Twilight Sparkle hummed a happy tune to herself as she walked to Sunset Shimmer's house. She made sure to keep track of her surroundings as she did so—at the moment, she was exactly five square blocks, or one quarter mile, from her destination. Which, of course, would be on her left.
Twilight beamed. Who needed a global positioning system built into their phone when they had the sharpest mind in Canterlot City? She had to admit, it was nice to have whenever she traveled for science and math competitions. But for frequent and favored destinations? The human brain would always prove the most efficient of technologies.
As she walked, she was also furiously tapping on said phone, triple-checking the information she was inputting into a website. She finished tapping, and pressed "Send". Confident in her endeavor, she nodded, then kept walking.
When she was three blocks from Sunset's house, Marezart sounded from her phone. She looked at the screen. It was a video call request from someone she was expecting—albeit not so soon. This was a whole 17.7 seconds faster than she'd expected.
The words "Camp Everfree", overlaid on a picture of a forest, filled her screen. Twilight smiled, then froze as it dawned on her: there was a 58 percent chance of this being more than a little awkward.
The symphony continued. Steeling herself, Twilight challenged the odds, tapped the phone to receive the call—and breathed a sigh of mild relief when a crimson-skinned redhead wearing a flower-patterned blouse showed up on the screen, all smiles. The wooden walls of a log cabin office could be seen around her. "Gloriosa! Hi! How are you?" Twilight asked.
"Hi! Uh, pretty great, depending on your answer." Gloriosa Daisy glanced over at a monitor visible next to her. "So, Camp Everfree just received a massive donation from some people calling themselves the 'Crystal Rainbooms'." She tilted her head. "Well, I mean, not massive massive, but certainly enough to finally balance our budget. Either way, after doing some digging, I think I may have found our culprits." She moved her phone, and Twilight could see herself and her friends dancing on Gloriosa's monitor in multi-cultural outfits. "Am I wrong?"
Twilight smiled and shook her head. "Nope! Your deduction was correct. We won a dance contest at Canterlot Mall using that name, which we entered because we wanted to help you out with the winnings. I'm glad to hear they will."
An awed expression crossed Gloriosa's face. She exhaled. "Twilight, I... I-I don't know what to say. Thanks so much. I mean, bailing us out twice? Especially..." Gloriosa looked away, her expression sobering. "Especially after everything I pulled."
"Gloriosa..."
Twilight looked around. Between her conversation, and carefully crossing streets on autopilot, she'd already made it to Sunset's house. She walked onto the steps, sat down, and gripped her phone in both hands, giving Gloriosa an empathetic look.
"Gloriosa," Twilight said, keeping her voice as soothing and reassuring as possible. "You know it's still fine, right? I mean... everything. Everything's fine now. It's all okay, and we're all okay with you. We never weren't."
Gloriosa sat in her office chair with a sigh. "I know, but..." her voiced slipped to a whisper. "I still have dreams. Dreams where I'm still that... that thing. With those eyes. And that laugh. And in those dreams... everyone hates me. With good reason, too."
Twilight closed her eyes with her own sigh. "I understand. Sunset and I told you—we've been exactly where you were. In every sense. And, honestly, we still are. Those dreams? We... we still have them, too."
Gloriosa gasped. "Seriously?"
Twilight nodded. "They're nightmares now, in the sense that they don't happen nearly as often anymore as they used to for us. But no, they've never completely gone away."
A chilled, fearful look swept over Gloriosa's face. She shifted in her seat. "How do you live with them? How... how do I?"
Twilight took a deep breath. "By being the best people we can be when we're awake. That way we know, even when we see the worst of ourselves in our dreams, that we don't have to be what they want us to be. I wish I had an easier answer, but..." She shook her head. "I don't."
"It's okay," Gloriosa said. "Thanks for telling me. To be perfectly honest, I'm just glad to know there are people I can talk to about this. Who I can share this with." Her smile returned. "And who care so much about the camp's well-being. Thanks again."
Twilight's smile returned as well. "You're welcome. Even if we weren't... 'connected', we would have been happy to help. You have a big responsibility on your shoulders to keep one our city's biggest landmarks and greatest gathering spots up and running. It's never wrong to ask for help when you need it. And if you do, we'll always be glad to do anything in our power. Including just listening."
Gloriosa leaned back in her seat. "You know, word gets around. Not publicly, of course, but a little birdie told me what you did that got you and your friends into the Daring Do movie. At this rate, everyone in this whole city's going to be lucky to have you in it."
Now it was Twilight's turn to look away. "Well... almost all of the city, I'm sure."
Gloriosa peered closer to the screen, until her eyebrows shot up in realization. With a cross between a chuckle and a scoff, she said. "Oh, come on. It's okay to ask, you know."
"I—" Twilight closed a fist, forcing herself to face her racing heart, and overwhelming nervousness, head-on. "How's... Timber doing?"
Gloriosa chuckled in earnest this time, and rolled her eyes, gesturing to the side with one hand. "Oh, he's on his five-hundred-eighty-sixth tub of ice cream and hasn't moved from the couch for a month. Send help."
Twilight recoiled. "What?" she cried, before hearing Gloriosa engulfed in peals of laughter.
"No, seriously, he's doing well. I'd put him on, but he's in the city right now. He's actually been taking regular trips there and meeting new people, and I'm pretty sure it's all thanks to you." Gloriosa stared off into the distance. "I may love this forest, but I always knew he felt... a little torn about it. You got him to take a chance on seeing what's out there."
Gloriosa looked straight at Twilight, her voice level and earnest. "I've been dumper and dumpee before, so I know how easy it is to feel guilty, but... yeah. Don't worry about it. You two were what you both needed, at the right time. He's happy, and—don't tell him I said this—but he just hopes you are, too."
"I am happy," Twilight replied, her heart slowing in relief. "Tell him I'm glad he is, too. Without, uh, telling him it was me who said it? I think."
Gloriosa laughed. "I will. All that said, I'll gladly take this cash as payment for utterly demolishing my baby bro's heart." She winked, and Twilight slouched in blushing embarrassment. "Anyway, I'd hug you through this phone if I could. But, well, now that we've got this money, we've got to start allocating for repairs." With a warm smile, Gloriosa added, "Hey. Don't be a stranger, okay? You or your friends."
"We won't. I also have a party to attend, so I have to head off too." Twilight waved. "Take care."
"You too. And have fun."
The feed cut, and Twilight was once again alone on Sunset's steps.
She knew she could ring Sunset's doorbell now if she wanted—but talking with Gloriosa had actually left her feeling more than a little nostalgic. She tapped her phone, and opened up her photo album. Best to indulge now—once she got inside, she knew she'd have neither the time nor attention to reminisce.
She swiped through the album until she settled on a picture of herself, her Canterlot High School friends, and her new friends—gosh that felt weird to say, even mentally—from Crystal Prep Academy. As Gloriosa had hinted, they'd ended up calling themselves the "Crystal Rainbooms," and with Principal Cadance now in charge of CPA, neither school had objected to the union.
Twilight remembered the day it was taken—the weekend they'd found out they'd won the contest, they'd all gathered together for a massive party at Pinkie Pie's house. It was one of the few times in her life she'd seen any of her old classmates smiling towards her instead of sneering at her, and it was only now that she'd managed to get used to the new normal.
To say nothing of the "new normal" of her being a social butterfly. It still seemed like only yesterday that she was routinely holed up in her laboratory at Crystal Prep, with only a dog for companionship—not even a talking one!—and having convinced herself that that was how she liked it.
No friends. Nobody who wanted to be her friend. And headed off to an institute that would have kept her alone, possibly forever.
Friendless, forever.
Loveless, forever.
She swiped through pictures, stopping on one of herself and a brown-skinned, green-haired boy wearing a Camp Everfree T-shirt. The two of them were posing in front of the Ferris wheel of Canterlot's amusement park. Twilight closed her eyes, a wistful feeling washing over her.
Which struck her as odd, because her and Timber Spruce being a Thing(tm) technically hadn't been that long ago. And yet... it still felt so distant already. She'd had all the fun in the world with Timber, and she wouldn't have taken it back for anything.
But over time, the "fun" had morphed into... routine.
Before Camp Everfree, neither Twilight nor Timber had known the other existed, which admittedly made getting swept up in a storybook summer camp romance all the more enthralling. But once they'd actually gotten to know each other over the course of several dates... well. 'Going through the motions' was a term Twilight associated with machines, and she refused for any relationship she was in to be of a similar nature. She might have been crazy about robotics, but she wasn't that crazy.
And so, after consulting her best friend Sunset Shimmer, she'd decided to tell Timber as much. She'd hoped that expressing the desire to break things off as soon as possible, before ennui set in and while they were both on good terms with each other, would be easier on both of them. Sunset had told her it wouldn't be.
Sunset had been right.
She would have given anything to not feel as if her heart were an empty soda can being fed into a wood chipper. To not feel like the world's worst person who had decided to do the same to her now former boyfriend's heart as well. Timber had certainly put on a strong, bright face as they talked it out, and even shared one last embrace, but she could see the pain in his eyes nevertheless.
Sunset had also confirmed that just as much happened with all breakups. Boys always tried to hide it—and thus, ironically, boys always showed it.
I'll gladly take this cash as payment for utterly demolishing my baby bro's heart. The words cut deep enough that Twilight would not have been surprised if Gloriosa had meant for them to. She took a deep breath, letting it out in a long exhale.
Maybe that was why she'd been so intent on raising money for the camp with the rest of the girls. Maybe she still felt guilty, even after being told there was no reason for her to.
Maybe...
Twilight decided to jump from that train of thought before it derailed into wreckage all over again. Like when she'd visited Sunset after the big breakup talk, able to do nothing but tearfully babble on and on, plastered on Sunset's couch, curled up in Sunset's arms, about how horrible she felt, and how she had absolutely no idea where to go from what she'd just done. Even with Sunset's warnings, she never could have predicted that the experience would have affected her so deeply.
And yet, when she and Sunset had ended up making out on that same couch days later, Twilight couldn't help but feel that something in her heart had seen it all coming, since forever ago.
Because since the moment they'd met, Sunset Shimmer had always been a constant. The best sort of constant. The kind of constant where, if Twilight ever felt down, if Twilight ever felt insecure, if Twilight ever was scared, or even if Twilight was in the wrong about something, Sunset knew how to make everything feel right. How to make Twilight feel like everything was going to be just fine.
And eventually, Twilight realized that she had, for who knew how long, subconsciously devoted herself to returning the favor to Sunset. Subconsciously devoted herself to spending as much time with Sunset as possible, one rock clinging to another, in life's never-ending storm.
Twilight quickly swiped to a picture of herself and Sunset, the latter in her trademark blue dress and leather boots, taken at one of their many dates at Sugarcube Corner. Just one look at that smiling orange face and that wild red hair, was enough to bring a smile to Twilight's face, and set her heart at peace.
Looking at the picture just felt... better. More right. Sunset felt more right.
Sunset felt like home.
Even now, Twilight felt criminally lucky that, of all the girls to exist in two universes, Sunset had picked her for a girlfriend. Her, the Crystal Prep social failure science geek who had been headed to a solitary life in the middle of nowhere. Life was definitely full of surprises, of friendship... and of magic.
Twilight took one more deep breath, this time to center herself. Now happy and calm, she got up from the steps, walked up, and rang Sunset's doorbell.
No answer. She rang again, still nothing. Refusing to assume the worst so soon after she'd been thinking sad thoughts, Twilight tapped out a text.
"Hey, I'm on your steps. You didn't cancel the party, did you? :)"
A few seconds later, she got a reply. "course not! lil late tho. sending someone else to let you in."
Twilight blinked. Someone else?
Twilight heard the door unlock.
She looked up.
And into a mirror.