Sunset Shimmer stood in front of the horse statue. It was a very nice statue. It captured the musculature of a Saddle Arabian prince to an almost hypnotizing degree, it was made of a very nice rock that probably wasn't nearly as expensive as the sculptor had made it look, and it really did tie the whole front yard together.
She would have liked to tell herself that she would miss it, but she knew that was unlikely. At best, she might remember it occasionally. Probably when she had run out of any Equestrian architecture to fondly remember, and the only things left were ugly monkey buildings. Still, that was more than could be said of Canterlot High itself, which she would be doing her best to put out of mind as soon as she was off its grounds. Now, there only remained one question.
"Which way to adventure?" she mused, more than a little sarcastically. Just beyond the statue was the road, a broad streak of sun-scorched rock that played host to an army of metal chariots that moved almost as fast as the average earth pony athlete. It seemed to stretch out forever in both directions, with smaller streets breaking off from it at such regular intervals that it looked more like a river than a proper road. From here, she could go anywhere, as long as she was okay with not knowing how to get there.
Of course... there was another path she could walk...
At the moment, the statue was abandoned. Nobody had congregated around it, nobody had recently covered it in distasteful paint, none of them were even giving it so much as a second glance. If there was ever a chance to go back, now was it. Sunset took a few steps closer to the statue, her eyes scanning the blank wall of stone for any sort of telltale flicker that would prove the portal was still active. When she was just a single small step from crossing back into Equestria, she gathered the nerve to reach out a hand and check.
A part of her had hoped it would actually be open. It was a small part of her, the part that didn't care if there was a small battalion waiting with charged horns on the other side so long as the real Celestia was there. Right now, it felt like a very small part of her.
The statue was a statue, nothing more. As Sunset spread her hand against the faintly warm stone and took her first real look at her fingers, she choked back tears at that. What had she been expecting, exactly? Had she thought Celestia would invite her back with a friendly smile and an open invitation to peruse the Star Swirl the Bearded wing? Celestia was many things, but an idiot wasn't one of them. The door had closed. There was nowhere to go but forward.
"You don't strike me as the sort of girl to go for the easy option."
"Leave me alone, Celestia," Sunset grumbled. "Don't you have a school to run?"
"Paperwork can wait a few hours. I don't have that luxury with crying children."
"I'm not a child!" Sunset shouted, slapping her hand against the stone as though that would make it open.
"Perhaps if you stop acting like one, I will believe you." It wasn't meant to cut deep. Sunset could tell from the sort of half-formed chuckle in Celestia's words that she meant it as a joke, or a bit of a funny dig at her. It wasn't the sort of thing that should make her cry. Not that she would have cried anyway.
"What do you want?" Sunset muttered as she stepped back from the statue. "I told you, I'm leaving."
"I want to know why." The principal leaned against the statue, her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side. "You already ran away once, why do it again? Have I done something wrong?"
Sunset froze. "Of course you haven't," she gasped, "what would even make you think that?"
The principal just stared at Sunset, her eyes half-closed like she was about to start crying. "Why else would you run away?"
"Because..." Sunset looked down at her hand. She looked at her fingers, and watched them close up into a fist. When they were like that, her hand almost looked like a hoof. "I don't belong here."
"Nobody belongs anywhere, Sunset." The principal reached into a pocket of her suit and pulled out a ring with a shimmering topaz set in it. She put it on her finger, and turned it this way and that as it caught the sunlight. "I belong on a throne, living off the fat of the land and the sweat of other people's brows, and yet here I am."
"That's different. You're a princess. If you make the wrong choice, you have somewhere to go back to. Me... I don't have that." The plain wall of stone seemed to glisten for a moment in the sunlight, as though mocking her.
"So you're just going to keep running? What is that going to accomplish?" The principal turned to look at the road, the road that probably went on forever. "You're so far away from home. You'll be just as lost in the next town over as you would be right here. Here, at least, you've got someone on your side."
"You aren't on my side," Sunset spat. "You don't know anything about me. You have no idea what I've done."
"In that case, what have you done?" Celestia was staring right at her, with that look that would have seemed like it was searching for something if it wasn't for the fact that she already knew everything. "What did you do?"
"That is not your destiny, Sunset. I'm sorry."
"I got into a very big argument with a very powerful person."
Celestia's eyes narrowed. "And did you kill anyone? If I were to go to her and ask her what happened, would she tell me that you had blood on your hands?"
"You didn't dodge," Sunset whispered at the cloud of smoke. "You should have dodged." And then the smoke cleared, and she realized that Celestia didn't have to.
"No," she whispered, her hands trembling.
"Then I have only one thing to say to you." Celestia held up two fingers and made a little gesture with them. "I pardon you."
Sunset Shimmer stared at the principal's hand as though it were one of Meadowbrook's eight enchanted items. "What?"
Celestia grinned. "You've been pardoned. Whatever you've done, whatever anyone says you've done, none of it matters anymore."
"What?" Sunset backed away from the principal, her mind racing to keep track of what this meant. "You can't... you don't have the authority to do that!"
"You really haven't been paying attention." Celestia held up her hand and indicated her ring. "This isn't some fancy piece of jewelry that Daddy bought me for my birthday. This is the signet ring of my family, worn by the dé Sols since they first came to power. This ring has sealed the fates of the men and women of this land for a thousand years. While I wear it, I do not wield power. I am power." She lowered her hand, and Sunset's eyes didn't know whether to follow the ring or Celestia's eyes. "And by that power, you are absolved of your crimes."
"You can't do that." Sunset had meant for it to sound like a strong declaration, a willingness to shoulder the weight of her sins. Instead, it just sounded like a weak child who didn't want to admit that someone else had won their favorite game. "She won't let you."
The principal smiled, then took a few steps forward and laid a hand on Sunset's shoulder. "Listen to me. You. Are. Forgiven. I will never ask you anything about where you come from. I will never ask another question about why you're here instead of there. And if she comes back and tries to get revenge, or justice, or whatever she wants, I will protect you."
"But why?" Sunset tried to hold back her tears, too confused to be grateful. "Why would you do all this for a complete stranger?"
"Well, that's easy." Celestia smiled, and pulled Sunset into a hug. "Because right now, you really need it."