It's a beautiful sunset, layering on the irony. The sky's full of fading clouds, heavy with an unwelcome and awkward purple but limned on the underside with a warmer and more familiar red. A bright yellow ball hangs just above the ground, bleeding its color across the horizon into the haze of distant Horseburg's agricultural dust. I hold up one hand, curling in my fingers to examine the brightly painted nails, and in the light of dying day, my skin is an old familiar orange that makes my heart ache with might-have-beens.
I'm in the school bell tower, alone. I'm not crying. I'm not.
The ghost of his memory walks up behind me. He rests his head on my shoulder, and we stare at the sun together. His hands are cold on my shoulders in the bite of the autumn air, but the outer shell of his jacket shares its borrowed sun-heat with my back. I can smell his — what's that word again? — aftershave, a sweet musk that would have curled my nose hairs Before The Portal, but which merely lingers at the edge of my faded senses, registering almost subconsciously.
If I block out the tower walls at the corners of my vision, it's just like we're on his rooftop, that first week after he found me unconscious.
"It's so strange," I mumble at him like I did then, crossing my arms over my chest where his should go, feeling the words slide out where once they stumbled through my lack of muzzle. "To watch this."
"Why?" his memory murmurs into my ear.
This time, I answer. "Sunset is so different from Equestria's. It takes so long to fall. And the shimmer I was named for is missing." Celestia's shimmer, the grip of her horn. My gut twists for a moment. Her counterpart has never been anything but polite and disinterested, but the way she looks at me sometimes, I wonder what she knows.
He's silent. We stare into the sun. Why didn't you tell me about your world?, he doesn't say.
Would you have stayed if I did?, I don't answer.
He holds me while the tiniest sliver of light sinks into the earth. The silence grows awkward.
"You could have been my king, you know," I say. I'm not bitter. I'm disappointed. "You only hurt yourself."
He still isn't speaking. Why isn't he speaking? "I wasn't asking you for much," I say. "Just to do my homework for a week or two while I researched how to break back through. To keep the principal off my tail while I located the portal. To help me steal the grounds key. Which I've got, no thanks to you." I lean back into his chest, the warm patina of the oversized bell. "I'm going to make this world into the paradise it was meant to be." An unwelcome gust of chilly wind, never touched by a pegasus, ruffles my hair. "Bring the magic back."
"Do you believe in magic?" the memory of his voice faintly echoes.
I don't have to believe, I told him once upon a time. I can look at the sunset with you, and know. That's when I first leaned into him, cheek to neck, and heard in his chest the quickening of his heart.
"Being with you," another distant memory whispers. "It's just so … magical."
I close my eyes and lean into his cheek. The metal of the bell is moist.
"The magic's gone," a third memory says, sharp and clear. "I … just don't know you any more."
My eyes snap open.
I'm in the school bell tower, alone. Why am I crying?
"I don't care about you," I force myself to say out loud. I wipe my tears on my sleeves and stand up straight. I point an accusing finger at the sun. "And I don't care about you!" I fling myself forward to the railing, and scream out at the world, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF YOU!"
I don't, I repeat to nobody in particular, certainly not to the one who walked away, as I curl up in a tight little ball with the last rays of sunlight ascending the top of the tower. I don't. It doesn't matter. Just so long as I get my magic back.
Just one more week until the portal reopens. One week without him.
I stand up, with one final glance at the red of the horizon, and stumble down the stairs, closing the trapdoor behind me. I don't care. I really don't.
I'll keep saying that.
By the time I succeed, it might even be true.
Author's Notes:
I wrote this for the "Just Over The Horizon" 10/2014 writeoff, a 24-hour minific competition. It took me two hours to write and 12 hours to title. (Some of those were sleep, but, still.)
The title is literally a seven-word description for "sunset", but it also simultaneously describes Sunset, an unfamiliar protagonist sliding down the moral slope. This is, in other words, a story about [sS]unset just over the horizon.
It was originally posted without any formatting (oops). Hopefully, the version here is a little clearer.
5193822 Discord actually appreciated it, because he absolutely didn't expect that reaction.
It was delightfully chaotic!
FK
Actual comment: You're not gonna expand Slow Fall? D:
5194210
D'aww, thanks for the vote of confidence. (I know it was your favorite from the JOTH round.)
Serious question, though: what would benefit from expansion? This was one of the few minifics I've written in which I felt like I told the story I wanted to tell in 750 words. Is this just a general "moar", or is there something expandable which seems obvious to you and not me?
5194396
Mostly just a "I don't want it to languish buried in a minific compilation" thing. :( I don't know what you could do to it other than use three words where one would suffice.
5194693
I'll think about it, but most likely, sorry. D: Padding for the sake of padding would weaken it.
5194848
;_;
muh feels
5192883 I didn't even really consider that as a possibility, just as you say. I sure am glad I thought to poke you about it, though; not only did I read the two you posted, I noticed that I had somehow gotten "From the Stars" falsely marked as read. I have to wonder what I would have thought if someone had told me five years ago that not only would I be reading My Little Pony fan poetry, it would be good.
5195810
I'm glad you did too! And thanks for the kind poetry words — if you liked "From the Stars", you should really take a look at Melt, or at the Pony Verse compilation to which I contributed.
Oh, very nice! Sunset Shimmer is rapidly becoming one of my favorite ponies, and this is a lovely look inside her head.
5195868
STAY AWAY FROM MY WAIFUErr, I mean … Thanks! I wasn't terribly impressed by Equestria Girls Sunset Shimmer, but Rainbow Rocks deepened her character considerably.
5195879
I think it's the same thing that made so many people into Trixie fans. (I like the Great & Powerful One, but I don't consider myself as a fan of hers. )
Sunset is very literally and deliberately Twilight Sparkle, gone wrong. She's a dark reflection of Purple Smart, sharing the powerful magic, the supreme education and the connection to Celestia. They both were friendless, but in different ways: Twilight, a neurotic introvert, shunned other ponies and buried herself into books, while Sunset, an arrogant extrovert, disdained them and set herself on a pedestal of her own making. And where Twilight's driving ambition (if you can call it that) was "Make Celestia proud of me!", Sunset's seems to have been "Become like Celestia".
The way Sunset turns Twilight's favorite teleport maneuver on her at the beginning of Equestria Girls really drives that home. I think that she's the only pony shown who can do that "winking" from place to place, besides Twilight. (Celestia and Luna clearly have their ways of showing up rapidly if they need to, without bothering with chariots and guards, but it's not quite the same thing.) And it's not coincidence that to reach Sunset, Twilight has to literally enter the mirror!
All this means that Sunset has an awesome amount of potential to explore. And I really like both her voice and her design. You'd think that an orange-yellow pony with red-and-yellow hair might look garish, but she doesn't.
… Oh, I see how it is.
But yes, I agree with everything you say. And (Hard Reset 2 spoilers, as a bonus for people who read multiple stories of mine!) she will be making an unexpected appearance there, for similar reasons — not directly shown onscreen, but as a major influence.
5195854
Melt I sort of half-read; it's to the same standard but it's hard for a non-poetry fan to keep track of things for that many words. (You almost exclusively write fiction that demands a lot of attention from the reader, but when it's more along the lines of "in this update: twists!", I can sort of let the story help bring things together for me; poetry isn't so forgiving.) I RiL'd Pony Verse, and I quite enjoyed "Thy Words" too; I think the brief but effective bits of verse in that are a good way to cheat in the beauty of effective poetry while keeping the more straightforward structure of prose.
You aren't the only one who can get past my poetry tipping point: I'm also following this lovely collection of romantic Twixie poetry, mostly because of the beautiful and powerful title.
These two sentences are the only ones in this comment without a colon or semicolon. I didn't even mean to do that.
5195947
In Applejack's defense, she doesn't have any red in her mane!
Nice Sunset content here!
5196088
At the risk of spoiling the joke, picture Applejack's unamused stare coming from the pegasus to the left of the comment box.
5195951
> You almost exclusively write fiction that demands a lot of attention from the reader
… I think that's the most succinct summary of my style I've ever heard. Good points all around, though.
5196222
STAY AWAY FROM MY WAIFUerr, I mean: Thank you!(Coming whenever I discover the mythical eighth day of the week, which is to the normal week what octarine is to the rainbow: The Sunset Cycle. Sunset's not displacing Luna, and couldn't; but I'm feeling those same sorts of yearnings I suspect you do/did for Cadance that tell me Sunset has stories that need to be told.)
5197160
Oh, no intention of coming between you. Go ahead and build a little fun-cave out of pillows if you wish. I can only at present admire Sunny from afar. This may always change, I suppose.
Also: as always, I'm sure anything you write on this topic will be quality. I'd help you look for that eighth day so that you could do that and finish "...Hitchhikers" but I would probably just procrastinate through the eighth one as well.
I think my favorite part of this was the hint at Sunset's goals. Read one way, she's trying to bring magic to a universe that doesn't seem to have any. (Emphasis on "seem." See Pie, Pinkamena Diane.) Read another, she's just trying to reconnect with Flash. In either case, the future she envisions is a paradise.
Technically speaking, Sunset accomplishes both of her goals, in both the disastrous short-term (assuming you accept "brainwash" for "reconnect,") and the healthier long-term. After all, if it weren't for Sunset stealing the Element of Magic, there would've been no reason for Twilight to come to that world, unify the human analogues of her friends, and give them all magical mutations. On the other hand, if Sunset had reined in her ambitions a little, she might still have Flash. I guess it's a case of needing to be careful what you wish for.
In any case, I liked this in the writeoff, and I like it now. Thank you for it.
I have no idea how this fits into anything. Not having seen either movie, all I know about Sunset is what I've read, much of which has been here.
Still a good story.
5203002 5203239
Thank you!
I cannot thank you enough for adding these 844 words to my Sunset Shimmer headcanon. (Oh, hey, is that a theory that in Rainbow Rocks Sunset Shimmer only claimed to be over Flash and that she's just in denial and does still have feelings for him? Brilliant. I'll take it. I cannot let this ship sink.) But seriously! Well done, man; this minific brings a tear to my eye. Those few sentences on "Celestia's shimmer" really struck a chord. You're good at that. And FanOfMostEverything's comment about how you portray Sunset Shimmer's goals couldn't have been truer.
5197160
*drools*
5195854
Oh, no . . . Why'd you have to go and post a link to "Pony Verse"? You just got me to re-read "An Impromptu Private Composition Upon The Joyous Occasion Of My Return Gala" (goddamn that poem is masterful I will never get over how good it is) and now I don't think I'll be able to resist the urge to re-read the entire compilation . . . I'm never gonna be able to pull myself from my computer screen at this rate, consarn it!
ohhhh man, ambion's "Berry Punch . . . communing with the spirits!" Clerihoof. oh man. oh man I'm in stitches
5225910
I am occasionally bad about responding to heartfelt praise, and now that another comment has brought me back here I'm reminded that I left you with silence. So: Thank you for making my day, not once but twice, since this brought a smile to my face when I ran back across it too.
Also, seconded wrt "Pony Verse" and its overall quality.
Huh. Kind of a mixed bag so far, but the good stories are good enough for me to keep tracking this thing.
5419699
It kind of is, but I'm glad you are finding things to enjoy.
5730555
That's p. much what I did. :B
I loved it.
6650990
Thank you!
I think this would have done better in the Writeoffs if it hadn't been so soon after Equestria Girls 2, when a lot of bronies were avoiding it on principle of the first one being p. bad (and some just had no interest in that side of the franchise at all). I still think it came out pretty good.
So very, very late, but I got to ask: was the part about "awkward and unwelcome purple" spoiling Sunset's sunset a super-duper double subtle foreshadowing of Twilight Sparkle's intrusion?
7527861
It absolutely was. Nice catch.
Hey, I did you a thing. Finally.
8348874
Oh, wow. :D Thank you! It's always been one of my favorite shorts.
5194693
... should I add it to the short-story collection I'm putting together for Bronycon?
Even rereading it, I feel like it came together basically the way I wanted it to.
Well! I've been trying to find this one for a while now; I had forgotten that it was not a stand-alone story, but part of an anthology of mini-fics!
Still a lovely, emotional look at pre-movie Sunset and her possible motivations.