Unforgivable
Twilight gently hummed to herself as she put a stack of books on the shelf one at a time, making sure each one was in the exact spot she had left it. As she turned her head to pick up the next one, she saw the mirror portal to the other world in the room begin to glow, sparks of magic flying around it. She frowned.
“That’s strange, it’s barely after noon. Did she forget something?”
The portal rippled as Starlight Glimmer stepped out of it. Well, perhaps ‘stepped’ was not the best word to describe the way she made her presence known. A better term would be ‘stomped into the room with a snarl of rage that Twilight had not heard the likes of from her since she stopped being evil’.
“That selfish, uncaring, destructive…” Starlight growled and swiveled her head, Twilight shrinking back under the intensity of her glare. “Twilight, what’s a good insult to cap that with?”
Twilight’s eyes darted away. “Uh… hag?”
“Nevermind. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go find some things to burn.” Starlight vanished in a flash of turquoise light.
Twilight sighed. “Sounds like they had a fight.” She teleported into Starlight’s room and found her friend storming around the room at random, seizing knickknacks, photographs, and other assorted items from her shelves and throwing them in a trash can in the middle of the room.
Starlight caught sight of her. “Good, you’re here! You can help me clean up all the junk!” Starlight grabbed a small clay figurine in her likeness and threw it toward the can.
Twilight caught the figure in her magic before it could hit something and break. “What happened?”
“What happened is that I just broke up with my girlfriend because I realized what a horrible, awful, no-good very bad person she is, and I’m already feeling better for getting out of it!” Starlight grabbed a guitar off the wall and tossed it over her shoulder.
Again, Twilight caught it and held it up with the clay figure. “What do you mean you broke up?”
“Broke up, called it off, ended the relationship, terminated our mutual agreement to give each other physical and emotional affection!” Starlight moved to her dresser and began pulling photos out of her mirror. “Here, let me give you a visual aid!” She held the photos up to Twilight in a stack and tore them apart, then tore them again the other way, and let the pieces fall into the trash can.
“Did she do something?” Twilight asked weakly, catching all the picture pieces she could.
“Did she do something?” Starlight barked out a laugh. “Only proved she has no respect for my property or my feelings!” She tossed a journal with a sun emblem on it into the trash and looked around the room. “Well, that’s everything I can see for now.” The magic aura surrounding the items Twilight was holding turned from raspberry to turquoise as Starlight took them and dropped them in the can. “I’m gonna go start a bonfire out back of the castle. You wanna help?”
“I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” Starlight and the trash can teleported away.
Twilight groaned and rubbed her forehead. “I guess I should go find out what happened…”
Twilight raised a hand and gently knocked on the door of the apartment at the top of the fire escape. “Sunset? Are you home?”
A loud smash came from inside before a voice called back, “come in!”
Twilight opened the door and stood in place, staring.
A collection of items from around Sunset Shimmer’s apartment had been gathered into the middle of the room on a large red-and-turquoise striped blanket. Twilight presumed that, much as with her other friend back in Equestria, these were items Sunset had purchased with Starlight or had given to her from Starlight.
She made that presumption based on the fact the items were all in various states of breakage and Sunset was holding a baseball bat over her head with both hands.
Sunset stood up straight and lowered the bat, reaching up to take off a pair of safety glasses. “Oh, hey Twilight. What’s up?”
Twilight looked between Sunset, the baseball bat, and the blanket of smashed mementos. “I’m guessing you and Starlight had a fight?”
“Fight?” Sunset snorted. “Nah. We just had a civil, polite discussion where we came to the mutual agreement that she is a treacherous, oblivious, clingy…” She scrunched her face. “What’s a good insult to cap that with?”
“Hag?”
“Nevermind.” Sunset slipped her safety glasses back on and took hold of the baseball bat again, bringing it over her head. “Anywho, we came to that agreement, then she left, and I decided to take a baseball bat to everything she ever bought me.” Crack. “Or that we bought together.” Smash. “Or that I bought because it reminded me of her.” Crunch.
“Okay.”
Sunset paused and looked at Twilight again, gasping for breath. “You wanna take a few swings?”
“I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” Sunset lifted the bat and swung again, something made of plastic cracking apart – it was already broken in other places and Twilight wasn’t sure what it used to be.
“So, what did you do that upset her?” Twilight asked.
Sunset stood up, her eyes wide, and she whipped off her safety glasses. “Me? She’s the one who needs to be more careful and mindful of other people’s things!”
“Uh-huh…” Twilight took a deep breath. “Would you be willing to come over to Equestria so we can try to work things out, rather than just break all her stuff and curse her name?”
“This seems more fun.”
“Please?” Twilight smiled. “You two seemed so happy together, you were almost ready to celebrate your first year anniversary! I don’t want to see it fall apart over a single fight.”
Sunset groaned and tossed the baseball bat aside. “Fine. For you, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“It will.” Twilight waited patiently as Sunset stepped over the blanket of broken items, then turned and gathered it up by the corners and slung it over her shoulder.
“We’re stopping by a dumpster on the way to the portal.”
“Okay.” Twilight looked between the two ponies on the far opposite ends of a couch in her library, the two sitting with sour expressions, crossed hooves, and pointedly looking away from each other. Sitting in a chair across from them, Twilight flipped over the cover of a notepad and positioned a pencil over it. “Let’s take it from the top. How did you two spend your day together before the fight?”
Sunset slightly twisted forward, still making sure she wasn’t looking in Starlight’s general direction. “We agreed last week to meet up today to hang out, go to the park, spend some time at my place, get lunch or dinner depending on the time.”
“Mhm.” Twilight wrote the description on her notepad.
Starlight picked up the conversation. “I wrote to her this morning to see when she wanted to meet, she said let’s get lunch, I said sure. I went over, we ate at Sugarcube Café, then we went back to her apartment.”
“And when we got there, she said she was interested in trying a video game, since she doesn’t play them that much, but she knows I like them,” Sunset said. “I told her Power Pony Adventure 3: The Manehattan Project has two-player, but we’d have to start a new campaign for co-op mode. She said sure, she has to learn to play anyway.”
Twilight nodded and kept writing.
Starlight’s eyes shifted to look at Sunset out of the corner of her eye. “We played for an hour or so, then after we beat the next boss Sunset got up to get us drinks. I told her we were being prompted to save the game, we hadn’t been asked to save it until now. She said ‘save it over slot three’.”
Sunset’s head snapped to glare at Starlight, bristling and gritting her teeth. “I said don’t save it over slot three!”
Starlight turned her head to show Sunset an identical expression. “I’m not stupid, of course I would save it in an empty slot! Why would you feel the need to tell me not to save it over another game?”
“To make sure you didn’t do that! Why would I tell you to do the thing I don’t want you to do?”
“If you call back to me with your voice muffled in the fridge, it’s not my fault I didn’t hear you!”
“Hang on.” Twilight held up a hoof, and the two turned their heads to her. “What was going on with slot three?”
Sunset sat back and huffed. “Slot three was my hard difficulty playthrough, and I was going for one-hundred-percent completion on it. I’ve been at it for two months now, grinding up skill points and farming drops from the Pharaoh Phetlock rematch. I was almost ready to take on the Mane-iac rematch, but that’s kinda flushed down the drain now!” She shouted the last words in Starlight’s direction.
“Good, it’s where it belongs with the rest of the sewage!” Starlight snarled back.
“Okay!” Twilight put a bit of magic into her voice to drown them out and get their attention back on her. “You mean this is all over Starlight accidentally erasing your save file?”
“If only it was that simple!” Starlight snapped. “She comes back, sees the save going through, and screams and runs to grab the controller from me and try to cancel it. Too late, it goes through.”
“I’m just standing there stunned by her stupidity,” Sunset muttered, “and I flop back into a chair not believing I just lost two months of progress. And I heard a crack and felt something poking me.”
“She sat on my favorite kite!” Starlight screamed, her eyes blazing at Sunset.
“What was it doing in a chair under your jacket?” Sunset shot back.
“I had put them down there when we came in! Who sits on another person’s clothes?”
“Who tosses their stuff on another person’s chair instead of hanging it up? It’s a chair, people sit in it! If you put something there, you take the risk someone is going to sit on it!”
“If you’d just looked before plopping down wherever you please, you’d have noticed my stuff there!”
“If you hadn’t left your stuff in my chair, I wouldn’t have sat on it! And yeah I will sit wherever I please, it’s my apartment!”
By this point the two were next to each other on the couch, eyes blazing as they glared at each other, faces stretched into expressions of pure rage.
Twilight cleared her throat. “So Starlight accidentally erased your game, Sunset accidentally sat on your kite, and now after a year of happiness, your relationship is over?”
“Yup!” The two said in unison.
Twilight suppressed a smile – given the levels of anger and magic in the room, humor on her part could be fatal to all involved parties – and shook her head. “Now, girls, let’s take a moment and think about this. This isn’t really about video games and kites, now is it?”
“Yes it is!”
“No, it isn’t.” Twilight used her magic to gently push the two away back to their corners of the couch. “They were just the last straws on top of a whole pile of straws, and those are what we need to work through if you want to salvage this relationship.”
“If we don’t care, can I go home?” Sunset muttered.
“Yes, please, go, and don’t come back,” Starlight said. Sunset stuck her tongue out, and Starlight responded by using a hoof to pull down the corner of her eye.
“No, nopony is going anywhere.” Twilight looked at Sunset. “Sunset, I’m going to ask you this first, and Starlight, don’t interrupt; I’ll ask you next and Sunset won’t be allowed to interrupt, okay?” The two nodded. “Good. Now, Sunset, be honest – what things about Starlight annoy you?”
“She saved over my—”
“Besides that.”
Sunset shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Think.” Twilight tapped her pencil on her notepad. “Small tensions and stresses can build up until something minor makes them explode. What has Starlight done in the past that got on your nerves?”
Sunset leaned her head on her hoof and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Well…” she pursed her lip. “It’s a bit uncomfortable when we go to the beach.”
“Why?”
“She always borrows one of my swimsuits to wear.”
Starlight’s jaw dropped. “You said you didn’t mind, and you told me I looked good in it!”
“You do!” Sunset protested. “You look great in it, but now every time I see it I think of how much better you look in it than me and I know I could never do it justice, I haven’t worn the thing in months!”
Twilight blinked. “You’re jealous of Starlight’s body?”
“She shouldn’t be!” Starlight thrust her hooves towards her. “Come on, Twilight, look at her! That butt is amazing no matter what species she is! You could bounce a coin off those cheeks!”
Sunset lifted to one side slightly and looked down at her flank. “Yeah, but you’ve got like, the most perfect legs ever.” She nodded toward Starlight’s hooves dangling over the edge of the couch. “I eat right and work out, then you just cross over from another dimension and you have the gams of a dancer!” She scrunched her nose. “They’re not bad in this world, either.”
“You’ve also got nicer boobs.”
“We both know that’s a lie.”
“Okay, okay!” Twilight squeaked, blushing furiously. “I get it, there’s some jealousy over physical attributes, we don’t need to go into details about it.” She coughed into her hoof. “Sunset, what else about Starlight bothers you?”
Sunset shrugged. “She… she makes this little smacking sound with her mouth when she nibbles on food.”
“You said you found that cute!” Starlight pouted.
“…okay, yeah, it is cute!” Sunset threw her hooves up. “You look like a squirrel or a chipmunk, it’s adorable!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you two are understanding the point of this exercise. I want to get to the underlying tensions of your relationship, help us all understand why this relationship is in danger.”
“We told you why, video games and kites!” Starlight protested.
“No!” Twilight shook her head. “You keep coming back to that as a cover because you don’t want to confront the deeper problem! Starlight, let’s go to you next. What are some things about Sunset that annoy you?”
Starlight bristled. “Her lack of respect for my things!”
“Besides the kite,” Twilight grated.
Starlight looked at Sunset, raking her eyes up and down her. “Sometimes…” Starlight looked up at Sunset’s horn. “Whenever we do dates in Equestria, she keeps going on and on about how cool it is to have her magic back.”
“I do not!” Sunset protested. “And you said you liked seeing me happy to be home!”
“I do! I just…” Starlight tilted her head. “No, nevermind, it is sweet seeing how much you miss this place.”
Twilight slapped a hoof to her forehead. “Seriously?”
“Oh, I know!” Starlight perked up and looked back at her. “She bought me a guitar last month!”
Twilight lowered her hoof. “A guitar?”
Sunset’s eyes widened. “You said you wanted to learn how to play!”
“I did! But, you know, I want to play the human guitar like you do, not using my magic in Equestria.”
“Then why did you bring it back here? You could have just left the guitar at my place and practiced when you came over.”
“…Oh, yeah.” Starlight snorted and rubbed the back of her head. “Okay, I guess that one’s on me… I got nothing, then.”
Twilight grunted angrily and stood up to pace in front of the couch. “Look, you two are some of my closest and dearest friends. I’m be happy that you two were able to bond, fall in love, and form a relationship that made you both happier, better, stronger people. And that’s why I am not willing to let it all apart over one disagreement.”
She stopped between the two and looked at them evenly. “But, if you’re not going to confess the real reasons you two are upset through calm, focused conversation, then you’re going to blurt them out!” She thrust her hoof at Sunset. “Sunset, something you dislike about Starlight, now!”
“Wha?”
“NOW!”
“Um, uh, she’s too cute when she naps!”
Twilight scoffed, then swung her hoof the other way and turned her head. “Starlight!”
“She’s too good at math?”
“Sunset!”
“She has great taste in music!”
“Starlight!”
“She’s too humble!”
“Sunset!”
“She’s a good listener!”
“Starlight!”
“I really like her mane!”
Twilight growled and pointed her hoof at Sunset. “Sunset, give me a real answer this time!”
“S-she… she’s a better friend to you!”
Both Twilight and Starlight stared. Sunset’s eyes widened. “Oh buck, I really just said that.”
“Yes, you did,” Twilight said softly.
Starlight leaned forward. “Sunset, what do you mean I’m a better friend to Twilight?”
Sunset sighed and looked at her hooves. “I just mean… you’re always here for her when she needs help. You’ve been able to help her save Equestria multiple times, you’re taking over the School of Friendship from her, and you two just spend lots of time together. I’m in another dimension, I’ve only ever reached out to Twilight when I need her help and I don’t do anything to pay her back.” She shook her head. “I’m a terrible friend.”
Before Twilight could say anything, Starlight shifted closer to Sunset and reached out to turn her around, Sunset still looking at the couch cushions.
“Sunset, don’t be ridiculous. There are all kinds of different ways to express friendship, and you shouldn’t feel like you don’t bring anything to a friendship just because you think they do more for you than you for them. Friendship is a lot deeper and more complex than just doing favors for each other.” She smiled and gestured to Twilight. “You and Twilight talk about stuff all the time through the journal, and I know how happy Twilight is that you’ve been able to build a new life for yourself. That friendship she has with you is just as real and just as important as the friendship she and I have, or that she has with anypony else. And I also know that if she did need your help and asked for it, you’d let nothing stop you from doing anything she needed to fix whatever was wrong. And I’d say that’s a true friend indeed.”
Sunset raised her eyes. “You really mean that?”
“Of course, I do.”
Sunset looked at Twilight; the other pony held up her hooves. “She said it as good as I could, at least.”
“Thank you, Starlight.” Sunset leaned in and the two ponies embraced.
Starlight squeezed back. “Well, you did say I was a good listener.”
“And you said I’m too humble.” The two softly chuckled as they pulled back, gazing into each other’s eyes with warm smiles, hooves still wrapped around each other.
Twilight grinned happily and clapped her hooves together. “See? This is what strengthens relationships – communication, being open and honest, talking through your troubles!”
After a moment or two, Starlight’s expression faded slightly. “You could have looked before you sat down.”
Sunset’s smile grew strained. “You could have double-checked that you heard me right.”
Starlight dropped her hooves. “Selfish.”
Sunset pulled away. “Oblivious.”
“Oh come on!” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “You two had made up, the fight was over!”
Starlight crossed her hooves and thrust her nose in the air. “Nope, still upset about the kite.”
Sunset leaned her head on her hoof. “It’s gonna take me two months to work back to where I was…”
“And I have to go buy the materials to make a new kite, hopefully I still have the designs in my room so I can make it the same as it was before someone sat her big fat butt on it!”
“You said my butt was amazing!”
“Amazingly fat!”
“Good, all the more room for you to plant your lips on it!” Sunset hopped off the couch and wiggled her flank in Starlight’s direction.
“I’d rather sink my hooves into it! You like my legs so much, I’ll leave an impression of them for you to remember me by!” Starlight jumped off the couch and raised a hind hoof as if to buck.
“ENOUGH!” Twilight seized the two mares in her magic and hoisted them into the air. “You two just spent several minutes going on about how much you two adore each other!”
“And we did,” Starlight said simply. “Sunset is a wonderful woman, anyone who doesn’t place a high value on kites will be lucky to have her.”
“And Starlight is a great mare, she’ll make somepony very happy as long as they don’t play video games.”
Mouth open, Twilight turned her eyes back and forth. “So that’s it then? You two were gaga for each other yesterday, and now you’re broken up and hate each other over a kite and a video game?”
Sunset snorted. “About time you got it, we’ve been telling you that since we got here.”
“She doesn’t listen when she gets obsessive.”
Twilight’s magic faded and the two fell to the ground. Twilight grabbed her notepad and pencil and tucked them under her wing. “You know what, fine, I tried, but if you two are not going to be mature about this, you can work through it on your own terms!” She marched out of the library, slamming the door behind her.
Sunset gave Starlight a quizzical look. “How is it immature to mutually agree we hate each other?”
“She’s weird.” Starlight rolled her neck. “Well, I’ve got a trash can fire to get going again. I’m sure you can show yourself out. Unless you need help squeezing your butt through the portal?”
“Thanks, but without your legs distracting me, I’ll have no trouble at all.” Sunset tossed her head and walked to the mirror. “I need to get home anyway, there’s a baseball bat waiting for me.”
Starlight waved as her ex stepped onto the mirror’s platform. “See you never!”
“Still too soon!”
Twilight walked down one of the halls of her castle, her nose in a folder of notes on the School of Friendship. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and stopped as Starlight walked in front of her.
Starlight gasped. “Oh, sorry, Twilight!”
“It’s okay.” The two began walking together. Twilight finished reading and closed the folder. “I need to head over to the school and make a couple of corrections in some outdated textbooks. You?”
“I’ve got a date.”
Twilight stopped. “What?”
“I have a date,” Starlight repeated, walking ahead of her.
Twilight laughed and ran up next to her. “That’s fantastic!”
“Thanks,” Starlight smiled. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
Twilight nodded. “I’m so glad you and Sunset were able to make up.”
Starlight’s face darkened. “I don’t want to hear that name ever again.”
Twilight stopped again. “You mean, your date isn’t with Sunset?”
Starlight turned back to her. “Are you kidding me? That selfish hag ruined one of my favorite kites that I spent two weeks designing and a week building! And I can’t find the original blueprint I made so I have to remake it from memory!” She tossed her mane and gave a small snort.
“Oh… okay.” Twilight slowly approached her.
Starlight bit her lip. “To be honest, I’m hoping I could get some support from you in this. Sunset really hurt me, and it’s been a long process healing, but I think I’m finally ready to move on and open my heart again.”
“…Starlight, it’s been a week.”
“We were going to go out last night but you know what it’s like making last-minute reservations on a Friday afternoon.” Starlight waved her hoof. “Should have seen it coming, Saturday brunch is no problem. Something light and casual.”
The two resumed their walk together and neared the front doors of the castle.
“I do support you, and I hope this works out,” Twilight said. “I just want to make sure you’re comfortable and happy.”
“Ask me that tonight. Spoiler alert – the answer is going to be ‘yes’!” Starlight smiled happily as she swung open the door.
Twilight looked outside and froze, the magic aura around her file folder vanishing and the item dropping to the ground.
Standing at the foot of the small staircase up to the castle, holding a bouquet of flowers and a pair of pink and blue kites, Trixie smiled widely. “Somepony looks radiant today! Oh, and you’re cute too, Starlight.”
Starlight giggled and bounded down the steps. “Har har, Trix.” The two shared a brief nuzzle.
Trixie waved at Twilight. “Don’t worry, Twilight, Trixie will have her home by midnight!” She winked.
Starlight laughed out loud and gave her a light punch on the shoulder. “Stop teasing her!”
“Oh, don’t worry, if you want me to tease you, you just have to ask.” The two shared a laugh as they headed down the path into town, their conversation fading from Twilight’s ears.
Twilight stared.
“I need to tell Sunset.”
Twilight rapidly knocked on the door of Sunset’s apartment. “Sunset! We need to talk!”
She heard the lock click and Sunset pulled the door open a few inches, stepping into view with a concerned look. “What’s wrong?”
“Have you heard from Starlight lately?”
Sunset scowled. “No and I’m fine never hearing from her again.”
“There’s something you need to know. Can I come in for a minute, you may wanna sit down for this.”
“Sure.” Sunset shrugged and headed inside, leaving Twilight to push the door open and follow her.
She stopped after two steps.
“Hey, you unpaused!” Sunset frowned as she sat on the couch and grabbed her game controller from the table.
Sitting on the other seat with a second controller, Trixie shook her head. “I was just checking my set-up while you got the door.” She smiled at Sunset. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t move on without you.”
Sunset returned the smile. “Thanks, babe.” She pressed her lips to Trixie’s cheek and then turned her focus back to the game. Twilight slowly walked behind the couch, watching the two mash away at their controllers – on the television, two characters in colorful superhero costumes fought their way through a mob of henchponies on the night-time streets of Manehattan, one of them wielding a staff and the other a wand.
Twilight looked down at the head of silver hair in front of her. “What is Trixie doing here?”
Trixie grunted and jerked her controller to the side. “She is power-grinding to Level 5 so she can take the Prolonged Casting feat and thus use her spells more than three times before she has to fall back on melee attacks.”
“I warned you, the Chaneller class takes time before it can support itself,” Sunset said.
Trixie smirked. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not fear hard work and perseverance! Bring on the baddies!” Her character on-screen spun, releasing a circular wave of magic into the air that knocked several enemies back. “Ha!”
“So Twilight, what’d you wanna talk about?” Sunset asked, not turning away from the game.
Twilight shifted her weight between feet. “I was gonna tell you that Starlight is dating somepony.”
“Good for her,” Sunset muttered.
“Starlight?” Trixie asked. “Isn’t she the treacherous, oblivious, clingy hag that you used to be seeing?”
“Used to. I traded up.” Sunset smiled and shifted closer on the couch until her leg was brushing against Trixie’s.
“Darn right.” Trixie snuggled into her. “You wanna grab some brunch after this level?”
“Sure. Twilight, you in?” When she didn’t get an answer, Sunset paused the game and turned her head. “Twilight?”
Stopping at the door of the apartment, Twilight looked over her shoulder. “The both of you have no idea how relationships work!” She walked away, the door swinging shut behind her.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Has she ever even had a boyfriend?”
“None that lasted for more than three days, as far as I know.”