[Rooftop] Story Notes, First Draft

In the end, what this story is really about is my depressive episode that started during the coronavirus lockdown/general feeling of the world being on fire, and not being free of it yet despite being able to live a mostly-normal life these days. I somehow did not realize this connection until I was most of the way through writing it.

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CW: Suicide/Self Harm

I originally planned to write a section where Cinch talks about a troubled student who opened up to her early on in her career. But Cinch did not know the signs to look for, and it ended with the student jumping off the roof of Crystal Prep. She was supposed to talk about how after that, Crystal Prep always had a well-trained, well-staffed counseling unit, and how they had not had such an incident since, and she learned the lesson that being emotional support for students was something best left up to the professionals. However, this part would have necessitated the Suicide/Self Harm tag, as well as sensitivity readers to make sure I didn't mess it up. Instead, al that remains is this section, which Sunset doesn't even notice:

“Oh, I very much did not! In fact, I once expelled a student for getting a tattoo very much like this one. She did not take it well.” Cinch’s eyes darted to the edge of the roof for just a moment. “It was something I’ve regretted every day since.“

“Ah, yeah.” Sunset nodded, not looking up from Cinch’s arm. “It makes sense that you would get this, then. It must be meaningful to you.”

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Even Rainbow Dash, if I could find a way to get myself that far east in time.

They gave me enough baked beans to last the whole month, did you know that? Like they somehow knew that I would end up never leaving that apartment. The exact same kind they fed us for all those years, those green cans! So I thought, hey, I was already so sick of those beans that I could barely make myself look at them.

Intentional references to Austraeoh and Beanis Cinematic Universe, neither of which I've read anything in.

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I am a flower idiot and refuse to do research about it. The flower selection I farmed out to my good friend and awesome author you should read, daOtterGuy, who suggested:

Indigo: Calendula meaning ambition
Sugarcoat: Borage meaning Bluntness
Lemon Zest: Sweet Pea meaning Bliss/Pleasure
Sour Sweet: Thistle meaning harshness, sternness, nobility
Sunny Flare: Jasmine meaning elegance

Of course, Sunset is also not some sort of flower savant, so she would not have been able to recognize these rather obscure ones on sight. Instead, the narration describes their features, as both Sunset and I would have seen them.

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And finally, after the break is the first draft that was preread by my prereaders, Dewdrops on the Grass and The Sleepless Beholder (Dewdrops' effusive praise was also nice for the boost in motivation to finish this, since this was the first story I've even got to complete first draft in a long while). From this, I front-loaded the world-about-to-end setting to make it more obvious, replaced the placeholder flowers, made the narration consistently from Sunset's perspective instead of bouncing back and forth (it was hard deciding between Sunset and Cinch for this, both had their pros and cons!), and reworked both the introduction and the exposition in the middle about the cover story to flow better. Most importantly, I moved things around to smooth out what was once a choppy and disjointed emotional arc, and I'm pretty satisfied with what came out of that.

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Sunset turned at the sound of the door opening and saw Principal Cinch emerge. Any longer and she might have been worried, since she was supposed to be here exactly on time, but at the moment she was relieved.

And surprised, despite herself, at what she was wearing. It was very different from the outfit she still vividly remembered even after more than a decade: that precisely-tailored blazer with the jagged lapels that she wore over no matter the weather; that dark navy pencil skirt and maroon hose that never showed a wrinkle or run; those no-nonsense low-heeled pumps that would tap precise patterns on the ground when she walked.

It was also different from what she was used to seeing her in: that plain white jumpsuit with precisely eight buttons, which only differed from what Sunset was wearing now by the designation that was sewn onto the left breast.

Sunset smiled, and opened her mouth, stopping herself from saying “Principal Cinch” just in time. It had taken her a bit to get used to calling her “Abacus”, but that had been a long time ago.

“Hey, Abby!”

Cinch returned the greeting. “Hey, Sunset.” She smiled too, though it did not undo that slight furrow in her brow as she walked to where Sunset was on the edge of the roof, her navy blue summer dress flowing along with her wavy locks in all the shades of greying purple. 

“Are you sure you want us to sit here?”

“Why not?” Sunset shrugged, before pointing a finger off the edge of the roof, and down, at the tan square roof of the shorter building in front of and below them. Two figures, just dots from this distance, were sitting on the edge of their roof, facing the same direction as Sunset was.

“Seems like I’m not the only one with the idea.”

Cinch frowned. “If I were the old me...”

“What would you say, Abby?” Sunset smirked.

“Something about jumping off bridges if your little friends did so as well,” she stated crisply. “Followed by a list of the infractions you are committing right now, and their demerits.” She glanced down at herself, then peered over the edge of the roof as if judging the height below. Then, carefully, she sat herself down near—but not on—the edge. She looked at Sunset, whose legs were dangling off of it. She frowned.

Sunset laughed. “What’s the worst that could happen, Abby?”

“Sunset…”

“Fine, fine,” she grumbled, pulling her legs back from the edge. As she settled herself, she found Abacus’s hand offering her up something wrapped in wax paper?

“Here, eat.”

“Really?” Sunset took the sandwich in her hand, despite her words. “What’s the point?” 

“Because this is better than whatever it was you last ate.”

“What if I attended one of those brunches they were doing earlier? What if the last thing I ate was caviar, or something so fancy I don’t even know the name of it?“

Abacus’s response was just a raised eyebrow.

“All right, it was whatever cereal I had in the fridge,“ Sunset admitted. She took a bite of the sandwich.”

“This is good. Wow. What is this, egg?”

“An egg salad sandwich. I used to make it all the time, before. Simple enough to make, even if I felt too stressed to do anything more.”

“That makes sense,” Sunset said while chewing. “Can’t imagine you eating from a school cafeteria, even the fancy one they had at Crystal Prep.” 

“Oh, no. I made sure to never eat it during the week. It was something I only made for myself on the weekends. It was nice, having something separate.”

“Huh.” Sunset swallowed her bite. “I learned something new about you.”

“What, you think you learned everything about me?” Cinch laughed. “I’m sure there are plenty of things about you that I still don’t know, even after all these years.”

“I mean, yeah! Mostly things that would be hard to explain if you didn’t grow up a unicorn in a magical pony queendom.“ Sunset took another bite.

Cinch smiled. “But I do appreciate you trying. Truly. Stuck in that cell... It was nice to be able to imagine a place so fantastic.“

“And real!” Sunset protested, spraying crumbs that she wiped off with the back of a hand.

“Oh, I know it was all real! That was hardly difficult to believe, after“—she sighed—”after everything that happened. But in that cell, even this—”she waved her arms in the air around them—”the outside, might as well have been Equestria.”

Sunset swallowed that last bite. “Yeah, I guess! I mean.” She breathed in to fill her lungs, then exhaled. “I guess it is nice being able to breathe air that’s not filtered and recycled.“ She looked at the crumpled ball of wax paper in her hand. “And eat something that didn’t come out of a can or on a tray. It really was delicious. Thank you.”

“Oh, you hardly need to thank me. I’m just glad that eggs were still so available, with everyone raising backyard chickens.” 

“No, thank you, Abby. You took time out of your day, today of all days, to make me a sandwich. You really didn’t have to do that.“

“But I did. What could be better than seeing someone enjoy something I made. Especially someone I care about.“ 

Sunset smiled weakly.

“And I knew you wouldn’t have eaten anything,” Cinch continued. “I just wish I could do your laundry as well.“

Sunset looked down at her stain-covered, wrinkly jumpsuit that she hadn’t changed out of in two days.

“I mean, I guess I just got used to not doing it after all those years. And it’s not like, well, you know. It’s not like it matters.“

“No, no. It’s…” Cinch sighed. “Very understandable. I was just...”

Sunset looked at her sundress again. Her eyes widened. “Oh! I—”

“I was hoping that you felt like me, Sunset. This burst of happiness and peace that I’ve been feeling ever since I felt the light of the sun’s rays on my face again for the first time in all those years. I wish I could just give it to you. You deserve this happiness, much more than me.“

Sunset cast her eyes down.

“I’m sorry for making you worry. You already spent so long—”

“No.” She cut her off. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m just glad I get to see you one more time, no matter how you are.”

Sunset looked up to meet her eyes, and smiled, before flicking her gaze back down to Cinch’s arms, folded neatly in her lap. 

“What’s this?” she said, reaching out for Cinch’s wrist to hold out her forearm, which she gave up after a split-second of resistance. She got a better look at the daisy bloom on her wrist, and the sunflower drawn right next to it. A violet further down, then a cluster of three more flowers halfway to her elbow: a lily, a lotus, and a rose. And filling the space in the background, a pattern of vibrant green stems whose texture looked so real.

“Wow, that’s a surprise!” Sunset marveled.

“Oh, it’s hardly a wonder that there were plenty of tattoo artists still plying their craft until the end! In fact, the woman who did mine said more people than ever were getting their very first tattoos these past few weeks. She seemed very happy.“

Sunset snorted. “Abby! You know what I mean! This isn’t exactly the kinda thing you’d allow at Crystal Prep.”

“Oh, I very much did not! In fact, I once expelled a student for getting a tattoo very much like this one. She… she did not take it well.” Cinch’s eyes darted to the edge of the roof for just a moment. “It was something I’ve regretted every day since.“

“Ah, yeah.” Sunset nodded. “It makes sense that you would get this, then. It must be meaningful to you.” She began tracing her finger along those stems that just popped out of the design, and marveled at how she only felt soft skin.

Cinch inhaled sharply, causing Sunset to let go of her forearm, and look at her. 

“That isn’t the only meaning it has for me.”

She pointed to her wrist with her other hand, at the daisy bloom, and said two words. 

“Sour Sweet.” 

Sunset’s eyes widened, barely registering the name before Cinch pointed at the sunflower.

“Sunny Flare.”

Then the lily near her elbow, then the lotus, then the rose, the names spilling out of her like precise pours of wine into a glass.

“Indigo Zap. Sugarcoat. Lemon Zest.”

By the time she pointed at the violet in the center, vibrant and purple and bleeding, Sunset could say the last one with her.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

The syllables lingered in the air between them, then died. Sunset kept her eyes fixed on the violet bloom.

“I…” Cinch began. “I just needed them to be more than those black dots.”

Sunset understood.

Those six black dots, in that pattern that had been etched into her mind forever. Six black dots. oOn a blank background, annotated with typewritten numbers that meant nothing to her except a vague sense of dread about how many commas they used. Six high-school girls, with names and faces and hopes and dreams and all their lives ahead of them

Reduced to six black dots.

Reduced to where they had been standing when the world changed forever.

The cover story had been simple. A tragic tale of a scientific prodigy desperate to impress, a heartless school administrator willing to win at all costs, and unsecured nuclear material. 

The cover story had explained so much. Why questions about what happened to Abacus Cinch and Sunset Shimmer were met with statements about the need to preserve national security. Why Canterlot High was suddenly crawling with stern-looking men and women bearing badges from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. 

Why those six high-school girls were buried in opaque, lead-lined coffins.

But they knew the truth. Why neither the families nor the public could ever be allowed to see the absurdly clinical laboratory notes and the high-resolution photographs. Death by acute radiation poisoning would have been a blessing.

“It’s beautiful,” Sunset said, as if casting a ward against that mental image. She traced her finger along the flowers on Cinch’s arm again. “How did you pick them?”

“Each of their favorites.” Cinch smiled at Sunset’s raised eyebrow. “Nothing I knew from before, of course. What I figured out from their social media profiles. Their memorials. And yes, I spent a full day of freedom just going through old internet archives, learning everything about them that I could, can you believe it?”

Sunset looked away sheepishly. “It makes sense that you would. I… I did something similar. I felt like I owed it to them.” 

“It’s the smallest trade. I gave them a day of my life. I can’t give them back the years I took.”

Sunset frowned. “Abby…”

“I know, I know.” Cinch smiled. “I didn’t know.”

“And I did.”

“You were a child. You were trying to stop me.” Cinch sighed. “It’s fitting, isn’t it? That we go through this bit again in our very last conversation.“

“Just wouldn’t be us without it, huh, Abby?” Sunset grinned, and Cinch couldn’t help but smile and roll her eyes.

She tried to help it. When Sunset gently placed a hand on her cheek, soft and warm, she pushed it away.

“Sunset.” 

Cinch’s tone was two hairs away from saying “Ms. Shimmer”. 

“Sunset. We’ve been over this. I know you—” She stopped herself. “I just can’t.”

“I— I know. I’m sorry, Abby. I just—” Her eyes were brimmed with tears. “I just—”

“I know.”  

Cinch carefully placed a calming hand on Sunset’s side, then brought her in for a controlled hug. Sunset pressed her face against Cinch’s shoulder, felt the comforting depth of her squeeze, then let go. She sniffled, smiling sheepishly. 

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

“It’s very understandable, Sunset.” It truly was, given the circumstances. Cinch gave an unsure frown. “Do you want to talk about her after all?”

“I—” Sunset closed her eyes and snorted a giggle. “I—” She opened her eyes and giggled again as she saw Cinch’s frown deepened into a concerned one. “I— I never met her, Abby.”

Cinch’s eyes widened, and she jerked back. “What?”

“Oh, it’s not like I made her up! She really did message me. She really was in our class at Canterlot High. She was in the yearbook— she was on the yearbook committee, just like me! We really did talk for hours. She really did invite me to just spend the— “ She shook her head. “To spend the last month with her. I just never went. I never met her.“

Cinch took a moment to process this. “So the photos you sent?”

“You won’t believe what apps can do these days! And there was so much to work with from social media. Years’ worth of pictures!” 

Sunset turned on her phone and handed it to Cinch, who could see that the background picture was of a beaming Sunset holding a smiling green-skinned girl in a sun hat to her side, surrounded by lush foliage. She recognized it instantly.

“Your garden date.”

“Yep! Where our first kiss… never really happened. The picture’s two years old. Who knows who took it?” 

Sunset shrugged, and made no motion to take back her phone. Cinch held it tight in her hand, staring at the picture, knowing that with just one press of a button, she could see just how much time they had left. Just one press.

She put the phone face-down on the rooftop, and looked at Sunset. Just one word. 

“Why?”

“I just didn’t want you to worry. Not you or Pinkie or Rarity or any of the others. I mean, it worked, didn’t it? They all saw me so happy in that first week, helping me get set up for my last month. They just needed a happy excuse to never have to see me again. Wallflower was perfect. It was genius of me.”

Sunset gave her the finger guns, but Cinch did not react in any way.

“That’s not what I meant, Sunset. Why didn’t you meet her? I—” Cinch swallowed anxiously. “I was so happy for you. For both of you. She seemed so sweet.”

“She was! She was so sweet and kind and funny when we talked. And her laugh! Just this cute little thing she can’t help. I just loved to see it. So much.”

Sunset’s smile was bright and happy. Cinch’s frown was not. She repeated herself sternly. “So why didn’t you meet her?”

“Because!” Sunset shouted, her smile evaporating into a grimace. “Because  I would have had to tell her, then. I would have had to tell her that I didn’t remember her at all.”

Cinch let her voice soften. “She would have understood. You’ve been through a lot since then, Sunset.”

“No, I haven’t, that’s the thing! I haven’t done anything since then, besides rot in that bunker! I still remember them all, Abby. Micro Chips and Bulk Biceps and Roseluck and Scootaloo and Trixie and everyone else I told you all those stories about until you got sick of them! But I don’t remember her.” Sunset laughed, her smile wide, but eyes were pleading. “How awful would that be for her?”

“Sunset—”

“I know!” She threw her arms up. “I shouldn’t have lied like that. I’m the worst! Then you’re going to tell me I’m not, then blame yourself again, then I’ll argue that you shouldn’t, and I don’t want to do that again now. Let’s just… skip past it. It’s already happened, can’t do anything about it now. Have to focus on the future. Ha, that hits different now, doesn’t it?“

Sunset smirked at her, but Cinch didn’t laugh. “It does,” she said.

“Yeah.” Sunset looked into her eyes. Her lips softened. “I just hope you can tell me that you weren’t faking it, too.”

“I can tell you that, yes.” Cinch nodded, then smiled. “It truly has been a magical time, even if I was just wandering the city. Feeling the grass of the park underneath my feet. Hearing the music playing from every porch.  And everyone you meet is just so open these days, about their deepest desires and happiest memories.“

“I’m glad.” Sunset smiled widely, closing her eyes. “I’m so, so glad.”

“I wish you had been there with me, Sunset.”

“I know. But I’m glad I wasn’t. You deserved that time of just getting to be by yourself. Or at least, not having to worry about or take care of me.“ Sunset opened her eyes, and looked at Cinch to see that her earlier smile was gone, replaced by a look of concern.

“I wish you had been there with me,” Cinch repeated. “It would have been nice to explore this world with you, what little we could. It would have been a joy, no matter what you were like.”

“I know.” Sunset looked away. “I know. Well, at least we’re here together now.”

Cinch sighed. “Yes. At least.”

Sunset kept her gaze away. “I was actually hoping that you’d say ‘no’. That you had someone else to be with. Someone from your past, or someone you met.”

“I did get invitations. But they were all just people I met. The kindness of strangers.“ Cinch frowned. “I was dreading what it meant for you, but I admit, I was a bit glad when you asked me to join you for today..“

“Me too,” Sunset admitted. “Me too.” She looked at Cinch, and smiled weakly “They invited me, you know. All of them. Applejack and Rarity, up to their farm. Fluttershy, to her animal sanctuary. Pinkie Pie, to her last party. Even Rainbow Dash, if I could find a way to get myself that far east in time.” She sighed. “But I turned them all down. I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t face any of them. Not like you.”

Something about that seemed to strike Cinch, the corners of her mouth tightening. “Sunset. If you weren’t with Wallflower, What have you been doing these past few weeks?”

Sunset gave her an apologetic smile.

“Nothing. Just lying in bed all day on my phone, watching the world go by. Watching everyone get ready for the end. I never even left that apartment, Abby. Not once.” 

Cinch’s eyes widened. Sunset choked a laugh.

“I didn’t mean to do it at first! At least, that’s what I told myself! That I’d just let myself sit and rot for a week. I mean— They gave me enough baked beans to last the whole month, did you know that? Like they somehow knew that I would end up never leaving that apartment. The exact same kind they fed us for all those years, those green cans! So I thought, hey, I was already so sick of those beans that I could barely make myself look at them. Of course I’d leave, just to get to eat anything else. But I never did. I just sat in that bed and ate them all. One by one.”

Her voice was strained and hoarse.

“Because what else was I supposed to do, Abby? Like, oh, hey! World’s ending soon, so we might as well let you go! Enjoy your last month on Earth! What was I supposed to do? Just pretend like nothing ever happened? Like all those years in that prison didn’t mean anything?”

Cinch winced at that. “Sunset—”

“I know.” Sunset cringed. “I’m sorry, I know that’s not fair.”

“No, Sunset. I—” 

Sunset’s eyes widened as Cinch took her hand in hers. Soft and calm.

“It’s already happened, can’t do anything about it now. Have to focus on the future. And the present. And in the present, I’m glad that you are out here with me, on this rooftop. I am glad that we have the summer breeze to feel, and a beautiful sunset to enjoy together.”

At that, Sunset turned her head to the horizon, where the setting sun was casting off a glow of red into the dimming sky. 

“It is beautiful,” she said, biting her lip. “Can you believe it’s the first time I’ve actually come up here? I always just watched it from my window. I never ended up painting it like I said I would.”

“That’s a shame. You were looking forward to it so much.”

“I never even opened the supplies. Not the ones they let me keep, or the ones Rarity gave me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” Sunset sighed. “The idea of painting just didn’t feel the same like it did before. When it was the only thing I had down there.“

“It’s a shame,” Cinch repeated. “I think you really would have captured that moment you were always talking about.“

“Funny, isn’t it?” Sunset laughed weakly.

“Yes.”

Cinch glanced at the phone still face-down on the ground, and its promise of more than what she already knew. That on a normal night, as the sun set, they would get to see the sky fade slowly into a starless inky black. 

That tonight was not one of those nights.

She moved her hand to Sunset’s waist, cupping the fabric of her jumpsuit.

“We really were the only ones who could ever understand each other, weren’t we?”

That thin polyester was hardly able to contain the heat of her skin, the rhythm of her breathing.

“Yes.”

They embraced, for the eternity that fit into the unknowable time they had left.

Comments

[Reese]

I think I'll skip the first draft included here, sorry; I'm low on time, and, after all, I just finished going through the superior finished version. Thanks for the option, though.

And thank you for the additional information on the story in here, and for writing in general! Sorry about your own difficulties, but at least you're one of those people who can transmute them into art (even if you don't consciously realize you're doing it until partway through, sometimes).

Also, now I'm wondering more about the rewrite of Long-Distance, and how much of the difference between the world of this and the world of that is from this being an AU and how much is from the second version of that story being different from the first.