Sunset and Twilight were swallowed by a bubble of pure arcane magic. Sunset let out a yell as it swept over her body, but the bubble did nothing more than tickle her all over. Sunset blinked and glanced at a panic-stricken Twilight.

“That was… a little anticlimactic,” Sunset said. “Now…”

The light around them shifted from rainbows to a swirling blue globe.

“I should have known better,” Sunset groused.

Then were was nothing but a strangely distorted sense of being blasted an enormous distance. Lights and colors flashed around them as well as—strangely enough—bookshelves. Neither of them spoke a word as they peered around, wondering what had just happened, all the while hoping what they thought had happened hadn’t happened.

There was a flash of pure darkness that chilled Sunset to the core, leaving her feeling wrong inside. An instant later, they were in brilliant light. They made it almost fifteen seconds in that beautiful light.

Then, with a sensation like a thunderclap in Sunset’s brain, they came to a rather abrupt halt.

Sunset caught sight of a mop bucket right before impact.

“I’m sorry, Princess!” Sunset Shimmer squeaked as she cowered before her new teacher. “I… I didn’t mean to! It was an accident! I promise!”

The imposing form of the Princess of the Sun seemed to take up the whole world. She was huge compared to Sunset. Even all the lessons her parents had given her seemed to run away and hide at her stony silence. Sunset cowered beside the charred wood of the smoldering bookcase, wishing she could hide somewhere where the scary Princess wouldn’t find her!

Then, the Princess of the Sun did something Sunset didn’t expect.

She laughed.

It was a long and loud laugh. It was an honest laugh. It wasn’t anything like her parent’s laughs, Aunt Bruschetta’s laugh or any of her parents’ friends’ laughs. It sounded real.

“Ahh…” Princess Celestia said with a smile. “It’s been centuries since I met a pony capable of wielding sunfire, my dear little filly. It’s a good sign, I think.”

“A… a good sign?” Sunset sputtered, still trying to hide in the shadow of the pony standing before her. She was so tall! “How… how is me burning your stuff a… a good thing? My parents got so mad whenever I had an accident like this!”

“Well, I’m not your parents, am I?” Princess Celestia’s eyes twinkled. “It’ll take some time to tame that spell. Still, I knew you were special from the day I saw your entrance exam. This just proves how special you are, Sunset Shimmer.”

“Why… why is me burning stuff special?”

The Princess’s horn glowed for a moment in that pretty gold color she had. And then, to Sunset’s total shock, she flung a ball of sunfire the size of Sunset herself at the remains of the empty bookcase. The bookcase exploded into flaming splinters. Sunset screamed, but when she finally opened her eyes, she found herself completely safe inside a bubble of that same pretty magic.

“Because that means you’re a lot like me, Little Sun,” Princess Celestia said as she floated Sunset onto her back. Sunset almost slipped, but her little hooves found purchase when Celestia raised her wings to help the filly get situated.

“Little Sun?” Sunset squeaked, still shivering in both fear and awe.

“Yes, my dear student. Little Sun. I think it suits you.”

“N-Nopony’s ever given me a nickname before… not one that… that wasn’t mean…” Sunset murmured.

“Do you like it?” The Princess turned her head to smile at Sunset.

Sunset nodded, her head bobbing up and down as fast as she could make it go. “Yes, Princess!”

Princess Celestia beamed at her and it seemed like the sun had just come out after a month of stormy skies. “Still, why don’t we hold off on training with that until you’re a bit older, huh?”

“O-okay, Princess. I’m… I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be, Little Sun,” Princess Celestia said as she carried Sunset out of the old training room. “After all, now more than ever, I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”

Sunset blinked, but remained in darkness. She waved her hoof in front of her eyes, but she seemed to be as blind as the proverbial bat.

She sat up slowly, wincing with the effort. Everything ached. She did a quick physical inventory, but found herself still in her winter coat, and boots, as well as everything else she should have. However, she had the mother of all headaches pulsing through her skull, coming straight through her horn.

“Well, that was fun,” Sunset groaned as she pushed herself to her hooves and felt around. “Twilight, I swear if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’m going to tell Moon Dancer exactly what happened to her copy of Predictions and Prophecies.”

No answer.

She paused. “Twilight?”

Still no answer.

For a split second, panic gripped her. Then her lessons—and training—kicked in.

She wasn’t a first-year filly scared of the dark. She was Sunset Shimmer.

Are you now? whispered the voice in the depths of her mind. You do know this whole thing is your fault, right? If you hadn’t tried to pull her tail, nothing would have happened.

Sunset cast a light spell... or at least tried to.

You are Sunset Shimmer, right? the voice mocked. You can’t even do a light spell! For all you know, you just teleported into a dragon’s lair! And you’re helpless! Too bad, so very, very sad.

Sunset gritted her teeth and reached deep within herself. Whatever had just happened had nearly tapped out her magic reserves. Nearly.

She grinned. Her horn flashed to life and a tiny sun—little more than a star, really—appeared above her head.

“Now that’s more like it,” Sunset said with a relieved sigh. Filly or no, nopony liked being in a completely dark room.

She’d expected the light to reveal an ancient archive of forgotten scrolls, a derelict castle, a lost library, an ancient temple… or maybe another bookstore.

“A broom closet? Really?” Sunset’s ears flopped down. “Talk about a let down... “

She glared at the collection of cleaning supplies, brooms and mops. Then she shook herself and focused. She needed to find…

Twilight was sprawled on the other side of the tile floor, next to a shelf containing some jugs of cleaner.

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief. “Twilight, come on, get up.”

Twilight didn’t move. She didn’t even twitch.

“Twi?”

Nothing.

Sunset’s heart nearly stopped. She scrambled over to Twilight and shook her hard. “Twilight! Hey! Twilight, wake up!”

Twilight finally reacted.

“Go away, sleeping,” she snorted in a thick voice.

She even waved a hoof as if shooing Sunset away.

“Twilight.” Sunset ground her teeth together. She was not in the mood for this. Not when the other mare had just about given her a heart attack. And got them teleported to Celestia-knew-where.

“Said go away...” Twilight mumbled. “Sleep now, brain later.”

“You really must be out of it for your grammar to get that bad,” Sunset muttered, rubbing her face.

She flopped to her haunches and glanced around, trying to take stock of things. But they were actually in a somewhat large, but ordinary-looking broom closet. There were brooms. A few mops. A pair of buckets. Some shelves with miscellaneous cleaning supplies. A bit more sand on the ground than normal for anywhere in Canterlot. And… that’s it.

For her own peace of mind, she strained to increase the illumination levels of her spell. She shivered as the light grew. The last time she had pushed herself this close to empty had been combat practice with the Unicorn Elite Division a few months ago. And that had been after about thirty or forty sunfire bolts.

And… what had been… had that been a dream earlier…?

“Dammit Sunset!” She shook her head. This was crazy. Had she taken a blow to the head? “Come on, think!”

Twilight mumbled something in her sleep. Something about Moon Dancer… and Sunset.

“Okay, Twilight!” Sunset shouted, shaking Twilight roughly and trying desperately to quell the blush on her face. “Nap time’s over. Wake up!”

“G’way,” Twilight mumbled, slapping Sunset weakly with her hooves. “Busy. Sleep.”

Sunset’s temper snapped. Sunset had just wanted a book. A book! She hadn’t asked to be teleported to Celestia-knew-where! This was crazy! But she couldn’t just abandon Twilight here. For all she knew, that door could lead to an entire family of timberwolves!

Okay, probably not timberwolves, but after that stupid little comment, sleep time is over!

“Enough, Twilight.” Sunset focused and tried to levitate the unicorn to her hooves, but Twilight just slipped bonelessly to the ground with a snore. “Oh, for the love of Harmony…”

Maybe it was the teleportation. Maybe it was the completely insane direction this night had gone. Maybe it was something else entirely, but only one idea occurred to Sunset. An idea that brought a smile to her face.

Sunset took a deep breath, cleared her mind and focused. She allowed her magic to simply flow into her horn—and was rather surprised when a lot more magic came to her. It was a heady sensation. In an instant, her reserves were restored. The rest, she used on her spell.

Then, she imagined her target. It wasn’t easy. But she still was Sunset Shimmer. No matter what else happened, Sunset remained Princess Celestia’s personal student in the field of magic for a reason.

Sunset released the spell and heard a pop. She opened her eyes and grinned. Conjuration was the only type of magic that ever gave her any sort of trouble. The irony wasn’t lost on her since Twilight was a natural at it. That made this all the more fitting.

Sunset levitated the metal object over Twilight’s prone form, sat down and took a breath.

Then she upended the water bucket onto Twilight’s head.

“Gah!” Twilight squealed as she jumped straight to her hooves, sopping wet, mane dripping and plastered to her head, her glasses streaked with water. She looked around wildly before her eyes locked on Sunset.

“Nice of you to join us,” Sunset said dryly as dropped the bucket with a resounding bang. The sound in the confined room was enough to make Twilight jump again.

“What in Equestria?” Twilight sputtered, her eyes livid. “What was that for?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was to get your flank in gear!” Sunset shot back. “We were just teleported to Celestia-knows-where by some ancient spell matrix and you were taking a nap and—!”

She couldn’t quite bring herself to say what Twilight had said in her sleep. She was too busy scrubbing it from her own mind.

Yeah, like I’m going to let you do that, cackled her evil little demon.

Twilight blinked a few times and conjured a cleaning cloth to wipe her glasses. Sunset made sure not to enjoy just how annoyingly cute Twilight looked with her mane a sopping mess. She wasn’t enjoying it. Not one bit. No matter what anypony said. Especially the one in the back of her skull.

“Where are we?” Twilight asked, apparently deciding to drop the matter of the rude awakening.

“Broom closet.”

“And where is this broom closet?”

“No idea.”

“Have you tried… I don’t know, the door?” Twilight said scathingly.

“And what? Just leave you here? When I have no idea what’s out there? So very sorry for being a little cautious after being magically flung to a broom closet!”

Twilight paused. “Okay, point taken.”

Sunset slowly climbed to her hooves, glaring at Twilight as what had been repressed frustration started to boil over. “I have a better question for you, Twilight. How about you explain to me what in Celestia’s flaming flanks you were doing back there?”

The last few words may have come out as a screech, but Sunset was pretty sure they were at least intelligible.

“Investigating!” Twilight shot back. “Do you have the slightest clue what finding a functioning Linking Chamber could mean? We could actually uncover what they were meant to do! We may have just done exactly that! You don’t know the legends, Sunset. You’re not a librarian!”

“No, I don’t know the legends!” Sunset stepped forward, inches away from the wet mare. “And frankly, I don’t care. I wanted to get out and you just had to go playing with the runes!”

“I never thought it would actually work!” Twilight waved her hooves around, sending water droplets flying. “It was seven hundred years old!”

“And that’s a good excuse?”

“I just…” Twilight’s fire died in an instant as her voice cracked. “I just… I wanted to see it. I read about these all the time. These legends, these mysteries. I wanted to know! Moon Dancer and I go on and on about them. Secrets forgotten, long-lost treasures and relics, things like Ponyhenge and the Chaos Realm… and I… I had one right there in front of me… but now… now…”

Sunset hesitated and reached out for Twilight, but she turned away and slumped to the ground.

“I didn’t think. I just… wanted to see what would happen. I never meant for this to happen! For all we know we could be on the other side of the world with no way of getting home, just the two of us stranded here…”

She sniffled softly.

Some part of Sunset, a combination of her angry little pony and the other piece that kept admiring just how cute Twilight looked when sopping wet decided to point out something right then. Namely, that being stranded with Twilight in some unknown place wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Sunset shook her head, shoved that entire line of thinking away and stepped over to sit beside the crying Twilight.

“Twilight,” Sunset said. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It’s all just a lot to take in and… ugh. I’m sorry, okay? We don’t actually know what happened. We don’t know what’s outside that door. For all we know, we’re in one of the Cosmo’s broom closets. Maybe it was all a little hazing by Scrollwork or Ink Method. Maybe Moon Dancer set this up as a Hearth’s Warming Gift to you.” She knew she was grasping at straws, but it was the best she could come up with. “It’ll probably be fine and even if it’s not… you do still have me.”

“Really?” Twilight turned and looked up at her with two enormous violet eyes. Eyes that held entire galaxies of stars within them, shielded only by a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

Sunset swallowed and realized just how close they were at that moment. As trite as it was, her heart hammered in her chest as the skin beneath her coat prickled.

Damn. You got it bad, Sunny.

Nopony asked you! Sunset snapped back

“Y-yes, really.” Sunset took a slow breath and forced herself not to do anything stupid. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. We… we first need to look around.”

“Uh…” Twilight shied back a little as she dripped on Sunset. “You mind if I dry myself off first?”

“As long as you don’t ask me to help.”

“Oh, no. I um… mastered the spell after that big snowball fight with the Princess.”

Sunset winced. “Of course you did.”

They slowly separated, though Sunset wondered if Twilight really needed a drying spell. The air seemed oddly hot and arid. In fact, as Twilight’s spell dried both herself and her winter clothes, Sunset decided to pull off her own scarf and coat and drape them over her back. She really didn’t want to use a pocket dimension quite yet.

About a minute later, both of them were on either side of the door. There was a tapestry on the back that looked fairly new, but a little neglected. Sunset was a little disappointed they found it just to be an alternating pattern of orange and blue.

“Okay, Twilight… you ready? Anything could be out there.”

Twilight didn’t look ready in the slightest, but she nodded anyway, nibbling on one of her still-damp bangs. Sunset positioned herself between Twilight and the door, took a deep breath, and yanked the door inward. Instantly, she threw up a teal shield of pure magic, just in case something rushed them.

However, nothing rushed them because beyond lay…

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sunset gaped.

“Another bookstore?” Twilight asked.

Sunset blinked a few times and dropped her shield. Twilight stepped up beside her as they peered through the door.

Neat shelves ran in long rows before them, ending at a wall with an enormous shuddered window through which bright sunlight streamed. The bookstore seemed to be one massive room, with a pair of heavy double doors, both with the strange tapestry-like curtain attached to the back of each. There were statues of oddly-proportioned ponies in each corner of the room, all of them in positions of enjoying a book lying in their forehooves.

While the place was deserted, it didn’t feel abandoned. There was simply no one there… as the moment.

“Hello?” Sunset called.

No answer. Hesitantly, she stepped out into the alien bookstore. Twilight crept out behind her and looked around. Sunset wandered to one of the bookshelves and glanced down at the titles. Oddly enough, titles on the book’s spines weren’t written in Equestrian. At least, not ‘Common’ Equestrian.

Her heart froze as she realized what she was seeing. Before she could say a word, Twilight stepped over and gasped.

“Sunset…” she squeaked. “Is that—”

Sunset’s ears perked and she shoved a hoof over Twilight’s mouth. Somepony was coming. Sunset gestured toward the front doors and made a motion to hide. Twilight nodded, her eyes wide and they both scrambled back toward the broom closet.

They made it about three steps before the front doors opened.

“Why, hello there!” a friendly accented voice boomed from behind them. “I know it is hard to wait for a good book, but it is customary to…”

The stallion’s voice trailed off. Sunset glanced at Twilight and they shared a wince. Slowly, they turned.

A large grey stallion stood in the doorway, his dark mane blowing in from the warm breeze coming in from outside the bookstore. Piercing blue eyes studied them over the top of a pair of narrow rectangular spectacles. He looked like an earth pony—he didn’t have a horn or wings, but at the same time his build was… wrong. He was almost as tall as Celestia and appeared far stronger-looking than most ponies Sunset had seen in Canterlot. Or Equestria for that matter.

Sunset didn’t look behind him. It was too bright to see out there anyway. She had a horrible sensation she already knew what she’d see.

“I must apologize,” the stallion said with a little bow of his head. “And you’ll forgive me if this sounds rude, young ones, but who are you and how did two Equestrian mares come to be in my shop before I opened the doors?”

He raised an eyebrow. He didn’t seem angry… just curious. And slightly amused. Sunset took that as a good sign. For a certain value of ‘good.’

“I’m… I’m… Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset said, her heart still beating in her chest like a jackhammer. “This is my friend, Twilight Sparkle. As for how we got here…”

The truth sounded ridiculous. Then again, most magical shenanigans usually did.

“Sir, where are we?” Twilight blurted out. She was trembling.

“You mean… you don’t know?” The stallion chuckled and gestured for the two of them to come closer. Sunset didn’t especially want to, but considering they were trespassing, it didn’t seem like a good idea to annoy the stallion. “How did you arrive if you do not know?”

“Teleport,” Sunset supplied quickly. “Teleport spell that… didn’t work like… any teleport spell I’ve ever seen. It brought us here… we weren’t really expecting anything… definitely not to appear in a broom closet.”

“Young one, are you saying you teleported into my broom closet?”

Sunset nodded slowly.

The stallion nodded slowly. “It has been some time since anypony has arrived in such a manner. I should probably clean up in there. Oh well, nothing to be done. Come, you seek to know where you are, young ones.”

The stallion turned and stepped outside the shop. Sunset and Twilight didn’t really have many other options. They followed. With every hoofstep, Sunset prayed she would be wrong. She couldn’t handle the irony if she was right.

The stallion’s bookstore stood on top of a long terrace with a stunning view of the land beyond. He walked right up to the edge and gestured to the bright distant horizon. The cries of seagulls filled the air. The air itself shimmered with heat as they stepped out from under the brightly-colored canopy of the patio. Below them stretched a massive city of great spires and domes, reminding Sunset of a squatter version of Canterlot, though every structure was in earth tones with highlights of gold. Beyond that, Sunset could make out the great shining sea and an enormous dock complex that dominated the waterfront.

“Welcome, young ones, to Jeddahoof, the brightest jewel in all of Saddle Arabia.”

“Oh come on!” Sunset cried.

This chapter has probably my favorite cliffhanger/end stinger in the whole damn book.

Also, don't you hate slamming into ancient mop buckets after being chucked out of a magical orb and having a vision of yourself cowering before the freakin' Goddess of the Sun? I know I do.