As they walked towards the ambassadorial suites near the top of the crystal castle, Luna listened as the larger alicorn quietly asked her student leading questions about what she saw on the other side of the mirror, meandering into a lesson on the minotaur homeland and beyond. She was gently distracting the little filly, while gaining hints on precisely what she actually remembered. Soon enough the little pony seemed to have dozed off.
Luna did notice, however, how her sister was acting out of sorts. This was affecting her a great deal more than anticipated. Before seeing them together, she had thought that her Sunset had been just another student, closer to her sister in some manners, but kept at a bit of a distance. By the way she spoke, this one had been much closer to Tia’s heart, the tone almost seemed filial at times. Princess Celestia did seem distracted once they got closer to the top of the tower, likely planning something.
Luna followed her sister into the royal guest suites provided by Princess Cadance. Her sister quietly continued past the sitting room, and into one of the bedrooms, until she was beside a large princess sized bed. Celestia looked behind her shoulder then nodded towards the bed, while carefully lifting the dozing orange filly from her back. Luna went ahead and pulled back the comforter and sheets as Celestia laid the foal down. After tucking her in and brushing her forehead with the tip of a wing to move her mane from her eyes, Celestia seemed content to sit by the bed. Luna could understand her sister's sentiment a bit, however there were things to discuss, and after a minute she nudged her larger sibling, then motioned back towards the sitting room.
Once they were both out, and had closed the door to the bedroom, Luna put on an awkward smile and said, "So... my sister, it seems you are happy to see your former student alive and well."
Celestia finally looked away from the door. "Hmm? Oh yes, it-it feels like a wish come true, Luna. My dear Sunset is back. I had forgotten how cute she was at this age," she said with a wistful giggle. "I should have taken more pictures during the years she was with me the first time."
Luna was beginning to think this may be a complicated conversation, where she would need to ground her sister from her current flight of fancy. "Well, we should have somepony take those pictures on the morrow! Otherwise we may not have another chance before either Twilight fixes her or this transformation wears off, eh?"
Celestia frowned. "...Yes... I suppose so..." Then she shook her head a tiny bit, as if flicking off a fly, before smiling gently back at her sister. "In any case, I believe we will need to send a missive to Canterlot so the staff have a chance to clean Sunset's old room before we return. As she is now, yesterday she was still living at the Canterlot palace. I wonder if Inkwell remembers how her room used to look like when she was this young last time..."
Luna frowned in consternation. "Tia... no matter her age, Sunset Shimmer is intelligent, from what I could see. We can't just redecorate some rooms and hope she doesn't notice! You know she will see all the things that have changed, that she has been gone longer than a day. My goodness! Even just the palace has changed drastically since my return. My heraldry and flags fly all around, the staff she knew will all be years older, and even then those that knew her will react differently than she expects since they'll remember her growing up to being an arrogant, deceitful, rude young mare."
"Don't, Luna. I know better than you how Sunset Shimmer acted by the end of her time with me as my-well, as my student," Celestia replied before looking away. "To be honest, many mistakes were made the last few years of her time with me, quite a few on my end, to my regret. And yes, I could be foolishly selfish and convince myself to trick her, as if nothing has changed. However, even at the end she was always my darling Sunset, and it hurts that she has lost years of memories of our time together, the good along with the the bad," Celestia continued, with watery eyes. "Can't you agree it would be cruel to tell a child that adores you that she grew up to become the villain?
“Especially since we don't know if the changes can be safely reverted. Can't we let her keep her innocence for a little while longer, at least until we know for sure what will happen?"
Luna took a deep breath and looked at her sister. She stepped forward and nuzzled her cheek, hoping the physical affection would take a bit of the sting from the words she needed to say. "Tia, there's no escaping this. Even if we do not need to tell her all the details that she has forgotten, or that she was transformed and made to forget with a powerful artifact, it will be obvious that she's been gone for more than a day. Ponies will be older, even the staff in the palace must have changed some since then. You must see that there's no hiding this from her, Sister."
Celestia raised her head and her serene mask came down on her features. It was clear that she had decided on a course of action. "Luna, I will carefully inform Sunset that more time has passed than she is aware of. I wish for you and the others to respectfully keep the specifics, or the fact that she has lost years worth of memories to yourselves, much less the fact that she stranded herself on another world for those same years. Until we know if the changes are permanent or not, she is Sunset Shimmer, a gifted 7 year old unicorn under my care, nothing more or less."
Luna could see in her eyes how resolute her sister felt. "As you wish, Sister, this is your wayward student after all. If you'll excuse me I need to go safeguard the dreams of our ponies." She could tell that no good would come from continuing this discussion, and Luna was couldn't fault her logic, though her instincts told her they may be making a mistake. Perhaps something will come to her mind by tomorrow.
Celestia watched as her sister walked out into the hallway. She knew where Luna was coming from, however there were things she still hadn't shared with her that made this so much more difficult. In the time after Sunset left through the portal, Celestia had spent many an evening reflecting about how they'd ended up so estranged. The more time that passed, the more she came to accept that she was responsible as the adult with Sunset being a young mare. Apparently those were known for rebelliousness against authority figures, irrational emotional outbursts, and making rash decisions.
She had taught many students throughout her long life, but Sunset was the first and only one she had taken on to raise.
Eh...bit short, but does help us get into the sisters' minds and set up some nice conflict for later.
Quick word of advice: If you're not happy with something, don't release it. Take your time to write stuff out and get it to a place where you want it. Never feel compelled or pressured to post anything.
Also, props to you for rewriting this after losing your first draft. I hate having to do anything twice.
Is there any evidence the transformation isn't permanent?
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Thanks! I have been pushing myself a bit, since before I've always written and erased everything, and ended up never posting anything. I'm purposefully getting way way out of my comfort zone, but I'll make sure I don't overdo it in the other direction.
As for the length of the chapter, you're right, it could have been a bit longer, I'd just burnt myself with having to rewrite it, since it's a scene that needed to happen, but I could have written more. I did play with having Luna look into Sunset's dreams, but this has been pushed back for reasons
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No evidence whatsoever either way at this point. It's actually this uncertainty that is going to make writing Celestia and others around Sunset so interesting!
This becomes a bit of an ethical question right? Should you presume that they will return, or that they won't? Because the attitude towards Sunset depends on each characters beliefs on this. What's more, do you try to fix them or leave them as is? If you consider that a person is the sum of their experiences and memories, effectively you would be allowing the person Sunset had grown up to be, as imperfect as she was, die... and Equestria doesn't have the death penalty. Or you can see it as a second chance right?
With Sunset also losing the greater amount of her time with Celestia, it makes it more difficult for the princess to ignore. There are years' worth of experiences she had with Sunset growing up before she ran off, that Sunset no longer remembers. She didn't really get her sunset back in a way. This will lead to some frustration down the line :)
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I kinda see what you mean. I'm a perfectionist, myself, and quite a lot goes into my stuff before I post. Part of my problem is I often don't have the time I want to write.
Couple that with my practice to write a story out in its entirety before I upload anything, and I end up with very little posted content.
I think the stilted tone works given that Luna is trying to get a better read on Celestia and Celestia is obviously being defensive. Looking forward to more.
I recognize a need to get a chapter up by a certain deadline. However, realize that those deadlines, as this is not your job and you are not getting paid for this, are made by you. Half the problems with this chapter could be solved with just a simple run through and a correction of grammar and syntax. The conversations where actually the best part of this, and if it weren't for the placement of said grammar errors, this chapter would have been very well written. So in short take your time and reread at least once before you post, We will all wait for a good story that we care about, This is a good story and it has been very well written, I honestly like this alternate plot quite a bit. As someone who lost their mother I can empathize with both Sunset and Celestia. Sunset for wanting to get back to someone she always saw as her mother and Celestia for wanting to use this second chance to correct her previous mistakes. This conversation was required to keep your reader's suspension of belief going, and using it to give us a little exposition is showing and not telling. As long as it is not overused, then it becomes the opposite, So the problems you are seeing can be fixed and in time you can fix them and adjust them, Such things just take time. But I would advise taking the time constraint off yourself. It is both artificial and unnecessary. We all care about this story and want it to be the best that you can make it, if that means waiting for a bit to get it right, either because of technical difficulties or other reasons, fine. My final piece of unasked for advice, that I will give anyway as I am kind of a jerk, is to wait to edit until you have typed a complete chapter. Too often we as writers fall into the trap of "write 2 sentences, delete 3." My girlfriend happens to call me on it frequently. So I hope you read this in the intention that it was written. To be critical, and if I am honest a bit harsh, but to ultimately be helpful.
Can tell this chapter was written in a rush. The pacing of the dialogue is off. Agree with others that you should take your time to polish.
One way to have Sunset stay with Twilight is for Celestia to explain that as a fellow student of hers Twilight is sort of like a sister to Sunset and she wants the two of them to spend some time getting to know one another.
One way to deal with whether or not to fix Sunset one way to handle it is to figure out a way to reverse what happened to her and then let a well informed Sunset make the decision of what she wants for herself.
Hmmm, interesting choice of wording
I think you should define how many years passed, but good story with plenty potential nonetheless.
Looking interesting. Would help if you took time to proofread, there are quite a few grammatical typos that detract from the reading experience. If nothing else, copy and paste into Word and use the Spelling and Grammar tool.
No, Twas a dialogue chapter, and you did good on that front.
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It is dificult to establish a true time line with Sunset Shimmer existence, Sunset not being cannon in the show is the cause.
The main problem would be, when did Sunset use the miror to go in the human world and how old was she, depending on that, we also need to take into account the time dilatation of different dimention, if sunset left at 20 years old, but only a few year before Nightmare Moon, the first film would be wrong as Twilight should know about her existance, them being less than a decade apart, and then, they would be student of Celestia together.
It is a headache, really, since the different information about the human world do not tell of any time differences, the best bet is this : pony lives probably longer than a human, giving Sunset a teenager form, twilight is young, like 20 or 18, wich put her birth at two decades before the return and cleansing of Luna, while Sunset Shimmer is, maybe, around 40 to 50 year old (Celestia need to mourn somewhat), meaning that Sunset would have lived the equivalent of thirty pony year in the human world, staying a teen, causing the two world to have different time speed, except when the portal is open.
But then, how do age translate into human form, because we know that Sunset was there for a few year and she would have appeared younger than Twilight (think she left at 14 or something?). There is no answer, because we are dealing with Starswirl brand of magic, wich fuck everything up every time, you can give Sunset something like 25 year old, and Twilight a good 15, And the mirror choose arbitrarily to turn anypony who go trough a different age. How can we give the two important character a similar age, due to their similarity in the human world, when it is obvious, because of celestia, that Sunset came before, and Twilight not knowing about her, while at the same time, the 2 wolrds run the time at the same speed (it seems, no real indication for ponyland)
In the end, if you try to understand it, the mirror just come back into equation to tell you "It's magic, I don't gotta explain shit".
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Funny thing is I did a whole bunch of calculations for this back in November. By all appearances, time passes in the human world at 1/3 that in Equestria. So, at this point, Sunset would have been gone 15 years, but only aged 5.
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I admit, 1/3 -> 15 years, for 5 years of growth seems good.
It will stay in the realm of theorie, as long as no proof is brought into the show or the human world. So we can't blame most autor when they mess up with their own timeline, since the base one is already weird.
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Without Sunset, it is possible, after all, the event of the fall formal, wich is the trigger, exist.
There is still the possibility of having the human 5, deus ex the find of Sunset journal and contacting Celestia with it.
But I largely doubt it, since it doesn't seems to be what the autor is going for, the event of battle of the band might be swept under the rug, for fluffy bonding with filly Sunset an d her teacher/adoptive mother.
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Probably same for Friendship Games.
However, a Sci-Twi/Midnight Sparkle vs Dazzlings showdown does sound pretty awesome...
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I meant as in how many years it was in equestria, the ones in the human world don't matter anymore. Because that information is going to affect the story due to all the employees at the castle, her "friends", the orphanage. Because it has been at the very least some fifteen since she was gone, plus some fifteen since she was seven, so thirty years. How long ponies live now becomes relevant again, because if they live to 300 like Granny Smith then not a lot will have changed, but if they live like humans then a lot of the staff is not there anymore, and the ones that are were young back then, and are not now. Raven being there, as Celestia stated, becomes complicated of it is the later option.
Basically, yeah, that information matters a LOT.
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Without Sunset's battle with pony Twi, neither the Battle of Bands nor the Sci Twi incident would have happened.
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And since Equestria's magic has already leaked in the human world, those event can and probably will happen, but it's to the autor discretion to write said event and their devellopement.
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What makes u think magic has leaked w/o the events initiated by Sunset's arrival?
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Well first it leak since StarSwirl created the portal, it was just enought to feed the sirens, and keep the multiple artifact sleeping, but I may be wrong for that, cause there is just no proof.
Next, there is a great lightshow, when Twi blast Sun with the Elements, and not to far away, the sirens feels the boost, and later we have the group of Sun experimenting with magical girl transformation (pony ear, tail, wing). <--- Wich mean that it is basically Twilight fault
The blast of the Elements rather than a leak, is more like a tear where only magic can pass trough, wich Sci twi used and amplified, to do, whatever she thought to be doing at the time.
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The comic shows her as just fine when the exits the portal. Actually being rather intrigued as to what lay beyond.
My theory is the memory stone took away her highschool years and then some.
Wallflower wanted to take the memories of the Rainbooms so they wouldn't remember each other. Again, going back to the comic, we learn that Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were friends before CHS. So, in order for the spell to work in them, it would also have to affect their middle school memories.
That played out in Sunset as bringing her to a time before she entered the mirror.
Both of them certainly do have their points about how to handle this. The way they handle this could either help Sunset grow to become better or just break all over again. And that's presuming something doesn't happen to reverse what has happened to her. Looking forward to what comes next.
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I know, I have that very comic. Question is how much of that remain fully in canon, as things are dicey when it comes to the comics and the show. Moon Dancer was in that very comic where Sunset ran off through the mirror, and she is completely different than how she is in the show - appearance personality, and age. There may be a general path that sets the comic in with Sunset's backstory, but some elements may not be as was intended.
But yes, there is a chance that Sunset also lost the memory of actually going through the mirror as being counted part of high school. It may just be possible she was in the middle of an argument with Celestia and then suddenly finds herself different and in another place. It's just trickier to determine what to apply to canon given the history of the diverging paths of the comic and show.
Ya, this is good. Hmm, the Sirens should still be a potential threat having seen the light show, so I think that'll be relevant here. On top of this, I've always been under the guise that while she means well, Celestia can SUCK at planning things or raising kids right without her plans for them having issues. So,seeing her having to fix that with Twilight there to see will be interesting.
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The human world right now doesn't really have a way to communicate with Equestria until and unless Sunset's diary is found. Will that happen? Magic eight ball says try again later.
Also remember that this time the target of the super rainbow blast was removed from earth unlike in the original so there is much less magical contamination (maybe?)
Truthfully I'm going to focus on how much Celestia sucked with Sunset AND Twilight AND Luna in a way. Also how the system and everyone sucked for Sunset AND Celestia.
See the thing is I see how good intentions wouldn't be enough to raise Sunset (orphan fanon) if you assume pony society as having less understanding of orphan psychology than we do.
Pony society is pretty black and white as a rule, in the sense of moral questions surrounding what DRIVES behavior. So that pony is a braggart, instead of they are hyping up for their magic show (livelihood) ; or this pony is a bully and antisocial, never mind that being an orphan means the best skills you get are competitive in nature, anything to call attention and get more of the VERY finite resources and time of the caretakers. The mental framework that helps a kid thrive in an orphanage SUCKS for making close connections with others or well adjusted adults.
The fact that Sunset got basically adopted BECAUSE of her skills, and never given unconditional praise (teachers and grown ups give praise for learning or completing tests NOT unconditionally. That's why that kind of relationship cannot be a substitute) definitely exacerbated it. Celestia could have told Sunset to make friends every single day, but she got positive reinforcement for focusing all her stats on INT and dumping CHA, and maintaining her lead in skills. That's how she got out of the orphanage, that's why she's kept around as the royal student. Heck Celestia was likely grooming her for nightmare moon as well, so check box for adopted into the army in a way? She has internalized this since day one and you may see some interludes that show this was reinforced by the environment she was raised in.
That, combined with Celestias 1000 year old concept of adulthood means she didn't take what happened as a parent to a teen acting out self destructively, trying to prove she deserves to be loved as a daughter, and on the other hand some part of her likely was testing boundaries to see if Celestia would still love her even if she screwss up (which Celestia failed)
From Celestia's perspective I'm thinking she was seeing this more like suddenly having an dark magic alcoholic in a house filled with booze. She wanted Sunset away from temptation ASAP, but explicitly allowed her to stay in the city. Tough love and all that... which could have worked on someone with stronger family foundation and less abandonment issues than Sunset...
Celestia now knows a lot more than before. Will she be perfect? NOPE, she will not have gotten as much perspective as she would have if she ever confused in someone else. However we know Celestia actively refuses to talk about things... to the point that Twilight never knew about Sunset! However she does come to the table with the desire and energy to do right by Sunset.
A million apologies, wrote this on the train on my tiny phone screen while having drank too many energy drinks.
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No need to apologise, it's a great bit of reasoning, and I agree she has a history to show off sucking at handling personal interactions in a one on one manner and those three are PRIME examples. Still hope some manner of EQG comes back around.
This is a cute story that I’m liking so far. One small niggle in this chapter, though:
Filial relates to a child’s relationship to the parent, not the other way round. Celestia could not have filial feelings for Sunset, because that would mean that she feels like Sunset’s child. The word I believe you meant to use would be parental.
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Actually it'd be familial. But parental does work as well, but familial fits a little bit better.
Well, this will get complicated.
Goddammit Princess Luna! I mean, I KNOW that you don't want Celestia to have anything that you don't have to the point of killing EVERYONE ON THE GODDAMN PLANET, BUT FOR FAUST'S SAKE! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL, PRINCESS LUNA?! You truly are The thing that should not be. Think before you say stuff! Or, you know, don't. I wanna see Celestia kill you. YOU HAVE YET TO SEE WHAT THY OWN SISTER CAN DO TO YOU, Princess Luna!
Try to tear apart that family at your, and all of Equestria's peril, Princess.
In other news, I totally called this. Wanna know how? Because I know how Princess Luna thinks. "It's always gotta be about me! ME ME ME ME ME ME! Not Celestia, Not Twilight, Not Cadence, Not Flurry Heart, but ME! I am Best Princess!" She makes me sick to my stomach.
Anyways, now that I've got that out of my system...goddammit...I still don't have it out of my system!
Somebody stop me, PLEASE!
Aw...I wanted Princess Luna's head on a pike!
I got Beatles vibes from one word, even in context.
...And who ran away because your teachings were BS and boring.
You can try hiding all you want, but I know the TRUTH!