Sunset had procrastinated a bit. Okay, it wasn’t technically procrastination. She did need to swing by her house and pick up the last few presents, since two were technically not allowed on school grounds. And Rhea did need to go out for a walk, and as cold as it was dogs had a thing for needing to do their business in several different spots.
But it felt like procrastination because she dreaded actually doing this. Even so, knowing she had to eventually, Sunset found herself standing in front of a familiar house. Thankfully, her timing was right as there was only one car and a motorcycle out front.
Despite everything telling her to run, Sunset reached out and rang the doorbell. Too late to back out. Still, she jumped when the door opened, seeing the surprise on a familiar face.
“Hi,” Sunset gave a nervous wave.
“Sunset!” Goldie exclaimed, immediately pulling her into a hug. “It’s been months! How are you?”
“I-I’m good,” she said. “Better, in fact. I came over because I- I need to talk to you and Bramble about some things. A lot of things, actually.”
“Well come on in!” she smiled. “We were just making some cookies for the holidays. They’re best when they come right out of the oven.”
Before Sunset could protest, she found herself dragged into the house. It was warm and beautiful. Christmas decorations filled the hall, and the smell of cookies wafted in from the kitchen. She could hear carols coming from the speakers, loud enough to be heard around the house, but low enough that they’d been able to hear the doorbell.
“Bramble!” Goldie called as she dragged Sunset to the couch. “You’ll never guess who dropped by!”
“I think I can, considering I could hear your joy from here!” Bramble chuckled as he walked in. “Good to see you, Sunset. Though I never expected you to embrace the Wondercolt Aesthetic!””
“The what?” Sunset wondered as she was pulled and lifted into another hug.
“Guess you forgot about the headband,” he said, pointing to her head.
Sunset reached her hand up, even though she knew what she’d really forgotten. She was still in her ‘Pony Up’ form, ears and all. That had been lasting a lot longer nowadays. Perhaps it was just the Holiday Spirit, since it was activated by Friendship and Togetherness.
“Something like that,” Sunset said.
“So, how’ve you been?” Goldie asked. “Flash hasn’t told us much.”
“Wouldn’t even tell us why you broke up,” Bramble added.
“I asked him not to,” Sunset said, all too aware of how her ears reacted to emotions. “It’s… a long story. How much has Flash told you about the weird things going on at Canterlot High? Like, the Fall Formal and the Band competition?”
“Well, he hadn’t at first,” Goldie said, sitting on the couch. “But word spread around town. He mostly only clarified what was fact and what was rumor.”
“But we get the gist of it,” Bramble nodded. “Another Dimension of Magic, Ponies, and Princesses. Some cause a good bit of trouble, but a small handful of students can now use that Magic.”
“It sounded a bit ridiculous, at first,” she said. “But with so many witnesses, it’s impossible to not believe.”
“Well, it’s true,” Sunset said. “There’s a portal at CHS that goes to a world of Magic. And everything Magical that happened recently is kind of all my fault.”
“Sunset, you can’t take the blame for everything,” Bramble said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “A magic dimension is a bit out of anyone’s hands.”
“Or hooves, if the thing about ponies is right,” Goldie joked.
“In most cases, you’d be right,” Sunset swallowed. “While I didn’t create the Magic Dimension, Equestria, it’s my fault that it’s interacting with this Dimension. Uh, where do I start with this?”
“The beginning is always a good place,” she said.
Sunset looked between the couple, seeing how curious they were. A part of her was saying ‘just give half-truths, tell them of Magic but not of you’. But she had to. They had grown to love her, but it wasn’t ‘her’. They loved the girl she pretended to be.
While the girl she pretended to be was still mostly her, while she never lied about anything other than the unexplainable, it wasn’t all of her. She refused to let herself call them friends, call them family, unless they knew both the good and the bad. Taking a breath, she found a place to start.
“I’ve known about Magic and that world for a long time,” Sunset said. “I know a lot about it actually. But that’s.... I know about it because I’m from there.”
She waited for that to sink in. She watched the confusion and surprise on their faces. Ignoring the anxious flick of her ear, which they still had yet to realize wasn’t a headband, she waited for a question.
“How?” Goldie asked. “Okay, I can guess how, but why?”
“A lot of things,” Sunset said. “I wasn’t the best type of person, well, Pony. I thought I deserved more than I had, and I got so frustrated with the situation that I ran off. I ended up here, and I just restarted my life.”
“Alone?” Bramble asked.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I hadn’t planned to run off, and until recently the Portal only opened every three years in the fall. By the time anyone would’ve figured out where I went, the Portal would’ve been closed. That was six years ago.”
“Six….” Goldie whispered. “You were just a kid. You’re still a kid.”
“Not my best decision,” she said. “But not the worst decision. My next terrible idea happened during freshman year. And I know it was terrible and I’ve faced that, but I just…. I wanted to be liked, you know? I thought of ways to make people like me, and one was getting a boyfriend. Flash knew it was all a lie, just a fake relationship. I was terrible, but I wasn’t…. I didn’t want to actually lead someone on, but I couldn’t say ‘fake date me so people like me’, so I made up something else.
“But I didn’t realize how far that went,” she continued. “Because I hadn’t fully thought it through since I spent so long debating over doing it in the first place. But I spent time with Flash, and we ended up as friends. Then Brawly and Thunder became friends, and then you two…. I know you two cared about me, but it started from just one selfish lie.”
“Sunset,” Bramble said. “It’s okay.”
“We could tell some parts were a lie,” Goldie said.
“You could?” Sunset wondered.
“We tend to have a sense of when a child is lying to protect themselves," she gave a sad smile. “Let me guess, the story you told him was that your parents would kick you out for being gay?”
“How did….” She began.
“Because that’s what we had guessed was happening,” Bramble said. “You two weren’t romantic, and you never talked about your family. We weren’t going to say anything unless we had to, but we tried to drop some hints. We wanted to make sure you knew that you could always come here.”
“And I can understand doing dumb things to be more popular,” Goldie admitted. “Teens tend to do that. You even said yourself that you didn’t want to string someone along. And considering you’re telling us, you probably already mentioned all this to Flash, so how did he take it?”
“By saying he knew,” Sunset sighed. “He didn’t know why I made up the story to fake-date, but he knew most of the time. But the whole thing started as a lie. Any care you have for me sprung from that lie and-“
“I’m going to stop you there,” she held up her hand. “You’ve owned up to the lie, and it wasn’t that big of a lie in the first place, especially if Flash knew most of the time. We care about you because you’re you. And screwups from a few years ago aren’t going to change that.”
“What about a few months?” She asked.
They waited for her to continue, but she wondered if she should. It hadn’t effected them. But they needed to know everything, what she’d done. She clenched her fists, trying to keep her hands from shaking.
“It started last year,” Sunset said. “I thought I found a way to go home. Not just to my Dimension, to the life I’d left behind, but to the life I’d wanted before I ran away. But to do that, thought I had to tear a group of friends apart. And in doing that, I tore the school apart. I hated it, but I thought it was my only chance. And I began to think they deserved it, because of stupid jealousy.”
“Sunset,” Goldie began.
“But then I….” she shuddered at the memory. “When I tried to finish my plan, at the Fall Formal, everything went wrong. I hadn’t expected Dark Magic, and that twisted everything. It heightens the worst parts of you, and it turns you into a monster, one that would do absolutely anything to get what they want, no matter why you wanted it. And I can make all the excuses of ‘mad with Magic’ that I want, but it doesn’t…. it doesn’t erase what I did like that. What I did with anger and jealousy and hatred pushed so far that I was alone.
“I… I could’ve killed them,” she choked out. “I nearly did, before some still-here part of me pulled back for fraction of a second. It was dumb luck that they figured out how to stop me, to bring me back. And what I did, what I tried to do when I stopped caring about anything, that’s always going to be a part of me now. And while I want to fix things, you need to know exactly what I’ve done, and decide if you even want to fix things.”
They took a few minutes to process all that. She knew it would take a while to decide, but the time dragged on. Every second that ticked by fed her anxiety. Her ears flicked, trying to hear the answer before it came. Adrenaline built up, the fight-or-flight response telling her to run like hell.
The worst part, was their glances. Not at her, but at each other. Sunset had noticed it more often lately, the way people who knew each other so well could have a conversation completely without words. They were talking, but she couldn’t hear them, not even whispers to give her any insight into what they said.
However, she could tell when they reached agreement, as they turned back to her. Still, she couldn't read them. Anxiety and desperate hope mixed whatever she saw, so she waited and tried her best not to run.
“Sunset,” Goldie took the lead. “It’s obvious you regret what happened, and I can assume you’ve taken responsibility for it?”
“Yes,” Sunset nodded. “I’ve been trying to be a better person. And I’m getting there. I’m in a lot better of a place now, in many ways. The girls I tried to destroy are my closest friends now. And maybe that says more about them and forgiveness than me, but I’m doing what I can to make up for what I’ve done, even if I don’t know what I’m doing half the time!”
“Then there’s your answer,” Bramble said.
“What?” she wondered.
“Just the fact that you’re fixing it,” Goldie explained. “People will sometimes do terrible things, especially kids who think it’s their only option. But you’re fixing it.”
“As for the Magic stuff,” Bramble said. “I won’t pretend to know everything about it. But it sounds like it made you do things you never wanted. And sure, you can’t just handwave the blame because of it. But-“
“But it’s not all your fault either,” she finished. “And perhaps it sounds like we’re just forgetting about everything you said and trusting blindly, but we’re not. Because there are other people to trust.”
“Flash, for one,” he said. “Those girls you called friends a moment ago as well. They got to experience you at your worst, but they still gave you the chance to fix things. I think it’s safe to do the same.”
“I….” Sunset began, words quickly becoming lost. “Thanks. For everything. I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Worry about making it up to yourself first,” Goldie said. “Now, I know you’ve never stayed for Christmas before, but if you want to this time….”
“Thanks, but I have plans,” she said. “As in, actual plans. The girls and I are sort of having two weeks of slumber parties. I’ll see if I can drop by during break though. Oh, but I did buy presents for you!”
Christmas morning was usually supposed to be peaceful, barring the company of small children. As the youngest person currently in Applejack’s home was thirteen, no one expected a sudden awakening so early in the morning.
Sure, it wasn’t exactly ‘early’, but the whole group had stayed up far too late, and she suspected someone had spiked the eggnog. Probably Granny ‘if you’re old enough to be saving the world you’re old enough to have a damn drink’ Smith.
So when Pinkie’s phone began blasting some epic rock remix of Carol of the Bells, Sunset flipped over and groaned. Surely her gift to herself could be another few minutes of sleep. But the Universe had other ideas, as Pinkie’s phone was suddenly in front of her face.
“It’s for you!” Pinkie said, in a voice far too chipper for having just woken up.
Sitting upright and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Sunset took the phone.
“Hello?” Sunset yawned into the device.
“Did you get me a sword for Christmas?” Flash’s voice asked.
“Merry Christmas,” she answered. “Why’d you call Pinkie’s phone?”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” he said. “I called Pinkie because out of the numbers I have for you and your group, she’s the only one I knew I could wake up. Now back to my question, did you buy me a sword for Christmas?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, despite the fact that he couldn’t see her. “It’s Magic. The blade only appears when you want it to. So it won’t, like, slice something you don’t want. It does have a slow reaction time though, so be careful swinging it around.”
“That’s what he said….” Rainbow sleep-mumbled.
“I figured that out,” Flash said, oblivious to the previous comment. “How did you…. That has to be custom made.”
“Equestria,” Sunset answered. “It’s not that custom. I mean, I had to ask Twilight to find one, but she's a Princess and her brother used to be Captain of the Solar Guard, so it wasn't that hard to find. The pommel's custom though, but custom Cutie Mark items are really common over there. The real hard part was getting the spells to work for someone that wasn't a Unicorn, but in the end it was just linking the activation to Cloudwalking instead of Spellcasting. I figured since other you is a Pegasus it’d work. Glad it did.”
“You got me a sword for Christmas,” he repeated.
“Yep,” she said. “Oh, and Bramble’s bracelet is a shield. And Goldie’s necklace can make music. I had to guess with them, but I’m pretty sure their Counterparts are both Unicorns so that makes it a little easier.”
“Okay, but why a sword?” he asked.
“First off, swords are cool,” she said. “Secondly, you could learn to use it. I mean, considering every other month seems to have some kind of Magical something or other attacking the school, it might be a good idea to learn some defense.”
“It only happened twice,” Applejack interjected, loud enough for both to hear. “It ain’t like it’s a pattern yet!”
“That’s what Twilight said about her family’s wedding curse,” Pinkie retorted. “Next thing she knows, the bride’s been replaced with an evil Changeling Queen and the city is under attack.”
“Wedding curse?!” Sunset and Flash chorused.
“Guys!” Rainbow shouted. “I love you all, but please shut up! Let me have another hour of sleep!”
“You sure you want to sleep more?” Fluttershy piped up. “After all, it is Christmas morning.”
That woke her up. In fact, it got her up and running down the stairs, knocking Rarity over on the way.
“I think we’re getting into full swing here,” Sunset laughed into the phone. “I’ll try and stop by later. Tell Goldie and Bramble I said Merry Christmas.”