This story is a sequel to Why Should I Dance

Not everyone has the steel in their spine to be the weapon of purpose that Sunset is. She knows what her surrogate mother needs from her, and what is asked of her, and all her life she has accepted that she would always be the sum of that purpose: the steel and strength of the Solar Princess.

Now, things have changed, and the weapon wants more than a sheathe. She wants more than to be swung in battle against those who would make brittle the rule of law and the power of the throne. Sunset knows how to swing both blade and magic, but swinging human is something completely different.

This chapter was commissioned by Scampy.

Two former villains, two lifetimes of collective trauma, and a couple of beers to numb the edge.

It's a great time to overshare.

Gift to famed SunFlower enthusiast and professional ambusher, Scampy.

Cover art designed using a vector from gmaplay.

Sunset Shimmer and Wallflower Blush just started dating. Everything's been going well so far, except for one thing. One nagging suspicion that Sunset can't seem to shake. It doesn't help that Wallflower keeps giving her ample opportunities to worry.

Collab with my girlfriend Scampy during our gay adventure to Gadotville

Coverart by Sandy

This story is a sequel to Happy Birthday Dear…Who?

Two years after Wallflower Blush celebrated her Birthday with Sunset Shimmer, the two have become a couple. However, days before the anniversary of when the two started dating, Sunset disappears, leaving Wallflower by herself. Now alone with nothing but her thoughts, she wonders if this was really true love, or a way to keep her from self-destructing.

Despite years together, Sunset has yet to meet Wallflower's parents. With their wedding only months away, it's time to do that, and more importantly it's time to know why it hadn't happened until now.

For Oroboro's Sunset Shipping Contest: Journeys.

A distraught Sunset Shimmer meets an odd loner, who turns her once fading world upside down.

Now with growing light in her life, she has to work on bettering what she has become.

Or risk losing all she loves again.

Now in a episodic format, takes place before Pony Sunset Shimmer arrives in the human universe.

Sunset Shimmer graduated from her place as Celestia's student a year ago and earned her position not only as a sorceress of fire but as a knight of considerable prowess. With her duty weighing her down, and her role as the Princess' blunt instrument leaving her isolated, Sunset's only real friend is a simple gardener.

Cover art is the Bastard Sword from Dark Souls 3.

This story is a sequel to p-value

Shortdesc

Destabilized by Equestrian magic, Wallflower’s world is dying. For its sake, Sunset had to leave forever. All Wallflower can do is hold on to the last connection they still have: the journal Sunset left behind.

Review

Long-Distance is a wrenching story and more than one of our judges said that, though they won’t ever be able to bring themselves to re-read it, it will stay with us for a long time. Everything is ending, it may or may not be anyone’s fault, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. The time it will take to reach that final tragedy doesn’t make it any less remote. Sunset and Wallflower are separated across worlds, and have only Sunset’s journal to link them. One of them will die and the other will live on. They’re left to learn how to cope with and share and grieve the time they have left.

Long-Distance is superbly written, with just enough detail about the nature of the tragedy to make it feel realized without overwhelming readers with exposition. There’s a novel’s worth of story in this short story, but none of it feels compressed. Sunset and Wallflower’s tightly written, wrenching, and affecting, and the last chapter left us breathless.

--Judges of Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest

The result was an emotional tale of making the best out of a bad situation through inevitability and – if you’ll pardon the title drop – long distance. Bicyclette’s work is a delightful story that exemplifies how to Show a hard-hitting story through meaningful dialogue, contextual narrative clues, vivid scene setting, and a firm grasp of the characters and their struggles.

--PaulAsaran, Paul's Thursday Reviews CCCXLVII

Contest

Literal last-minute entry to Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest, and now unexpectedly the fourth-place winner. Go read the other entries please, there's a lot of good stuff in there!

I originally pulled this story for revisions after the contest results came out. I regret this, and I am sorry.

Credits

Thanks to Sledge115 for emotional support!

Sunset Shimmer, who is catastrophically out of Wallflower Blush's league, has come back to town for the summer. Sunset is very kind and attentive. She likes hugs. She keeps coming up with cute little inside jokes. She stares, piningly, when she thinks Wallflower isn't looking.

So, it would just be very easy for Wallflower to get the wrong impression.

Which is why she was happy when she stumbled across a way to know the objective truth about how she and Sunset measure up against one another.

A last-second entry in the Sunflower Shipping Contest.

The memory stone was gone, and Wallflower Blush had the chance to start again. I'll guide her along the path that she never saw before. She'll see the beauty of it, she'll grow with it... I'll make sure nothing bad happens to her.

"I'll keep her safe."

What a joke.

My entry to Scampy's SunFlower Shipping Contest

Many thanks to these wonderful people for their help!

Edited by Absentialucci and Yutah123
Proofread by RDT, Techno Flare
With additional feedback from Thesmokinguy, iAmSiNnEr, Mykola