Ivory Wings escorted Silver Rose upstairs, into her own room. It was the first time Silver had been in her aunt’s room in a long time, and she was surprised by how unlived in it looked. There was cardboard boxes scattered around the bed, with a couple of dolls sitting on the bookshelf, dolls of people she didn’t know.

“So what do you want to show me, Aunt Ivory?” Silver picked up one, careful not to stab it with her claws. It was a doll of a green-skinned woman with green hair.

“You wanted your claws trimmed, yes?” Ivory said, pushing open the door to the ensuite bathroom. “Well, the tools for doing so are in here. I’ll see about getting you your own set later, but for now, we can use mine.”

“Oh, okay, Aunt Ivory.” Silver put the doll down and followed her aunt into the bathroom.

In contrast to the stark bedroom, the bathroom was heavily used. Towels hung from various racks, bottles of shampoo and conditioner littered the floor, joined by dozens of smaller bottles of what Silver recognized as dye. The bathtub was half full of some purple liquid, and the shower booth had long scratch marks down the glass. The whole place smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals, and as the door shut, she could see that the back of the bathroom door had a cracked mirror hung on it.

“Umm… did you and mother… uh…” Silver looked at the shower area. “Do stuff in here?”

“Ah, that?” Ivory smirked and pointed a thumb at it. “Your mother’s quite the sadistic one. Ah, it’s better if I spare you the details. Now, let me get my cutters…”

Ivory knelt down to open a cabinet, coming back up with an intimidating looking device that looked like it was half scissors, half torture implement.

“Umm…” Silver instinctively took a step back. “Is-is that safe…?”

“Perfectly safe, sweetie.” Ivory drew a finger down the device’s blade. “Your mother and I have cut our claws plenty enough.”

Even though her aunt had told her it was safe, Silver couldn’t help but feel danger when she looked at the cutter. It looked sharp enough to just shear her head off her shoulders. She found herself taking another few steps backwards, swallowing hard.

“Relax,” Ivory commanded. “It’s not even going to hurt. Just give me your hand… there’s a good girl.”

Silver straightened her fingers out and looked away, closing her eyes and holding her breath.

“We’ll start with your thumb first,” Ivory said. Silver felt her aunt pulling at her thumb, fitting it against the device’s blade. There was a snick-click and the sound of something clattering to the floor. The girl opened her eyes and looked down. Her thumb was now claw-free, with a thin, clean cut stump where the claw used to be, resting on top of her thumbnail. The claw itself was on the floor, spinning slowly.

“See? It didn’t hurt!” Ivory dusted off her blades and then positioned it next at Silver’s index claw.

“Yeah, I guess.” Silver looked at the stump on her thumb. “What do we do about the rest of the claw?”

“Ah, well, that’s where the file comes into play.” Ivory snipped off the next claw just as quickly.

In no time, Silver was left with ten stubby fingernails, all the claws on the floor below her hands. Ivory Wings put down her cutters and picked out a long file from her cabinet. It looked almost like a normal file, though it was at least three times thicker and about the length of her forearm.

“I keep a few of these around, since the hardness of the claw stump tends to wear them out,” Ivory explained. “But where the nail meets the talon is a slightly softer part, so we’ll start there. Oh, and also, keep the discarded talons. All changeling parts are potent alchemy ingredients. Even our ground up hair has some use.”

“Oh, umm… okay, Aunt Ivory.”

It took a few attempts for Silver to get the file in a comfortable rhythm, but once she did, the claw stumps quickly gave way to her usual fingernails. She was never happier to see them again.

Black dust gathered in a small pile on the bathroom floor as Silver filed away.

“Do you have to do this every time you grow claws?” Silver said, grinding the file against her left ring finger. “Seems awfully inconvenient.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Ivory took off her glasses and polished them. “I have to do my feet too.”

“And how about how you control them?” Silver smiled at her fingernails. “I don’t want them to grow for no reason.”

“It’s kind of like acceleration,” Ivory said thoughtfully. “I just channel the love energy to my hands, and poof, claws. I’d ask you to try it, but we just spent about half an hour getting yours off, so we’ll try again some other time.”

“Mmm. Mother didn’t seem particularly excited about the claws, Aunt Ivory.”

“She was,” Ivory Wings said, taking a dustpan and sweeping up the nail dust. “I suppose that she thinks it’s normal for a changeling to have them, so she acted like it was normal. But deep down, I know she’s overjoyed to learn you can grow talons. As am I,” she added.

“Me too, unless they decide to grow during school. That would be bad.”

“Hmm, yes, that would be, but I’m sure they won’t.”

“But they did, Aunt Ivory!” Silver waggled her fingers. “If I hadn’t run off to the corner to hide, others would’ve seen my claws.”

“Well,” Ivory said calmly. “I’ll give you a kevlar lined bag, so that if they start to spontaneously grow, you can hide them inside.”

“Heheh, thanks, Aunt Ivory.” She paused to hug her aunt, then easily finished the rest of her nails.

“Now, how about we go to the kitchen and see if we can beg some food from the cooks before dinner time?”

Silver Rose grumbled to herself as she got out of the car the next day, walking up to her school’s front entrance. She didn’t know whose idea it was to have classes the next day, right after the Friendship Games, but she had a good feeling who might’ve come up with it.

Unlike herself, who arrived at school at her usual time, many students seemed to be running late, with only a few moving along the halls. Perhaps everyone was still tired from yesterday’s ordeals.

“Morning, Silver Rose.” Sound Wave walked past her, putting a hand over his mouth as he let out a big yawn. “You’re early. All ready for school?”

“I have to be, right? We all have to.” Silver rubbed at her cheek. She didn’t deny she was a little tired.

“Meh, some others would disagree with you.” Sound Wave turned a dial on his headphones. “I’m only here because I had my headphones on when I slept. Got woken up by a particularly jazzy tune this morning.”

“You like jazz?”

“No,” Sound Wave said, scratching his ear. “I woke up to turn it off.”

“Huh.” Silver walked ahead to her homeroom. Then why do you even have it on your music list?

In homeroom, the class was considerably empty as well. Sugarcoat was the only Shadowbolt inside, while Indigo and Sour Sweet were likely still on their way to school or sleeping in.

“Morning, Sugarcoat,” Silver greeted the white haired girl. “You’re early today.”

Sugarcoat lifted her orange spectacles and nodded. “Whether we want to or not, we still have to come to school.”

“Yeah…” Silver looked at the entrance as other students walked into class, some a little groggy-eyed as well. “I mean, no one’s going to be skipping, are they?”

Sugarcoat went back to a book she was reading. “I doubt that, Silver Rose. I’m guessing Indigo’s going to take a pass today. Whatever. Not like I had much hope of her passing the exams anyway.”

“Ah, the exams…” Silver had forgotten all about them during the Friendship Games. That was another thing Principal Cinch just had to do besides having school right after the Games. They still had to study for the exams.

Silver still didn’t know much on exams, but she figured it would all be just like a test she would take in her classes. Maybe they wouldn’t be all that hard.

She turned around in her seat and sighed at the empty seat. Even Twilight Sparkle was absent, but judging from what happened yesterday, Twilight was the only one who really deserved a break.

Silver just whipped out her phone and began messaging Home Run while she waited for the bell. She wondered whether the CHS students were coming in later than usual as well.

Sunny Flare sat at the table during lunch, playing around with her food unintentionally. She had almost arrived late this morning and to make matters worse, they’d been having reviews for the upcoming exams all morning, relentlessly pounding their tired brains with more work.

She felt as though her head had shut down from all the work, but it wasn’t just the school work that was making things worse. When she had got home yesterday, Sunny had gone straight to her room, dumped her things on the floor and stripped out of her uniform. After that, she had decided to try out the vibrator again, trying to think about Fast Bender, but like she had feared, it didn’t work to stave off her want for Silver Rose.

She had put the vibrator aside after she came twice, then decided to use her fingers instead. Silver Rose didn’t have a penis, so it was only natural to use her fingers and pretend it was Silver. Sunny hadn’t cared anymore. She stopped fighting it after her third orgasm. If she was indeed infatuated with Silver, then she was. The only problem now was… Would Silver feel the same way?

“Sunny.”

The mulberry haired girl continued to think about her friend, not hearing her name.

“Sunny!”

Sunny Flare suddenly sat back, almost tipping over her chair and would’ve if Sour Sweet had not held it up.

“What, what?” Sunny gasped and held on to the table as Sour Sweet brought her back into position.

“Are you there?” Indigo was looking at her. “I was asking you if you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Twilight’s transferred,” Indigo said, twirling her pasta around her fork. “She’s gone over to Canterlot High. Ms. Script told us today in homeroom.”

“You made it to homeroom?” Lemon Zest bent back and laughed. “I didn’t make it to homeroom and you did? Wow, Indigo. I didn’t think you were so dedicated!”

“I’m just fast,” Indigo answered proudly. “I’m that good.”

“If you were that good, you’d be here with time to spare.” Sugarcoat chewed listlessly on an olive. “Not just as the bell rings.”

“Meh, I didn’t want to get up so early this morning.” Indigo waved her hand. “I was up playing some video games with Rainbow Dash last night. We tied in the end, but I’m sure I’m better.”

“You two certainly embody our competitive spirit,” Sour Sweet grinned. “But the exams are coming up and you can’t be slacking off.”

“Come on, don’t tell me you girls are already full-on study mode?” Indigo turned to look at each of them.

“Not exactly.” Lemon Zest turned down the volume on her headphones. “I was swapping some tunes with Vinyl Scratch yesterday. She’s a student over at CHS. She’s got a pretty good taste in music! I was going to show Sound Wave some later.”

“Well, if not for the Friendship Games, you girls have all become good friends, huh?” Sugarcoat ate more of her pasta. “Actually, if not for Principal Cinch, perhaps our schools would’ve actually had a Friendship Games.”

“Sugarcoat’s right about that…” Now that the Games were over and Sunny had time to look back, she noticed things could’ve gone a whole lot differently. To be fair, she wasn’t a very nice person herself, but it still could’ve been better. “Well, uh, besides all that, we should get more study sessions together. If we can compare our notes, it would definitely help.”

“Please.” Sugarcoat shifted her glasses up. “Most of our study session time is always taken up by you girls talking about boys and other irrelevant things.”

“You talk about boys too,” Sour Sweet protested and folded her arms.

“Yes, but not during our study time,” Sugarcoat countered. “I at least have the self-restraint to stay on task.”

Sunny had her fair share of study sessions where she would talk about Domino Ace, but now… Domino was pushed out of her mind again, but she had to worry about thinking about Silver Rose now. There was no way she was going to tell her friends about it, it was just too embarrassing. Sunny didn’t know who she could turn to except for Fast Bender, but he wasn’t here right now, nor would he be at their study sessions unless they went back to her place, but even then, she couldn’t talk to him privately.

Mmmn…” Sunny said. “So, where do you want to meet up to study?”

“You’re planning that already?” Indigo began to laugh. “Okay, okay… Guess studying’s really important for you girls this early.”

“You’ll fail if you push it off to the last minute, Indigo.” Sugarcoat swallowed her food. “Now, where do you want to study, girls?”

“We were at Lemon Zest’s the last time.” Sour Sweet pinched at her bowtie. “How about… going to Sunny’s this time?”

Sunny’s eyes widened and she looked at her friends. “Umm, oh, really?”

“Why, is something wrong?”

“No, no,” Sunny said, waving her hands in front of her face. “Just, I haven’t done a lot of tidying up in a while. That’s all.”

“Well, my place was a mess the last time you girls were there.” Lemon Zest spun her fork in her hand. “Mess isn’t a problem, Sunny! Besides, I like your place! It’s spacious!”

“Yeah, your place isn’t a problem, Sunny!” Indigo whooped. “You even have a Neighstation. I bet if we-”

“No games, Indigo.” Sugarcoat glared at the athlete. “Not during our study sessions.”

“Aww, party pooper.”

“We’re not having a party, we’re studying. Don’t you want to pass the exams?”

“Well, duh, I want to pass.”

“Then stop treating our study sessions like house parties,” Sugarcoat concluded. “The exams aren’t going to be easy, especially now that Cinch partially blames us for what happened at the Friendship Games.”

“Well, we blame her.” Sour Sweet frowned. “So I guess it doesn’t matter. Besides, I doubt she sets the exams.”

“So it’s settled?” Sugarcoat finished her lunch. “We’ll meet at Sunny’s?”

“I’m down with that!” Lemon Zest grinned and arranged her fringe.

“Yeah, I guess I’m up for studying…” Indigo leaned on her hand and sighed.

“Umm… okay. My place then…” Sunny smiled at them sheepishly. At least she changed her sheets yesterday. It would be weird if her friends were to find out what she’d been up to at home. “And umm, is it okay if we spend more time on, umm, English?”

“I think we should, if you can’t even spell ‘rhombus’, Sunny,” Sugarcoat put bluntly.

“I’m sorry!” Sunny covered her red face with her hands. “I thought I had that one! I mean, you see why we need to cover more English!”

“Yeah, you’d be screwed if you had to take the English exam now,” Indigo grinned.

“You’d be too, Indigo.” Sour Sweet sneered.

Sunny gulped. At least she had her other subjects covered. She wasn’t a Shadowbolt for nothing. She just had a great problem with the English language.

After school, Sunny soon found herself sitting around her study table back at home, which she had to pull out to the middle of the room so they could all use it. After getting a few foldable chairs from downstairs, they had swiftly got to studying, starting with English, like Sunny had requested.

“Okay, so how do you spell ‘rhombus’?” Sour Sweet asked her.

“R, H, O, M, B, U, S.”

“Finally,” Indigo gasped. “And it only took half an hour to get this far.”

“It-it didn’t!” Sunny held her cheeks.

“Just remember, Sunny, it spells exactly as it sounds!” Lemon Zest tapped on the word on her notes. “Bus, not bos. Yeah?”

“Right. I got it. But we’re not having spelling on our exam, are we? I mean, we’re a high school, not a middle school.”

“Yeah…” Lemon Zest trailed off, toying with her headphones. “So, what’s next? A quick tea break?”

“Lemon, we’ve only been studying for thirty minutes.” Sugarcoat glared at her. “Can we focus, girls?”

“Okay… no break yet then.” Lemon Zest looked back at her notes.

Sunny and the other Shadowbolts covered more topics for the next hour and a half, ranging from chemistry, to physics, to calculus, to history, and even to home economics. As the hours crawled by, the topic of their work began to give way to less education related subjects.

“Royal Pin?” Indigo asked, lying on her back.

“Eeeh, maybe a six?” Lemon said through a mouthful of soda. “He doesn’t like the music I listen to anyway.”

“No one likes the music you listen to, Lemon.” Sour Sweet grabbed her own head. “It’s noisy and generic.”

“Hmph.” Lemon Zest looked away. “Some people do. Like Sound Wave. He likes most of my music. Yeah. What would you guys give him?”

“Hmm…” Sugarcoat tapped her pencil against the table. “Maybe a five. He’s not really my type. Too untidy.”

“Five sounds about right,” Sour Sweet said. “Five and a half maybe, if I’m feeling generous. How about… Greystar?”

“Oh, Greystar?” That got Indigo’s attention. “I’d totally give him an eight. He’s on the soccer team after all. He’s quite the buff one, not to mention he’s got a sweet chin. Though, he’s nowhere near as good as I am.”

“If we’re talking buff, I’d give that buff boy over at CHS a ten!” Lemon Zest snickered. “He’s so ripped! I wonder what his name is.”

“I bet it’s something like Big Muscles,” Sunny joined in with a laugh. “But you’re right. If we didn’t go by looks, he’d be a ten. He’s sooo ripped...”

“You girls are so weak for muscles,” Sugarcoat sighed. “Muscles aren’t everything. Brains are more important.”

Sunny smiled. At least she still liked guys and could talk about what she liked in them.

“So what, you’d give Twilight Sparkle a ten?” Lemon Zest joked.

“Lemon, you know I don’t swing that way,” Sugarcoat said pointedly.

“Just kidding.” The pink-skinned girl scratched at her side. “I wonder what Twilight’s up to now? New school and all. She’s probably having a better time there.”

“We shouldn’t have pressured her to unleash that magic…” Sunny exhaled. “Imagine what she had to go through.”

“Yeah… Something I regret...” Lemon Zest nodded. “Hey, you think Twilight’s capable of getting a boyfriend?”

“I never really took her for a ‘boyfriend’ kind of girl,” Indigo said, taking a swig of her drink. “She’s in love with science.”

“Hehe, she is, isn’t she?” Lemon Zest chuckled. “Won’t it be ironic though, if she found a boyfriend before us.”

“No, it won’t be ironic,” Sour Sweet giggled and drank from her can of soda. “It would outright just be sad. I want a boyfriend too.”

“Yeah, me too. You think guys would be coming to me seeing as I’m just awesome.” Indigo pointed a thumb at herself. “I mean, we win every game in soccer and I’m the star of the team. Yet, no one’s even tried to ask me out!”

“Maybe they think you’re out of their league,” Lemon suggested. “I mean, you’re so high up there that any guy would think he’d have to impress you just to get your attention.”

“Man, so I don’t get a boyfriend because I’m too good and I also won’t get one if I stink?” Indigo buried her head in her arms. “What kind of sick world do we live in?”

“Sunny’s really the only lucky one of us to get a boyfriend.” Sour Sweet looked over at her. “But she blew her chance.”

“I did not!” Sunny said hotly. “We split up on mutual agreement.”

“That is so not true,” Indigo said with a grin. “You were so broken up after you two broke up, no pun intended.”

“You cried for a week,” Sugarcoat stated and looked at her fingers. “It was rather annoying.”

“Well, that’s because… that’s because he… Forget it. Yes, he broke up with me. But he did because I didn’t want to go further yet.” Sunny clenched her fists. “I mean, who does he think he is? We’re still only in high school!”

“I don’t know…” Lemon Zest put a finger to her chin. “I still kinda have a feeling that you were screwing a guy in the bathroom yesterday…”

Sunny’s light turquoise face morphed into a bright red one and she slammed a fist on her table. “I wasn’t! I told you I didn’t! I wasn’t with any guys! I was in the bathroom, because I had to use it!”

“Sunny did what?” Indigo looked over with a surprised smile. “No wonder you were so late for that briefing! Who was it? It wasn’t Domino, right?”

“I told you, I did nothing of that sort!” Sunny fumed. “I just… needed to relieve myself. Nothing else! None of you were there, so stop assuming things!”

“Okay, okay, gee, you don’t need to get so worked up about it, dude.” Lemon adjusted her headphones. “I’m just thinking how lucky you must’ve been if you and some boy wanted to-”

“I didn’t. So no, I haven’t had any other relationships since Domino, okay?”

“Okay, enough about Sunny then.” Sugarcoat waved to her friends. “She’s flustered enough as it is. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Fine by me.” Indigo put a hand to her chin and looked up at the ceiling. “Let’s say I do have a boyfriend… Who do you think it’ll be? Oh, you know who I think will be cool? Grey-”

“Greystar, yes, we figured.” Sugarcoat looked at her with a bored expression.

“Nah, I think Pepper Twist would be more suitable…” Lemon Zest laughed behind a hand.

“What?” Indigo stood up and stared at her. “No way! Ew, he’s too nerdy! He’s more of Sugarcoat’s type. Brainy.”

“Excuse me, but I don’t have a weakness for big brains like you girls do for big muscles.” Sugarcoat tipped her chin up. “And I do care about looks too. He’s not even on my list. He may be smart, but there’s no way he could ever keep up with any of us in sports.”

“So who would you pick, then?” Lemon Zest rested her chin on her arms and kicked her legs back and forth under the table, hitting Sunny twice.

“Ow, hey, stop!” Sunny pushed at her friend’s legs under the table.

“Hey, I know who Sugarcoat’ll pick!” Sour Sweet smirked and put her can of soda down. “Oscar Winner! He’s got the looks and the brains.”

“Well… he is… quite handsome.” Sugarcoat cleared her throat. Even with her stoic expression, her cheeks still colored. “Uh, enough about boys. We came here to study. Let’s get back to studying.”

“Aw, already?” Indigo leaned back in her seat. “I was hoping to talk about more boys.”

“There’s more to life than just boys.” Sugarcoat took her glasses off and polished them.

Sunny nodded in agreement. There’s more to life than just boys, alright. There’s Silver Rose too…

Sunny wasn’t going to say that out loud. It was bad enough her friends thought she had been with a boy in the bathroom, but if she were to tell them she was in love with Silver… There was no way she was going to live it down. For now, she had rather keep it all quiet and away from anyone else.

Except Fast Bender. She looked over to her various Fast Bender posters. Fast Bender was the only person she could talk to about this and even though she betrayed him by falling in love with Silver, he was still always there for her.

Oh, Fast Bender. I’m so sorry. I really don’t get what’s happening to me, but… I don’t want to fight it anymore. It’s too tiring to keep it up.

She wanted to talk to Fast Bender about what she was going to do about Silver, but until her friends went home, she would have to wait.

And study. There was a lot of studying to be done if she wanted to pass her exams with flying colors. She was a Shadowbolt. There were expectations to live up to.

And there was a secret to be kept.