For little Wallflower Blush, life had always been quiet here in Canterlot, and everything was where it should be. Her family's flower shop was running just fine, school was just enough of a manageable hassle, and though she found it a lonely life, it was a life she was fine with.
Then one day, who else should she find loitering about in the flower shop, with a whole baggage of issues to sort out, if not the Princess' own personal student? And when she starts talking to her, and no other, perhaps it won't be so lonely after all.
9.5/10 from the Reviewer's Mansion
Highly Recommended from Present Perfect
Set before the events of Season One.
A standalone piece in the Spectrum-verse. TV Tropes page here!
Written for \o/ Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest \o/.
Edited and proofread by VoxAdam, cover drawn by my friend Grace. Thanks a bunch, guys 
Featured on 08/04/2021 - 09/04/2021.
we simps are strong
Excellent story
Mhmmm. I could read another, like, ten thousand words of this story. Very beautiful and sad.
I swear by God Empress Twilight herself, that this is a prequel to your other Sunflower story. You just didn't mark it as one. For some reason.
I knew you would bring a beautiful story to this contest, and you didn't dissapoint.
I'll finally have a story inpired by you! I owed it to you after Little Shop Down Canterlot Road.
Enjoy your place at the top of the contest!
PS: now we need a third installment where Sunset and ShopFlower are living together
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Awww
Glad to have inspired you! And glad you liked it, heh.
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Huzzah! I'm glad it's warmed both of your hearts
Just scrolling down to say that I love your section divider.
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Never leave home without it
10760919 Thank you for pointing out a connection. Didn't even know there was the story.
10760919
Certainly seems like it to me. It even shows some bits referenced in the previous one.
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Yes they are connected to one another, but both are meant to work as their own stories. Reading one or the other isn't required, but it does make each better, I hope
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It certainly does!
1076308
Enjoyed them both. They compliment it each other.
Yes, the Pony Wallflower hat!
Sunset has a great voice yes.
Expanded universe!
Thank you for the clarification for us flower-dumbs.
I really liked this bit! Can definitely see a young Sunset being like this.
Always fun to see a scene from the other side, as well as Canterlot elitism.
Ah, the hope in this.
Oof, I felt this!
Always great to see a mention of the best pony.
I was gonna say all that talk about futures seemed really premature for a bunch of sixteen-year-olds, but I guess this Equestria, or at least this slice of it, has different social norms.
Ah, I see where this little snippet fits into the story now. This was done really well! Built up from earlier bits but still subtle.
Way to break my heart in advance.
You tied this story into Sunset’s canonical pre-show arc really well here. The dramatic irony in Wallflower being that last little push she needed, and this happening at the climax of Wallflower’s own arc/life, is good stuff.
This is a heartbreaking mental image, keeping around something old and used for someone long gone.
There is something bittersweet about this ending in the meta context. Wallflower is growing up into the next stage of her life, and moving on, and she thinks of Sunset, her image of her frozen on that snapshot of a filly a decade ago at this point. Yet since Equestria Girls will never get its deserved closure, our snapshot of Sunset Shimmer is frozen as well in an eternal stretch of low-stakes slice-of-life adventures with her best friends. There is certainly a sort of peace I take from that.
Really lovely story here. There’s something fitting in Sunset, completely without intending to or realizing it, being a blazing comet from another world whose attention feels like an impossible treasure, to both Wallflowers. And the knife gets further twisted for both Wallflowers simultaneously in that Sunset apparently didn't realize human Wallflower was the human version of the filly she spent hundreds of hours around when she was young. Amazing.
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She rocks it! But I also needed a quick way to differentiate between Pony Wallflower and Human Wallflower. Also hats are cool, hehe.
I had to think for a good few moments on what her voice actually sounds like as a kid so, went with scratchy!
All good! I'm not really that well-versed in flowers either oop
Huzzah! Now I know I nailed one of the two focal characters here.
Good eye. I wanted to convey both inter-pony tribe differences as well as differences in social classes subtly, from the eyes of the a child. Sadly I couldn't really describe Cadenza/Cadance's pegasus traits in the short time she was here but there you go, she's the pegasus to Wallflower's earthpony and Sunset's unicorn.
Maybe deep down she knew Sunset didn't know or care she was there. But she pushes that aside, because she wants to believe she's there for the girl in the ivory palace.
Mmmhm.
Yep - besides, Sunset is Celestia's adoptive daughter and Blueblood is Celestia's nephew... or something. They'd be well-versed in what's expected of them from a young age, this burden, and Celestia also not so subtly wanted a successor...
I know it's a little goofy for Wallflower
so I made sure to sprinkle hints of why she would think this way, huzzah! But yeah, I'm well aware of the goofiness, and I do not regret it. Kids, yknow. They think themselves so clever. What makes their words and sentiments work, however, is their sincerity
Dread it, run from it...
I've mentioned it to you before, so I'm saying it here and now for the record as well;
It was the right thing to say to Sunset. Had Wallflower told her that she loved her no matter what she does in this moment of vulnerability, it would have been a short-term victory before Sunset, validated that she can do no wrong, turns for the worse in Equestria, and it wouldn't have been good for either of them. Sunset may have completely misunderstood what Wallflower's intent was, as she just wasn't old / mature enough to understand what Wallflower actually meant, but those words will stay with her for some time until she understands the true meaning.
She remembers. Just not the person who said it to her.
It was the right thing, just not the right time.
All we have left of those who've left us behind...
Wallflower won't ever forget Sunset, for that part. But it's been ten years. She's still got a life to live, and she'll treasure the memories even as the days of old fade away.
And... aw. I hadn't thought about it that way, how EQG will never get that finale. The adventure will continue, forever.
Maybe she remembered. Maybe that tiny part of her brain remembered the lonely little girl she met in that shop so many years ago, whose counterpart now stands bitter and upset that she (Sunset) got away with all the horrible things she did in the EQGverse while she's forgotten. But unless she returns to that little shop down the road, no one will ever know in full what their story was.
At the end of the day, Sunset is indeed that fiery comet who upended both Wallflower's worlds. That arrogant, vulnerable filly who just wanted some company and found it in the one little girl as alone as she was.
Thank you for the comment, it was very thoughtful. I'm glad you enjoyed this, friend Bike
I do love seeing people use the analogues we never saw. There's so much potential on both sides of the mirror there. And this was a wonderful bit of youthful romantic tragedy. I do have to wonder if Sunset ever remembered her first Wallflower... or if, in a truly cruel bit of irony, the human managed to tear out her memories of both when erasing some minor social faux pas.
In any case, lovely work. Best of luck in the judging.
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Regarding if she remembered, who knows? Maybe in her bitterness and anger, she forgot she made a friend so long ago. But maybe a little part of her did remember, somewhat, when she met said girl's counterpart all grown up. Who knows. Childhood can be so wonderful and bitter and dreamlike.
Glad you've enjoyed it
Agh, this story is like a thorny blanket in the middle of a blizzard. A lovely, cozy feeling that is poking me until it draws blood. I know you stick with canon wherever you can, so just reading the description and knowing the setup already opens up a little place in my stomach where it's all waiting to drop. I know what's coming, and I hate that it's coming, and I hate even more that you make it feel so much worse by having their relationship be developed so well.
Wallflower. Canterlot. Sunset. That's all you need to say for the mind to just go to the foregone conclusion.
Then you throw a curveball with Blueblood! My stomach was prepared for the dreaded vanishing act, not the rock in the middle of the road. And I'm sure most can sympathize with Wallflower right at that moment. Props to her for still being honest with her feelings and not bottling them up. Sure, she never got to explicitly express them (and I hate you for it, aaaaaa let them love each other), but she recognized and decided to enact them.
(I actually had some insider knowledge about Bluey, heh, but nonetheless, very well executed. Hiding a kick in the shin by cocking your arm).
Speaking about their relationship, wonderfully done. It was an uncommon start and I felt it with Wallflower. This weird girl shows up one day, browses the store, and never buys anything. What gives? That's Sunset to you. Doesn't need to justify herself of offer a clear logical reason. As long as she knows why she does it, that's what matters. Which contrasts very well with Wallflower, the quiet observant girl that is a little bit more anxious than she'd like.
Her teleporting into the shop, almost proud to show off what she can do to Wallflower, is the moment that solidified to me that Sunset also cared. There was a bit of reasonable doubt at first, maybe she is only here to relax, the little shop being just a means to an end. But you don't expect social approval by your means. You want it given by your ends. And subtly confirming that Wallflower is kind of one of Sunset's ends (even if maybe Sunset herself doesn't realize it) is both lovely, and ultimately tragic.
As if the knife wasn't deep enough, Wallflower even plays a role in Sunset deciding her final act in this world. She reaffirmed Sunset's worth, and I'm sure Sunset's mind finished the thought right then and there.
"I'm not wrong. I am worth it. Wallflower knows so, yet my own mother doesn't."
If I had fooled myself into thinking the blade of the guillotine wasn't going to drop and allow me to enjoy seeing these two another day... that final, tiny and prideful smirk, is a monument to my mistaken hope.
Well done, Sledge.
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I'm a major proponent of foregone conclusions not being a weakness, but a tool to exploit. You know what's coming. You hate that it is. But the train won't stop on its tracks. It's barreling straight at you, with nothing to stop it. But even then, I wanted to convey that, well, it was good and fuzzy while it lasted.
Wallflower is a precocious filly, of course she understood what she had. Sadly, she still didn't know how to express them so openly other than little moments of kindness. And, yup. Blueblood was a joy to write, despite how short his appearance was.
One wonders if Blueblood and Sunset were two ponies that brought out the worst in one another.
Got it right in one! Sunset wanted to show off, and the fact that she actually noticed Wallflower planted the seeds for something more. The more I wrote her the more I concluded that pre-Mirror Sunset was neither a bully nor cruel. She was just a arrogant, lonely student of the Princess who wanted nothing more than to impress her mother/teacher, who drove away all her peers till she found the younger filly in her own flower shop. And it is Wallflower, indeed, that gave her that warm feelings that she is worth it, worth the love given by her mother.
Sunset cares. That's the bottom line. She may have turned for the worst in the years within the mirrorworld, but here you see that sliver of kindness that made her worthy of redemption far later down the line.
And therein lies another crux of the story. Dramatic Irony.
Wallflower's best qualities show here, in that she understood what Sunset needed to hear wasn't validation in the form of an 'I love you'. She understood, either then or later on, that confessing her love right then and there while Sunset was at her most vulnerable would have been exploitative. She understood that what Sunset needed was that no matter what, wings or no wings, she valued Sunset as her, that Sunset has worth because she's Sunset Shimmer.
Sunset's worst qualities show here, ironically contrasted with the final prove that she loved Wallflower too, in that she completely misses the point of what Wallflower actually wanted to tell her. She wasn't mature enough to understand Wallflower wasn't telling her that she deserved being alicorn, despite everything. But hearing it from the filly she loved was all that she needed.
God. These two...
All in all, glad you enjoyed the story
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Heh, glad that someone alluded to Sunset Shimmer referring to Princess Celestia as "Mom" in this story.
It's in-keeping with one of the themes we gradually found ourselves developing for this shared storyverse, that Sunset should be greatly defined by her relations with her family.
After all, I like to think that Sunset gains some sympathy for behaving the way she did if when you break down her motives and actions, they can be summarised as follows;
Sunset is a lonely girl who pushed herself hard to surpass her roots as an orphan, only to grow jealous when Celestia brought home a new sister who seemed better than her in every way - although as Sledge also remarked, Sunset couldn't outright hate Cadance when she saw the other girl was an orphan too, just try and make Cadance jealous by dating Blueblood - until finally Sunset got into an argument with her mother and ran away from home.
And all the while, on the sidelines, there is Wallflower...
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Thats essentially my headcanon for sunset sans the wallflower bit.
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Here's to headcanon that deepens not only the relationship between Sunset and Celestia, but also between Sunset and Cadance, two characters who surely would have been contemporaries based on what the Expanded Universe has given us to work with.
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Yis
Dude, excellent work. :D
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Thank you!
Hello, a review to your story has been posted. I hope you find it helpful.
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Hey, thanks for your time
Hope you enjoyed it!
You must be one of those weird Europeans who writes the date
in order as it should bebackwards because it seems more likely this was featured for two days than an entire month.Also in the accolades section you can add a highly recommended from present perfect!
Excuse me. I didn't know I'd be needing my emotions for this fic.
This was really good.
That was a good story.
Wallflower of Canterlot is a poignant little tale of a young pony who finds herself with a precocious crush on none other than the personal student of Princess Celestia herself, Sunset Shimmer. It's told entirely from her POV, with Wallflower rarely straying far from her parents' flower shop over the course of the story, yet through her eyes and ears we're granted a wider perspective of this stage of the Spectrum-verse, forming something of a spiritual trilogy with Spectrum's Interlude II and The Rose of Florentina. Like Cadance in those stories, Wallflower is somewhat idealistic in her naivete about the wider world, but where that idealism leads Cadance to triumph and ascension, Wallflower doesn't prove so fortunate.
Sunset Shimmer is really well-done here, striking the balance between the angry filly, who doesn't understand why Celestia isn't indulging her desire for the rank of Princess she knows she deserves, and the empath, her true nature that's slowly being buried by bitterness but still prevents her from lashing out at ponies who don't deserve it. You can feel the turmoil in her words, and the fact she doesn't seem like she wants to hurt anyway makes her foregone fate sting all the more. Like The First Second of Eternity, there's a pervasive sense of doom here that makes Wallflower's inability to spit out what she so dearly wants to say pack that much more of a punch, and adds an immediate melancholy when Princess Celestia arrives, with Wallflower's POV blissfully unaware of the blow about to land.
If there is something bugging me a bit about the story, it's the characterization of Wallflower, mainly towards the end. As a young child here, it makes sense to have Wallflower as a comparatively more lighthearted, earnest, even outgoing character compared to the older, embittered counterpart we meet in Forgotten Friendship. And you can see glimpses of her EqG self in her possessiveness of Sunset and her defeatism upon meeting Blueblood. But in the last act -- and I'll admit that this is partly based on my own expectations and me not having read Little Shop Down Canterlot Road -- it feels like there's a bit of a missed opportunity to show the emergence of Wallflower's dark side, the loss of the closest thing she has to a companion -- to say nothing of a lost love -- leaving deep wounds that scab over with anger and misequinopy (that's a perfectly cromulent word, right?). I know this isn't the same character from EqG, but it felt like a more concrete parallel could have formed here.
Regardless, this is a lovely little tale that I thoroughly enjoyed, and a poignant introduction of Spectrum's Sunset. I hope we get to see more of her soon.