This story is a sequel to Twilight Sparkle Was Shot
She tried to murder Sunset Shimmer. Instead, she shot Twilight Sparkle.
Now she is in Equestria.
It's one thing to journey to the magical realm of your dreams.
It is quite another to wake up there, in a new body.
It is a third to realize you may not be able to stay.
(Chronology Note: this story takes place between seasons Four and Five.)
This timeline continues in When All of Your Wishes Are Granted.
Part of the Sunset Rising continuity.
Chapters (1)
Poetry and science and lore and drama-- this touched basically all of my favorite subjects.
Is Fluttershy's username a reference to that adorable and frightfully-catchy song of the same name?
And what more could Sunset need to discuss with her, I wonder...
Amusingly, I didn’t know about that song until you brought it up.
But now I’ve listened to it, and I certainly wouldn’t put it beyond her. 
As for the rest, my use of the long-distance communications as a framing device was something of an experiment. Part of that experiment was that they are out of order: the Eris chat at the start takes place chronologically right after her talk with Princess Twilight, and is thus the conversation that Sunset is starting at the end of the story.
Princess Twilight really has no context for what human Sunset's been through, though the poem probably helped quite a lot. Still, she's welcomed one heck of an interesting case into her life. Probably best to take it slow with Sunset. Especially when introducing her to Pinkie, for an unexpected party pony to the face often offends.
Also, lovely detail with both the castle layout and Sunset figuring it out.
In all, thank you for this. Wonderful way to put the worlds more at balance.
9107760
Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of adjustment on all sides. And you are quite right, slow is the way to be with this one. At least at first.
Taking a quick tour of the town was one thing, but meeting people on a personal level is quite another. And I intend to show later that Twilight contacted her friends ahead of time to make certain that day one was as free from expectations - or even introductions - as possible.
(I’m thinking Pinkie didn’t like having to wait to meet a new friend, but she is also the party pony who understood to not prank Fluttershy, because she’d just have her feelings hurt. So, she dealt with it.)
I am very glad you enjoyed the story. There will be a variety of sparks flying here and there as she adjusts to Equestria... and as it adjusts to her. After all, she wasn’t exactly a typical young lady where she came from, either.
This was a lovely story, and I'm wondering how long until the relationship between Princess Twilight and Human Sunset matches their counterparts.
Although, given both Princess Twilight and Human Sunset's assertion that the world on the other side of the mirror is...broken, what does it say about Pony Sunset that she feels like she belongs there?
9109975
(nods) What indeed?
9110428
...That's what I'm asking. Because I want to know.
9110428
Oh yeah, something else. First, is it possible to make the mirror world...unbroken, and second, is there more to it than just a single city?
9110438
Well, okay, if you really want to know, I will tell you what I can without getting too deep into spoiler territory.
So, first off, something I will ultimately be getting into a little is the relationship betwixt the two Sunsets and their respective worlds. That’s a long story that hopefully will be better shown than told... but I will say in short that, no, pony-born Sunset is not broken. She just happens to be needed on a broken world, having as she does the gift that world needs so desperately. Not her magical gift of Empathy, but something that runs much deeper.
It’s going to be a long time in coming, but I do intend to get into exactly what pony-born Sunset’s cutie mark means (in this canon), and how it relates to her living in the human world. In the meantime, I will say that neither Twilight nor human-born Sunset view pony-born Sunset as broken. Pony-born Sunset herself, on the other hand, I think still had some lingering self-image issues when she met her counterpart. However, she is continuing to get better (and is infinitely better than she was at 14, or even at the end of Movie 1). As this story’s intro suggests, she is continuing to find her balance.
Personally, as far as pb-Sunset vs. the human world, I agree with what Twilight is only starting to really suspect: she is there because the human world needs her. But what Twilight does not credit yet is that Sunset needs the human world, too. And yes, Equestria needs hb-Sunset as well. This story line is going to mostly be focusing on hb-Sunset, but there will be occasional stories about other folks as well*, even (rarely?) touching on the human world now and then. For example, there was a shooting in a crowded high-end shopping mall. Law enforcement tends to remember that kind of thing, and after a while they get a little tetchy about having no suspects.
And when hb-Sunset finds her cutie mark, I’m hoping it will read as awesome as it sounds in my head.
There is more than one city in the human world. But one city is all that Twilight has seen... and that particular city seems to include everything from benevolent Principal Celestia and VP Luna to the kinds of squalor and desperation that she has simply never seen in Equestria. Mind you, she still hasn’t seen the kind of crap that human-born Sunset has experienced. But (in this canon) she has seen some of the weird cliquishness and gotten a glimpse of the social pressures and socioeconomic hardships present, both directly and from conversing with Sunset via the book.
We should also remember that both Twilight and human-Sunset have rather biased views of the human world, and are not necessarily reliable narrators about the place.
At the same time, I do think there is something to be said for a society in which a person’s individual gift - and the search for same - is honored and considered valuable pretty much universally. In Equestria, if a person wants to find what truly feeds their soul and do that for a living instead of whatever else that’s offered, that’s considered only reasonable by many-to-most of the populace. In the human world, it ain’t necessarily so... in fact, in some circles it’s outright condemned.
And I think Twilight’s views on any society that tries to crush a person’s individuality and demean their dreams is, though oversimplified, kind of valid. Such a society is broken. Even in EG canon, it is worth noting that friendship and forgiveness are distinctly not the social cornerstones they are in Equestria, and that any number of concerns there are more like our own Earth than Equestria. But it is an easy mistake to judge an entire world based on its dominant culture, just like an entire culture is easily judged by one person “representing” it. Twilight, for all her finer qualities, is forgetting the rules of sample groups vs. overall populace. And, well, she tends to think her culture is best, in the way that many people will.
On that note, making the mirror world / human world “unbroken” is a very real possibility, though also a truly Herculean undertaking. After all, changing worlds for the better is what heroes do. And if anyone can do it, the Rainbooms can, I suspect. With help from their friends, of course.
I haven’t completely made up my mind on hb-Sunset and Princess Twilight’s relationship. I will say this: I do see it evolving differently, because they’re different people. I also tend to see Princess Twilight as asexual, though not Sci-Twi. I haven’t decided if this Princess Sparkle is one way or the other, completely. Then again, being asexual isn’t being aromantic. And hb-Sunset can be pretty direct when she wants to be. So nothing’s off the table, yet.
(Well, except for shipping Princess Celestia. I see her as pretty solidly aromantic and ace. So, barring inspiration that just has to happen, that’s pretty firm.)
This post is probably a wee bit longer than you’d hoped for; I hope that’s all right. I seem to have essentially two settings: monosyllabic / demimysterious and Maximum Verbosity. But since you specified that you were hoping for some real data, I didn’t want to leave you completely hanging again.
*This continuity’s son of Luna, for example, is very different from the one in my Elsequestria continuity. I was recently mugged by one of his earlier stories, and will publish it as soon as I finish editing.
9111664
I see. Thank you for the very informative explanation. It cleared up many of my concerns.
Wait, Luna has a kid?
9111769
Yup. in both continuities. The one in the Elsequestria timeline / universe is introduced here. I will be introducing the one in the Sunset Rising timeline / universe very shortly, in a Season One story.
Nice! One thing here I don't quite get... when Twilight goes all formal with the rules of hospitality, and formely-human Sunset replies... how does she know the right thing to say? Or is Twilight quoting something she'd know? Or is Sunset just riffing, coming up with something suitable to say?
It's a minor thing, but one I'm curious about.
9174970
Good question. The tradition of hospitality is something that is paralleled between the two worlds, much like the names of certain places and people, events, authors, and so forth. In both worlds, the tradition / law of hospitality is old and mostly an historical footnote... even more for the human world (which is essentially 21st Century) than for the pony world (which is more a blend of late 19th Century and Medieval period, with a few 21st century elements).
And, like any such tradition, there are and were variables in the call-and-response historically in each world. Different historical documents in Equestria, for example, would have slightly different wording for it, since communication technology / magic was not such that would allow complete standardization throughout the realm at that time.
So when Twilight and Sunrise exchanged their oath of hospitality, it was mostly the spirit of the thing that mattered... though each of them was enough of a geek about it (Twilight for the recent historical and scholastic aspects of it, and Sunrise for the ancient history and romance of it) that they were pretty close to one another by being pretty close to their own source materials.
To me, it is interesting to note that, while both ponies know to take an oath like that seriously, Twilight utilized the oath because it was the best way to make it clear to Sunrise just how welcome she was, while showing her concerns the severity they deserved. But while Twilight used the oath as an expression of where the two of them stood - and meant it - Sunrise took it as a sacred oath. There are certain elements of equestrian society that Twilight, as a native, takes for granted a little bit. Sunrise is in less a position to do so.
Tradition is a fascinating thing to me. I also play with it a bit (hospitality and otherwise) in my other main timeline, in The Apple Jamboree.
This concludes my geek-out of the moment. I now return you to your FimFiction experience, already in progress.
WHY IS THIS SO FUCKING GOOD.
This is amazing.
I could hear their voices perfectly, I saw their actions perfectly, you have a real gift for bringing stories to life.
As a person who enjoys world-building and historical dabbles, the bit about hospitality was very well received from this reader.
The bit at the very beginning with Fluttershy was a teensy bit confusing, but I'm putting that on simple confusion and not you as a writer. EDIT: I saw the note that suggested to read the chat room again after completing the chapter and it made a lot more sense that way.