“Um,” the voice of a young girl said, the uncertainty of which cut into Sunset Shimmer's thoughts, as she quietly closed the creaky door leading from the auditorium to the stairwell that was meant to be for the use of the cleaning staff only. Hesitantly, the girl approached the flame-haired figure who was slouched, a defeated expression darkening her attractive features, against the railings. “Hey, are you all right?” she asked, wondering whether or not Sunset was planning on throwing herself over said railings.
Sunset Shimmer could barely summon the effort of will required to lift her head up from where it was perched against the dirty bannister, even though the tiny spurs meant to dissuade anyone from doing just that for too long were digging painfully into the flesh of her cheek, but she did so all the same and her wet blue eyes alighted upon an orange-skinned youth with a shock of lilac hair regarding her with as close to a cordial smile as she'd seen from anyone other than Twilight Sparkle's friends since … the incident six months earlier. Practically no one from the student body had spoken to her in that time unless they'd had really, really good reason to.
And even then ...
“Oh, hi,” she replied, dabbing quickly at her eyes with the sleeve of her black leather jacket. “It's, uh, Scootaloo, right?”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo said with a slight incline of her head, eyes widening slightly in surprise that the older girl even knew her name when they'd barely spoken. Sunset Shimmer could see that her own purple eyes were filled with doubt and uncertainty, and she was constantly shifting her weight from one foot to the other as if wondering what the best course of action to take was.
“Um, is there something that I can help you with?” asked Sunset Shimmer, a frown forming on her face as she swiftly came to the conclusion that the kid had only planned this little tête-á-tête so far in advance and was now stumped about how best to proceed with the conversation. “I mean, not that I mind you standing there looking like a stunned fish. This is still the most scintillating dialogue I've had with anyone in weeks.”
“I just, er, I just wanted to ...” Scootaloo trailed off, stung slightly but the harsh words, scratching at the back of her neck nervously as she offered Sunset Shimmer a defeated look.
“It's okay, really.” Sunset Shimmer sighed extravagantly, allowing her head to fall forward again. “Sorry for snapping at you,” she said quietly.
“It's okay.”
Silence reigned supreme until Sunset Shimmer's sudden despairing laugh was the only sound filling the empty hallway. “I know how everyp... how everyone feels about me being around the school after what happened, and honestly, if I had somewhere else in this world to go, I would gladly go there. But I don't, unfortunately.”
Shocked out of her reverie by Sunset Shimmer's words, Scootaloo felt her posture stiffen and her hands forming into angry fists by her side. “Look,” she said, her voice filled with ire, “I just wanted to apologise because we blanked you earlier, but if you're gonna be all Little Miss She-demon again, I won't bother!” With that, she turned and stalked off back toward the door.
“Scootaloo?” Sunset said in a tiny voice to the retreating girl, shocked by the level of anger that she had just displayed. It was only natural, of course, but it still startled her.
The young girl stopped, her expression softening at the sadness contained within that defeated tone; she felt her arm waver in mid-air, her hand poised over the knob. She could hear the sounds of merriment coming from the auditorium where everyone was busily preparing their banners for the big musical showcase. Sunset Shimmer had only wanted to help – only wanted to make up for her past misdeeds – but just like everyone else, the Crusaders had rejected her out of blind, stupid fear. “Yeah?” she asked, not turning around.
“I'm sorry, okay?” Sunset Shimmer replied, her head sinking lower until it was almost plumbing the same depths as her shattered spirit. “It's just … I have a tendency to overreact when I'm frustrated.”
“Eh,” said Scootaloo, tilting her head from side-to-side as a wry grin formed on her lips, “I can be the same way at times. Just as Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.”
“Have you ever demolished part of a building in a demented rage?” asked Sunset Shimmer, craning her neck around to appraise the young girl curiously.
“Well, no. Well-” a thoughtful look formed on Scootaloo's face “-do tree-houses count?”
Sunset Shimmer shook her head.
“Then, no.”
“Then, you don't know what overreacting is, kid.”
For a moment, Scootaloo just looked at her oddly, then a wide grin broke out across her face when she realised that Sunset Shimmer was actually making a joke – a feeble one, sure, but a joke all the same – and it wasn't long before the pair of them burst out laughing. “Can I ask you something, Sunset?” Scootaloo bridged the gap between them and sat down next to Sunset Shimmer, who primly slid over a little to allow her some more room. “Um, d'you mind if I call you that? Sunset Shimmer's bit of a mouthful, though.”
“Just Sunset will be fine,” she replied with a patient smile. “And sure, you can ask me anything.” Now that the breezie was out of the hollow in terms of this world knowing about the existence of Equestria and Equestrian magic, she'd figured that it would only be a matter of time before people became curious enough to ask about the world that she had come from. The world that she'd left behind, seemingly for good.
If they could stand to be in the same room as her for more than five seconds at a time, that is. So far, outside of Twilight's friends, Scootaloo was the only pon... person that she'd exchanged more than three words with in ages. Hm. Ever since Twilight's visit, she'd found herself unconsciously lapsing into pony-terms more and more often.
“I just wondered, well, we all did,” Scootaloo said, “about the whole demon-thing. Why did you do it? I mean, what did you really hope to gain?”
Irritation flashed across Sunset Shimmer's face and she took a deep breath to calm herself. She supposed that she shouldn't have been surprised, really, by the question, but even after all this time it wasn't a subject she felt comfortable talking about. Even with Twilight's friends.
“Actually-” Scootaloo swallowed nervously, noticing the dark expression and growing fearful “-never mind. It wasn't that important a question.”
“I was … confused,” Sunset said eventually, placing one hand atop Scootaloo's knee by way of an apology for her outburst of indignation. “I thought that what I really wanted, what I deserved, had earned, was being denied to me, so I decided to take it by force. I thought I wanted that power, to be adored and feared, to be respected as the most powerful mage Equestria had ever seen since Star Swirl the Bearded.” She exhaled sharply.
After a moment of silence to absorb this, Scootaloo said, “But?”
“But I was wrong,” Sunset replied, looking off into the distance and wondering what Princess Twilight was doing right now. “It took Twilight and her friends, and the Elements of Harmony, of course, to make me see that, though. It took-” she made an expansive gesture with her arms “-all this.”
“So. What did you really want?” asked Scootaloo, repeating her earlier question.
Sunset's eyes flicked briefly in the direction of the auditorium; through the tiny glass window of the door, she could just about make out the silhouettes of the friends that she had inherited from Twilight. They were hard at work – or at least three of them were while Rainbow Dash and Applejack argued about something or other – putting the finishes touches to the Sonic Rainbooms' own banner. She couldn't help thinking that their relationship was probably much the same in Equestria, too. “People to care about me,” Sunset finally said quietly. “To like me, maybe even love me, for who I am.”
“There was no one, uh, nopony– that's how you say it, right? – back home who cared about you? In Ponyland?”
Sunset chuckled at Scootaloo's phrasing. “Equestria, you mean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“There was one.” The distant look returned to her eyes as her thoughts turned to her mentor as they so often did these days. “But uh, I kinda screwed that up with my behaviour. I thought that she was holding me back, holding me down, preventing me from living up to my true potential … it's only now that I see all the pain and suffering she was trying to spare me from in my futile quest.”
“What, uh, what about your parents?” asked Scootaloo. “How do they feel about you being here?”
“Honestly? I wouldn't know. I never met them,” replied Sunset, feeling her eyes lidding over. “In our world, Celestia is a princess, the co-ruler of Equestria alongside her sister, and she was the closest thing that I had to a mother whilst growing-up.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Scootaloo said sadly.
Sunset shrugged. “You can't miss what you never had. Don't get me wrong, I do sometimes wonder about them, but so much time has passed … even if they are still alive, I have almost no way of ever finding out where they are or anything about them.”
“I wonder, too. About my own parents, I mean,” said Scootaloo, listlessly drawing tiny circles in the pool of dust that had pooled on the step next to her. She looked up at Sunset. “I mean, my foster family is great. Wonderful, in fact. But that doesn't stop me from lying awake most nights thinking how bad things must have been that they felt they had no option but to give me up.”
Trying her best to emulate Fluttershy's warm, compassionate tones, Sunset said, “Things don't have to be bad.” She gave the younger girl a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder. “Sometimes, people just aren't ready to be parents. Sometimes, they fear that they can't give their child the life that they deserve. Sometimes, it takes an extraordinary amount of love to be able to say I can't do this.”
Scootaloo looked at Sunset, an expression of doubt masking her features. “Are you trying to tell me that it was an act of kindness?”
“Where I come from, no parent would willingly choose to give up their child if there was any other way,” Sunset replied. “I don't think our two worlds are so different in that respect at least.”
The younger girl contemplated this for a moment. “I always ...” she trailed off again.
“Always what?” asked Sunset kindly. Quickly, she added, “I mean, if you want to tell me, that is. You don't have to.”
When she stood up without answering, Sunset Shimmer thought that she'd done something to offend the girl and that she was about to storm off again, but instead Scootaloo lifted up the legs of her khaki trousers. “I've always wondered if it was something to do with this-” she bent her knees so that Sunset could get a better look at the articulated medical braces that encircled the upper parts of her calves “-like, maybe they just couldn't deal with the stress of having to look after a handicapped kid?”
“Scootaloo, having seen the way you and the other Crusaders tear around the playground every day, I can honestly say that you are the opposite of handicapped.” Despite her smile, she couldn't help feeling a pang of sympathy for the young girl. In Equestria, such problems were easily correctable through medicinal magic – a necessity when one considered how often pegasi wrecked their wings in crashes, earth ponies broke the bones in their legs working the land, and unicorns burnt out their horns by performing too many spells – but here, things weren't nearly so simple. That said, she'd never once seen Scootaloo moaning or complaining about her fate. In fact, Sunset doubted that, unless she told them, no one would even know or guess at Scootaloo's affliction.
Grinning an insouciant smile, the young girl said, “Well, no one likes a whiner, right?”
“That sounds like something that Rainbow Dash would say.”
“It was.”
At that, Sunset had to laugh; in her own way, the arrogant, cocky Rainbow Dash was as sensitive as any of the others, but rather than get emotional, she would demand that they take action to correct their problems. Her eyes widened as the realisation dawned on her that Rainbow Dash's pupil was pulling a similar trick on her. “Are you saying that I just need to suck it up and wait it out until everyone forgets about what happened?”
“I don't think anyone'll ever forget,” Scootaloo said with a tight-lipped smile, “but the ones who are prepared to forgive and accept you will do so, and the others-” briefly, her thoughts turned to Diamond Tiara and her constant barrage of taunts “-well, who cares about them, right? If they don't need you, you don't need 'em.”
“You're a surprisingly wise pony, Scootaloo,” Sunset said, feeling moisture prickling behind her eyelids as she stood up.
She deliberately didn't offer a helping hand to Scootaloo. She didn't need it, and most likely would've rejected it, anyway.
“Person, you mean,” replied Scootaloo, likewise getting smoothly to her feet.
“Nah,” said Sunset, a sudden impulse compelling her to hug the younger girl, “we're all ponies here.”
“Shall we get back to our banners?” asked Scootaloo, returning the embrace. “I told the others that I was just going to the bathroom and that was, like, twenty minutes ago now.”
“Good idea,” replied Sunset, stifling a giggle. “Thanks, Scootaloo. What you said, I really needed to hear it.”
“Me, too,” the younger girl said. “Sometimes, if you can't fix a problem, then it's just good to know that someone else feels the same way as you do.”
As she made her way back to her friends – not Twilight's friends, they were hers now, too – Sunset Shimmer felt lighter than she had done in months; she flashed a quick smile at the younger girl as she joined up with her fellow Crusaders, grateful for the knowledge that there was at least one other person out there now who understood her a little bit better.
If nothing weird or unusual rocked Canterlot for a few months, who knows? Maybe she could do this, and change everyone's minds about her for the better.