//------------------------------// // Broken//Up // Story: Love’s a Witch (and a She-Demon, Too) // by RB_ //------------------------------// Sunset seemed momentarily dumbfounded. “Our…” She blinked. “Twilight, I don’t think now is really a good time—” Twilight shook her head. “No. We need to stop this. Now. Before someone gets hurt because of us.” She got to her feet. She felt strangely calm, all of a sudden. But she supposed there always was a calm before a storm. “Twilight, what are you doing?” Sunset hissed. “Get down!” “Sunset,” she began, ignoring her warning. “I need you to be honest. Do you love me?” “Of course I love you!” Sunset said, her voice raising. “But now’s not—” “Stop lying, Sunset.” The words were like sharpened steel; they seemed to cut through both the air and the moment.  “W-what are you…” “Sunset, I have a confession to make,” she said. “My grades have been slipping. For months.” “That’s—!” Twilight held a hand up, cutting her off. “My grades have been slipping. I’ve been losing weight. I feel sick, I have trouble sleeping, and now…” she gestured behind the table, not noticing that the sounds of destruction had begun to quiet.”Now this. I can’t keep doing this, Sunset.” “Doing what?” Sunset said. “Doing what?” “Pretending that we’re okay!” And there was the storm. She let out a breath. “Sunset, I read your journal.” The blood drained from Sunset’s face.  It had been a mistake. That’s what she wanted to convince herself, that she could have been happy if she hadn’t found out. But she knew that wouldn’t have been true, one way or another. It had been a simple thing. They’d been at Sunset’s apartment, on the three-week anniversary of their relationship. Sunset had excused herself to use the bathroom, leaving Twilight alone on her couch. When she’d heard the buzzing, she’d initially assumed it was Sunset’s phone, but when she looked at where Sunset had left it, it was inactive. So she looked around a bit more, and eventually, she realized it was coming from Sunset’s desk drawer. She shouldn’t have opened it. She knew, at the time, even, that she shouldn’t have opened it. She’d felt the unease settle in her stomach. But she’d opened the drawer anyway, and inside she’d found the journal. It was a simple message, that had arrived on the journal’s pages. Not even a full line: Sunset—I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry. Can we talk? Please? And after reading it, feeling the worms start to nest in her stomach for the first time, she’d gone back, flipping the page just once. And that was all it had taken. When Sunset had come back out of the bathroom, she’d found Twilight on the couch where she’d left her. And she’d seemed fine, but the date had ended earlier than they’d planned. She hadn’t been fine. She hadn’t been fine at all. “Then…” Sunset said. “Then you saw…” Twilight nodded. Sunset squeezed her eyes shut. Her head hung. “I wasn’t mad,” Twilight said. She looked to the side, cradling one arm in the other across her chest. “I wanted to be mad, but I was just… I don’t know. Miserable and frustrated.” “Why didn’t you say anything?” Sunset asked. “I didn’t want to,” Twilight said. “Being with you still made me happy. I still loved you, Sunset. I still do. So I pretended. I pretended that everything was fine.” She sighed. “But I guess you can’t do that forever. It was tearing me up inside. Midnight… Midnight might have been my subconscious’ last resort. Lashing out in desperation to get me to admit it.” But then she smiled, just a little one. “And I guess the demon was the same for you.” Sunset let out a sigh, and got to her own feet, slowly, needing to steady herself. She looked at Twilight, but her head was bowed. “Twilight,” she said. “I— I never wanted to hurt you. I want you to know that.” “I know.” She breathed, deeply. In… out. “Twilight… the other Twilight… she saved my life,” Sunset began. “You never met me, before. I wasn’t… I wasn’t a good person, Twilight. I did a lot of horrible things. That demon over there was one of them.” Twilight crossed her arms. “But she saved me from myself,” Sunset said. “She showed me a better way. Meeting her, it was—she was the first person, or pony, to show me any real kindness in a long, long time.” She rubbed at her eye. The gym had grown deathly quiet. “And you’re amazing!” Sunset said.  “Don’t think I’m saying otherwise. You’re smart, and you’re funny, and I love being with you—I could have fallen in love with you, I do love you, but—” “But I’m not her.” “But you’re not her,” Sunset echoed. She seemed to deflate, her gaze falling to the floor. “And I shouldn’t have tried to pretend you were. That night, with the movie—I was weak. And afterwards, I knew what I’d done, but you were so happy, and…” A weight fell on her shoulder. Sunset glanced to her left. Her demon had landed beside her, its massive clawed hand now resting on her shoulder.  She raised her head and looked at Twilight. Midnight had taken up perch behind her, her raven’s wings wrapped protectively around Twilight’s waist.  “I just wanted you to be happy,” Sunset said, looking into Midnight’s eyes only because she couldn’t bear to look at Twilight’s right now. “I just wanted both of us to be happy.” “I don’t think either of us were happy. Not really.” Sunset let out a breath. “No, I guess not.” “I love you, Sunset,” Twilight said. “I really do. The first few weeks—they were amazing. But I won’t be your consolation prize, Sunset.” “You shouldn’t have to be.” She wiped her eye with a palm. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” “I forgive you,” Twilight said. She gently placed her hand on Sunset’s shoulder, over the demon’s. “But this needs to stop. Tonight.” Sunset nodded. And that was how it ended.  With a bit of a bang, and with one very heartfelt confession. Thankfully, the impromptu musical number was still nowhere in sight. “Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep…” Twilight’s broom brushed across the floor, picking up bits of paper and confetti in its bristles. She muttered the mantra under her breath with each push. “Sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep…” Across the room, Sunset was doing much the same thing. Minus the song, of course. It hadn’t been long after their tearful confessions that the cavalry had arrived, in the form of an absolutely furious Vice-Principal Luna. Needless to say, their apologies had fallen on deaf ears. The planning committee would have been thrilled not to have to clean up the mess themselves, if the trade-off hadn’t been months of hard work down the drain. Such was just how things always went at Canterlot High, it seemed. Today was the second day of after-school cleanup, with Luna dozing in a chair in the corner, ‘supervising’. Neither Midnight nor Sunset’s demon had appeared since that night. Sunset wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Really, she wasn’t sure how to feel at all. On the one hand, it… hurt. It hurt a lot. On the other… well, as the cliche went, it felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She glanced up at the other girl on clean-up duty. Their brooms were fast approaching each other, pushing dirt, confetti, splinters, and bits of broken glass along with them. Should she say something? Probably. They hadn’t spoken much yesterday. Twilight beat her to it. “So, who do you think the prince and princess would have been?” Sunset blinked. “What?” “Of the Fall Formal,” Twilight explained. She came to a stop and leaned on her broom. “Who do you think it would have been, if we hadn’t crashed the party?” “Oh.” Sunset gave it some thought, leaning up on her own broom. “Um… Probably Ditzy and Flash, honestly.” “You think?” “Yeah,” Sunset said. “I know they say they’re just friends, but I think we all know that’s not true. They make a cute couple.” Twilight giggled, and Sunset felt a little bit of her own smile come back. “Yeah,” Twilight said. “I could see it.” “Y'know what’s funny?” Sunset said. “I wasn’t even thinking about that. The whole ‘Princess of the Fall Formal’ thing.” “What’s so funny about that?” “Well, it, uh…” She bit the inside of her lip. “It seemed a lot more important a year ago. Now it’s just… a thing.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at her. She just shrugged. They were both silent for a bit. Sunset glanced across the gym. There was still a lot of mess to clean up. Before she got up the nerve to go back to it, though, Twilight spoke up. “You should go talk to her.” Sunset turned back to her. “Talk to who?” “The princess.” “…Celestia?” Twilight rolled her eyes. “No. Twilight. The other Twilight. I think you should go talk to her.” Sunset was dumbfounded. “What, you mean like… like go and talk to her?” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Like go to magical horse world and talk to her magical horse face.” “Magical pony face,” Sunset corrected. “Whatever.” Sunset rubbed the back of her neck. “That would feel kind of awkward, given… present… circumstances.” “Well, not, like, tomorrow,” Twilight said, grinding the toe of her shoe into the floor. “But, you know… at some point. Before you lose your chance. It’s what I would have wanted, if I was in her position.” “I…” Sunset swallowed. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. I can do that. …Do you think…?” “Yes.” “Really?” “Yep.” “And you’re okay with—” “Just do it, Sunset.” “Huh.” Sunset smiled. A small one. “Well, alright then.” “Back to work, you two!” a voice growled sleepily from behind them, making them both jump. “Before I change my mind about giving you both detention for the rest of the year.” Their grips tightened on their brooms. “Yes, Vice-Principal Luna!”