“…so I go into the manager’s office, thinking I’m in trouble for something—like a Bob-Cut complained that I didn’t fashion her latte with the exact percentage of whipped cream she was willing me to know by telepathy or something. And she starts asking me if everything is okay.”

Flash stopped for a moment to take a sip of the horribly unhealthy fast food milkshake, and Sunset gestured at him with the end of her double bean burrito. “That’s pretty strange….how does this tie back to what you were saying about your parents?”

He grimaced. “That’s the worst part. Apparently, my dad called and wanted to get a copy of my updated work schedule from my boss, and when my boss asked why they didn't just ask me, my dad told him it was because I ‘wasn't making the best judgment calls lately about things going on in my life,’ and that ‘I had been distant and closed off.’” The blue haired boy made a sound of frustration. “My boss thought he meant I had started doing drugs or had gotten involved with a gang or something like that, so I had to explain to her that my parents are overreacting because I’ve mended fences with my ex-girlfriend since we enjoy being ‘just friends.’”

Sunset winced and shrank a little into the seat. “Ponyfeathers…I’m sorry, Flash. I didn't mean for you to get into it with your parents over me.”

Glancing over, the other teen shook his head. “It's not your fault, Sunset, not this time. My parents are the ones incapable of accepting that I am capable of making decisions and don't want to believe that I’m over what I felt for you last fall…or believe that you’re a much better friend for me than you ever were a girlfriend. They have it in their heads that I’m still head over heels in love with you, and that all of this is me being willing to be your doormat for any scrap of attention.”

“…they…are aware that you were the one who broke up with me, right? I mean sure, I didn't fight it, and you know why, but…” She opened up her burrito to squeeze a packet of hot sauce into it, along with stuffing some cherry tomatoes and a few slices of red bell peppers into it from a snack bag leftover from her lunch, before rewrapping it and taking a hearty bite. The crunch of crisp veggies added to the otherwise fairly plain meal, and she hummed in appreciation, deciding to look up some recipes and experiment to make some kind of Equestrian style tacos and burritos.

Her friend sighed again. “It’s…it doesn't matter. They can't see that—only how badly I handled it when we broke up and I realized you’d used me.” He popped a loaded nacho into his mouth and made a face. “Ugh. Maybe a milkshake was not the best choice with this.” When Sunset snickered, he pointed a chip at her. “Uh huh, laugh it up, pony-girl. I'm sure you’ve got some bad food combo horror stories.”

“Anyway…I think it's just that thing parents do, you know? When they just don't get you, or have totally forgotten what it's like to be a kid. Even my grandparents are telling them to get over it and stop overreacting about stuff that's 'just part of being in high school.'” Flash looked over at her. “Do pony parents do that kind of thing too? Or is that just a human thing?”

The former unicorn fell quiet, using the large bite of food she’d just taken as a chance to organize her thoughts on the subject and figure out exactly what to say to him. Finally she swallowed, and took the plunge. “I…don't think they do it over the same things as humans,” she admitted. “Or at least…Princess Celestia never needed to get upset at me over what you're talking about. Most adolescent foals are usually focused on their cutie mark, either earning it or experimenting with the things related to it to figure out exactly what they want to do with their talents, and that's...encouraged by other ponies. You don't interfere in somepony's pursuit of where their cutie mark is driving them.” She ran a hand through her hair. “With me she was just always on my case about making friends, or about my behavior towards other students. Truth is, I started most of our arguments, not her.”

A frown pulled the corners of his mouth down. “What about your mom and dad?”

Of course he’d be the first one besides her girlfriend’s family to ask. Her other friends were curious about who she was in Equestria, but they were content to take what she gave them and focus on safer topics than on home and family. Her shoulders sagged a little, knowing the truth was going to spawn more questions. “…I don't know. Kind of hard to fight with ponies who I never knew.” Deciding to preempt at least a few questions and have control over the narrative, she added, “Princess Celestia found me abandoned in a forest fire when I was a newborn. She could never even identify who my parents were or what happened to them. I grew up as her ward.”

Silence, heavy and suffocating, filled the car for a long time as Flash sat there awkwardly. “Sunset…I…I’m sorry. I had no idea—”

“Of course not,” she interrupted. “I don’t bring it up for a reason, Flash. Not because it upsets me.” Could it really count as upsetting when it was just an ever present, half healed wound that never seemed to go away? “…but because of how others react. Can we…not make this weird?”

Flash watched her for a minute. “Yeah…sorry. I guess we all just kind of assumed you had a falling out with your family or something.”

She shrugged. “Honestly, I think that’s the better choice…it's…not too far from the truth anyway. I had a massive fight with Princess Celestia which is why I ran through the portal. She’s the closest thing I had to a parent.” Sunset took a drink of her Dr. Pepper, before trying to change the subject. “Anyway, I wish I had better insight for you about the stuff with your parents. I’m not sure what to say—I still barely understand Twilight’s parents, and I spend a lot more time at her house than I ever did yours.”

With a nod, he returned to working his way through his container of nachos. “Speaking of your girlfriend…you said something happened? You sounded pretty pissed.”

The burrito she’d just consumed turned into a lead weight in her guts. “….I am—not at Twilight, but…at this friend of hers. And I’m not even sure if I have any right to be angry, because she didn't say anything that wasn't true, but I was just getting used to not having everyone bring it up all the time…”

“Sunset,” Flash admonished. “Start at the beginning so I know what the heck you're talking about.”

Blushing, the former unicorn ducked her head in embarrassment. “Right. Sorry.” She ran a hand through her wild mane. “Okay, so…after we bumped into you last week, she wanted to introduce me to one of her friends from school, this girl named Wallflower.”

He nodded. “Okaaaay. With you so far. So what happened?”

Sunset blew air out her nose in a frustrated snort. “Twilight’s talked a bit about Wallflower before. They've been friends for a couple of years, they used to have a few other friends at school, but those friends moved or something. So it's just Wallflower and Twilight left there, and according to Twilight, Wallflower is quiet, kind of lonely, and doesn’t really have the best home life, but she likes gardening, tea, and is a decent friend. I even helped Twilight find her a birthday gift. I figured she’d be a little like Fluttershy, you know? Maybe a bit like Twilight.”

“I’m guessing that wasn't the case,” Flash commented.

“Not exactly…Twilight planned for us to meet up the other day after school at the Botanical Garden, because she figured it would have something for everyone.” Sunset took a drink from her straw. “I showed up, tried to be friendly…but…friendly in a way that was more calm and less…Pinkie?”

“So not screaming and setting off noise makers and throwing confetti?”

She snickered. “Yeeeah. I like Pinkie, but…I didn't want to be too much for someone I was told was ‘quiet.’ I said hi to Twilight first, sat down, and tried to keep it…relaxed. Like when you introduced me to the guys in the band?”

When he nodded, Sunset leaned her head back. “I really wanted it to go well. I want to eventually be able to tell her the truth and introduce her to the girls, because I know she’d like them, and this is kind of like…it's me meeting her friend, so I figured she felt the same way about it that I do about that. I want to like her friends too.”

Flash gestured at her with his drink. “Of course you do—because that's what a good friend, a good girlfriend does. And despite what anyone else thinks, you're a good friend, Sunset. You’ve become an amazing person.”

Her cheeks heated, and she ducked her head. “…Thanks, Flash.”

“So then what happened?”

The former unicorn puffed out a dramatic sigh. “She said hello back…sort of. It…wasn’t ugly or anything, but it felt…wrong. It felt like she was insulting me, but she wasn’t? I can't explain it, but it just made me feel really uncomfortable.”

Blue eyes watched her. “Did it feel…fake? Plastic?”

“Kind of?”

He hesitated a moment. “Did it feel like something you might’ve said in the way you would have said it…say a year ago?”

Sunset froze, remembering how she’d spoken of Princess Twilight when she’d learned the other pony was going to run for Fall Formal Princess. The smiling mask, the neutral-to-slightly-saccharine tones, the double meaning in her innocent sounding statement…even the way Applejack had seen right through the ruse and scowled at her.

“Horseapples,” she swore. “That's it exactly. It even set all of my old instincts on alert. I thought at first I was reading too much into it, that maybe I was…backsliding? But…”

Her friend patted her shoulder. “I doubt that. Nothing else has made you go back to the old way you did things, so why would this? You need to listen to those instincts, pony-girl when they say something is wrong. So she was… making thinly veiled insults?”

“It felt like it.” Sunset cribbed her thumb in thought. “I just kept trying to be nice. She asked about my jacket, I mentioned Rarity bought it for me as a gift, you know, talked a little about my friends, but it was like everything I said, her responses were…like you said: fake.” She hung her head. “I tried to ignore it, told myself it was me.”

Flash snorted. “So what happened next to make it so you couldn't? I know you. Something else happened.”

Was she really that transparent? “…Twilight…likes to talk…but it's…more like she likes to share her knowledge. I like it—I learn new things or get a new perspective, and it means we never run out of things to talk about… When she…gets on the subject of something though, she…can just keep talking about it, until she either runs out of information or you interrupt her. I usually wait it out or ask questions.” She frowned, feeling anger bubble up from the memory of the other day. “Wallflower just…cut her off. And she wasn't nice about it. She was…pretty…curt? Brusque? It was enough that it hurt Twilight’s feelings.”

“Which pissed you off.”

Sunset glanced at him. “In not so many words, yes. I gave Twilight some cash, and asked her to go get us some drinks, and then I confronted Wallflower.”

Nodding, Flash dumped his empty nacho container into the bag they were using as trash. “I can't say I blame you…”

She didn't blame herself that much either, not with how Twilight had looked, a mixture of surprise and a little hurt that Wallflower had been quite so cutting. “I don't know what I expected…but it wasn’t what she said. She…knew. Who I was before the Formal, I mean. Called me out for my past, accused me of using Twilight for my own ends…told me she didn’t believe people were capable of change…and even when I tried to explain that I’m not that person anymore…”

An arm draped around her shoulders in a friendly, comforting hug. “She didn't believe you.”

Eyes burning and guts twisting, Sunset leaned into the hug. “Worse. She…she told me to stay away from Twilight. That Twilight…deserved better than someone like me bothering her. That she didn't care what I did to people at CHS, but that someone like Twilight, like Wallflower herself, were superior to me. Like I was some kind of dirty mudp—” She caught herself, realizing that the slur wouldn't translate easily without a long explanation. “…it was just like what I used to hear when I was growing up in Equestria.”

The hug tightened briefly. “Spoken like a real Crystal Prep student,” Flash said in a sour tone. “That school really pushes the rhetoric that they are a million times better than others, that we should be happy they even acknowledge we exist. But it's not true. You know that, right? Twilight deserves a girlfriend…and a friend, if this is an example of the friends she has, that makes her happy, who cares about her the way you do. And no one should dictate who that person is besides her.”

The former tyrant queen of Canterlot High nodded tiredly against his shoulder. “I know…but…it made me so angry when she said it. It was like she was everypony who ever said those things, packed into one body, and she wanted to tear Twilight and me apart to prove it.” She pulled out of his hug, putting her face in her hands in shame and exhaustion. “I was so angry at her, I wanted to go over the table at her. I could feel my magic reacting, and it was all I could do to hold back a surge—I don't want to hurt anyone, and it would have probably killed her with how I felt…”

Sunset could feel his hand rubbing her back between her shoulders now. “You had a right to be angry. I would have been furious in your place... If you want my opinion at all, this Wallflower sounds like a real piece of work, even for a Shadowbolt.” Flash paused a second, before asking, “Did your magic get away from you?”

“No,” she whispered. “I contained it. Barely…but I was so angry with her, and when I looked at her…” The image flickered before her mind’s eye, of Wallflower giving her that victorious, arrogant…not a smirk but…expression that said she knew she’d gotten to Sunset…of that expression faltering and then giving way to actual fear. “I…she was scared of me, Flash. One second she was ready to drive me away from that table, and the next…” Green skin had turned ashen, eyes going wide and sweat breaking out on her forehead. Scared was an understatement. Wallflower had been utterly petrified of Sunset…but Sunset wasn't sure why. She’d been furious, and she knew her death glare was something she perfected in her time ruling over CHS—more than one student had been intimidated into hiding in a locker until she left—but even that had never triggered such a response.

“I mean, you can be pretty intimidating when you want to be, pony-girl. Especially when you're wearing your jacket and those boots,” the boy with her admitted. “And when you're angry…it's like this…” He wiggled a hand, trying to find the words. “You're suddenly bigger than yourself, and everyone can feel it.”

Sunset rubbed her face. “It didn't feel like that. It…” Swallowing hard, she shook her head. “It was way more scared than just me being angry.” Guilt and fear of her own gnawed at the back of her mind, but she refused to give it a shape, a voice. “I didn't threaten her or anything like that—all I did was give her a look while I was angry. I couldn’t do anything else, not with my magic threatening to surge.”

Flash studied her for a long minute, before nodding slowly. “Other than being intimidated, what did she do after that? She make any more threats to you? Say anything else nasty? Or did she back down?”

With a scowl, Sunset tipped her head back against the headrest. “She jumped back…almost knocked her chair over in the process. Then Twilight came back, and she made this excuse to leave. Claimed she was feeling sick.” She closed her eyes, replaying the scene in her memory. “Twilight believed her because she looked pretty bad. She was pale, and shaky, and looked like she wanted to throw up. She couldn't get away from us fast enough.”

“She wasn't really sick though. She just looked that way because of me.” Her old friend shame returned, bringing its sibling guilt with it.

Her friend was quiet, thoughtful. “You want to know what I think, Sunset?”

“…yes?” the redhead responded, preparing herself for some unflattering truth.

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, Flash started slow. “First, I think you need to learn to trust your instincts about people more—you felt like something was off from the get-go and you were right. Now, what exactly was going on is…hard to say. This Wallflower does go to CPA, and that superior attitude, with the whole ‘our money and breeding makes us better than you’ is pretty much something that gets drilled into them. Lyra used to go there, and she’s commented that they even do that to each other there. Maybe that's what caused it.”

“Or…maybe she’s had a shitty home life. Twilight told you she doesn't have a large friend group, right? You said it sounded like it wasn't a great time at home?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Twilight suggested she’s lonely.”

“Maybe she is,” Flash agreed. “Maybe she’s afraid that with someone like you in the picture, Twilight wont have time for her anymore. Especially if all she’s heard is about the old Sunset, plus your girlfriend singing your praises.”

Sunset sighed glumly. “I was kind of a bitch, and I didn't share with others well, you mean?”

Flash coughed. “I wasn't going to put it that way, but…kind of?”

“You don't have to be nice, Flash. I was pretty awful. I turned into a demon—hard to argue for the innocence of my soul when that happened.”

He gave her a light punch to the shoulder. “Stop that. I'm not trying to put you down. I'm trying to give you my thoughts here on why Wallflower was antagonistic. And if she was agitated about you ‘having an ulterior motive,’ maybe she was trying to protect Twilight in the only way she knows. In this case by being a Crystal Prep bully.”

The former unicorn turned the thought over in her mind. “…then…why was she scared at the end?”

Flash let out a heavy, slow sigh. “Do you know why you were so intimidating when you were a bully?”

That drew her up short. She’d never considered it much, assumed it was much the same reason other foals had been intimidated by her. “…because of my temper?”

He laughed, the sound a tad bitter. “Hardly. No…it's because most bullies are full of hot air. They threaten and puff out their chests and talk big, but most of them crumple the instant you call their bluff. One punch, one challenge, one person who doesn't cower, and they've lost. You weren't like that. Everyone knew you could back up anything you threatened with, whether it was putting someone on the ground or ruining their social life or making good on whatever blackmail you had on them. Princess Twilight was the first person—well…pony, I guess—to be able to out do your games…and she was the first one to be able to call your bluff.”

The once-bully was silent for a long time. She had never given much thought during her reign of terror to why her tactics worked so well, but now that Flash had drawn her attention to it, she thought about it. She analyzed her own memories carefully, seeing the truth in his words, and pushed some hair behind her ears tiredly. “I didn't mean to,” she whispered, feeling ashamed more than ever at how she’d reacted to Wallflower. “I wasn't trying to bully her back…”

“Hey—none of that now, pony-girl!” Flash admonished. “I never said what you did was bullying her. She was being a bully herself, and you had every right to react badly. What I’m saying is that when you get upset, especially when you're angry, you are willing and able to act, and people can tell. So you went from being super friendly and trying to be nice to ‘wanting to go over the table at her’…and I don't think she was prepared for that.” He made a face. “It freaked her out because she’s probably never met anyone like you, Sunset. The bullies she’s used to talk big, but the one who does all the heavy hitting for them is their dads and their parents’ money.”

She blew air out her nostrils slowly, more a sigh than a snort. “ …maybe…”

“It's more plausible than you spontaneously developing like, angry magic eyes or reverting to the former Sunset ala ‘Mean Girls 2: The Re-Bitch-ening.’”

Sunset sat in silence for a long time, deciding that maybe Flash had a point. The behavior she had witnessed had been everything she’d heard CPA accused of, and it would have fit right in with the noble brats of CSGU. She rubbed her face. “…but what do I tell Twilight?” When he looked at her oddly, the redhead elaborated. “Twilight was really excited to have me be friends with Wallflower…and I’m not entirely sure how to break it to her that I don't think that’s going to happen…”

The young man in the car with her drummed his fingers on his steering wheel in thought. “Maybe…just tell her the truth? That Wallflower thinks you're still the old Sunset, and that’s going to make it pretty hard to be on friendly terms?”

“I guess…I just don't want her to think I’m making this all Wallflower’s fault?” Sunset cribbed her thumbnail worriedly…

Only for her friend to reach over and pull her hand away from her mouth. “Be honest about that too. That her suspicion of you makes you feel lousy. At that point it's less about one person ‘being more at fault’ and more about you and Wallflower rubbing each other wrong.” He smiled. “If she’s half as amazing as you make her put to be, pony-girl, she’ll probably be more concerned with how bad it made you feel than anything.” He winked teasingly. “If I was in her place, and my girlfriend told me that, I’d be worried more about that than my girlfriend not getting along with my friend from school.”

“Haha, Flash. You're a regular comedian,” Sunset told her ex-boyfriend. Crossing her arms over her chest, Sunset hunched in on herself a bit in her seat. “…I hope you're right though…”

Hey gang!

We're back, as promised! Got a lot done over the hiatus--something like 50-60K words, hooray! Hope everyone had a great holiday season, and that you all ate good food, enjoyed time spent with loved ones, and got some neat things that you wanted or needed.

Got some fun news coming down the pipe soon, but I want to wait til I have something more definitive to share before I talk about it.

As for the chapter...

Yes, that was a reference to a "Karen" in the first sentence. We sat around going "what would they call a Karen in a world with pony names. Ended up naming them after the obnoxious hair cut so many of them wear.

More background and lore crumbs sprinkled in here, and now Sunset has admitted to someone about her family background (or lack thereof.) Good guy Flash, its like his car is a magic therapy mobile begging people to spill their secrets.

Or maybe its just the combination of food and privacy that compels teens to talk.

And we now see a bit of what was going through Sunset's head during the Wallflower scene. Yikes. What a difference, hmm?

I'm sure it'll be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine though. It wont cause any problems at all for our girls.

That's all for now. See you guys next week!