Animus (The Midnight Series) | My Little Pony: Equestria Girls

Chapter 1: Lost

I
It was late at night. The storm was coming through, with the wind currents brushing up against the doors and windows. The weeds and branches of trees tap upon them, making a sound, as if someone was outside their home. The thunder was light, not touching the ground, nor disrupting the townspeople's sleep throughout the night. It was, instead, calming to listen to. The rain started to drizzle, as Sunset Shimmer heard it from her bathroom window. She was taking a long deserved bath, with candles surrounding the tub to give a dimness of light in an unlit room. Meditating with the sounds of the rain and wind, picking up the patterns, that was soothing to listen in. The tub was full of bubbles, which began to dissipate as she prolonged her time in the tub with her eyes closed.

She thought about her previous adventure with everyone, and wondered if Twilight was trying to say something to her. Majority of that incident was Midnight's doing, but Twilight might have had something to do with it. Was Twilight really jealous of Princess Twilight? She thought. Did she do all of that because of her? There were some things unexplained and remained a mystery, of everything she saw, all her research and paperwork inside a locked closet. All the things hidden, made Sunset start to shiver. She opened her eyes and saw that the bubbles were gone, and the tub was no longer hot. The candle wax was starting to spill out onto the floor as the flames grew thin, ready to burn out. Sunset doused them out, and she got out to turn on the lights. She grabbed a clean bathrobe from the towel rack at the opposite side of the sink, and drained the tub, drying out her long glossy fiery hair. Her arms felt numb from being in the air, as she wrapped a towel around her head.

II
As she walked out into the living room, the lamps were still on, making it a nice, dim atmosphere inside the room. The windows were foggy with raindrops pouring down on it from the outside, and the heat from the bathroom that was condensing inside. She could hear the nearby branches of trees, scratching up against the walls outside her home as the winds blew.

She sat down on her living room couch, still contemplating about Midnight. Her phone was sitting on the desk where her lamp and half drunken tea was left. She picked up her tea, it was cold and bittersweet, as she put it up to her lips to drink. She glanced at her phone and picked it up, and opened her lock screen. There were no messages or updates. They had gone through all that effort to get out some heavy secrets from each other, but nothing changed from an ordinary day. Perhaps they sometimes needed time to decompress, as they moved on. Most days were quiet, even during school. The only time they've spent together was during Rainbow Dash's games, or making an occasional vlog video, or even just wanting to hang out to celebrate something. And then comes trouble, which prompts them all to come together to take the evil down. Then it was back to a normal routine once again.

Sunset felt kind of out of place, given that she was a pony in a human world. If there was a human Twilight, was there a human Sunset? She went through phases of existential moments as the time spent there, felt like there was so much unexplained and also remained a mystery. She has not tried to search for the other Sunset. What good would that do? She would often ask herself. With all the vlog videos and internet fame she had, she was certain the other one would notice that there was another person like her in the world somewhere.

She also thought about what Princess Twilight said about going back to Equestria, maybe during the summer, she could go back to visit. That all depends if the portal was even opened.

As Sunset was sitting comfortably, and re-watching her vlog videos, she heard something outside her front door. She thought it could have been just the twigs or rocks being thrown around with the wind, but it sounded heavier than that. Sunset walked up to look, but as she stood up, she saw a quick flash outside her window by the front door. It could have been lightning, striking down into the ground, but she had not felt the light struck the earth, or the sound of a boom after it. It sounded as if her light bulb outside her front door had gone out. The sound of the glass breaking against something, in which could have been the dirt swallowed by the winds. She sighed as she contemplated putting up another light bulb tomorrow morning. She went to her cupboard to fetch a pack of light bulbs. Might as well do it now, because it's not something she usually had to do, so it would not even cross her mind the next day.