The meeting of the two Sunsets was definitely an odd one. Both stood and stared for a solid few seconds, neither wanting to break the silence. On one side of the room, a fashionable, properly dressed lady with her hair up in a ponytail, makeup done expertly and a gentle perfume upon a girl with the makings of a proper lady. On the other side a punk and former bully in biker boots and relatively messy demeanor, clearly only willing to get dressed up when the occasion required it.

Two different reflections of the same person, and yet when you gazed upon their faces, you would see two girls who were very similar in facial features, almost identical even.

One would notice how the more properly dressed one was only a smidgen shorter than the other, probably the only noticeable difference besides how the two were dressed.

This silence filled the room, and awkwardness accompanied it. It wasn’t until the lady decided to break the silence with a question that Sunset knew would be asked eventually.

“Who are you?”

Running a hand through her now sweaty hair (due to her long walk to the front door and nervousness), Sunset chuckled nervously and looked to the dog for answers. Moon simply sat and wagged his tail. Could he have mistaken her for his master? No, dogs usually have great senses of smell; he surely would have been able to tell the difference, though Sunset never considered if they had the same scent.

She took a deep breath and decided it was best to start small and work her way up after all this was going to be a lot of information to digest for the girl. Had she been acquainted with her friends or gone to her school where magical and odd things happened regularly, this kind of news might have been easier to break to her. However, given that she wasn’t she figured slow and steady might make it easier to digest.

“Okay… So this is going to be super hard to explain… Chances are you’re not going to believe me…” Sunset started.

The other girl adjusted her glasses and stepped forward. Without warning, she placed both of her hands upon Sunset’s face. Sunset froze for a moment and flinched at the touch. The other girl ran her hands along her cheeks, examining her face, hands examining every feature of Sunset’s face, not caring if this kind of gesture was socially acceptable or not. The other girl’s hands were gentle and delicate, Sunset could even smell a hint of skin lotion upon her palms as she quietly waited for her to finish.

“So I’m not hallucinating…” The girl said in an almost disappointed manner.

“Sorry to disappoint you?” Sunset responded, unsure of why that was an upsetting thing.

“So if you’re not a hallucination… Are you perhaps… A twin sister? No… That doesn’t make sense, why would my parents keep a twin sister from me?” The girl removed her hands and started pondering the possibilities with a few fingers upon her chin.

Sunset sighed and shook her head. “I’ll explain everything, but you’ll have to give me a little time, it’s a lot to take in and I’m not confident you’ll believe me…”

“Trust me, I can find a lot more believable than you can imagine…” the girl said.

Somehow Sunset believed her and smiled a bit as she gained a bit of confidence in the situation. She ultimately decided her name was a good place to start. “My name… Is Sunset Shimmer.”

The girl raised her brow in confusion and suspicion. “Impossible, that’s my name,” she responded.

“Yes, that’s correct. We share the same name,” Sunset explained.

“Same name… Same appearance? Are you a clone?” The girl asked. Sunset wanted to laugh, but judging by the girl’s serious expression, that wasn’t intended as a joke.

Sunset shook her head. “Not exactly. I think before we go any further though we should have a system to tell us apart. How about I call you Shimmer and you can call me Sunset, that way it’s not too weird.”

Adjusting her glasses, the girl shrugged. “Fine. I shall refer to you as Sunset and I will answer to Shimmer. Now mind filling me in on what’s going on here?” Shimmer asked.

Sunset made an awkward face, unsure of how to really answer that question. “I know you’ve got a thousand questions, but maybe you can show me around and I can fill you in the little details along the way?”

Shimmer was suspicious but ultimately nodded. “Fine, follow me.”

The two wandered through the incredibly impressive estate with Shimmer explaining the history of the building, her family and their heritage. Her father apparently was a rags to riches story. He started as a teacher and worked his way up to superintendent and eventually, he opened Canterlot Institute when he had saved enough money from various investments that he had made over the years. Apparently he played the stock market for a period of time and combined with his salary, it had made him incredibly wealthy. Shimmer was born sometime after that, so she had always known this rich lifestyle.

As the two walked down a long narrow hallway, Shimmer spoke to her doppelganger guest, “as you can see my father was quite proud of this estate…”

Sunset had seen a number of paintings and photos of Shimmer and her mother decorating the entire building. It was clear that her father adored the two women in his life more than anything. One of the painted portraits she had seen was of Shimmer as a little girl, so Sunset gathered quickly that she and her parents were very close when they were still alive as not many people would have a painting made of their daughter.

“How come no one ever sees you outside? I heard that no one has seen you in person in years,” Sunset asked curiously, trying to take her mind off of the subject of Shimmer’s parents so as to not accidentally ask about them.

Shimmer smirked. “I just don’t leave this building very often. Food supplies are delivered every two weeks via a shipment, the cleaning staff comes in on Wednesdays, and I have a private doctor who comes directly to the house. I seldom have a reason to leave this estate, so I don't.”

“How do you stay in shape?” Sunset asked as she looked her over, realizing that this girl was in great shape. She was skinny, but you could see her legs were well defined. Though one could not see it in this outfit, Sunset guessed she probably had a very nicely defined rear too, considering the rest of her was nearly perfect, it would only be fitting.

“I have a private gym here, a tennis court, a lap pool, the works,” Shimmer explained.

Sunset nodded in awe. This girl had more money in her pocket probably than Sunset held in eight months. It was almost enough to make Sunset jealous.

“So you really don’t leave this place that often…” Sunset replied.

Shimmer nodded as the two entered a room down the hall that Shimmer retrieved a key for from her pocket. Sunset took notice of a necklace she hadn’t paid much mind to before that had a key on the end around Shimmer’s neck while she opened the door with a different key. The key upon her necklace didn’t seem much different than a standard run of the mill door key either.

Entering the room, Shimmer turned on the light and stepped over to a desk in the room. Sunset noticed a rather impressive looking computer sitting there. Peering around the room, there was tons of lab equipment, microscopes, test tubes, the works. Many of the countertops were covered in various notes.

While Sunset was nearly computer illiterate, this girl looked like she understood technology far beyond Sunset’s comprehension. The computer sitting in the lab looked far more complex than anything Sunset had seen, though to be fair she was mostly used to the computers in the school library and still didn’t quite understand how they worked.

From the looks of food wrappers next to the keyboard and a few empty cups, Sunset gathered she spent a lot of time in this room.

“Nice lab.” Sunset smiled, trying to think of a way to open the conversation.

Shimmer sat down in the office chair in front of her computer and nodded. “Yes well, I spend most of my time in here in case you haven’t figured that out.”

“I think I could guess that.” Sunset smirked.

With a sigh, Shimmer removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes as she spoke, “do you mind telling me who you are now? How is it possible that two of me exist?”

Sunset took a deep breath, ready for a lot of questions; she placed her arm awkwardly behind her back as she attempted to approach the subject with any kind of tact.

“Okay, so the short version is that I’m you… Sort of…” Sunset rubbed her neck as she realized how stupid that sounded.

Placing the pair of spectacles back upon her face, Shimmer gave an annoyed grimace to the suggestion. “You’re me? And what do you mean, “sort of”? Start making sense!” She demanded.

Sunset noticed her annoyance and sighed. “I’m you from another universe; a world parallel to this one. I sort of ended up here on accident and I-“

She was cut off as she saw Shimmer’s pupils grow with intrigue. The young lady leaned forward almost sounding excited. “Another universe!?”

“Y-yeah…” Sunset was unsure of what the excitement was about.

Shimmer started shuffling through some papers next to her computer excitedly. “This changes everything! All my theories, I’ve been far too closed-minded! So many new possibilities this opens up! The existence of other universes!? Why didn’t I consider that before!? Well, maybe because most scientists would dismiss the idea, but this changes so much! So many new theories!”

Standing silently, Sunset tried not to interrupt her “breakthrough”, however, Shimmer paused and looked directly at Sunset. She regained her composure and put back her serious demeanor into her expression, albeit with a blush of embarrassment. “Ahem… Sorry… Scientific stuff, I didn’t mean to interrupt… Go on?”

Sunset nodded and finished her story. “Anyways, I’ve been living here for years now; I only just recently learned you were here as well. I didn't even consider there being another version of myself out here.”

Adjusting her glasses, Shimmer had an expression suggesting she was trying to piece this all together in her head before speaking. “So… Let me get this right…” She began. “You came here from another universe and you’re me. You’ve been here for years now and you’ve only just now discovered the other you that already existed in this universe, correct?”

Sunset nodded. “That’s the gist of it.”

“So why are you here?” Shimmer asked.

She never truly thought about how to answer that when she drove over, but she figured since she wasn’t too freaked out about the whole “other universe” thing that maybe the truth would be at least somewhat believable.

Pulling a chair up, Sunset sat in it backward and rested her arms across the top of the chair. Her eyes fixated on the other girl’s, Sunset noticed that her counterpart reminded her almost of a model with how pretty she was.

“I saw you on TV a few days ago…” Sunset began.

“The Canterlot Institute event?” Shimmer asked.

Sunset nodded.

“Anyways, I heard about your parents… Sorry if that’s a sore subject…” Sunset looked down, not wanting to offend the girl.

“What of it?” Shimmer had become a little more direct and standoffish it seemed by bringing up the subject. Sunset decided it might be best to approach that subject more tactfully from here on out.

“I don’t know… I felt… Drawn to you. Like I had to come and make sure you were okay… I’ve been having these strange dreams and I feel like… They’re about you...” Sunset explained.

Shimmer’s expression did a complete change to one of shock. She leaned forward and placed a hand upon Sunset’s arm, causing her to look down at it and then back up at the attractive girl’s face. “Dreams?”

She nodded.

“So you’ve been having them too… I have also been having rather odd dreams myself…” Shimmer explained.

“Perhaps there is something connecting us…” Shimmer pondered.

Sunset shrugged, unsure of what to make of it all. Could it be magic again? It certainly was a possibility as magic in this world seemed to always surprise her. It always seemed to be doing things far beyond her control or comprehension. She missed the days in Equestria where magic did whatever you instructed it to do.

Deciding to keep the idea of magic being a source to be a topic to discuss for another day, she decided to speak something else that was on her mind since she arrived.

“Hey… I know there’s a lot to explain and tons to probably go over, but perhaps…” Sunset paused, “and I know this sounds crazy, but maybe we could like… Hang out sometime?”

“Don’t you think that would be a little awkward? I mean… You’re me and I’m you…” Shimmer reminded.

“I just think there is much we could learn from each other, and… Well, I can’t really explain it, but I feel like I need to get to know you or something… Again, feel free to say no. If you’re not into that, I can leave and you’ll never have to see me again, promise.” Sunset raised her hands in a manner to suggest she was being sincere.

Shimmer sat silently and looked to the floor for a moment.

“I… This is a lot to process…” she spoke.

Sunset stood up and grabbed a nearby pen and scribbled onto a gum wrapper she had in her pocket. Jotting down a string of numbers, she handed it to Shimmer. “Think it over and give me a call or a text. If not, then just forget I ever came here and we can both go back to pretending the other one isn’t here. I don’t want to cause anymore problems for you. I don’t know what happened with your parents, but I imagine that’s a lot to deal with already, and I didn’t come here to add further stress to your life.”

Shimmer took the scrap and nodded, not answering.

Sunset smiled and bowed to the owner of the house. “Thanks for having me. I’ll see myself out. It was nice to meet you, Shimmer.”

Sunset exited the room and a few seconds passed, putting her out of earshot before Shimmer finally replied to the girl who could no longer hear her as she stared forward where the girl once was, then looked back down the phone number on the gum wrapper.

“You too…”

A few weeks had passed since meeting Flash Sentry for Sunset. Since then he and she had spent some time together in various places. He would invite her to a movie at the end of the week, and sometimes get a coffee with her before school, even though he wasn’t much of a coffee drinker. On Saturdays, they would sometimes hang out at the library as per Sunset’s request.

After all, this time had passed, Flash had finally invited her to his band’s practice session, which she assumed was a big deal as he talked about his band all the time when they were together.

Stepping off of a bus, the girl looked down at her phone and re-read text messages between the two which shared the address that was the location of their practice session. Heading in that direction, she found it was only a few minutes walking distance from the bus stop. Within a few moments, she was standing at the open garage of a few rocker-looking teens in front of their instruments.

The only one she recognized smiled as he set his guitar down and approached her. Taking her hand in his, he led her into the garage to meet the group.

“Sunset this is the gang, the guy on the bass over there is Suave Riffs.” Flash pointed to a male with a rather outdated haircut. Sunset simply raised a hand in a waving fashion, which triggered a smile and head nod from him.

“And this guy is Smash Sticks.” Flash then gestured over to the large teen at the drum set who also smiled, albeit a little more softly at Sunset. He was bulky but had the demeanor of a teddy bear almost.

“Guys, this is Sunset, my girlfriend,” Flash introduced.

Sunset froze for a moment.

What did he say?

The subject had never come up before. The two hung out all the time, sure but she never considered what they had was anything special. Then again she had never really even had friends before so it was hard to tell what was going on or when one would consider the two of them an item. Despite the confusion though, she felt oddly giddy for a brief moment. Someone not only considered her a friend but special enough to be their girlfriend?

She had seen couples dating back at the magic academy, but rarely thought much of it. Sunset was completely ignorant to the romantic world, so this was a lot for her to take in, but she was at least partially excited, someone actually saw her as girlfriend material. She was so caught up in the idea she never considered how she felt about him, but right now she simply didn’t care.

“G-girlfriend?” She questioned, just making sure she heard him right before she got too excited.

“Wouldn’t you agree?” Flash smiled at her.

She only nodded silently as she stared in awe, still mesmerized by the entire situation.

Smash spoke up in a rather deep voice, fitting his appearance as he offered a hand to the girl. “Nice to meet ya’, Sunset. Flash has told us a lot about you.”

Staring she took his hand in her own to find his grip rather strong. Shaking his hand, she blinked. “He has?”

Smash nodded, followed by Suave butting in.

“Try never shuts up about you.”

Flash rolled his eyes and Sunset could detect a minor blush upon his face. She looked over to a guitar that Flash had been holding prior to her entering the room. “Nice guitar…” She commented, trying to change the subject, as she almost felt a blush upon her own face.

With a giddy expression, Flash rushed over to the instrument and lifted it. “Thanks, do you play?” His face lit up with excitement, clearly hopeful.

Sunset shook her head, though she was a bit hesitant to say as she didn’t want to disappoint him. “Not exactly a skill that I’ve had a need for… Remember?”

“I could teach you!” Flash puffed his chest out proudly at the proposal; Sunset was partially relieved that he didn’t sound disappointed at least.

“I don’t really have a guitar…” Sunset replied.

“No problem!” Flash said as he handed the guitar to her and raced out of the garage. She looked down at the instrument while she awaited Flash’s return. Within a matter of seconds, the teen was standing there with another guitar of a significantly different design to the one that Sunset was holding. Confusion flooded her brain as he approached.

“I keep a spare in the truck. That’s one of my practice guitars, you can have it, and I can teach you to play.” He explained.

Sunset looked at the shining guitar then back to her boyfriend. “You’re… Giving this to me?”

He chuckled at her confusion. “Sure. I have four of them; I keep a few for practicing and one specifically for when we actually perform. It’ll be fun teaching you to play after all that’s just something else we can do together right?”

“No one’s ever given me anything before…” Sunset replied quietly.

“For real?” He tilted his head, a bit concerned.

She nodded.

With a grin, he placed a hand upon her shoulder in comfort as he reassured her. “Well, then I’ll be the first. I like you, Sunset.”

Sunset looked over to his hand and focused on it for a moment. Her brain was trying to process this all; his kindness, his bringing her into his circle, and his use of that word, “girlfriend”. She was so dumbfounded by it all, but she was starting to realize she was enjoying it.

She smirked, finally feeling herself getting somewhat comfortable. “I guess that’s why you called me your girlfriend huh?”

He rolled his eyes and nudged her shoulder. “You don’t sound that enthusiastic about it.”

Sunset’s face contorted to one of discomfort. “Well… Truthfully… I’ve never really had a boyfriend… Or dated… Or done… Anything really…” She rubbed her neck nervously at the fact that she just admitted she was so inexperienced at every aspect of romance.

He nodded in understanding. “We’ll take it slow then, alright? I don’t want to overwhelm you. Though I’m surprised a girl as pretty as you hasn’t had a lot more boyfriends.”

She chuckled at his flattery. “I don’t get out much, probably why I’m so pale.”

“Guess I’m just lucky.” He joked.

“Or unlucky.” She winked.

“Nah, I think it’s cute how pale you are.” He winked in return.

Sunset felt her cheeks light up, probably making her face at the very least appear to have a little more color to them.

Waiting in line at the theater with her friends, Sunset found herself getting barraged with question after question from her friends, mostly from an impatient Rainbow Dash; Sunset swore that despite her denial, Rainbow could sometimes be more of a gossip than Rarity. Nudging Sunset from behind her in line, Rainbow asked what she was sure the others wanted to know.

“So you met her?” Rainbow asked. Sunset noticed she was so enthralled with this subject she had stopped blinking several minutes ago. She was struggling to contain her chuckles at Rainbow’s excitement over the topic.

Sunset nodded as she took another step forward as the line advanced a tad. “Yes, this afternoon I went to her estate.”

“She actually agreed to meet with you?” A curious Rarity asked as she looked over her shoulder to look at Sunset.

Rarity was the only one in the group standing in front of Sunset in line.

“Yeah, but I had to walk all the way to the front door, was like half a mile,” Sunset groaned as she remembered how exhausted she was from walking in the scorching heat across such a long driveway.

“She has a driveway that long?” Rarity blinked.

“What kind of car does she have?” Rainbow didn’t even give Sunset a chance to answer Rarity’s question before hitting her with more.

“I don’t really know, but I did see a Mercedes parked near the house. Didn’t get a good look at it though…” Sunset recalled.

“Dang, she sounds loaded. Must be nice…” Rainbow frowned, clearly a bit jealous.

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Her parents were murdered, Rainbow. Don’t forget that…”

“Oh… Right… Sorry…” Rainbow lowered her head, a bit ashamed of letting her jealousy show; clearly knowing that this girl probably had a lot of problems that money couldn’t solve. Still, Sunset knew that in her mind, Rainbow was already contemplating all the various things she’d do and buy with that kind of money. It was safe to say that Rarity was probably doing the same, albeit a little more tactfully.

The more Sunset thought about it though, the more she did realize that Shimmer’s estate was probably a pretty lonely place. It was bigger than the school but only had one occupant. She tried to imagine how empty the school would feel with just her there, but her brain couldn’t wrap itself around the idea of such a large building with no reason to exist but for one girl. She could definitely feel the loneliness from the thought though. Sunset always preferred small places, as she found herself feeling empty when in a large open building with no one there. Solitude at one time was her sanctuary, but ever since she made friends she found her sanctuary in them. That didn’t stop her from still preferring smaller settings though; some things never really change.

Snapping back to reality she heard Applejack’s voice from behind her as she was pushed forward a tad as the line progressed. She had been so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that the line was moving.

“What was she like?” Applejack asked.

“Honestly? I couldn’t get a good read on her emotional state. I wasn’t there for long, however, I can say she was gorgeous, I was kind of jealous of how pretty she was. It was like looking into a mirror that makes you look better,” Sunset explained.

“I’m trying to imagine a prettier Sunset now…” Rainbow commented.

Applejack punched her friend’s shoulder to silence her rudeness, causing her to grunt and rub her shoulder in pain. Rainbow grumbled under her breath as she decided to keep quiet on the subject.

“Does she really live there all alone?” Twilight finally chimed in.

Sunset found herself meeting eyes with Twilight as she answered with a gentle nod. “Yeah… She has a cleaning and gardening staff, but they only come once a week, and she seldom interacts with them. It’s just her and her dog, Moon.”

“What does she do locked up in that house?” Twilight asked with a raised brow.

“From my understanding? Looks like she spends a lot of her time in her laboratory, so I wager she’s a scientist of some sort?” Sunset shrugged.

Twilight’s eyes grew. “S-she has her own laboratory?”

Applejack rolled her eyes, knowing it was not wise to get Twilight started on one of her nerdy kicks.

“Yeah, but I don’t have a clue what she’s working on.” Sunset sighed.

“So what did you tell her exactly, darling?” Rarity asked.

That was a question she knew would pop up at some point, Sunset was a little surprised it took this long for the question to appear.

“Not much. I only explained I came from an alternate universe, and that she and I were counterparts. I didn’t get into the whole magical land with talking ponies or anything like that, I figured she was probably already overwhelmed…” Sunset chuckled as she remembered the conversation that she and Shimmer had.

“How’d she take it?” Applejack asked on Rarity’s behalf.

“Well actually… She didn’t seem to be in disbelief, she actually sort of came off as excited and a little intrigued. Guess it’s the inner scientist in her…” Sunset shrugged, not sure of why the girl was not more freaked out over what she was told, she knew if the roles were reversed, she’d probably need therapy right now. Then again, Shimmer was probably already getting therapy for what happened with her parents, though it was doubtful that such a thing could affect one’s ability to cope with the existence of alternate universes, otherwise that would be quite the therapist.

“So that’s it then?” Applejack asked plainly.

“Not exactly… Or at least, I’m not totally sure yet,” Sunset replied.

“What does that mean?” Rainbow spoke up yet again, finally recovered from the pain of Applejack’s punch to her shoulder, though she still rubbed the spot.

“Well… I sort of… Invited her to come to hang out sometime.” Sunset chuckled nervously.

“What!? Sunset, that’s probably not a good idea…” Twilight exclaimed.

“You’re probably right, but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the situation like that. I just feel obligated to make sure she’s okay…” Sunset admitted.

Twilight sighed and nodded, placing her hand upon her friend’s arm. “I understand, Sunset… Just please be careful. We’re all still really new to this situation, myself especially, but I imagine this girl has been traumatized. You have to be very careful, you don’t want to traumatize her anymore…”

Sunset nodded. “The last thing I want to do is cause her more pain, I want to try and help her if I can… That is… If she needs my help. I know I can’t explain it, but I feel like… I need to do this…” Sunset explained.

Twilight smiled, along with her other friends. “Y'all have a big heart, Sunset,” Applejack commented.

Rainbow nodded in agreement as she gave a thumbs up. “We’ll be right behind you the whole way if you need us!”

“Agreed, we’ll always be there to back you up,” Rarity reassured.

Sunset smiled brightly and nodded. “Thanks, girls, I knew I could count on you to understand, besides there’s no way to tell if she’ll even accept my invitation, so there’s no reason to freak out yet.”

“Regardless, we’ll be there to support you,” Twilight chimed in, smiling brightly at her friend. Just seeing that smile on Twilight was enough to remind Sunset how much Twilight looked out for her.

It felt nice to know that there were people who stood by her; to have friends. With this group of girls by her side, she knew that she could overcome anything, and deal with any problem put in her place. She remembered what it felt like to be alone and she remembered how she had to always find ways to fill that void, and how she always found ways to try and convince herself that such a void wasn’t really there. Part of her wondered if that’s how Shimmer was feeling right now. If so, Sunset was more worried about her.

The film that Sunset and friends were attending seemed relatively boring to Sunset, though Rainbow seemed to be eating it up despite constantly saying prior that it looked like a “dumb girl movie”. Before it was even thirty minutes in, Rainbow was hooked and had downed half of her popcorn in a short amount of time, causing Sunset to internally snicker at how girly Rainbow truly was deep down. She put on a strong facade, but there were cracks in the fortress, clearly.

Yawning and realizing that the movie probably wasn’t going to get much better; Sunset stood up and excused herself.

The slender teen took a break from devouring endless amounts of candy to appease her sweet tooth and walked out of the cool dark theater back into the main hall which was now empty as the movie was showing. The air conditioner outside the actual theater was far less effective and one could easily feel the warmth of the Summer heat. Heading to the bathroom, she decided to rinse her face to try and stay awake for the rest of the movie while she stretched her legs.

In the bathroom, she was alone, which was good as she didn’t exactly like using the restroom when others were there. Sometimes Sunset actually walked into restrooms intending to utilize them, but then just washed her hands when she realized other people were there. Turning on the facet, she splashed some water upon her face and looked at herself in the mirror. As she wiped her face dry with paper towels she could feel her phone vibrating in her pocket. Had she been in the theater she may have not noticed it from the movie distracting her from it.

She reached in and saw the number wasn’t one she recognized, but shrugged and answered anyway.

“Hello?” She said.

“Is this Sunset?” The other familiar voice asked.

“Yes, it is, who is this?” Sunset asked, leaning against the bathroom wall as she conversed with the voice on the phone.

“This is Shimmer. We met earlier this morning?” The girl reiterated, even though Sunset was certain that the two of them didn’t need to be reminded, as it was difficult to forget such an awkward experience. Sunset was a bit surprised that she called so soon though if she was going to call at all.

“I remember. What’s up, Shimmer?” Sunset asked.

There was a brief pause.

“Something wrong?” Sunset attempted to break the silence.

“Listen…” Shimmer began. “I don’t exactly know what’s going on, or much about alternate universes. However, I can’t deny even from a scientific standpoint that you and I share a lot of similarities appearance-wise. I’m going to go on a whim and trust you are telling the truth. That being said though, I feel I should warn you that I want to understand all of this.”

Sunset couldn’t agree more with that idea. “Are you saying you want us to get to know each other?”

Shimmer was hesitant to answer that question, clearly knowing that it meant she was crossing a point where she could not simply go back to pretending that morning never happened. However, she finally responded. “Let’s meet up at a local diner, I'll text you the address. How about tomorrow?”

“Anything I should bring?” Sunset replied.

“Just yourself is fine. Though do keep in mind that you may get dog hair on your clothing, so a lint brush can’t hurt.” Shimmer chuckled a bit.

“Ah right, Moon.” Sunset smirked, despite Shimmer not being able to see her.

“Do you like dogs, Sunset? Moon sure seemed to like you,” Shimmer asked.

Sunset shrugged. “I don’t dislike them. My friend Twilight has a dog, and I see him a lot when I go hang out at her place.”

"Twilight?” Shimmer sounded confused.

“Oh she’s one of my friends,” Sunset explained.

“Right… To be honest, Moon is the main reason why I believe what you say is true.” Shimmer’s voice got relatively serious, though to be fair, she struck Sunset as a relatively serious girl. Many of the photos she saw of her on the news always had her with a serious expression. She only knew that she could smile mostly from her family photos and portraits hung around the mansion. Sunset swore she saw one of her as a little girl with the largest grin she had ever seen.

That definitely confused Sunset a bit. “How so?”

“Moon is a pretty friendly dog, but he often doesn’t go to greet strangers until I give him the go-ahead. He was trained not to jump up on anyone but me, and yet he jumped on you, and seems to respond very positively to you… I can’t really explain that… Moon really likes you,” Shimmer rambled.

“I can assure you that I’ve never been particularly good with animals so I wouldn’t even say it’s a natural thing either…” Sunset replied.

Shimmer laughed at that statement. “Nonetheless… It’s a date?”

Sunset nodded with her answer. “Yeah, sure. I’ll swing by in the afternoon okay?”

“Sounds good, ring at the gate and you can park your car inside this time,” Shimmer said.

“My legs thank you,” Sunset joked, still feeling a slight tinge in her legs from the walk from that morning’s endeavor.

“Sorry I made you walk this morning… I didn’t know who you were so I didn’t trust you. I get a lot of reporters trying to sneak into my estate under many different guises, I couldn’t be too careful…” She apologized.

“It’s fine, I was only teasing,” Sunset replied.

“I look forward to seeing you again, Sunset,” Shimmer said, clearly trying to change the subject. Sunset gathered that she didn’t have quite a big sense of humor.

Sunset grew more serious and quiet. “Yeah, you too.”

“Well, I gotta go; lots of work to do,” Shimmer excused herself.

“Okay, see you tomorrow,” Sunset answered before the call ended.

She sighed but found herself smiling as she placed her phone back in her jeans’ front pocket. While she knew that there was a lot to explain to Shimmer and that this would be an awkward experience for both of them, she felt happy about it. Maybe it was knowing there was another person out there she could relate to? Maybe it was the feeling of being useful in helping another person? Or maybe it was just the idea of making a new friend? Whatever it was, Sunset felt filled with more purpose and determination at that moment than she had felt in a long time.

Hey guys! This week flew by. I felt like I just released Chapter IV and already I'm watching Applety sketch up the drawings for this chapter. She's getting a job soon, so these sketches will likely put a strain on her, so please by all means drop her some encouraging messages on her profile or something. She deserves it. This story wouldn't be possible without her work, support and input. In a way it's her story too.

Behind the scenes time: Moon, Shimmer's dog is actually a parody of my own dog's name which is Luna. Originally I debated about giving her a cat, but decided it might be too stereotypical to give a lonely girl a cat, make her come off as a crazy cat lady or something.