//------------------------------// // A Life Well Lived // Story: meanwhile...: Tales of the Berylverse // by Shinzakura //------------------------------// Two individuals sat on their porch, entwined and clearly enjoying the evening sky. One held a goblet of red wine while the other was just content to lay in her lover’s lap while reading from her tablet. Without looking down, the first one said, “She’s back again.” The second one looked towards the treeline; in the nocturnal distance, the evergreen pines sat undisturbed. “You sure? I thought that—” “It’s been a while, true, but there’s still that part left. I know when something like this happens.” The woman with the tablet reached up and kissed her lover. “Tell you what: it’s probably best that I deal with this. You check on the kids and I’ll take care of our little problem.” The look on the first woman’s face contorted into concern. “You sure?” “I don’t think she’ll be a problem, per se; I just think I’m better at dealing with this. Besides,” she said with a laugh, “it’s a school night and you’re the authoritarian parent. I’m the understanding one.” The first one drained her wineglass and chuckled. “Well, you certainly understand me. And given that our oldest daughter takes after you, I suppose I need to be strict.” “She’s just….” “She’s just like you used to be, I know. I love that about both of you.” The first woman smiled, then gave her spouse a kiss again before heading into the house once more, leaving the one with the tablet alone. The second one got off the porch bench, set the tablet down and dusted herself off, and then said, “Look, you’d better come out now. I’m going to assume you don’t mean any harm, but if you do…I’m pretty sure I can still create explosive blasts on call.” A voice from the trees called out with surprise, “You can do that?” That voice. She’s still young. The woman visually shrugged and voiced, “Pretty sure. It’s been ten or fifteen years since the last time I did it, but I’m sure it’s like riding a bike – you really don’t forget, but while trying to remember you probably run over a person’s foot or two.” “Wow, all I have is super strength and some flash-stepping capabilities.” The woman frowned; the newcomer was far different than expected. “What about the Sense?” “My Pinkie Sense? Yeah, I got that.” Best be careful; with that combination she could be trouble if she’s on the wrong side. “Well, come on out. I figure you’re not here to see two old married lesbians cuddle and watch the stars.” The figure stepped away from the trees, revealing herself. “Well, actually….” Pinkie looked around at the surroundings. It looked like the Everfree, but closer to Darkside or Mountainline than Canterlot or the inner suburbs. Funny, though; she didn’t see anything that looked like Mt. Shasta nearby, but clearly given the forest, this was either outer suburban or exurban, though probably not outright rural. The house was well-tended and looked like a farmhouse even though there was no farm. Two SUVs sat on the property, though she wasn’t familiar with the make or model. But the biggest surprise was the woman standing there at the porch. Thin and beautiful, with short, straight hair showing the first signs of gray. Still, her clear blue eyes showed a bit of her youthful self, even though tempered by age. Pinkamena Diane Pie…or what Pinkie assumed was her. Probably a couple of decades older, and clearly happily married to Sunset, given the earlier displays of affection and the golden band she wore on her ring finger. “You look surprised,” the older Pinkie spoke. “I just…yeah, it kinda is. I didn’t think I’d end up here,” Pinkie admitted. “Do you need help getting back?” Pinkie shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.” “I suppose you’re not going to tell me how you got here, then,” the older Pinkie inquired. “Probably for the best if I don’t. It’s…complicated.” The woman sat down and patted the seat next to her. “Well, I’m going to presume you’re not here to harm me or my family, so….” “Why would I do that?” The older Pinkie sighed. “That…. Well, it’s a long story. The short of it is that my wife is an illegal alien in both senses of the word. The long of it is that even after all these years, we still have some enemies out there.” “Enemies? Like Divine Right and the Black SIRENs?” Pinkie’s eyes narrowed. “Or like Ascot and Cicely?” “Enemies like the Dazzlings, actually.” She held up her tablet, which was off. “There was a prison break upstate at the women’s incarceration center last month and Adagio, Aria and Sonata were three of the escapees. I’m sure they’ll be caught, but until then….” The woman shrugged again. Pinkie frowned at the names. “But why would the triplets harm you?” “Kid, you must come from a really different world if they’re not out for your blood.” “Why would they be? They’re some of our closest friends – in fact, they’re Sunny’s cousins!” The older Pinkie blinked at that revelation. “Yeah, you clearly come from a very different probability tree. Anyway, care for a Colta?” “A what?” “Soft drink – Colta is the big one out here. I take it that brand doesn’t exist where you’re from?” “Not really. The big names are Coke and Pepsi.” “Weird. Anyway, I’ll be right back, Pinkie. It is Pinkie, right?” “Yeah, I call myself Pinkie, why?” “I’ll explain in a minute. You have a seat and I’ll be right back.” Pinkie sat down and looked at the sky. It was mostly the same, but different. The moon looked similar, for the most part, though there was something odd about it that she couldn’t put her finger on. Still, Sunset hadn’t said that this place was dangerous for her, and if there was one person out there that Pinkie trusted, it was her girlfriend. Sunset wouldn’t have left this reality thread inside of her if it would have meant harm. A minute later, the older Pinkie came out with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and two bright yellow aluminum cans. “Here you go. Hope you like the cookies; Sunset’s the one that made them.” “She did?” “Yeah. She doesn’t let me cook when I’m at home. She says that between the restaurant and my show on the Cooking Channel, I have to have some time to myself. Besides, she works from home, so she handles most of that when I’m out in town or at the studio.” Pinkie took a drink from the can; “Colta” was apparently the local equivalent of Dr. Pepper, though it had more of a cinnamon aftertaste. “You have a restaurant? And a TV show?” A giggle uttered from the woman’s mouth. “Oh yeah! Cooking with Mina is the top-rated show on the channel. The producer’s been trying to get me to do a second show, one where we travel around the world, but with the kids not being old enough yet and…well, Sunset not having a passport or much legal identification, I’ve managed to convince her otherwise so far.” Pinkie caught that. “Mina? As in Pinkamena?” “Pinkie works great when you’re a teenager. Not so much when you’re a young chef trying to make a name for yourself as a serious culinary artist.” Mina frowned. “And it especially doesn’t work when your ex-girlfriend is still so bitter, even after all this time, that she manages to pull strings to get your SBA loan shot down.” She sighed. “But that’s a story for another day and hopefully something you won’t ever have to experience for yourself, kiddo. How old are you?” “Sixteen. Seventeen in a few months, why?” “Enjoy those years while you still can,” Mina said, with a hint of a smile. She leaned back in her chair and took a bite of a cookie, savoring it in her mouth. “For normal people those days go by faster than you can imagine. For people like us, however, they go by even faster than expected – given that you’re here and what you can do, I suspect you don’t have a normal school life.” “Somewhat. It’s…it’s complicated.” “No, it’s really not,” Mina told her. “Complicated is when you help your best friend after she’s been seriously injured and you two find out you have feelings for each other. Complicated is having an affair behind your girlfriend’s back, only for her to find out in college that you’ve been sleeping with your best friend. Complicated is….” Mina sighed. “Complicated is having to live with that responsibility. Granted, I don’t regret the life Sunset and I have built together, and at thirty-seven I’m a bit too set in my ways to change things. But I do regret how things ended between me and Shy.” “You and Flutters?” “Yeah, you’re both lesbian, right?” “Actually, I’m bi and Flutters is straight. She actually has a boyfriend, though I’m not sure how he’s taking her sudden fame.” “Sudden fame?” Mina shook her head. “Nevermind, don’t want to know. The Fluttershy I know…well, she’s mayor of Canterlot now. Part of the reason why we don’t live there anymore.” “You don’t? I was wondering where this place was,” Pinkie admitted. “Yeah. This is Arrowhead Creek. Just an hour’s drive northwest of Coast City.” The look of incomprehension on the younger girl’s face said it all. “And none of that means anything to you. Okay, Canterlot is about a thousand miles east of here, and we live on the west coast of the country. Coast City’s the second largest city in the country and where the entertainment industry is.” “So like Los Angeles?” “I guess; we don’t have that place here.” The two sat there in relative silence, eating cookies and drinking Colta, until Mina spoke again. “So, want to tell me why you’re here?” “Because I needed to know something,” Pinkie said. “Look…Pinkie, I’m going to tell you right now. If you’re looking at me and Sunset the way you are, that means that you and your Sunset are in a relationship as well, right?” The teen nodded. “Our lives…the life Sunset and I have here? None of it is going to be of any meaning to how your life is with your Sunset. You probably won’t have two daughters and a son. You might still have all of your high school friends, including – weirdly – those ‘triplets’ you mentioned. Hell, you probably have a great relationship with your Fluttershy.” “That bad?” “For Sunset’s 62nd birthday – or 35th, if you want to go by her fake ID – she wanted to get the gang back together. I closed down the restaurant for the day, just so we could have the party there. You know who was the only one that showed up? Fluttershy – and she did just so she could spit in our faces. She actually tried to call immigration on my wife! Fortunately – very fortunately – the fake IDs Sunset has looked real enough to fool the authorities and I know a few authorities myself thanks to my restaurant. But that was the point that Sunset had to realize what I already knew. The past is dead and buried, and it should have been left as is.” “But what about—” “Kid, just stop, okay?” The look in Mina’s eyes was wistful. “I already know what you’re going to say: something like it doesn’t have to end that way, or that you can’t believe things are like that. You’re just a kid, and it sounds like you come from a world where the numbers lined up in a way they didn’t here. Trust me: I miss them and think of them fondly, sometimes even Shy, despite what happened there. And I know Sunset does. But it sounds like you had three luxuries we didn’t, things I would rather not detail.” She leaned back in the chair again and looked at the sky. “Either way, those differences are like the Hummingbird Principle.” “The Hummingbird Principle?” “The beat of a hummingbird’s wings causes a tornado elsewhere in the world. It’s a theory where one small act causes a chain of events ending up in something big that couldn’t be foreseen.” “Ah, you mean the Butterfly Effect.” “Whatever.” Mina took a second cookie, chewing a bit before continuing. “The point is, if you’re looking for relationship advice from me regarding my wife, it’s not going to help you. Your Sunset is, presumably different than mine and unless yours is a sixty-four-year-old magically-crippled unicorn masquerading as a thirty-seven-year-old children’s book writer—” “Thirty-year-old all-powerful goddess alicorn pretending to be a seventeen-year-old high school student.” Mina blinked. “And you really think you’re going to get relationship advice from me? Hell, if Sunset still had more than a fraction of her magic left, I’d be outclassed! As it is, I’m the one with the magic in the family, and I haven’t used mine in years. I can only hope the kids didn’t inherit anything from us.” “Why would they?” “Because Pastel Chime, Starlight Glimmer and Aeon Soul are our biological children. I take it your world hasn’t developed a way to merge two womens’ genes and to have a perfectly healthy child?” “There’s some studies being done on it if I recall,” Pinkie admitted, “but it’s only at the ‘we got lab mice to do it’ stage. Certainly nothing human, and besides, I suspect Congress is writing laws prohibiting it.” “I had Pastel and Glimmy, while Sunset insisted on carrying Aeon. They’re our children and we love them. Being a wife and mother…it means more to me than the magic I have or the fame or anything like that. I know Sunset would say the same. I guess that’s pretty much the only advice I can give you: if you love your Sunset…don’t ever let her go. Don’t do what I did. Don’t get there the stupid way. That takes a toll on a relationship. If I’d been honest with Shy, sure we probably wouldn’t be friends, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have an enemy like her.” Pinkie ate another cookie. “I can’t believe that I’m hearing all this. The triplets were your enemies? And Fluttershy is now, too? What about the others? Rares, AJ, Rainbow, Twily, Tavi?” “I’m not familiar with that last name,” Mina said, ruminating over the thoughts until it came to her. “Do you mean Octavia Melody?” When Pinkie nodded, Mina said, “We were just acquaintances. The only real big thing I recall about her was that she was dating some guy named Vinyl Scratch, but aside from that, they didn’t factor much into our lives. And by Twily, I guess you mean Princess Twilight?” “No. Twily is the human Twilight Sparkle,” Pinkie explained. “She’s Sunny’s adoptive sister.” A sudden pall crossed Mina’s face and Pinkie looked at her counterpart. “Did I say something wrong?” “You couldn’t have known,” was all Mina said. “Couldn’t have known what?” Pinkie didn’t care for the way her older counterpart was clamming up. “Look, if it’s something I need to keep an eye out for in our world….” “I hope you don’t. If you are friends with those whores that you call ‘the triplets’ instead of the Dazzlings, then I hope what happened to us never comes to pass in your world,” Mina told her, venom clearly in her voice. A second later, she backed off and said, “Look, just let it go. You’re a bright and shiny kind of Pinkie, I can tell, one that probably has never seen anything really bad, and I—” “I was gangraped courtesy of my first boyfriend, his supposed sister and my girlfriend’s at-the-time boyfriend. I had an abortion that’s probably left me infertile and I nursed a hatred for Sunny that ultimately made me suicidal. It took a lot for me to get where I am and a lot more to finally trust Sunny. She earned my love, but just as much, I learned to love myself again. And then I nearly lost the girl I fell in love with when she fought a monster that took her life – thankfully, she resurrected as an alicorn or I probably would have lost it for good. “So, with all due respect, Mina, don’t you dare treat me like I’m some coddled child. Yes, you’re right that we aren’t the same Pinkie. Which means that what I’ve had to deal with is probably worse than what you had to endure.” The two Pinkies looked at each other over a gap of silence for the longest time before Mina shook her can. “I need a beer if I’m going to tell this story. You need a reload?” “I’m okay.” “I’m serious. If you told me what you just told me?” Mina shook her head. “Nevermind. I’ll just get one.” She went back in the house and a second later came back with two bottles. “Bufadora Butterscotch Beer,” she said, popping the tops and handing one to Pinkie. “Sunset drinks Apple Valley ciders because it reminds her of Jackie,” Mina admitted as she took a drink. “Me? I’ve never cared for cider and really, not many beers either. Thankfully this one has a sweet edge to it and I was able to get an exclusive contract with the company for my restaurant. I’ve actually thought about buying the company in order to help them expand, but we have kids and college is always expensive.” Pinkie hesitantly took a drink. She could taste butterscotch and alcohol, though thankfully it wasn’t too bad. She did hope she wouldn’t end up with a hangover, because explaining that to her aunt and uncle would be a problem then. Mina, fortunately took that in mind. “Eat the rest of the cookies,” she insisted. “Extra food will help absorb the alcohol in the bloodstream, as I’m presuming you’re not legal to drink where you’re from.” She grinned, then continued. “Remember when I told you that Sunset lost her magic? That name is part of the reason why. After the incident with the Dazzlings, we thought things were going to die down. But then there was the Friendship Games, some annual sports festival CHS had with our crosstown rivals over at Crystal Prep. You have the same issue?” “No, but that’s more because Crystal Prep is elementary and junior high where I’m from. K-8,” Pinkie supplied. “Sounds nice. Maybe it would have been best if that had been the case.” Mina took another drink from her beer, then continued. “Of course, we couldn’t have known that at the school, there was one introverted, put upon little ball of neuroses by the name of Twilight Sparkle. A girl that had been picked on by several of the most popular girls there, and was a loner outcast. Now, I don’t know about your world, but in ours, normally that spells the kind of trouble that ends up with a teenager getting their hands on illegal weapons and a body count. But here, it was worse – much worse.” “How worse?” “The Dazzlings switched schools to Crystal Prep while they tried to find a way to get revenge on us. And for a girl like Sparkle, she was putty in the Dazzlings’ hands. It wouldn’t have surprised me if by the end she was just as much theirs in body as she was in mind – and she was very much their plaything, mindwise.” Mina paused, hunched over and curled briefly into a fetal position. “Because we took their magic away, they used her to find a way to try to get it back. And that went sideways so hard.” Mina pulled up her tablet and tapped a few things on it, then handed it to Pinkie. “Here. This is the official report of what happened back then. When you’re done reading, I’ll tell you the rest.” Pinkie sat and read for several minutes. Intense reading slowly turned to horror, and after a few minutes, she finally turned, ran away from the porch and towards a nearby bush, where she vomited repeatedly. She felt a calming hand on her back and turned to see Mina looking at her with concern. “How…how could she?” was all Pinkie could say. “Because she wasn’t human anymore. She’d become Midnight Sparkle, and Midnight was a creature not even the Dazzlings could control.” She pointed to the part of the report that had made Pinkie retch. “To this day, they’re still not sure how to explain what happened to those poor girls that Midnight first turned her powers onto. The closest thing that some forensic scientists could come up with was that the heat from the fire somehow fused their bodies into some unnatural abomination. But you and I know that fire doesn’t do that.” Tears then welled in Mina’s eyes. “And then, after what happened to Juni and Boysi, Sunset lost it.” “Juni? Boysi?” Tears streaked down Mina’s cheeks. “I guess they’re not a part of your circle then, which means they’re probably still alive. Juniper Montage and her twin sister Boysenberry. They were part of our group and between them, they had illusion magic. Twi – Princess Twilight – referred to them as the Spirits of Faith and Devotion, just as I was the Spirit of Joy and Sunset, after her change, became the Spirit of Redemption. You have something like that?” Pinkie nodded. “If I remember correctly, Sunny says I’m the Element of Laughter.” “Not much to laugh about in this story. Anyway, Midnight slipped the Dazzlings’ leash and instead of going after us, she decided to use all of her power for revenge against Crystal Prep and its students for what they did to her. She did this during the Friendship Games, and some of our own students were caught in it as well. Juni and Boysi, bless them, decided that we had to try to talk her down, to convince her that what she was doing was wrong. And for their selflessness and bravery, they….” The tears started flowing freely and Mina sobbed. Pinkie reached over and hugged the woman and the two sat there for several minutes before Mina recomposed herself, leading them both back to the porch. “Thanks. I think I needed this.” “Maybe that’s why I’m here. Not just because I need something,” Pinkie said, as if having an epiphany. “Maybe you’re right, but I need to finish this. I’ve spent too many years bottling it up.” Mina wiped her eyes, then continued. “Their funerals were closed casket for a reason. Riri – Rarity – had been the one to see what had been done to them and just lost it. It was then that Sunset decided that Midnight was beyond redemption and that we had to save lives. And so….” Mina paused, then continued. “That’s the night my then-best friend burnt out nearly all her magic taking a life and containing the magical blast, nearly killing herself in the process. That’s when we had to use the rest of our magic to wipe the memories of what had actually happened, turning it into a complete lie.” She held up the tablet. “This part? This part where the police said that Twilight Sparkle had snapped and built an arsenal that she used against her fellow students and that CHS students got caught in the crossfire? That was a lie. Twilight Sparkle, I believe, died when all that magic from the Dazzlings’ ritual entered her. Midnight was a monster – and we had to hide the existence of monsters from the real world. So a dead girl became a school shooter and decades later, no one really knows the truth, most certainly not her sister-in-law, who was a teacher there; or her brother, who was one of the first officers on the scene.” “We did what we had to do to save lives. I’m not sure I’m proud of what we did, but I stand by the fact that we saved lives. No, I think it’s what we did after that destroyed everything between us.” Mina paused. “I can stop right now. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this about your friends.” “They’re your former friends, I presume,” Pinkie stated. “I’m sure my friends wouldn’t.” “They’re counterparts, kid. That means the potential is there – though I hope for your sake it doesn’t happen. For the next year, I spent most of that time helping Sunset while she was in her coma, and then eventually to walk again. I think that’s why we got closer. Shy was the smartest of us, and even though she was reluctant to do so, we pretty much convinced her to use her connections – even then, as a teenager, she somehow had some – to start placing the blame on the Dazzlings. Riri, Jackie and Dash did what they could as well, though Jackie was the first to balk at all of it. I mean, she was the Spirit of Veracity – how could she not? “But we wanted revenge for what the Dazzlings, by proxy, had done to our own and we were going to get that revenge. And that’s ultimately what did us in as a group. Slowly we lost the bonds of friendship between us, replaced by conspiracy and a false camaraderie. And maybe that’s why I started my relationship with Sunset behind Shy’s back. She was so busy trying to pull the strings that she didn’t have time for us anymore, and if she hadn’t found out about me and Sunset, I don’t think we would have lasted beyond college.” Pinkie took another drink, then stopped. Somehow any potential fun with drinking alcohol went out the window after all that. “What about now?” “We really haven’t spoken much in years, truth be told. Sunset inviting them all for her birthday was a pipe dream, and we knew it.” Mina drained her beer, then stared wistfully into the nothingness. “Dash went off to college, got her degree in physical therapy and now she’s the girls’ PE teacher at Crystal Prep. I suspect that she probably felt she had to make up for what we did. Jackie went to college and then went to work for her family’s brewery – if I recall she’s the Vice President of Sales or something like that. I told you about Shy. And lastly, Riri?” “What about Rarity?” “Riri gave up everything, all her dreams and such. From the last time I looked, Sister Rarity works in a convent with the poor in Steeltown, on the other side of the country. She’s the one that came from a wealthy family and we all thought she would go places. Now? That’s gone.” “I’m sorry to hear that,” Pinkie said, looking at her counterpart, no longer seeing the woman that was far luckier than her, but instead someone that had survived a hell just as bad as she had and was fortunate enough to end up with the one she loved, even if that love had cost her. “So you see,” Mina said, running a hand over her short hair, “I’m sure you came here looking for how to make life with your girlfriend as perfect as ours is. Well, our lives aren’t perfect, not by a fucking longshot. We have to live with the ghosts that we created and the lies that we built up, because it saved a world even as it destroyed our own. And yes, I love my wife and I’m happy for what we have – but that happiness was Goddamn earned through blood, sweat and tears.” Mina’s blue eyes bored into Pinkie’s own. “If you really, truly love your girl, you owe it to her to be honest and true and faithful to her for every day. To be kind and generous, devoted and ready to redeem yourself when you err. You have to embody all of the Spirits, or Elements or whatever the fuck you call them in your world. Not just one, but all of them. Because your life might be easier than mine is, or it might end up harder. But as the old saying goes, ‘this before everything: to your own self be honest.’” “This above all: to thine own self be true,” Pinkie said, parroting the version from her own world. “Right.” Mina looked at her tablet, and the time. “Look, I need to break this short. I have to catch a flight in the morning to Windy City – we’re doing an on-location there, and I hate to rush for my flight. You’re welcome to spend the night, if you want. I can tell the kids you’re a messenger from Equestria – they know about Sunset’s true origins.” Pinkie shook her head. “No, I think I got what I wanted. And I don’t need to focus on your life. I need to focus on mine.” Mina gave the teen the briefest hint of a smile. “Don’t be a stranger.” Pinkie started walking towards the trees, pausing only to wave once more before vanishing into the shadows. After a second, Mina said aloud, “How much did you hear?” “Enough. She seems like a very brave kid. Certainly with everything that she went through. Although,” Sunset said with mirth, “I can’t see me as an alicorn. I can barely see myself as a unicorn anymore, even with the few times I go back home for research.” Mina snaked her arms around her wife’s waist. Even at thirty-seven, Sunset still retained a bit of her youthful gloss, the likely result of what little magic was left in her. With her shoulder-length wavy hair, she looked more sophisticated than she had when she was younger, and Mina found that hot. “I don’t know if I could handle you being an alicorn. I can barely deal with it when your sister comes to visit.” “Oh, lay off Razzie, okay? She’s only been an alicorn for a few weeks, and she did fix your car after she accidentally melted it.” Sunset giggled. “Anyway, I should have come and introduced myself to your little shadow.” “No, I think that would have just made things worse. She was looking for perfection and not realizing that our lives aren’t theirs and their lives aren’t ours. While I admit I’m a tad bit curious about their world, I’m old enough to know to that it’s nothing more than a facet of our own lives, the road less traveled. Someday, I’m sure she’ll come to the same conclusion.” “I see. So you want me to contact Twi and ask to see if she can strengthen the dimensional veil so that this doesn’t happen again?” “No need. Despite what I said, I don’t think she’ll be back. Call it a hunch.” Mina reached forward and kissed her wife and Sunset complied, the two women loving each other in the cool night air. After a second, Mina broke it off and said, “Well, I need to get some sleep if I’m driving to the airport tomorrow.” “Who said anything about sleep?” Sunset said in a sultry voice. “The kids are in bed, and I’m going to be without you for a whole week. So, you can sleep on the plane. Tonight, you have your wife to take care of.” Mina and Sunset wordlessly grinned before locking hands together and heading into their home for the night, and to the rest of their own lives.