normie

>Hey girls, you ever wonder why Anon is always alone?
>FS: "He probably just likes being alone, Sunset."
>SS: You know what the good book says! No man is an island! I'm going to go talk to him.
>Sunset meanders her scrawny body over to Anon and his empty table
>SS: Hey Anon, I saw you were alone and I was just wondering why that is.
Well, it's not really any of your business, but I'm alone 'cause I like to be alone.
>SS: Oh, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure you weren't depressed by a crippling sense of existential dread!
Nah, nothing like that. I appreciate you asking about it, though. It's good to be reminded that the school is still a welcoming place!
>SS: I know, right? Well, seeya in class later!
Yeah, see you later!


>Be Sunset Shimmer
>Be in class the next day
>Be in the back of the room
>Anon is sitting two seats to your left.
>Cheerilee is lecturing about Rome
>again.
>You used to be so interested in human history, and you still are.
>Just not Rome.
>They never stop talking about Rome.
>You decided to liven up today's sentence.
>You check your backpack
>Notebook: Check
>Pencil: Check
>Unending need for inter-student togetherness: Check
>You write out a message.
"hey, you have cranky for 5th, right? could I get some help on the c20 ws?"
>You fold it, and write on the front:
"anon"
>Nice.
>You check your left
>Lyra
>You pass the note to Lyra.
>You gesture for her to pass it farther left.
>You gesture again.
>She looks at you, looks at the note, and then finally passes it to her left.
>She just tosses it onto Anon's desk.
>You turn to face the front of the room again.

>Even though you're sitting in the back, you doubt that staring off into space will go unnoticed
>After a few minutes, a note falls onto your desk
"hey, you have cranky for 5th, right? could I get some help on the c20 ws?"
"yeah sure
meet you in front of the statue after school"
>You turn to see Anon also pretending to listen to the lecture
>With a little wave of your hand you get him to look at you.
>You give a thumbs up.
>He smiles and nods.
>Nice.

>Be five minutes after school lets out
>You're standing in front of the statue waiting for Anon to arrive.
>After a few more minutes, Anon comes wandering out of the front door with the final trickle of students
>He comes up to you, spinning his backpack around to his front and starts searching for some papers
>"Hey, sorry it took a little bit. Had to get it all together."
No problem, thanks for helping me out here anyway.
>"Oh yeah, don't even worry about it"
>He finally pulls out a red folder
>"Okay, there it is. c20, right?"
Right. Thanks a lot Anon. I'll have this back to you at lunch.
>"Cool, hope it helps you out! See you later."
>And with that he starts walking off.
Yep, seeya!
>You start to make your way to your car
>This will give you at least an hour or two of more free time tonight.
>You might finally start to be able to get some real things done.

>Be at home
>It's an apartment, not too far and not too close to all of your usual hang-outs.
>After your reformation you couldn't exactly extort people for food and shelter like you used to.
>You ended up getting a job at the Cake Cafe, barely a walk from the school.
>It's part time, but the pay is enough to make do.
>Pinkie Pie had to absolutely beg the Cakes to make it a living wage.
>Apparently they're closer friends than you thought, because they actually agreed.
>You've tried ever since to make sure you earned the bloated paycheck.

>But that was yesterday, and tomorrow.
>Today you are free.
>You throw your backpack onto the small coffee table sitting in the main room.
>Next, you throw yourself down onto the sofa sitting behind it.
>You pull the backpack over to your side of the table where you can unzip it and find the red folder Anon had given to you.
>Pulling it out, you quickly flick the worn front open and scan the papers inside.
>You had expected the two pages of the worksheet, but you were surprised to find five pages stapled together
>Two for the worksheet itself and the other three were apparently notes to go with the answers.
>Anon was more thorough than you gave him credit for.
>You guess that not having many people to spend time with gives you a lot of potential to focus on other things.

>You've never really had a chance to live that kind of life, you don't even think you would want to.
>When you first arrived in this world, you were too preoccupied with fear, confusion, and anger to spend time doing much of anything but surviving.
>After you had found your way into Canterlot High, you were too preoccupied with adapting to an entirely different academia to spend time doing much of anything but studying.
>Once you had cemeted yourself as the de facto ruler of the school, you were too preoccupied with maintaining your social kingdom to spend time doing much of anything but ruling.
>Now that you've found your place with the girls, you're too preoccupied with living your new life to spend time doing much of anything without your friends.
>You start to wonder how it would feel to be alone without any other obligations or needs to distract you.
>To be content with loneliness.

>You close the folder and toss it onto the table.
>You just spent the past five minutes staring past Anon's work.
>You get up and move to the small kitchen across the room.
>Small fridge, small microwave, small sink.
>The only thing not small in this entire apartment is your appetite.
>You had missed lunch today to work on the latest project for Cheerilee's class.
>The subject being "explain how the limitations of iron age technology affected the birth and growth of the Roman empire".
>Rome.
>It never, ever stops.
>You pry open the freezer and scan the food inside.
>Nothing appealing.
>You check the fridge.
>...
>You check the freezer.
>Microwave spaghetti.

>You open the box and let the frozen plastic bowl containing your next meal hit the counter like a rock.
>Following the instructions, you peel back a corner from the plastic sheet covering the food and slide it into the microwave.
>Four minutes.
>With nothing else to do but start copying Anon's work, you head back to the couch.
>Before you throw yourself completely into mindlessly transcribing the finished product onto your own worksheet, you decide that it would be smart to check to make sure Anon had everything down.
>Not that you didn't trust his ability, but you'd like to play it safe.
>A few minutes tick by as you check the first and last answers of the c20 worksheet.
>It's all good.
>The microwave beeps from the kitchen.
>You go to stir it, and pop it back in for two more minutes.
>You're finished copying the first page when it beeps again.
>You bring your early dinner over to the table finish off the last page.
>You had copied the answers and whatever notes Anon had left on the worksheet itself down onto your copy.
>You aren't incredibly worried about being found out.
>You were a top student in Cranky's class, you could probably get away with a lot worse than this as long as the correct answers were there.

>That probably would have taken all night.
>You don't really have anything else to do.
>You hadn't made any plans, you figured you'd be doing homework all day.
>But between the library and Anon's help, you don't have anything left to work on.
>No schedule, no deadline, no magical disasters or friendship problems.
>Nothing to do, and no one to spend time with.
>Huh.

>You chew on your spaghetti.
>You wish you had splurged for the box with garlic bread.
>You let yourself fall back into the couch.
>You don't really know what to do with yourself.
>Forcing yourself to do something might be a nice distraction.
>You have some shows to catch up on.
>Calling your friends is always an option.
>There's probably a whole list of things you could do.
>But you're bored. There's no way around it.
>If you don't do something, you aren't going to do anything.
>You have to do something.
>Now.
>...
>Right now.

>With a groan, you pull yourself up from the couch.
>Sitting the empty spaghetti bowl on the coffee table, you rethink your options.
>A walk sounds good.
>Probably a walk right out to the supermarket.

>Your income doesn't really allow for much variation in your diet.
>Usually, your haul consists of fruit, vegetables, bread, condiments, dairy products, and frozen dinners.
>Frozen dinners are the last resort before an emergency, for that you have a whole stack of canned foods in the kitchen doors.
>You just finished off the last frozen meal.
>If you didn't head out today, you'd have to tomorrow.

>You start cleaning up.
>Anon's papers go in the red folder.
>Your papers go in the orange binder.
>Bowl goes in the trash.
>Spaghetti box and plastic film go in the trash.
>Red folder and orange binder go in your backpack.
>You stop cleaning up.

>You check that your wallet is still in your pocket.
>You have your phone.
>You have your keys.
>Smooth out the sofa pillows.
>Good to go.
>You head out the door, lock it behind you, and start your walk.

>It's not a crazy long walk. About a mile or so.
>Shouldn't take more than an hour and a half to get back.
>More than enough time to relax a little.
>You hadn't noticed until you had stepped outside, but ever since you had gotten home you'd been tense.
>Hitting the fresh air past your door got you a bit more focused.
>Perfect, a good walk is great.

>You start making your way down the road of your apartment complex.
>Your building is one of the closest to the exit, just a straight line down the street and a left.
>A few cars pass you by. Mostly just young college kids getting back from school or job.
>The complex was pretty far from the nearest university, and it wasn't officially for students, but from what you've heard it's one of the cheapest available for miles around campus.
>You make it onto the main street and start the 20 minute or so walk to the nearest supermarket.
>These walks are one of the few times you can actually zone out without feeling guilty or ending up snapping yourself out of it with your own boredom.
>You have a job that needs to get done and you're doing it.
>20 minutes passed by extremely quick.

>You find yourself approaching a parking lot.
>Even more cars are here.

>It's like an Equestrian market, always bustling.
>Except there's hundreds of them, everywhere.
>You make your final move off the sidewalk and step into parking lot, maneuvering yourself around to the entrance of the medium sized building.
>The double doors slide open in front of you.
>"Hi there! Welcome to The Shop!"
>You reflexivly turn to look at the person talking to you, raising your head a bit to smile correctly.
>Just a cashier.
>Who is no longer looking at you.
>You drop your head and pick up the pace into the aisles.

>Okay, you made it.
>What do you need?
>Wait, what do you need?
>You forgot to prepare a list.
>You could have spent the last twenty minutes thinking about what you were going to get.
>Shoot.
>Even though the final products you purchased were always about the same kind of food, you liked to diversify what exactly you bought so that you didn't end up hating food by the time you needed more.
>That required two things.
>First, that you knew what you had gotten the last time.
>Second, that you knew how much food you needed to replace.
>While you may be able to remember your past meals, you definetly don't remember checking if you needed more condiments or milk.
>Okay, game plan.
>You need dairy stuff, and for all you know what you have at the apartment may be expired. You're going to have to buy some now.
>You do not need condiments. Whatever you have at the apartment will have to do.
>You've got a mental checklist titled 'buy anything but this' which lists all of the stuff you prepared over the past week and a half.
>Got it.
>Good.
>Let's go.

>You're on a mission.
>You don't bother getting a shopping cart, you're going to have to be carrying all the groceries home anyway.
>First on the list: Bread
>You remember the aisle with bread from your dozens of other trips here, and head out.
>You find it.
>There's a bunch of bread here.
>Too many kinds of bread.
>You usually stick to the basics unless you were feeling experimental, wheat and white.
>You had white bread last time.
>There's a lot of wheat bread here, anyway.
>Checking the expiration date, you slide it off its shelf.
>Your grip snug around the bread clip, you make your way to the refrigerators.

>Milk.
>Gallon or half-gallon?
>Last time you felt energized enough to carry a full gallon back to the apartment.
>The calcium rolls through you, you know in your bones you can take the extra weight today.
>You check the expiration date on a few jugs and lift the best one out of it's holder.
>Bread, milk, grab some cheese slices and you're out of the refrigerated aisle.
>Back to the front of the store for some bananas and carrots.
>A bag or two and you're on your way.
>On the opposite side of the store from the lightly refrigerated food was the freezers.
>You've always felt like the freezers and fridges should probably be close together.
>The fact that they aren't probably means there's a reason for their seperation.
>Or the manager was just lazy when they were installed.
>Either way, you're at the freezers.

>The only frozen dinners you're willing to bring back are usually just pasta.
>Almost everything else is meat.
>Anything that doesn't fall into one of those two groups is a rare find that you'll never pass up.
>You gotta get five meals to meet your quota.
>Rigatoni, ziti, sesame noodles, ravioli, tortellini.
>Damn.
>You're finished, though.
>Back to the front.
>Another two options.
>Self-checkout or cashier.
>Lines are about the same.
>You're here to work yourself out of boredom.
>What can lighten up your senses more than human contact?
>There are four cashiers at the registers.
>One line is a bit shorter than the others, around five people instead of the 8 or 9 in the others.
>People getting back from work, you guess.
>The sign above the line says "10 items or more"
>Internally groaning, you look around for anything to artificially inflate your baggage.
>There's some gum by the line.
>Some mints.
>Two gum packs.
>Peppermint and wintergreen.
>Two mint packs.
>Spearmint.
>You aren't just getting it to make the cut-off for the line.
>You really like gum and mints.
>It stops you from grinding your teeth when you're at home, a bad habit that's cost you a bit too much jaw pain to ignore.
>Okay. Back to the line proper.
>Someone took your spot while you were grabbing the minty-fresh stress relivers.

>Well, crap.
>You aren't petty enough to assert your place in line, you're the one who moved out of the row in the first place.

>Adjusting your grip on your cargo, you move to the back of the line.
>You probably should have grabbed a bag on your way in, like you usually do.
>Too bad you forgot.
>Now you're stuck trying to make yourself look presentable while still keeping together this balancing act of your own design.
>That's not really possible, though.
>You're having to cradle everything around your waist. Bread on your stomach, the frozen dinners going up to your neck, and the cheese on top of that.
>Your neck is pushing down the cheese packaging so you have better control of the lopsided mess.
>That's your right arm.
>Your left arm is parallel to your right, with your hand gripping the handle of the milk and the produce on top of your forearm leaning on the bread.
>The carrots were sitting on top of the bananas and the gum and mints were nestled on top of the carrots.
>The guy in front of you had already gotten to move his groceries onto the conveyor belt.
>Maybe you should have asked for your spot back.

>Five minutes later.
>It's almost your turn.
>You had dropped all your food onto the belt the second you got the chance.
>With nothing else to do, you started idly flipping through your phone.
>You didn't even have anything to do with it.
>You just kept swiping between apps, hoping that somewhere there would be something interesting to bother focusing on.
>You didn't have any luck in your latest circuit, time to dive in for a fourth.

>One minute later.
>It is your turn.
>You let your hand drop down to your leg, phone in tow.
>You put it in your pocket and watch the groceries slide forward.
>A green hand begins swiping your food across the scanner.
>"Will this be all, ma'am?"
>You look up.
>It's no one you know.
Yep, that's it.
>"Okie dokie, that'll be..."
>tap-tap-tap
>"$20.22"
>You're already pulling out your wallet.
Okay, one second.
>"No problem."
>...
>You hand over your card.
>PIN goes in the machine.
>Food goes in some bags.
>"Alright, you're all set. Would you like to hear about our rewards card before you head out?"
No thanks, sorry.
>"No problem, have a great day, ma'am."
>You pick up your bags and head out.

>Back on the street.
>Another twenty minute walk back to your apartment waits ahead.
>Half-way back to your home.
>Three-quarters.
>You can see your building.
>You pass a cardboard box sitting on the grass next to the sidewalk.
>There's a couple walking out of the complex as you make your way in, heading down the road away from the supermarket.
>First building, first floor, seventh door.
>You put down the two bags in your left hand and pull out your keys.
>Car...
>Locker...
>Apartment.
>You're in.

>You pick up the bags, and circle around the front room to put everything down on the kitchen counter.
>Back to the door.
>Keys out, close it, locked.
>You toss your jacket onto the coffee table.
>You wrench off your boots, and throw yourself down onto the couch.
>Jeez, it felt like it took you a whole week to get here.
>But you made it.

>The boredom is gone, you feel content with what you got done today.
>You let yourself sink farther into the couch, arms behind your head, really relaxing for the first time all day.
>You start thinking about the past few days.
>Nothing major has happened.
>No new villains, or mundane high school drama.
>Just kind of peaceful.
>It's...
>You aren't done yet.
>Damn it.
>Back up on your feet in an instant, you drag yourself back to the kitchen.
>Frozen dinners go in the freezer.
>Bananas, gum, and mints go on the counter.
>Carrots, cheese, and milk goes in the fridge.
>Bread in the cupboard above the silverware drawer.
>Receipt goes in the receipt drawer.
>You check to make sure you have enough of all your other foodstuffs to at least hold you over for the week.
>Barely.

>You decided against returning to the couch.
>Instead, you crash on your bed.
>It can't possibly be past 8.
>You don't really mind, though.
>Today was a good day, you feel too comfortable to punish yourself with another waking moment.
>So you don't.
>Your eyes close, and you're out.

>Be Sunset Shimmer
>Be asleep
>You wake up.
>Sort of.
>You don't really realize you're awake yet.
>After a while, you crack your eyes open.
>It's really dark.
>You roll over onto your back and, with a groan, start rubbing your eyelids.
>Digging through your pockets, you pull out your phone.
>After spending a minute or two adjusting yourself to the blinding light, you hold the screen in front of your face.
>Through squinted eyes you make out some numbers.
>3:23
>No thanks.
>You let your eyes close like a crypt and fall back to sleep.

>Be Sunset Shimmer
>Be asleep
>You wake up.
>Your eyes shoot open.
>It's less dark than before.
>Dull beams of light shine through the closed blinds of your window.
>You pull yourself up, propping up your torso with your right arm.
>You fumble around, patting down your sheets trying to find your phone.
>You can't feel anything, your heart is starting to beat a bit faster.
>...
>Got it. It had slid under you at some point in the night.
>Fully upright now, leaning into your knees, you pull the cell from around your back and hit the power button.
>Dread hits your gut like a bullet.
>It's dead.
>You practically launch yourself out of bed, pushing yourself into the kitchen.
>Plugging your phone into the charger you have set up by the corner of the counter, you turn to your oven.
>Hitting the start button, the display flicks on.
>8:19
>School starts at 8:00.
>You can no longer feel your heart, instead your chest is filled with a chilly liquid emptiness.
>Standing there, mind pounding, you can't think of what to do.
>An unexcused absence means detention, and getting in trouble would get principal Celestia on your back.
>You feel the anxiety of failure creeping up your body.

>A beat.
>Your oven's clock is an hour off.
>An hour early.
>It's not 8:19, but 7:19.
>Now you can feel your heart beating again.
>It's beating a lot.
>You have forty minutes to get to school.
>Ok. Plan.
>Ten minutes for a shower.
>Ten minutes for various bathroom-centered activities.
>Ten minutes for breakfast and final prep.
>Ten minutes for the drive.

>7:20

>Go.