Twilight rapped her hooves nervously on the sturdy wooden table. Sitting across from her, looking about as confused and uncomfortable as she felt, was Sunset Shimmer. Her Sunset Shimmer.
“I would have thought your Sunset Shimmer was the preppy one from back home. Or maybe the broody thief.”
As much as Twilight hated to admit it, Midnight did have a point. If she’d been asked a week ago who her Sunset Shimmer was, she probably would have said that one can’t own another person, but since she only knew one Sunset Shimmer, there wasn’t much of a choice. If she’d been asked an hour ago, the answer would have been a little more tricky. Yes, she had known the Sunset Shimmer from back home longer, but she was on a life-altering multiverse adventure with this Sunset Shimmer.
But now…
“Why not all three? I wouldn’t mind having more Sunsets around, and it’s not as if there’s a shortage...”
“Cut it out,” muttered Twilight.
“I’m sorry?”
Realizing she’d spoken aloud, Twilight clapped her hooves over her mouth.
“Nothing!”
The word was little more than a muffled squeak, prompting Sunset to give her an incredulous look.
“How long is this going to take?”
Daybreaker stood by the door, keeping a careful eye on both Twilight and Sunset. Her presence had been a compromise between the other Twilight and Sunset, neither of whom trusted the other enough to put their companions alone in a room together, but whose bickering made any conversation between the two impossible. Now that they were (mostly) alone in the cottage’s rustic kitchen, there was a new problem.
“What do I say to her?”
“I have a few suggestions.”
Twilight didn’t respond.
“Well, why ask if you’re just going to ignore me?”
Sunset Shimmer cleared her throat. “So, this is kind of awkward.”
“Tell me about it,” laughed Twilight. “I thought I was getting used to meeting alternate versions of myself and my friends, but here you are: the Sunset Shimmer from my world.”
Sunset waved a hoof. “Please, just call me Sunny, everyone else does. Besides, it’s going to make this a lot less confusing.”
“Alright, Sunny, how did you meet Twilight—not me, obviously, I mean—”
“Twily,” said Sunny, cutting her off.
“What?” asked Twilight. She could practically hear Daybreaker rolling her eyes.
“Just call her Twily. Sunny and Twily. It’ll make everything—”
“Less confusing,” finished Twilight. “Right.”
“I’m starting to doubt that.”
“Anyway,” Sunny continued, “tell me if this sounds familiar: a lonesome girl shows up on your doorstep with a busted Talismen and a broken heart. She can fix the portal tech, but needs help with the—”
“Underlying magic transfer tech. But how did you…?”
Sunny smiled. “Swap those around and you have the first project Twily and I ever worked on together. Voyagers talk a lot about constants, but parallels are just as common. Twily probably thinks Sunset brought you here as some sort of trick to steal me away from her, but I knew better.” She looked at Twilight suspiciously. “I did know better, right?”
“No.”
“Yes!” Twilight wore her least conspicuous smile, doing her best to ignore Midnight’s cackling in their head. “I mean, you were pretty close; Sunset appeared in my room, not at my doorstep, and she was bleeding and… you know, now that I look back on it, it was actually pretty scary.”
“So, how long have you two been together?”
Twilight gawked at Sunny.
“Travelling together. I know time can get a bit messy, so just give me your best estimate.”
“Right,” said Twilight, feeling the blush creeping its way onto her cheeks. “Well, first we were ponies, then deer, then humans again...” Worlds mashed together as Twilight tried to construct a mental timeline of their adventures. “I did get knocked out for a while in Applejack’s living room, so… a day? Maybe two? It feels like a lot longer.”
Sunny blinked at her. “You went to four worlds in two days?”
“No, of course not!” Twilight did the math in her head. “More like eleven. Twelve if you count my world.”
“Wow,” said Sunny.
“Our world, Sorry.”
“That’s not what I… never mind. Besides, it’s not exactly my world anymore, is it?”
It was Twilight’s turn to look confused. “What do you mean?”
Sunny sighed. “It might only have been two days since you left, Twilight, but for me it’s been closer to two years. I didn’t have any friends or family back there, and the only thing I left behind was my apartment—which I was renting, by the way, so I’m pretty sure I’ve been evicted.”
“Why is she telling us all this?”
“You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this.” Twilight bit her lip but said nothing. “The point is, that world is no more mine than you are my Twilight. This is my world, my cottage, and out there is my Twilight, who is probably doing her best not to murder your Sunset while we talk.”
“One of my Sunsets,”quipped Midnight.
“Speaking of which,” said Twilight. “I do have a question to ask you about, you know, them.”
“Here we go,” said Daybreaker, earning her glares from both Twilight and Sunny. “What? Lots of Voyagers break up, most of them don’t air their dirty laundry across the multiverse.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed and she felt herself being pushed back into the recesses of her mind as Midnight asserted her control. “Isn’t your ex currently on an interdimensional quest to break up literally every set of Twilights and Sunsets?”
“Midnight!”
“What? It’s true!”
“She’s got you there,” said Sunny.
“Yeah,” said Daybreak, rubbing her neck with an armored hoof, “she does.”
“See?”
The interruption dealt with, Sunny turned her attention back to Twilight. “What was your question?”
“Just… what happened between them? Sunset said Twilight—sorry, Twily—dumped her on some world that wasn’t hers.”
“Dumped in more ways than one,” muttered Daybreaker, earning her another set of glares. “Okay, shutting up now.”
Sunny looked out the window kitchen window, and for a moment Twilight believed she’d lost herself in the rolling plains. “It’s not my story to tell, but if you’re going to be travelling with her, you deserve to know both sides.” She looked back at Twilight, all mirth from their interaction with Daybreaker drained from her face. “Twily did abandon Sunset, but from the way she tells it, it was more than Sunset deserved.”
Twilight opened her mouth to argue, but Sunny held up a hoof, cutting her off. “I’m not saying she did or didn’t, I’m just telling the story. It’s no secret that neither of them were angels—they were thieves, after all—but Twily held them to certain standards: never steal from their world, only steal from people and ponies who deserved it (whatever that means), and never bring anything back if they weren’t one hundred percent sure it was safe. She fancied herself the multiverse’s equivalent of Robin Hood.”
“Who?” asked Daybreaker.
“I understood,” said Twilight.
“Sunset had, well, let’s call them different standards. Things worked for a while, Sunset put up with Twily’s heroism, and Twily pretended not to know about the room in her castle where Sunset stashed the trinkets she brought back from their adventures. But then something happened.”
“What?”
“Sunset took something she shouldn’t have.”
Twilight gave her a blank look.
“Yeah, I know, they probably shouldn’t have taken most of what they did, but this was different. Whatever it was that she took, there was something inside of it. I tried getting the details out of Twilight—Twily, sorry, now I’m doing it—but she just gets a faraway look in her eyes and says this:
“Monsters can be fought, plagues cured, and curses broken, but what Sunset unleashed on our world was something far, far worse.”
“Pretty vague,” said Midnight. Twilight scolded her mentally.
“Yeah, well, it’s all I’ve got to go on. Besides, Twilight might not be able to describe it any better because she wasn’t actually there to see it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, whatever it was, it didn’t emerge until Sunset and Twily were visiting another universe, and without them there… well, let’s just say that castles and cities can be rebuilt. Honestly, when I first heard about the destruction that was caused, I was surprised there weren’t more casualties. In our world, in a disaster like that, they would have numbered in the thousands, but in their world there was only one.”
“Shining Armor,” said Twilight, remembering Twily’s scathing remarks to Sunset.
“Right,” said Sunny. “What they needed was Friendship Magic, but without Twily and Sunset there to help, they had to improvise. I’ve heard it said that Shining Armor has some of the most powerful protection magic in the multiverse, and Twily claims her’s was the best of the best. Using the power of an artifact called The Crystal Heart, Shining Armor did what no one else could, and erected a glowing prison in the sky strong enough to contain the entity. Unfortunately, Shining’s power makes shields, not tombs, meaning he had to be at its center.”
“But if Shining Armor was trapped in there with it, why didn’t it just kill him and escape?” asked Midnight.
“Good question. He put himself into some sort of stasis—invulnerable, but completely unaware of the outside world. He knew going in that this was a one way trip, a sacrifice that he made willingly to save countless lives, including those of his wife and child.”
“His child?”
“Now, how is your relationship with your Shining Armor?”
“He’s my brother,” said Twilight. “Sure, he can be a doofus, but I love him more than anything. How couldn’t I?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Sunny, grimly. “Anyway, now imagine that you get home from this adventure and he’s in prison—a prison where you can never see him again. You find out later that your testimony in his trial was all that stood between a conviction and going free. Could you ever forgive Sunset for taking you away?”
“I—”
“I’m not done. Now, imagine that Sunset shows absolutely no remorse for her actions, and that every time you look up into the sky you see a glowing reminder of her guilt—of your guilt—nearly the size of the moon. I ask again: could you ever forgive her?”
Twilight didn’t respond.
“So, Twily and Sunset left their world, Twily dumped Sunset, and the rest is history.” Sunny stood up from the table and approached the door, craning her neck to look back at Twilight. “Twily is healing. It’s slow, and sometimes it causes almost unbearable pain, but she is healing. I’d like to believe that Sunset is healing, too, and that coming here was a way for her to get closure and not some petty plan for revenge, but whatever this is… it has to end.
“It’s been nice meeting you, Twilight.” The corners of her mouth turned up into a barely perceptible smile. “Say goodbye to your world for me.”
The scene outside the cottage was… chaotic.
A pair of enormous earmuffs straddled the cottage, presumably (and inexplicably) soundproofing it against the argument that had been going on outside. But that was only the beginning of the madness.
To her left, Twilight observed a bouncy castle not unlike the one she’d seen at Pinkie Pie’s last birthday party, except there did not appear to be a way in or out. Inside, through the semi-translucent walls, she could see the silhouette of Sunset Shimmer (the mohawk was a dead giveaway) who wasn’t bouncing, but whose enraged breathing appeared to be making her bob slowly up and down on the inflated floor.
To Twilight’s right stood a towering statue of a mare—Fluttershy, if Twilight had to guess from the mane—made entirely of wicker. Within its chest, behind what appeared to be a row of prison bars, sat a very disgruntled looking Twily who glowered down at them from above.
Discord, who had been lounging in a massive hammock between two trees that almost certainly hadn't been there earlier, tipped up a pair of dark sunglass and regarded the trio.
“Oh dear, is it time to go already?” They nodded. In a blink of the eye, Discord was no longer in his hammock, and instead was dressed as a police officer, spinning a pair of handcuffs (hoofcuffs?) around a chitinous claw. “Alright, inmates, looks like you’re being bailed out!” He snapped the fingers on his monkey paw, freeing Sunset and Twily for their respective prisons. They stumbled, gave each other hateful looks, but as they turned to face their companions, Discord put a claw on Sunset’s shoulder.
“Now, miss Shimmer, I’ve held up my end of the bargain and I’m ready to receive payment for services rendered.” A bill appeared midair before her, bearing a poorly drawn image of a Lady Sparkle, only with jagged teeth and a pair of overly exaggerated (and angry) eyebrows.
“I get it, we’ll get you your Alicorn, just give us a minute,” said Sunset, crumpling the bill with her magic before turning to address Twilight. “I hope you got what you needed.”
“Did you?”
Sunset gave a lingering look back at Twily, sighed, and nodded.
“This chapter of my life is over. Now, let’s go write a better one.”