On the Rooftop
Sunset and Pyrrha sat on the rooftop with the wind caressing their features and licking at their hair, even as the sunlight gently kissed their faces.
Sunset leaned back, resting her head on her clasped hands, and closed her eyes.
It was the afternoon after their fight, and Sunset found that she could be around Pyrrha without raging outwardly or even inwardly at all her flaws. While she wouldn't call her a friend, being up here with her was, well, it was almost pleasant. Comfortable.
Whether that comfort would survive contact with all of Pyrrha's fans downstairs in the school was a matter for some discussion, but right now, Sunset was feeling pretty good.
Even if she had lost the fight, she had gained the respect of Beacon in the process; it was like one of those sports movies about going the distance with the champ.
Of course, that wasn't to say that Sunset didn't still kind of hope to be the champ one day.
"Your semblance is very impressive," Pyrrha said. "One of the most versatile semblances I've seen."
Sunset opened her eyes. That would certainly be true if magic was her semblance, which was part of the reason she hadn't previously gone so over the top with it. But, as much as Pyrrha was a smart girl, Sunset had faith in the power of frame of reference. If she, in her studies at Canterlot under Celestial, had been confronted with a form of power like aura or semblances, then she would not, without any details, have assumed them to be hitherto unknown forms of power, rather branches of the magic she was familiar with. So far, it had worked just the same in Remnant.
"Yeah," she said. "It is pretty cool."
"You must have spent a long time training to use it."
Sunset looked up at the blue sky overhead. "When did you start training to fight?"
"My training began in earnest when I was five."
"That's about when my training began."
"It sounds like an… interesting training regimen that focussed so heavily upon the use of your semblance, rather than combat skills or weapons handling."
Sunset was silent for a moment, considering her response. "I had… you might say that she was an unusual teacher. She wasn't training a warrior; rather… I'm not sure I can explain what she was training. I'm not even sure that I know anymore." The closest she could think to come to a frame of reference that Pyrrha would understand would be to use Pyrrha's own words: a paragon of virtue and glory. But that would sound unbearably pretentious once it was actually put into words. "She's probably very disappointed in me right now."
"'Disappointed'?" Pyrrha repeated, with astonishment evident in her voice. "I would say that your abilities do credit to your master."
Sunset snorted. "My teacher wouldn't have wanted me to become a huntress, a killer. Hey, Pyrrha?"
"Yes?"
"Do you believe in destiny?"
Now it was Pyrrha's turn to fall silent. "Yes," she said. "Although not as some might conceive of it. There is no inescapable fate to which we are condemned from birth. Rather, I believe that our destiny is the goal to which we have committed ourselves and to which we progress through determined effort."
Sunset sat up, a frown creasing her forehead. "No offence, but how is that destiny? If we can choose our fate, then surely it is no fate at all."
Pyrrha asked, "Do you believe in inescapable fate?"
"I'd like to," Sunset said. "I certainly used to when I thought my fate was something grand and glorious. But I think destiny must be preordained, or it is nothing."
"'Look at me; I am the daughter of a great woman,'" Pyrrha murmured. "'A god was my father, but death and inexorable destiny are waiting for me.'"
"A quote?"
"I'm a little surprised someone as knowledgeable as you hasn't read the Mistraliad."
"I know the stories, mostly," Sunset replied with a touch of defensiveness.
"Yes, but until you have read the poem… I was named for the Pyrrha who fought at Mistral, the finest of the warriors who fought there. When the war began, that Pyrrha chose a brief but glorious existence over a long and ordinary life, and when her lover was killed, Pyrrha chose to have her revenge, though she knew that her own death would follow hard upon. That became her destiny, inexorable… but only because she chose it."
Sunset nodded. She understood a little better now where Pyrrha was coming from. "Among my people," she said, "we don't really trouble to define what we mean by 'destiny.' We think of it mostly in terms of a fixed thread, but now that you have explained it, I think that we sometimes slip into the second meaning." It would explain the lies of Celestia: in the mistaken view of her old teacher, she had strayed off the path that led to her royal destiny and thus forfeited it. She had been quite wrong, of course, and understanding her thinking in no way lessened the sting of her betrayal of Sunset, but… she understood a little better now what Celestia had been trying to say. “Amongst my people,” she continued, “we believe that everyone is born blessed with one supreme talent, a great gift within themselves. It is reflected in the… in the symbols that we choose for ourselves, which are all representations of that talent. But this gift, although it lies within us, is not for us but rather, it is for the world around us. Though a… though we may have many skills, the discovery of our true gift is a matter not simply of finding something at which we are skilled, or even that thing at which we are most skilled, but of discovering how we can enrich the world around us and leave it a better place than it was left behind.”
“So, in a sense, you do believe in a destiny that lies within your choosing,” Pyrrha replied.
“To an extent,” Sunset conceded. “Although… you can be blind to your gift, to your destiny, for many years, but you will not be given another. You will wander… blank, as we call it, until you see the truth about yourself and embrace it.”
Pyrrha nodded thoughtfully. “I confess, I have never heard this before; is it a common belief in Atlas?”
Sunset made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a gasp. “Aha, no. I, um… I was schooled in Atlas, but I grew up outside the kingdoms. That is where these beliefs originate.”
“That makes a little more sense,” Pyrrha said softly, “and you left your home and set out for Atlas… for fame?”
“For my destiny,” Sunset corrected her. “It was clear to me that it lay elsewhere than the place where I grew up.”
“Is not your mark a signifier of your destiny?”
Sunset looked down at the sun on her tunic. “Not exactly,” she explained. “The mark… I used to think that I knew what this meant, but now, I… am not so sure.” She had thought that the blazing sun symbolised her destiny to replace Celestia, but now… what did it mean? “I suppose I hope to find the meaning here, also. Pyrrha,” she added, in an attempt to change the subject, “may I ask you something?”
“If you wish.”
"Can I ask, if you believe we choose our destiny, then why did you choose a destiny you don't want?"
Pyrrha shook her head sadly. "I've always believed that my destiny is so much more than to win trophies. My destiny, the destiny I choose, the destiny I came here searching for… is to protect the world."
Sunset chuckled. "And I thought I was the one with grand ambitions."
"For what other reason do huntresses exist?"
"Well, yes, but when you say it out loud..." Sunset trailed off. There was a reason she kept her own ambitions to herself: to speak them out loud was to expose them to the mockery and derision of small minds and smaller spirits incapable of risking all with a leap into the unknown. And besides, if you told a wish, it wouldn't come true, and ambitions had always seemed very close to wishes to Sunset's way of thinking.
"Our world is under siege and in grave peril," Pyrrha declared solemnly. "We cannot simply try to hold ground or minimise our losses."
"You're talking about retaking the world from the grimm?"
"I suppose I am," Pyrrha said. "I believe that that is where our destiny, humanity's destiny, must lie, and I believe that I can play some part in that. And so could you."
Sunset's eyebrows rose. "What are you saying?"
Pyrrha smiled. "I'm saying that it was an honour to fight against you, but it would be a greater honour to fight by your side."
A smile blossomed across Sunset's face. She held out a balled fist, which Pyrrha regarded suspiciously.
"You bump it with your knuckles," Sunset explained.
"Oh," Pyrrha replied. "Oh, I see."
They bumped fists.
"Hoof bump," Sunset murmured.
"I'm sorry?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all."
And that's how I learned that fighting was the way to solve all my problems.
Well I'm glad that things are better between you and Pyrrha, obviously, but I can't help but think that this could have been resolved without a fight.
If we hadn't fought, we wouldn't have been able to appreciate one another's skills first hand.
There was a pause at the other end of the journal. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that you might be right.
Sunset sniggered. Am I making the Princess of Friendship uncomfortable?
The fact that you live in a world of violence disturbs me, I will admit. You make it sound almost dystopian.
Atlas could have stepped out of a trilogy of novels if you added a love triangle, but I haven’t seen enough of Vale yet to be able to comment. Twilight Sparkle?
You can just call me Twilight, if you want.
We're not friends. But Sunset's hand trembled. She felt as though she were on the threshold of a door that she must cross, and yet, she feared to do so. Do you think Princess Celestia is ashamed that I took what she taught me and I use it take life?
I haven't actually told her too much; your situation sounds incredibly dangerous, and I wasn't sure if you'd want her to worry.
No. I don't want her to worry. And I don't want her to judge. There, she had set it down, her fear, and now, it could not be erased. It grinned up at her, mocking and sardonic, taunting her with her own weakness.
From what you've told me, there is nothing to judge. Assuming you're not lying, then you're protecting people from terrible monsters. I pity that you have to live such a life, but I don't judge you for it.
Sunset nearly wrote back that she didn't need the pity of a usurper, but what would have been the point? She was irritated, but not so irritated that she wanted to either end the conversation or get it bogged down in whether Twilight Sparkle had or had not meant to be patronising.
She thought about Pyrrha's dream, her destiny to which she was willing to commit body and soul to work towards. Could it be done, the grimm defeated once and for all? The history of places like Mountain Glenn or the Crimson Offensive suggested otherwise, but Sunset was no seer. Not even Celestia could see the future. Perhaps Pyrrha could do it, and if Sunset were a part of it then...
Princess, do you believe in destiny?
Bon Bon, a name to which she was becoming far more accustomed than Sweetie Drops, lurked in the dark recesses of the library as she got out her scroll and called the individual identified in her directory only as Black Queen.
The reply was not too long in coming. That lugubrious, oozing voice dripped out of her scroll. "Sweetie," she said, "I wasn't expecting you to be in touch so soon."
"I have a name for you," Bon Bon replied. "Sunset Shimmer."
"I've never heard that name before."
"You wouldn't have," Bon Bon acknowledged. "She went to Canterlot Combat School with Lyra and I. She had talent – more than I showed, and more than Lyra has – but nothing remarkable."
"Do you want me to murder one of your old school rivals so that you can feel some sense of payback?" asked the voice on the other end of the scroll. "Because that's so deliciously petty I might actually consider it."
"This isn't about that," Bon Bon said sharply. "I'm sending you a video that I took this afternoon." Nobody had questioned that she was filming the duel between Pyrrha and Sunset, or rather, that she had started filming shortly after the duel started. It had, after all, turned out to be an impressive fight, and she hadn't been the only one taking video. Bon Bon had seen Weiss Schnee recording the match as well; she was probably going to study it to plan counterstrategies. She kept the call running in one tab as, in another window, she found the video in question and sent it across the world. "It doesn't have the beginning of the fight, but you can see enough."
From the other side of the scroll, Bon Bon could hear the sounds of fighting and guessed that the Black Queen was watching. "Impressive," she conceded. "Very impressive. This doesn't look like nothing remarkable."
"She must have been holding back all this time," Bon Bon said.
"And yet she chose now to cut loose. Why? What was this fight against Pyrrha? Not just another sparring match, I'll wager."
"No," Bon Bon agreed. "It was a duel between the two of them. Apparently, they were on the outs, but they seemed to have made up by the end of the fight."
"So she held back to avoid people knowing how strong she was… right up until the moment when her pride was on the line," came the reply. "I like her already. Find out more about her. Oh, and Sweetie Drops?"
"Yes?"
"This is just what I sent you to Beacon for. Keep it up."