Sunset to say something, but when nothing came from the rather shocked teen, she continued, “Things had gotten so bad that I tried to kill myself. I am very glad that my sister found me in time. She saved my life, and I guess, in a way, it was a wake-up call to her, as well, because things changed after that for both of us.”

Sunset gulped hard. “When you did that to yourself, d-did you not stop to think what you were going to do to your sister?”

“After the way she treated me, I didn’t care. Anyway, five years went by. Celestia and I grew very close to each other. Eventually I met Pearl Dusk while I was in college, and it all happened again, only this time with the person that I had fallen in love with.”

“You don’t have to say anything more if you don’t want to, Ms. Luna.” Sunset picked up her coffee cup, taking a sip. “It's not just what's happened today. I feel as if I don’t belong here or in Equestria because of what I am.”

“I don’t understand, Sunset. You say you can’t go home again, and you say you've never had a home in Equestria, yet you have maintained for months that you came from that world. Were you lying to us?”

Sunset set down her cup. Placing her hand over the mark on her right shoulder, she let out a forced sigh, then snarled out bitterly, “It wasn’t a lie! I am from there, but at the same time, I'm not.” Making eye contact, Luna saw only rage and bitterness in the teen's cyan eyes. “I hate her for all...” Sunsets voice again trailed off as she looked down. “It was my fault, so why are being so kind to me, Luna? Why do you care?”

“Are you saying that you are Anon-a-Miss, Miss Shimmer?” Luna studied Sunset for any sign of being caught in a lie. When she saw none, she continued, “Or are you saying that this whole mess caused by Anon-a-Miss was your fault? Which is it, Miss Shimmer?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Ms. Luna. I don't see a point in going on about this with you.”

Sunset got up to leave, stopping only when she heard Luna say coldly, “I wouldn’t understand? I wouldn’t understand what, Sunset Shimmer? What it is like to have the girl you love more than anything in the whole damn world accuse you of breaking her heart!”

Sunset spun around to say something, but Luna cut her off, “Pearl Dusk accused me of sleeping with another person! So don’t you dare go telling me that. Believe me, Sunset Shimmer. I know what it is like to go through what you went through today!”

Sunset stepped forward, saying softly, “Ms. Luna I am so sorry. I didn’t know.” Sunset watched in shock as Luna began to do something Sunset never thought she would ever see Luna do. Luna began to cry right in front of her. “Why did she have to go and break my heart? I wasn’t sleeping with Dusty Harvest.” Luna tried to maintain her composure yet failed as she recalled very vividly the day that she broke up with Pearl Dusk. “I was only there to see how my cousin was doing. I didn’t know that Pearl was so afraid of losing me to another woman.”

“Luna, I am so sorry for all the pain that I caused you that day.” Luna looked up, her eyes blurry from tears. That wasn’t Sunset's voice. She looked up and saw Pearl's pretty face. Before Luna knew what was happening, she felt Pearl's arms around her, pulling her into a warm hug. “I never should've broken up with you, and I never should've broken your heart. Please, can you forgive me?”

“What?” Luna began to return the gesture while Sunset stood by, watching in shock. “What are you doing here, Pearl?”

“I was on my way to school when your sister called me told me to stop by here. Something about Sunset and you leaving school.”

“Oh, right.” Luna ended the warm hug, then looked at Sunset as she continued. “I need to get you back to school. Are you willing to come back with me?”

Sunset turned around, wrapping her arms around herself, saying bitterly, “I don’t know. It hurts too much to know that they all think I'm Anon-a-Miss.” Sunset felt Luna’s hands on her shoulders as she continued, “I feel lost, confused, bitter and angry.”

“And you're going to feel like that for a while, but please, Sunset, let us help you. Neither I nor Luna think that you are Anon-a-Miss.” Pearl looked at Luna. “Do you, Luna?”

“No, I don’t. At least not anymo--” Luna closed her eyes, looking away. When Sunset realized what Luna had just implied, Sunset's eyes went wide as she slowly turned around to face Luna. Luna looked at her as she continued, “I am sorry, Sunset, but you need to understand with your past and all. Both my sister and I have been keeping up with the whole Anon-a-M--”

“Save it!” Sunset spat back. “I don’t wanna hear your horseshit about how you're sorry for thinking I could do something like this! I am so fucking tired of being alone! I don’t have a home to go to. I don’t have any actual real parents that miss me and love me. I don’t even have the fucking princess of the sun, who claimed to love me yet after only one damn fight, she tossed me out like some stray mutt!” Looking down, Sunset sniffed, thinking of her hurtful words, trying to hope that her words wouldn’t get back to the Cakes. “I loved Celestia, and she treated me like I wasn’t good enough to be her daughter. Then I came here and I was--Well, you both saw how well my dealings with Twilight turned out. All I have are the Cakes now, and I don't want to lose them, too.”

Luna stepped forward, causing Sunset to take a step back. Sunset watched them with careful eyes as Luna turned, picked up her coat, and handed it to her. Pearl spoke gently to Sunset as the teen watched the two of them carefully, “If you're tired of being alone, Sunset, please let us help you to make things right. Please don’t run off again. You of all people should know that running away never solves anything. It only causes more problems.”

“A-Alright, I’ll go back to school, but I want you both to know that I'm still hurting and angry about losing my friends like I did.”

“We know, Sunset. We know.” Pearl took Sunset's coat from Luna, handing it to Sunset, who took it, slipped it on, and zipped it up. “Believe us, Sunset. We both know what it is like to lose the ones you love.”

The three headed back to CHS. On the way there, Sunset thought about her actions and also thought of what she was going to say to Principal Celestia. Getting back to school about ten minutes later after Pearl gave both Sunset and Luna a ride, Sunset soon found herself sitting across from Principal Celestia’s desk. The older woman looked concerned as well as relieved to see her safely back at school.

The two locked eyes as Celestia softly said to the redheaded girl, “While I am very glad to see you back at school, Sunset, I hope you know that running away won’t fix anything. I want to help you, but I can’t if you run off like that again. Please. I am asking not only as your principal but also as your court-appointed advocate to your adoption with the Cakes.”

“Wait, you're my what?” Sunset asked, shocked. “They...told you?”

“Yes, we did.” Mr. Cakes soft, kind-hearted voice came from behind Sunset causing her to turn around quickly. “Sorry it took so long to get here, Principal Celestia. I had a large order to deliver." Mr. Cake looked to Sunset and said, "I've known Celestia for years, and since she's your principal, I figured it was important to let her know. She told me that we needed someone we both know and can trust to get the final say on your adoption. Choosing Celestia wasn't difficult at all.”

Sunset got up and raced over to her father, burying her face into his shoulders, crying tears of both pain and joy. Mr. Cake ran his fingers through her hair soothingly, saying softly to her, “It's okay, honey. I know what happened. I'm not angry. I am, however, disappointed in your friends, but we ca--”

“No more talking. Just hold me,” Sunset sobbed into Mr. Cake's shoulder. “I've always wanted to feel something like this, to feel loved.”

“You are loved very much, Sunset,” Principal Celestia said softly, watching the two. “We all love you. I hope you know that. I will sign the paperwork today, and by this time tomorrow, you will be legally adopted. But you're going to have to do something for me in return.”

“What?” Sunset replied, gently ending the warm hug.

“Smile and agree to never run away again. Can you do that, Sunset?”

Sunset gave a small smile. "Yeah, I'll...I'll try."

Next Chapter: On the Run (Edited by Icecreammac) Estimated time remaining: 17 Hours, 33 Minutes