Saturday, PM: They Speak To Me Like Constellations
Saturday, PM: They Speak to Me Like Constellations
Sunset wanted to hide. She wanted to find somewhere that could provide any kind of refuge from what was going on. Failing that, she just wanted to shrink into nothingness. But it wouldn’t do her any good: the entire dome was now nothing but a giant cinerama dome filled with smaller monitors, each one seemingly presenting a time where she’d been every bit the egotistical bitch she’d left Equestria as. The largest of the images, presented through the mirror itself, seemed to just be doing them in chronological order. There was a lot of ground to cover, as the slideshow of her sins had yet to get to the first Homecoming.
“So this is what you were up to, outside of my reach in this other world?” chastised Celestia.
Sunset merely hung her head. “What can I say? I was just a pony with power and potential who thought she was already princess material.” She’d choked on the words “power and potential”. They were an echo of her words to Celestia years ago, when she had first shown her Platinum’s mirror.
Meanwhile, the other ponies just looked at the mirror in a mix of shock, horror, and disgust. “I hope you don’t intend for that to be a simple justification for this, Sunset,” growled Rainbow. “Seriously, you seemed okay, but-“
“I never said I was justifying myself!” snapped back Sunset. “Honestly, is this any real surprise to any of you? I know Twilight must have told you about how I publicly humiliated her with the pictures.”
“You what?!” shouted Applejack, held back only by the sudden lavender wing unfurled in her face.
“Easy, AJ,” cautioned Twilight. “Considering what she’s letting us see, what she’s done to others in the past, the whole altered pictures thing is minor.”
“Be glad I hadn’t pirated a copy of Photoshop back then,” Sunset said sadly, “or it would have been that much harder to disprove.”
“There is something I am curious about,” piped up Rarity, turning to Razz, “just how is all of... this possible?” Rarity gestured to the dome of images around them.
“From what we’ve learned, it’s one of the more subtle features of the mirror that Sombra installed in it.”
“Subtle?” Rainbow pointed to the ceiling. “This is subtle?”
“Well, okay, in execution it’s rather obtuse, but really I don’t think Sombra intended to tell anypony about this function, if about the mirror at all. See, when somepony uses the mirror, they are actually tied to it in a way that normal magic users can’t detect, but I can since, well…” The mulberry mare gestured to her horn, still covered in its bubbling mass of dark magic haze.
“And since I came through the mirror last, it seems it can lay out pretty much everything I’m ashamed of.” Sullenly remarked Sunset, wincing as the mirror replayed a memory of her shoving somebody else (maybe Fluttershy? The hair was covered by the raincoat hood but it wasn’t exactly hard to misidentify who had a bust that big even in middle school) into the mud on a rainy day while laughing evilly.
“So…Sombra could look into the dark secrets of anypony who used his mirror, then use it as blackmail of sorts?” theorized Fluttershy.
“That’s the only reason why I can think Sombra would want to look into other ponies’ memories,” replied Razz, “I mean, if I wanted to, I could tune it to show any part of her head – with her permission, obviously, - but it’s default setting is revealing the darkest parts of one’s mind.”
“That’s…really strange phrasing, y’know?” pointed out Pinkie.
“Hey, it’s what the spell’s runes translate into, just because I’m good with it doesn’t mean I actually wrote the laws of magic or anything.”
Celestia tapped a hoof to her muzzle. “Sunset…is this essentially what you did for all the years you were a human, before you came back to steal the crown?”
“Mostly. There were some…other things, that I did that I really, really regret…” she confessed, looking away as the mirror now showed the first time she and Flash Sentry had kissed. Sunset wondered whether she should tell Twilight about Flash’s true nature.
Razz, figuring there was a very real possibility the content could go into territory straight out of a cheap romance novel’s most “intimate” scenes, made a silent command to the mirror to skip any future “embarrassing” moments with the blue-maned male. The mirror complied, skipping ahead to the first Homecoming ceremony. There was a younger Sunset, who looked so happy to have been chosen to wear the Homecoming crown. Her smile looked nice enough, but then they spotted another girl fleeing the stage in tears, her fabulously-styled hair dyed a sickly green color.
The scenes that followed were all similar. If anything, Sunset’s actions proved it was possible to rise and fall simultaneously. The fiery teen sunk to new depths as she rose to the top of the social ladder. Twilight and her friends watched with despair as their human counterparts were torn apart by Sunset’s manipulations. Sunset’s heart beat faster as another Homecoming came and went. And then another. Before she knew it, Sunset was watching herself return through the portal in a fit of rage as she realized she no longer had the crown she stole. She had Fluttershy cornered against a locker next, and that was when her conqueror and her savior appeared.
The rest of the ponies watched her stand-off with Twilight in rapt silence, all the while the pit of dread in Sunset’s chest grew wider and deeper. Her efforts to antagonize Twilight went by in a flash as the mirror brought them closer to the moment Sunset dreaded most. It’s like it knows.
Then the night of the Fall Formal arrived, and Sunset swallowed as she saw herself standing by the polished marble of the statue, a sledgehammer raised over her head. She saw herself order her cronies to let Spike go, and remembered her words at that moment. I’m not a monster. Ironic, considering what was about to happen.
After the brief game of keep-away, Sunset Shimmer held the crown in her hands, and then she placed it on her head. A chorus of gasps emerged from the ponies around her as they watched the girl in the mirror become enveloped in a brilliant, ethereal column of light. Sunset saw her own face contort in pain, tears running down her face, and all at once she remembered the burning agony and sheer mind-numbing terror she had felt as her body was changed. Her tears then evaporated into the air, and floating in her place was nothing short of an abomination. A red, laughing demon with fiery hair and black eyes now floated in her place. A living monument to all of her sins.
“It…it’s horrible!” Fluttershy squeaked, attempting to crouch behind her friends.
“Don’t worry!” assured Razz, “it’s only an image, it can’t come out and get any of us. Just a ghost of the past.”
One determined to haunt me for the rest of my days, it would seem, Sunset thought as her counterpart in the mirror began her (admittedly) poorly conceived plan to brainwash the entire student body for her war against Celestia. Of course, that had never been her endgame before she put on the crown. She just hoped that Celestia would have the wisdom to figure that out.
“Oh no!” Pinkie shrieked. Sunset returned her attention to the mirror just in time to see her very literal past demon launch an attack at Twilight and her human friends only to be blocked by a magical barrier that appeared around them. “Oh, phew…” Pinkie sighed.
“Uh, Pinkie? I’d think the fact that I’m standing here right now indicates pretty strongly that I survived,” Twilight said in complete deadpan.
“Aw, way to ruin the suspense!”
Sunset just ignored them, her eyes glued to the mirror as it showed Twilight and the others rising in the air, taking in the power from the Element of Magic. She watched as her demonic counterpart was blasted by a swirling vortex of rainbows, leaving her a pitiful, sobbing mess at the bottom of a huge crater.
Suddenly, the image flickered, before fully vanishing and leaving the mirror’s surface nothing but a reflection of the ponies in front of it once again. Similarly, the dome was plunged back into darkness as the windows into parts of Sunset’s early human life vanished from above.
“Hmm, that’s strange,” commented Razz, her gaze suggesting she wasn’t focusing on anything in sight. “There’s some sort of…blockage the mirror’s encountered. I can try to work around it, but only if you want to show anything else, Sunset.”
“Well, I think I’ve seen enough,” snorted Rainbow, stepping to the front. While the other four ponies behind her generally seemed to agree, judging from the tone of their murmuring, they also sounded somewhat uncommitted.
“Oh, come on, girls” groaned Twilight, “I know you all can be more respectful of the big picture, here.”
“Plus, aren’t you all forgetting why Sunset came here and then tried to kick my butt?” added Raspberry. “I think it’s safe to say that there’s a clear difference between the Sunset we saw in the mirror – the one she allowed us to see in full – and the one here with us now who we’ve all interacted with. Don’t you agree?”
“But how do we know she’s for real?” countered Dash, “for all we know, her claims that she’s now friends with our other counterpart selves could just be her trying to cover her tush, should Twilight-AGH!” Rainbow’s loudmouth was silenced suddenly, all her attention now focused into glaring angrily at Applejack, whose hoof still gripped the spectrum-hued tail hairs of the pegasus.
“I, for one, am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt,” said Applejack. “Ain’t there still a whole year’s worth of events that we haven’t seen yet?”
“Exactly,” Raspberry said. “I just need some time to readjust the mirror’s settings.”
Pinkie suddenly raised her hoof high. “Can we take a potty break? I really gotta go!” Then, without waiting for an answer, the pink pony zipped away, disappearing to the other side of the dome.
“I do believe we all could use a little time back outside for some fresh air,” suggested Celestia, to which everypony else agreed.
When nopony was looking, Sunset quickly darted out of sight and behind one of the many cottages that sat in the shadow of the once-great Castle Everfree. She needed to be alone, lest the others see her begin to hyperventilate. Her heart had been racing like a jackrabbit the whole time and all the stress would possibly end up giving her an ulcer if she didn’t vent it somehow. All the worry she’d also been building up had drained her of much of her body’s energy, so taking advantage of privacy she let herself collapse, resting on her side.
Suddenly, there was the sound of metal-on-stone just behind her. “May I come in?” asked the voice of Celestia.
Never could let me rest, could you? mused Sunset, not in the mood to immediately jump back into dealing with her former mentor. Her brain not firing on all pistons, she somehow came up with a reply Celestia couldn’t make sense of: “Magic Eight Ball says ‘try again later’.”
“I…guess that’s a human turn of phrase?” postulated Celestia.
Sunset rose to a sitting position, but kept her back to the princess. After what they’d all just witnessed, Sunset wasn’t sure she could bear to look at Celestia’s face. The look of calm disapproval alone would be enough to kill Sunset where she stood. As it happened, Sunset didn’t have to turn around to look at her old mentor. Celestia moved in front of her and lifted Sunset’s chin, and student and teacher were looking into each other’s eyes once again. To Sunset’s surprise, she didn’t see a trace of malice or disapproval in Celestia’s face. She only saw the same unfamiliar pony she had glimpsed on her first day back: a weary old mare with a mind plagued by millennia of regrets.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who laments what has come to pass.”
When Sunset had been unable to meet Celestia’s gaze moments before, she suddenly found herself unable to look away. It almost sounded like Celestia… believed Sunset’s regret was sincere. That doesn’t mean anything. For all she knows, I only regret leaving her because doing so burned my best bridge to power. Just like that, Sunset found her eyes drifting away from Celestia’s once again.
“So, assuming Razz can fully restore the mirror’s functions, do you think you’ll let us look at the rest of your life as a human?” Celestia asked, lowering her hoof and regaining her regal stature.
Sunset’s ears flattened as she suddenly found a mark on the ground very interesting. “I don’t know what good it’ll do. It’s not like anything I did after Homecoming can erase everything I did before.”
“That’s true. Even Twilight couldn’t change the past, despite her best efforts to do exactly that.” A hint of a smile formed on Celestia’s lips, and Sunset had a feeling there was a story there. “All of the good deeds in the world can’t erase a bad deed, but in my opinion they don’t always have to…” Celestia paused for a moment, carefully considering her next words. It was strange to see a pony who always knew exactly what to say hesitate so noticeably.
“Did you know the sunlight that creates your shadow is approximately eight minutes and twenty seconds old?” she suddenly asked. Sunset tilted her head, confused by the sudden strange tangent. “I always found that interesting: that when you look at your shadow, what you’re really looking at is a manifestation of the past. However, no matter how great or how small your shadow is, it doesn’t really define you now does it?”
Sunset’s mouth slowly drifted open as she began to comprehend what her old mentor was really saying. Celestia simply turned and began heading back to the big black dome, stopping briefly to add, “Food for thought.”
Sunset Shimmer sat in place for a time, her mind a hazy mist as it tried to process all of the thoughts circulating through it. It seemed like no time had passed at all when Twilight came to get her.
“Hey, Sunset? Razz finished with the mirror,” she said, taking a step toward her. “If you want to show the rest of your human life, we’re all ready.”
“Okay…” Sunset muttered, before straightening up and giving a sure nod. “Okay.”
As the two mares walked in the direction of the large dome of pure darkness, Sunset couldn’t help but fidget nervously. Everything she thought she understood about Celestia’s state of mind was suddenly thrown to the wind. Her anxiousness did not pass unnoticed.
“Do you want to know the first thing Celestia asked me when I returned from the human world?” Twilight asked. Sunset could only look at her and nod once before Twilight answered, “‘Is Sunset Shimmer okay?’”
The others were waiting by the mirror as Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer entered the dark dome once again. With a nod from Sunset, Raspberry fired up her horn and the final segments of Sunset’s human life began to play out. The first thing the ponies saw within the mirror’s frame was a rickety old building collapsing under the assault of various construction vehicles.
“What exactly ‘re we lookin’ at here?” Applejack asked.
“My old home,” Sunset answered.
“You mean the buildin’ owned by the Flim-Flam brothers?” When Sunset nodded, Applejack let out a single, amused guffaw.
As a shocked human Sunset Shimmer looked on at the destruction of her home, another figure approached her. He was a tall, uniformed man who was the very picture of authority. As he gave the teenage girl with fiery hair a stern talking to, Twilight spotted the blue stripes in his own hair and her eyes widened.
“Is that…?”
“My foster brother,” Sunset answered, “Shining Armor.”
Twilight and her friends watched in stunned silence as what were the most important events in Sunset’s life played out. Her talk with Officer Armor in the burger joint. The moment she met her soon-to-be foster parents. Principal Celestia’s stern final warning.
Celestia the princess studied her counterpart closely. Her human self had appeared a few times in their earlier viewing of Sunset’s life, and Celestia had been briefly amused when it was explained that her counterpart was no more than a high school principal. Now, something evidently clicked in the solar diarch’s brain as she looked at her counterpart now.
“Sunset…” Celestia said, looking down at her former pupil. “How much do the humans know about our world?”
Ah, of course. Sunset figured this line of questioning would come up at some point. It would seem as if Celestia was able to spot some small nuance in her counterpart’s demeanor that hadn’t been there before.
“Not much,” Sunset replied. “Most of the student body retains no memories of my, er… rampage. The only ones who do remember are the girls that helped Twilight defeat me, as well as your and Luna’s own counterparts.”
“Interesting…” Celestia’s gaze remained focused as she returned it to the mirror, but Sunset could see the gears turning in her old mentor’s mind. If Sunset could venture a guess, Celestia was likely going over possible First Contact scenarios, and considering the necessary preparations for such an eventuality.
If anything, that line of thought helped keep Sunset’s mind off of the scene playing out on the mirror. Sunset remembered the immense discomfort she had felt as the principal lectured her, and noted the way her past self was unable to meet her eyes. Not much has changed, evidently. After their last conversation, Sunset couldn’t help but wonder how Celestia felt about this particular moment. Another glance at her face showed the same careful indifference she usually reserved for court, but Sunset couldn’t help but wonder...
Then the mirror jumped ahead to the next morning. For the first time, the main pony counterparts of the “Eightmazing Eight” at long last got a glimpse of the actual human counterpart of Twilight Sparkle, along with Octavia. The two now appeared in the mirror just as Sunset had seen them that morning long ago.
“Well, that explains your…um, excitement when we ran into Octavia Melody a few days ago,” commented Twilight with a grin.
“Hold on, those clothes look familiar somehow…” said Rarity, completely oblivious to Twilight’s comment. Sunset immediately remembered why Rarity recognized the clothes, but the mirror didn’t give the alabaster fashionista a chance to remember as well before it skipped to later that same day. Sunset was now having a conversation with her friends in Sugarcube Corner Cafe’s upstairs kitchen.
“Huh?” questioned Dash, seeing the reaction of the humans on screen to something Sunset had said, taking special note of her own counterpart’s reaction: dropping a cookie and splashing milk all over herself. “What did you say there, Sunset?”
“Oh, that? I was telling them that I now lived with Twilight Sparkle, or at least the one who was human from the start.” She then turned to Twilight – the alicorn princess version – with a gleam of admiration in her eyes. “While they did befriend Twily and Tavi soon after this, Twily isn’t the same to the girls as the one they knew first. You should know that they miss you, Twilight, so don’t think they’ve forgotten you.”
“Thanks, Sunset,” replied Twilight, her eyes slightly misty as memories of her time on the human plane came back. “Though, I have to wonder how different I am from the human who shares my name.”
Sunset took the chance to crack a sly grin. “Very different, actually. For starters? Twily doesn’t believe in magic.”
The look on the purple princess’ face was priceless. “What.”
The greater part of the next two hours involved mainly just Sunset now giving narration to the slideshow of her life that was in the mirror. Such as when she got stabbed in the attack by Lightning Dust and Gilda (though Rainbow’s staunch defense of the pony version of Lightning Dust seemed odd) and how that led to her acquiring her beloved bomber jacket in the wake of losing the old black leather one.
Then there was the time Sunset had put on her little “magic show” for the children and ended up becoming a minor hero for finding the wayward Grapevine. Though she shrunk away from Celestia’s disapproving look when Sunset reluctantly admitted that she’d used real magic in front of a bunch of people and potentially jeopardized her secret.
Following that was her brush with the group of high school rapists known as “The Club”. Much to the gathered ponies’ horror, Sunset explained how she’d been asked by the principal and vice principal to use her magic and later how she’d managed to save Twily, Tavi, and indirectly Rarity before it had been too late. Princess Twilight in particular looked scandalized as she saw Flash “Brad” Sentry do things she wouldn’t have considered possible. Sunset couldn’t help but notice tears in Twilight’s eyes as her image of the boy she had loved became as shattered as the wall Sunset had punched through in the restaurant. It’s probably for the best that she knows the truth, Sunset thought, even as the purple princess furiously wiped at her eyes.
Next was Sunset’s adventures in LA. Present Sunset decided to avoid mentioning the enigmatic “La Musica” and the possibility she was in fact a transplanted pony. She instead opted for emphasizing how she helped resolve the problems of both Octavia and Screwball. While it did embellish her ego slightly, the mystery of Musica Allegra paled in comparison to the next major topic: the “Twily’s Nightmares” saga.
“Holy shit! Well, I can certainly understand why you were out for my blood if you thought I was doing that!” Raspberry gasped, horrified at the mirror’s present glimpse into the bathroom, where Twily’s blood had been written into numerological signs. The poor teen herself - the scratches still fresh from being self-administered on her body - clutched Sunset for dear life. “I…I honestly can’t imagine what would have happened to her if you weren’t there for her.”
Sunset took a deep breath before replying. “I can, unfortunately.” And pretty soon, you won’t have to imagine either.
As more scenes played out showing Twily’s continued descent into hopeless despair, her pony counterpart spoke up. “Earlier, Raspberry told me what you two concluded, and I can’t help but feel the need to take full responsibility. If I had any idea this is what would have happ-NO!”
The mirror was going faster now, having skipped ahead to the moment in time when Twily had finally broke. At the moment of Twilight’s exclamation, it looked for all the world as if the giant wheeled vehicle was going to smash right into the teen in front of it. Only a red-and-maize blur -accented with light cyan magic for the briefest of moments - saved her in the nick of time.
“I don’t think I’d ever been more terrified in my entire life than I was at that moment,” Sunset confessed solemnly. “If I had been even a fraction of a second slower, I don’t think either of us would have made it.”
The memory caused Sunset’s throat to clench up, and it took all of her willpower to blink away the tears that threatened to spill forth all over again. A reassuring hoof on her shoulder - courtesy of Twilight - reminded her that everything would be okay, and Sunset smiled appreciatively.
The mirror had moved on from Twily’s near-suicide as now Sunset was bidding her foster family farewell at the airport. “With most of the family out of the country, and me having to stay at home to attend summer school, I had a perfect opportunity to study this weird mirror. It belonged to some ancient Italian guy. Uh, Baldassare di Cavalcanti.” Sunset was certain she’d botched the Italian pronunciation, but carried on regardless. “Allegedly, his mirror allowed him to ‘converse with a black unicorn who taught him black magic’, or something.”
“Black unicorn?” said Pinkie, “Are you saying this Bald guy was having conversations with Sombra?”
“Given that Sombra created this mirror and, as far as any of us can tell, was the only one to use it until recently,” deadpanned Razz as she stated the obvious, “I guess he did. I’ll bet nopony on the human side believes it, though.”
“Not a word, since whatever Sombra ‘taught’ Baldy couldn’t have been legitimate magic,” explained Sunset. “The only reason I can do any tricks of my own is because I am a unicorn. Even then, my magic is far more limited than it would normally be. It almost feels like something’s holding me back…”
Sunset noticed Princess Celestia give a brief glance in her direction before hastily returning her attention to the mirror. Though she was probably silly for doing so, Sunset couldn’t help but analyze her old mentor’s every movement, and wondered if there was something more to the look she just gave her.
Then the mirror’s image changed again for what had to be the last time, as now it showed Sunset and (to everypony’s surprise) Principal Celestia, inside what looked like a restricted area of a museum. Sunset was pushing a large pane of protective glass away from the front of the mirror and the display box holding the displaced ruby.
“Wait a minute,” said Razz, her tone growing dead serious, “the ruby isn’t in the mirror?”
“Oh, yeah, might have forgotten to mention that,” answered Sunset sheepishly. “The emerald and the diamond are also loose, if that’s import-“
“Important would be an understatement,” remarked Razz, her eyes suddenly letting loose the dark magic fog that had been restrained until now. “I’ll explain later, but right now I need all of you to go back outside immediately.”
The ponies began to look around, growing increasingly nervous. A faint rumble sounded as somehow, the intangible walls of darkness around them began to quake.
“Wh-what’s wrong?” whimpered Fluttershy.
“The stability of the mirrors is more fragile than I thought: the fact I’ve been pushing an ancient magical portal to do things it hasn’t done for centuries with nothing but jury-rigged repairs isn’t doing it any favors. But I need to shut it down now or else reality might break so badly that Discord will be begging for a return to order, and I can’t have you guys in here!” Raspberry had already dropped her normal appearance to cut the drain on her magic and her voice reverberated as it had just the other day as she shouted, “So GO!”
Everypony immediately obeyed, running at full gallop toward the edge of the dome as the whole world seemed to shake around them.Sunset was the last to go through when she stopped right at the edge to look at the mirror one last time. The fading image on the mirror was that of her summoning all her courage and then stepping through it. The exact moment the Sunset in the mirror vanished from view, the mirror itself simply dissipated the image like a TV turning off. Then, suddenly, Sunset felt a pair of hooves seize her and effortlessly yank her to the outside.
“You really need to stop obsessing over mirrors, Sunny!” chided Pinkie, gently putting Sunset down. The unicorn tried to comprehend how Pinkie Pie could have lifted her up and then run on her hind legs only back through the dome’s wall, but between human Pinkie doing similar feats and pony Pinkie having the excuse of natural earth pony strength, Shimmer opted to just not try to solve that enigma. There was enough on her mind already.
“Hey, what’s happenin’?” shouted Applejack, directing everypony’s attention to the dome. It was now shrinking rapidly, though with Raspberry and Sombra’s mirror still inside, it was anypony’s guess as to what was going to happen when the dome vanished. Except when it did, there was absolutely nothing. A pony just arriving on the scene would see nothing different from what had been there just several hours ago.
Sunset took a step forward and looked around, a dark pit of worry forming in her gut. “Where’s the mirror? Where’s Razz?”
The other ponies followed suit, looking around with wide, frantic eyes as they called out, “Razz!”
“Raaaaaaaaz!”
“Raspberry Beryl!”
At the beginning of the week, Sunset had been convinced that her dark reflection was nothing more than an enemy that needed to be destroyed. “RAZZ!” Yet here she was, calling her name and growing more and more worried when she didn’t answer. Sunset’s life was anything if not full of surprises.
“Phew!” sighed Raspberry, emerging from her safehouse in her normal guise. “That was a close one!”
“Razz!” exclaimed her friends, all of them proceeding to cowpile on top of her with hugs, careful of her wounded leg.
Sunset let out a relieved sigh, also glad to see Raspberry was okay. Though given what she’d implied, the day’s discoveries might end on a bittersweet note for the wayward Shimmer. “Raspberry, is the mirror…I mean, will I be able to go home?”
“Y-yeah! Just…just give me a moment!” laughed Beryl, playfully wrestling herself free from the entanglement of wings and legs. “Sheesh, you girls are so clingy! Anyway, Sunset, the mirror’s okay, I just needed you guys out of there. Trying to keep everything stable is harder when there’s more ponies in a sub-pocket of reality like that.”
Sunset and the others gave understanding nods, smiling now that the tension had passed.
“Now, while I do wish you’d told me about the state of the gems on the other side earlier, the connection between that one and Sombra’s is still strong enough to get you home,” Raspberry said.
“Assuming Celestia lets her go at all,” Rainbow Dash growled, giving Sunset a glare.
Sunset swallowed as she looked away from Rainbow. As much as it hurt seeing a pony that resembled a friend scrutinize her so severely, it wasn’t Rainbow’s opinion of her that mattered right now. Slowly, Sunset Shimmer brought her eyes up to Celestia, who was currently preoccupied with her celestial charge. She then realized it was getting late in the evening, and her old mentor still had a job to do.
“Is there anything else you wish to say before I pass judgement?” Celestia asked as she willed the sun lower in the sky. “Do you still regret all that you have done?”
Still unable to get a read on Celestia’s thoughts, Sunset glanced away. She found her gaze resting on her own shadow, and suddenly remembered her earlier conversation with Celestia that sparked her uncertainty. In the orange light of the setting sun, Sunset’s shadow stood tall and imposing. And yet, it only moved when she moved. When she raised a hoof, her shadow replied in kind. Despite how large and scary her shadow appeared, she was still the one in control of it.
“No,” Sunset answered. All of the gathered ponies looked at her in astonishment. Even Celestia’s gaze fell from one sunset to another. “Yes, I truly regret hurting you, along with everyone else, but I don’t regret making mistakes. Because really, it’s my mistakes that made me who I am today. Sure, if I’d never made them in the first place, I might still be at your side, but I’d also be the same mare that I was before. Power-hungry and selfish.”
Sunset gave her shadow another glance. “No matter where I go, my past will always follow me. All that matters now is what I choose to do with it. And what I choose is to learn from it, so I might become a better person.”
By the time Sunset was finished, Celestia had completely lowered the sun, and her looming shadow disappeared in the darkness of night. Sunset knew it was still there, but it wasn’t so big a presence now. The group of ponies remained silent for a while, the chirping of crickets in the night the only sound that prevailed. Finally, Celestia turned to Sunset.
“Well spoken, Sunset.”
Sunset couldn’t help but smile a little. Celestia’s praise always made her feel a little warm. “Thanks, Princess,” Sunset said. Her smile slowly fell as she cleared her throat. “For the record, I still intend to take whatever punishment you have planned for me, but I’d really appreciate not being sent to the moon. I-I can’t even… begin to describe how much I’d like to stay on the ground.”
Celestia gave a sly smile. “Now, why would I do that?”
“W-well… you have to punish me somehow, right?” Sunset’s mind started running laps as her heart quickened to keep up. Is she… not angry? “I-I mean… t-there’s no way you could just… forgive me, right?”
“Of course not,” Celestia said stoically, dropping Sunset’s heart down a dark pit of terror in her chest. At least, until she added, “because there’s nothing to forgive.”
Just like that, Sunset’s racing mind ground to an abrupt halt, and she went from thinking about a thousand things at once to being unable to even focus on her own name. “W-wuh...?”
“I’ll admit: your betrayal hurt me more than I could bear. It was for that reason that I needed to be so cautious when you returned. I needed to be objective in dealing with you, or else risk suffering that betrayal all over again. But Sunset, you need to know that even if I couldn’t trust you, I could never hate you. Not even for a moment.” Celestia’s voice trembled as she tenderly brushed aside Sunset’s mane as she had so many times when she was a filly. Sunset saw her eyes glisten as she said, “There’s nothing to forgive, Sunset, because I’d forgiven you years ago!”
Sunset’s head spun, and she felt like this was some dream. Except any dream she had about her old mentor had always been a nightmare. She had never heard the words that Celestia said now, because she never expected to hear them. Yet here she was, wondering when her dreams had suddenly felt more real than reality. Sunset’s vision clouded, and she realized her own eyes were filling with tears. This was everything she’d ever wanted, but never thought she deserved.
Unable to contain herself a moment longer, Sunset felt her hooves launch her into Celestia’s own in a torrent of tears. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m s-so s-sorry!” Sunset wailed as Celestia wrapped her up in a cocoon of forelegs and wings.
Celestia’s warm embrace was bliss, and Sunset cried and sobbed like a foal. She was a messy, ugly sight, and Princess Twilight was watching with all of her friends, but Sunset Shimmer didn’t care. She just let Celestia hold her closely and gently stroke her as she had when she was a filly. Sunset wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that; time lost all meaning in Celestia’s embrace. Nevertheless, when Sunset was finally spent, it felt as if the weight of the world was lifted from her shoulders, and a great tiredness washed over her whole body.
Sunset only meant to close her eyes and rest for a moment, but she felt so warm and safe in her old mentor’s arms that she started to drift to sleep. Before she knew it, Sunset was back in her guest bed at Sugarcube Corner. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Sunset fell asleep without a care in the world.
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...Hmmm..
So, that's why the mirror is showing her bullying history, she genuinely regrets it. Boy, this chapter is just one big continuity nod, isn't it. Uh, oh, let's hope the mirror is stable enough to allow her to go back. Wait, if La Musica is the one who went to Earth, who came to Equestria?
".... and there might have been a human who vanished into ancient Equestrian history....."
Hmmm .... very interesting,... considering the steam era technology used throughout Equestria....
5143301
...Lyra?
In all seriousness though, no idea.
well, since it's been a while since Rainbow Rocks, I feel the need to put this image here now that Sunny risen from a meh villain whose design was the best she had, to one of the fandom's top favorite characters
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140905224252/mlp/images/3/31/Sunset_welcomes_the_new_students_EG2.png
The machinations of Pinkie Pie are an enigma.
5143301 Calvalcanti (or w/e)?
5144694
Or maybe...IT WAS COL. MUSTARD IN THE PARLOR WITH THE NOOSE!
5144725
Really?
5144866
I have proof it isn't Professor Plum!
5144886 i can disprove ur suggestion, saddly, as the noose was in the Conservatory and Mustard was in the Kitchen...
it was miss scarlet with a revolver in the library, spike saw the whole thing
5143301
/)
...Human!La Musica perhaps? (\
5144725
And there goes my hopes for seeing an evil Human!Sunset Shimmer, Heir of Sombra. ...although I am still not convinced Razz was solely responsible for Twily's decent into madness. We need a villain for Book III. If not Human!Sunset Shimmer, Human!Razz, or a recovering Sombra, I am plum out of ideas.
Loved the update and hope to see many more soon!
5146002
Why does B3 have to have a baddie?
5146002
Well, someone earlier thought that it might be the Sirens...but given that B3 was already in planning before RR info became prominent, naaah.
5146059
That is an excellent point, considering that B2 was basically designed to undercut our expectations as established in the final arc of B1.
That said, I really want to find out the fate of Human!Sunset Shimmer, and the idea of her becoming a Black Magic version of the demon Pony!Sunset Shimmer turned into has a certain appeal. Beyond that, this chapter (or rather, "Saturday" inclusive) basically said that Twily's affliction has probably warn off by now (thus making Sunny's actions moot beyond personal growth), and gives her a counter spell just in case. As things stands, you could cram everything into an extra long Chapter 15 Epilogue. Not that you would, mind you. No doubt you have more planned for B3 than simply tying up loose ends from B1 & 2.
...also, what is up with Sunny breaking the rules governing every portal mirror she touches?!? First Platinum's mirror, and now Sombra's? I can expect that from Pinkie, seeing as her color is actually an optical illusion, but Sunny?
5146002 most stories have to have some form of conflict. It doesn't have to be man vs. man. It could be man vs. himself.
5146211
...which is, I admit, the entire point of the Sunny June books. Book one was Sunset verses who she is/was, while book two is Sunset verse what she is. No doubt book three is going to carry that trend in one form or another.
5146211 wrote : "most stories have to have some form of conflict. It doesn't have to be man vs. man. It could be man vs. himself."
And if you throw in time travel to the whole thing, that could happen literally.
5147271
Well, that sort of was the whole plot of "It's About Time" wasn't it?
Ever since La Musica was outed as a pony, I suspected that many ponies have settled in the human world and many humans in the pony world. I'm wondering if either kind can be considered 'pure' anymore or if there is an inextricable blood link between the two species now.
I wonder... Is Sunset as much human as she is pony? It might explain her ability to use magic in the human world if she has a blood link to the human world.
5155501
When was La Musica outed as being a pony? Nothing of the sort has been said to confirm this.
5155501
5156921
Not to mention the fact that other ponies would have to have known about the mirror in order to use it. Given that Razz only tracked two uses, that doesn't mean a large number.
5156921
Well, frankly, I think that what we know about this matter (in another author's earlier book in this cycle) is definitive proof already. Maybe you feel differently.
5157934
Two uses of Sombra's mirror and an unknown number of uses of Platinum's Mirror before Sunset used it the first time.
5159190
Yes, because I feel differently about a story I had a heavy part in planning.
How long do you think Canterlot High has existed? Because the mirror is connected to the horse statue outside the entrance to the school, but the school - and thus the statue - can't possibly have existed just as long as the mirror when the mirror dates back to a time when the state of California, much less the very United States itself, didn't even exist.
5159347
The mirror clearly predates the school but, I suspect so does the face of the statue's plinth that is the other terminal of the portal. You and Shinzakura were correct to have a second mirror as the other terminal of the other portal. I suspect that, if Sunset chose to do research this, the local indian tribe (Strongheart's tribe) would have legends about 'pony spirits' coming from a 'shining rock' going back more than a thousand years. In time, the Europeans came and someone turned that rock into the plinth of the equestrian statue.
Yes, I'm also sure that won't turn out to be coincidental. The fact that it has a horse statue on top suggests whoever built it knew perfectly well what the plinth stone was.
5159430
Or it could very well be that, like in The Sun & the Rose (or, for a non-pony example, the portal to Xanth in the series of the same name) wanders. After all, in TS&TR, the mirror was in Lancastrian England at the time, but in modern times somewhere in the US (or possibly Canada, but definitely North America.); using the Xanth example, at one time the border to Xanth was connected to Switzerland and Austria, but in modern times, it's connected to Georgia and Florida.
With a wandering border such as that, there's no guarantee that the mirror will connect to the CHS statue a century from now - and where did it connect to even before then (as our notes indicated that CHS, statue and all, were built some time in the 1980s)? Thus, the connection wanders.
Maybe Sombra found a way to semi-stabilize his, but Platinum's definitely wasn't.
It's official. I hate Rainbow Dash.
Wow given all Sunny's nightmares about Celestia's wrath, that was some major AAA grade troll there in the first part of that sentence.
5683370
Damn it Tia
Celestia she wouldn't use magic without good intentions.
5144725
No noose is good noose.