Part of Sunset knew that she'd back down. The things that had stopped her before were no less true now. What she was feeling now was no worse than what she’d felt before. There was still Wallflower. Tartarus, there was still Twilight on the other side of the portal.
That part wasn't the one in charge.
Maybe it was just because Wallflower was right: nothing was getting better. Maybe it was because one good thing could only counterbalance everything else in the world being terrible for so long. Maybe it was because looks of disappointment somehow hurt worse than looks of hate.
Maybe it was because disappointed looks from Fluttershy and angry yelling from Rainbow Dash somehow worked together synergistically to create something far worse than one would expect the combination of those two, already terrible, things to produce.
Maybe it was that she had a headache.
Maybe it was that before school she’d seen a girl who was absolutely devastated, to the point that it looked like she might jump, and Sunset’s gaze had met the girl’s cold, broken eyes. There was no anger, no hate, no malice. There was no indignation or desire for revenge. There was just pain and the unspoken question of, “Why?”
Or maybe it was simply that unicorns were herd animals, becoming human hadn’t changed that part of Sunset, and a Sunset and a Wallflower did not a herd make.
Whatever the reason, Sunset was allowing herself to be guided by a very specific part of her psyche: the part that said this was the worst she'd ever felt and things would somehow keep on getting worse. It told her that good things only existed to make it more painful when she crashed and burned, it said every time she'd pulled back from the brink before had been a mistake, it said to keep trying.
Which meant Sunset was heading for the roof. Promises and deals be damned. Wallflower was a resourceful girl; she'd survive.
Sunset shot through the library, was up the stairs in what seemed like no time, burst through the door to the roof, and . . . saw Wallflower.
Wallflower was just standing there, a few feet away, facing the door, backpack at her feet, left arm hanging limply at her side, and right arm apparently scratching her back.
For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.
Wallflower broke the silence with, “I thought you'd come up here eventually.”
Sunset's initial response was, “Uh . . .” She followed up with something that was, in her opinion, more reasonable, “Have you been standing there the whole period?”
“It seemed like the logical thing to do,” Wallflower said. “You don't exactly give me a freak-out schedule.”
“Wallflower,” Sunset said, “why . . .” At that point she realized she didn't actually have a question.
“Sunset,” Wallflower said as she began to pull her right arm from behind her back, “we need to talk.” By the time she'd finished speaking, Wallflower's right hand was in plain view, about level with her head, pointed palm forward to show what she was holding.
For some reason, Sunset's first thought was, Unless she uses pure evil as a back-scratcher, she probably wasn't scratching her back earlier.
That wasn't a particularly useful thought, so Sunset went with her second thought, which was, “I really wish you'd put that thing back in the ground.”
Sunset had already run all the tests she safely could, which meant there was no reason for the damned thing to be accessible. She would have said as much, but Wallflower spoke first, “And I really wish you'd stop coming up here with the intent of demonstrating a causal relationship between gravity and mortality.”
Sunset couldn't deny that that was a fair response without lying, but that didn't mean she was ready to acknowledge the point.
Wallflower continued, “You're not the only one who likes to periodically commune with her exit strategy; the difference is mine fits in a backpack.”
Wallflower sighed and let her arm drop. Apart from the fact she was still holding the stone, her right arm now hung just as limply as her left. She asked, “How long do you think we can do this before one of us doesn't stop?”
Sunset had no answer, but she felt she owed Wallflower a response, so she said, “I don't know.”
“We can't go on this way,” Wallflower said.
Sunset nodded, then said, “We need to give you something worth remembering.”
“We need to give you something to live for,” Wallflower said.
Sunset wished that she had something more to say, something beyond, “I don't know how.”
“I don't either,” Wallflower said.
A few seconds passed in silence.
Wallflower held out her left arm --hand flat, palm up-- in a way that they'd given special meaning and asked, “Together?”
Sunset gently grasped Wallflower near the elbow, Wallflower reciprocated, once they were connected forearm to forearm she affirmed, "Together," and then spun into a sort of hug: her back against Wallflower, their joined arms across her belly, and Wallflower nuzzling the left side of her neck and head. It felt good to be nuzzled.
⁂
Wallflower had been aware that there was a huge difference between acknowledging that things needed to change and actually changing them, of course, but that didn’t make the time spent on failed attempts any less frustrating.
Especially since, instead of results, the most recent one somehow left ranting about the fact she wasn’t exactly a moral paragon.
“I ripped out parts of people's minds,” she said to Sunset, “yours included.”
Sunset was about to respond, but Wallflower added more, “And I still want to. Every time you have a new bruise, every insult someone throws at you, every time that people speak your name like it's a dirty word, every time . . . any of it, I want to reach into all of their minds and tear out everything to do with Anon-a-Miss.”
Wallflower took a short breath then went on, “And --ever since you made me stop and think about it-- I know how wrong it is, and I'd feel indescribably guilty, except . . . then I think, ‘I could erase my own memories of doing the deed, and I wouldn't feel guilty at all.’”
Wallflower paused. This time Sunset didn't try to speak.
“Because it's all about me, right?” Wallflower asked sarcastically. “The problem with me doing bad things is that I'd feel bad about them. If I don't feel bad, then obviously everything is fine, and there's no need to consider the effects I've had upon my victims.”
Sunset nodded in that, 'I know exactly what you're feeling,' kind of way.
For a moment they stayed there in silence. Wallflower in her chair, Sunset kneeling in front of it to make them eye to eye, Sunset's hands holding Wallflower's own.
“You know what I want?” Sunset asked.
“You want to disappear,” Wallflower said.
Sunset gave a shrug of acknowledgement then said, “So do you.”
“True,” Wallflower admitted.
Sunset hadn’t been going there, though. After a tangent on how easy it would be to steal the Element of Magic again, now that it was simply being left in a tree, she actually started telling Wallflower her own less-than-moral desires.
"I want to co-opt the magic of a powerful artifact,” she said, “and turn myself back into a raging she-demon."
Wallflower said, “But you hated being the demon!” in utter shock and confusion, because no other response was possible.
“Ah,” Sunset said while raising her index finger, “but I didn't hate it at the time.” She paused a beat, “Think about it, Wallflower: All. That. Power.”
Given how little the words were helping, Wallflower wished she had a firm grasp on body language, but no one had ever given her the manual that everyone else seemed to have memorized at birth. Then again . . . would it even help with Sunset? Sunset was human as human could be, but she certainly didn't start out that way.
Sunset continued, “And . . . and,” Sunset turned away, “none of this guilt.”
Suddenly everything made a twisted kind of sense.
Sunset went on to describe a fairly standard ‘Burn it to the ground and salt the fields’ revenge fantasy in which she tormented and psychologically broke everyone who had ever wronged either of them. Special emphasis was placed on the fact that, in her transformed state, she’d be able to enjoy every moment of the depraved vengeance she wrought with no interference from things like guilt, morality, or standards.
When it was over, Sunset said, “That's what I want, Wallflower.”
Wallflower wanted to reassure Sunset that bad thoughts didn't make her a bad person. That being angry was ok. That her feelings were justified. That . . .
The words didn't come.
Wallflower pulled Sunset into a hug, and held her there for a while. When she was ready to let go, she finally found the words, and said, “It doesn’t matter that you want it. You could do everything you’ve described. You could; but you won’t, and that’s what matters.”
Sunset said, “It's the same for you,” just before they separated.
They paused, collected themselves, and switched gears. At first the new approach seemed just as useless as the last, but eventually Sunset came to a promising realization: she did know of one non-Wallflower person who believed she wasn’t Anon-a-Miss.
“It's not someone I would choose,” she cautioned, “and I kind of burned that bridge already.”
“How?” Wallflower asked.
“I accused her of being Anon-a-Miss,” Sunset said, now looking at the floor in shame.
“Sunset . ? .” Wallflower vaguely sort of asked.
“I know I need to apologize,” Sunset said loudly. Then she switched into 'quiet Sunset whose volume is inversely proportional to her enthusiasm' mode when she added, “It's just that I'm not looking forward to asking for forgiveness from Trixie.”
⁂
Sunset knew things weren't going to go well, when Wallflower said, “Actually, we met in third grade.”
“Ah, I remember third grade,” Trixie said. That could have been the introduction something good --the kind of thing Wallflower needed to hear from people other than Sunset-- but Trixie lived right down to Sunset's expectations instead, “Not you, specifically, but what a grade it--”
What Sunset hadn't predicted was that Wallflower wouldn't be the one Trixie set off.
“She's standing right there, you know,” Sunset said with more anger than was probably healthy.
Trixie said, “The Great and Powerful Trixie was--”
“Totally ignoring the person she was talking to in favor self aggrandizing--” Sunset stopped. Wallflower's hand was on her shoulder, and when she turned to look at Wallflower she didn't see someone being hurt by Trixie's words or actions. She saw someone who was worried about her.
“It's ok,” Wallflower said to Sunset. Then she turned to Trixie and said, “Sunset came here to apologize to you.”
“A-apologize?” Trixie asked in obvious shock. It really shouldn't be that shocking, Sunset had probably given out the most apologies of anyone in the history of Canterlot High School.
“If you'll stop aggravating her, and let her speak, she still will,” Wallflower said. Wallflower turned her gaze back to Sunset and asked, “Right?”
Sunset couldn't say, 'No,' to that. Maybe it was Wallflower’s eyes, or the specific tone she used, or the way the glare of the sun off of the cars in the faculty lot came through the window and lit up her hair, or maybe something else entirely; whatever it was, there was no way Sunset could refuse right now.
“Right,” Sunset said, and nodded to herself. She turned her attention to Trixie, took a moment to collect her thoughts, and said, “I'm sorry I accused you of being Anon-a-Miss. I should never have done that. I just . . .” This was the hard part. Trixie deserved to know why Sunset had done it, but facing the fact that she'd done something so similar to what the Rainbooms had done to her wasn’t easy.
“I wanted you to be Anon-a-Miss,” Sunset said. “You basically declared war on the Rainbooms at the end of the Battle of the Bands; no one else even had a motive. There were no leads. If you were Anon-a-Miss then everything could go back to normal --heck, I'd be a hero-- if you weren't . . .” How did one even describe it? “If you weren't then this,’ Sunset turned in a circle while making a gesture that she hoped would be understood to encompass the entire universe, “would happen.”
“I'd be alone, outcast, helpless,” Sunset had stopped because she was pretty sure if she said one more word she'd either be screaming in rage or sobbing in despair. That brought up a question: was it possible to do both at once? When she got her emotions under control, she said, “No friends, no family, no future, and no way out.
“I didn't want this,” Sunset said, “and if you were guilty none of it would come to pass, so I desperately wanted it to be you. I accused without a shred of evidence, and you deserve better than that, Trixie. I'm sorry.”
Trixie stood in what appeared to be shock for several seconds.
“Trixie is sorry too,” she eventually said. “She never thought you were Anon-a-Miss, but she was angry at the accusation and . . .” Trixie looked at the floor. Then she looked out the window. “She wanted to hurt you,” she said still looking out the window.
Apart from Trixie being apologetic, that simply confirmed what Sunset had already believed.
“She shouldn't have done that,” Trixie said, “and she . . . I'm sorry.”
“Question,” Wallflower said.
Sunset turned to see Wallflower with her index finger raised and an uncertain look on her face.
“So. . .” Wallflower said, drawing out the word. When she finished she pointed from Sunset to Trixie and back again. “Friends?” she asked.
Sunset turned her attention back to Trixie, and found that Trixie didn't have a, 'Tartarus, no!' look on her face.
Sunset smiled. Trixie gave the tiniest hint of a smile in return.
Sunset said, “The whole school will hate you.”
Trixie smirked. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not fear the ignorant masses!” she announced.
“So…” Wallflower said, not drawing the word out nearly so long this time, “that's a 'Yes' then?”
Trixie said, “Yes,” at the same time Sunset said, “Yeah, that's a yes.”