A Search For Something More

Chapter 26: A New Look

I am woken up by my alarm clock, and I realize that I fell asleep while looking at pictures of Octavia and me on my phone. My phone is at 23%, so I quickly plug it into its charger before I take a shower. When I come back after breakfast to unplug it before leaving, it showed the battery at only 51%. I groan and decide to leave it off during school so the battery can last through most of the day.

After my mom drops me off at the school front entrance, I met up with Caramel and Soarin, and together, we head to our first class.

"Man, it feels kind of weird that the three of us are going to the same class, doesn't it?" Soarin asks.

"Yeah, I mean, I've been hoping this eventually happens for so long, and when it finally does, it feels too good to be true," says Caramel.

"Yeah, it does," I agree. "Speaking of which, any luck with sharing any of your last two classes with Applejack? I forgot to ask when we were at the arcades."

Caramel looks away for a moment trying to hide a smile.

"Yeah," he says. "We both got history with Ms. Harshwinny."

"That's awesome, man," I say. "I mean having a class with Harshwinny sucks, but at least you have a class with Applejack. Now you can work on being at least good friends with her."

Caramel nods in agreement before Soarin speaks with a raised eyebrow.

"Speaking of becoming good friends, I couldn't help but notice you being all friendly with Sunset Shimmer while Rainbow and I were at practice," he says. "You two looked like you were having a deep conversation at the benches."

"What?! How did that happen?!" Caramel shouts. "When did you start actually try to be nice to her?"

I chuckle a little before I explain.

"I guess I forgot to mention what happened at New Years, didn't I?" I say. "When I was at the Apples, Sunset Shimmer and I made a... game of sorts to work on getting to know the real her and yesterday that led to her talking about where she came from and why she came to our world."

"Oh, cool. What did you find out?" Caramel asks.

I think about it for a moment before I answer.

"It's kind of complicated," I say. "But the general gist is Sunset Shimmer was a magical unicorn who wanted to bring magic here to rule her pony world."

Both Caramel and Soarin stop walking and look at me with bewildered expressions on their faces.

"You say that like you're not weirded out by it," Soarin says.

"Oh, I am, believe me," I say. "But some of that is practically the tip of the iceberg compared to all the other stuff she told me."

"How so?" Caramel asks.

"Uh, maybe you should ask Applejack or Rainbow Dash," I answer. "It's a little hard to explain, and I think they could probably do it better since they are her best friends."

Caramel and Soarin look at each other and shrug, feeling okay with the idea.

"Fair enough," Soarin says. "So you're finally moving on from what happened at the Spring Fling, huh?"

"Well...yeah, I pretty much have," I answer. "If anything, I feel better having forgiven Sunset Shimmer, and now I have learned why she was the way she was before the Fall Formal. I just wish I didn't lose Octavia in the process."

Both of my friends frown at the last thing I said.

"Yeah, I can't imagine how you're feeling, bro," Soarin says sadly. "Octavia is a pretty awesome girl, and you two were really happy together, and I hope Sonata can talk to her and Vinyl and the other E.M.R. guys."