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The Principal's Project

by KingMoriarty

Chapter 2: 2 - In the Office

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Whoever it was that said "he cried until there were no more tears to cry" clearly never had a sad thought in his life. Tears aren't something you can run out of, any more than sadness is something you can turn off with a thought. When people cry, they will cry until something makes them decide that there's something more important to do. For a former pony with a good sense of priorities, crying could last a very long time.

Being hugged by one world's cruel facsimile of her mentor wasn't more important to Sunset Shimmer than crying about how she had lost her real mentor. Whatever vague words of comfort the creature could offer weren't more important than all the lessons, all the lectures that flowed through her mind in that moment. And going somewhere different didn't hold a grain of significance when she had nothing left to run from.

So she was led, stumbling and sobbing, through the halls of a building that her half-listening ears vaguely caught as Canterlot High School. Of course it would be; this world had clearly been designed to make Sunset's exile as painful as possible without actually having the decency to use a knife. The creature was the principal of Canterlot High, because Shadowfax forbid that she find herself in a domain where Celestia was not the master. Everywhere she looked, there was some fragment of Equestrian architecture, some little trick of interior decorating that brought to mind the halls of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Every step ground strange bone against strange bone, and though her body wasn't hurt by it, her brain couldn't help but recoil in disgust at what would have been the pinnacle of discomfort as a pony.

And, on top of everything else, she'd been regressed to a teenager. Sunset was trapped in a world without the slightest detectable spark of the thing she was best at in life, and she was at her most stupid, her most impulsive, her most emotionally compromisable that she'd ever been in her life. On the off chance that the real Celestia did show up, she'd probably do something like blow her off, or worse, try to kill her again.

Sunset was very lucky that that realization hit her just as the principal was trying to get her to sit down in a chair, or she could have really hurt herself.

"I think your phone is ringing, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset's brain latched onto the first utterly unknown word she had encountered in this dimension, and the tears finally stopped. She looked up at the principal, who was holding the minotaur-style travel pack that her saddlebags had turned into when she passed through the portal. "My what?"

"Your phone." Sunset just put on her best 'I am completely lost' face, in the hopes that it would get her faster answers. "Your cellular telephone?"

"Tele as in telekinesis?" Sunset asked, focusing on the syllable that made the most sense. The principal just gave her a look as though she had just asked where Commander Hurricane was living these days.

"Broadly, yes." The principal began to speak slowly and deliberately, like Sunset had been regressed to early childhood instead of her adolescent years. "Tele as in the ancient Greek word meaning 'afar', phone as in the Greek for 'voice' or 'sound', and cellular because the coverage maps of signal towers resemble diagrams of biological cells. Cells are the individual building blocks of living beings, by the way."

"I know what cells are," Sunset snapped weakly, reaching out and taking the bag. Held this close, she could feel the vibrations within it, and as she fiddled with the zipper she tried to recall what she could possibly have brought that made that kind of noise. Then she saw the journal, buzzing with a message from Celestia, and her heart skipped a beat.

"Forgive me, I'm sure, but you haven't exactly come off as the scientific type." The principal turned her back on Sunset and walked around her desk to her seat, giving Sunset just enough time to desperately flip through the pages of the journal until it was tricked into thinking she had read the message. Then the principal sat down, and Sunset's attention found a new focal point. "What are you, Sunset Shimmer?"

Sunset shivered at the question. "Don't po- people usually start by asking who, rather than what?"

"I did open with that." The principal's mouth seemed uncertain if it wanted to smirk or frown. "Who you are is Sunset Shimmer. What you are, that's another kettle of fish entirely."

Sunset gagged a little at the thought of boiled fish. Judging by the rise of the principal's eyebrow, a little was enough to be noticed.

"A vegetarian, then. And yet, you wear a leather jacket."

For the first time since arriving, Sunset really looked at what she was wearing. She had on a purple shirt that was emblazoned with some watered-down reproduction of her cutie mark, a tacky orange skirt with some random stripes of color around the hem, and she did indeed have a thick jet-black jacket that felt about as much like cow hide as certain trophies she had handled in her time. It also had a popped collar and some weird metal studs, which as far as Sunset could tell served basically no purpose.

"It was a gift," she said weakly. "Sentimental value. I didn't know the cow they made it out of," she added as an afterthought.

"I assumed you didn't," the principal said, steepling her paws and watching Sunset over the top of them. "Still, the question remains. What are you, and what could possibly lead a girl like you to wake up outside of my school?"

Sunset stared down at the floor and clutched her bag against her body. So far, the only two things she could say for certain about this world was that she didn't understand it, and it didn't have magic. She took a few seconds to try and imagine how an Equestria that had never known magic would react to a pony claiming to be from another dimension. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she whispered, just barely loud enough to hear.

The principal laughed, a warm motherly laugh with the slightest hint of a mind far more clever than the listener could ever imagine. It reminded Sunset far too much of Celestia. "In that case, do you mind if I hazard a guess?"

Sunset shrugged noncommittally. "Give it your best shot."

"I remind you of her."

The bag fell out of Sunset's arms, and her brain very nearly followed it. "How did you...?"

"You don't play your cards very close to your chest, Sunset. When I woke you up, you recognized me, or thought you did. You don't strike me as a very trusting person, yet you haven't shown the slightest hesitation to take my hand, or hold you, or guide you. Half the things I say, you react like we're sharing an old joke, or perhaps an old scar. I remind you of someone you used to care about very deeply."

Sunset stared, part of her impressed at the principal for being so observant and part of her angry that she was so easy to read. "What makes you so sure of the past tense in that last sentence?"

"Simple." The principal's eyes narrowed, the warmth of her gaze dimming until there was nothing left but intensity. "If you still cared about her as much you did, you would still be with her."

Sunset Shimmer didn't like crying. It wasn't dignified. It wasn't proper. It wasn't cool. More than all of that, it was weak. Yes, she had cried earlier, but that was different. She didn't cry this time.

Sometimes, hiding your tears makes it all the more obvious. Sunset could see it in the principal's eyes, the same glare that Celestia had fixed so many stuffy aristocrats with. It was a look that said, in no uncertain terms, "Do you honestly think I don't see the chink in your armor?"

And then, just like that, it was gone. The warmth was back, and Sunset's brief moment of base existential horror was wiped away. The threat had been understood; nothing else was needed for the moment.

"If I'm reading your mannerisms correctly, the two of you come from a secluded kingdom with a technology level that I'd generously describe as medieval, and a very strong caste system where the aristocracy holds all the power. You've never seen that jacket before yesterday, and probably the rest of your clothes as well. They were either provided as part of a disguise, or more likely snatched from a servant's wardrobe in a hurry as you fled the hotel."

"What makes you think we were at a hotel?"

The principal smiled, and began to toy with a thin metal rectangle on her desk. "If a kingdom like yours existed within walking distance of my domain, I would know of it. Since your existence comes as a surprise, you and the other woman were clearly travelling the outside world, most likely incognito. Perhaps I should devise a codeword for the members of my court, so that this other woman does not accidentally take over my kingdom while visiting."

"Your kingdom?" Sunset repeated in surprise. "I thought you were just the principal of a high school."

"I am that as well," the principal answered simply. "Some princesses plant flower gardens, or compose over-dramatic wordslaughter that they brand as poetry. I take time out of my theoretically opulent life to support education in the most direct way I can. And who can blame me?"

It would have been so much easier, Sunset thought, if the thing only looked like Celestia. But no. It had to sound like her, act like her, even quote her. She remembered hearing those same words from her Celestia, the real Celestia. She remembered the conversations that had flowed from them, the study sessions under the wing of Equestria's Princess, the tests that felt all the more important because they were from a school with Celestia's name on them.

"What are you?" she asked.

"I am Celestia dé Sol, Crown Princess of Equestria and Principal of Canterlot High School." The principal stood from her chair, and offered Sunset a smile that chilled her to the bone. "And upon both of my titles, you are welcome here, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset did not fall to her knees and thank the principal for this. That would have been weakness. Instead, she stood from her chair, grabbed her bag and turned to walk out. "The hospitality is appreciated, but I won't be here long enough to take advantage of it."

The principal waited until Sunset had reached the door before speaking again. "You don't have to run away from me. I'm not her."

Sunset paused for a minute, her hand curled around the handle of the door. "No. You aren't." She turned the handle and opened the door. "And that's why I'm leaving."

Next Chapter: 3 - Can't Cross the Same River Twice Estimated time remaining: 35 Minutes
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