"... and now there are three Celestias," Sunset said, even though what she really meant was, My life, I have grown to loathe it. She counted the Celestias off on her fingers, just in case anyone had lost the ability to count in the absence of convenient visual aids, "Pony Celestia, who is a princess, human Celestia, who is a principal, and principle Celestia, who is some sort of abstract concept."
"Ah understand it's difficult, sugarcube," Applejack said in a way that meant, Look at me, I'm a stereotype! which ‑‑Sunset felt‑‑ could have gone without saying, "but Ah'm just sayin' ya gotta roll with them figurative punches."
Sunset said, "And I'm just saying that I'm fed up," which everyone at the table would know meant, I'm trying to vent, you're getting your humble country advice all over my exhaust port, a direct hit could cause a chain reaction leading to my destruction, so please, kindly, shut up.
Rainbow Dash used the name, "Sunset," as her way of saying, My turn! which in turn meant that something related to athleticism (who could be bothered to remember that Rainbow had other traits?) was probably on the way, "some of it is kinda awesome, if you let yourself see it."
Sunset just glared. There were no worlds.
Wait, worlds? S̼ͯu̫ͨn̠̊s̜̒̋e͇͒t̰̑ ͚ͥ́b̻ͣr̬̟̾̍ȧ̤c͙̀e̼̥̓ͬd̟̠ͮ ̝́͆h̘̻ͣͬḛ̮̲̔̔ͦr̻ͩs͉̜̻̀̌ē͚̣̞l̘̜̍͗f͉̪̍;̲̅ͩ̃ ̹̹̑͊t̠̩̝̓̋ͩh̰̭̦̄̅ͣe̖̦̊̅̐ ̬̪͇͂̾̽u̟̹͌̍ͅn̖̝̈ͣͤi̲̖̖̘̒͗ͮv͎̗̤̆̏̊e̻͍͋̊͊͗r̟ͦ̒̑ͤś̹͍͖͎͌ė̦ ̜̋͑r͖͈̬̻ͩe̲͎͆͂c̮̫͚̿ô̺̠͉n͓ͬf͉͔̮̪ͥi͙͇̣ͮ͐̒ͩg̯̣̱͂̔ͅu̹͇̜͎̺͊́̄r̫͓̣̽̀̄ḛ̟͒d͚̦̔ ̖̜͕̮̃i̝̰̮̦̳ͫ͂ț͚͔̬̟̖̄̂s͔͚̮̮̖͛e̼̗̜̮͔̋̓͌̓͒l͈̣̰̤͊ͨ̃͆̓̒f̬̫̬̍͛ͩ ̮̱͇̪̖̱̓̑͂̂t͇̱̝̽ö̹̯̰̟̭̬̽̏̚ ̬͎̊m͕̜̼̝̎̈â̝̮̟ͧ̂̈͛̿k̭͉̞͙̯̰̍́ͣ̒ͩ̐ȅ̫ͮ͒̔̓ ͖̿̽ͧ̋ͨ̚t̗̘̼̼͇͙͆ͥh̟̦̆̈́̚e̜̺̤̰̙̹̖̒̅͊̾̔ͩ ̹̳͖̲̱͉̓͆̑͛ͅs͚͈̗̘͓̹̈́ͩ̐̃̋̌̔ṯ̭͕̯̥̅a̜͋t͉͉͍̔͆ͤ̌̚e͉̎̃̊̇ͪm̗̯̗̱̮̖̂̑̓͋e̝͋ͭͅn͙̗̫̙̖͛͆̃t̗͔̞͙̥ͫ ͍̝̣͍͕̗̿̓̈ͪ̓t̗̺͓̤̀̃̉ͯ̉̔̋ͅr̲̠̞̓͋̓̇ͩu̪͕̤̖̗̱̓ͭ̏ͦ̄̏͌ẹ̺̞̘͑͋̈́̔͋̅̇.͖̰͙̤̯̹͙͖̥ͭ͂̍
"See," Rainbow Dash said, "we're in space!"
"Uh huh," was Sunset's half-hearted reply. She appraised the star field in which they now found themselves, and tested the non-existent ground beneath her feet to make sure she wouldn't fall through it. She had serious questions about why gravity was still operating, but this probably wasn't the time to ask them.
Fluttershy said, I want to remind everyone I'm meek and ignorable, but the words she used to do it were actually, "I think it's kind of scary," with the volume, particularly the lack thereof, doing most of the heavy lifting.
Rarity, on the other hand, remembered what had been going on back when there were worlds, which caused her to say, "Rainbow, darling, I believe our sudden relocation prevented you from finishing your original thought."
Rainbow said, "Uh," to express that she was being portrayed as slow on the uptake (because jokes can't be smart.)
Sunset silently cursed t̠͋̕h̓҉͖e͙͊̀ ̗̂͘e̡͙ͩr̻ͥ͜a̴̫̦͑s͂҉̦ů̢̗͟r̢̥͂ḙ͌͡ ͓ͩ̕o̸͉͖ͦf̼͊͟ ̵̳̋͜a̸͇͛͒l̷̩̎l͓̬͐̂͡ ͕ͮ͞͡n̡̖̖ͫo͑͋̀ͅṇ̡͋-̡͕͌l͙̆̔͝o̴̺͗w͗҉͉b̨̬̏ṙ̴̢̭o̴͇̼̒̕w̜̖͗̀ ͨ҉̜̹ḣ̢̻́ủ̴̵̼͛m̦̻͊́͟ŏ̄͏̨͍̬r̥̬̿̀, and wondered how things had ever reached this point.
While Sunset was thinking such thoughts, Rainbow Dash remembered that, as a jock, she must have been saying something that boiled down to, Physical activity is all I think or care about. With that in mind, she remembered her earlier point, "Right. You know how this morning the steps of the high school turned into steeps? Who doesn't love mountain climbing in the morning?"
Sci-Twi, the most sciencey Twi in the whole wide world (s̵͇͌u̴̮̍d͖ͭ͢d̢̜̐ẽ̸̻n̸̙̿l̊҉͎y̬͑͞ ̛͉͑t̵̲̔ḧ̪͡e̜ͬ̕r̛̙͐ȩ̦̈ ̴̩ͥw̞̑͝a̴̺̐ŝ̢̥ ̡͖̌à̧̩ ̨͚̑w̵͇̃o̹̎̀r̝̈́̕l̷̫̽d̙͗͝ ͇̑͠a̰̾͢g͇̀͡a̧͙̍i̛̖͂ņ̘̾), said, "I don't. Not really. When I finally got to the top I was so exhausted I thought I might die." Everyone around the table got the message, Nerds lack physical endurance, loud and clear.
Pinkie Pie said to Sunset, "You just need to put your super sharp rapier wit‑‑"
Sunset gave a prayer of thanks, because an error there could have caused the story to go Dark, and possibly Mature, in a hurry via the introduction of Non-con. Instead, things were fine. Pinkie Pie merely referenced the fact that Sunset was known for cutting and intelligent humor. N͍̍ö́ͅn̲͂̂-͓̽l̦͌o̱͒ẅ̦̾ḃ͉ͥr̥ͪo̻̺̒w̫͚ͤ ̦̉ḧ̹̯u̘̽ͪm̞̓o͇͒ͥṟ̣̈ ̟̳ͧ͛r̠̓è̥t̖͒u̥̓ṛ͒n̤ͩ̍ḛ̓d͈̔ ̲̿͛t͖̳̉ó̻͑ ̻̽ͯt͇̪̆̂h͔̐e̲͍͆ ͔̭̑w͙̿o̬̳ͬ̒r̯̲ͥl͎̮̀d͖̭ͮ̌.̬ͬ̓ Sunset was thankful for that too.
"You're welcome," Pinkie Pie said to Sunset. Sunset gave a nod of thanks.
No one remarked on the fact that Pinkie Pie never finished her sentence, thus saving the author from having to actually figure out how the sentence was supposed to end.
Pinkie Pie said, "You're welcome too," to the author because Pinkie Pie wasn't a character so much as a literary device one could use to smash the fourth wall, throw the broken pieces into a crusher and/or trash compactor, and finally jump up and down on whatever pitifully broken bit emerged from the process.
As wonderful as that completely irrelevant exposition had been, Sunset still didn't feel any better. She felt tired. Worn. Thin, stretched, like butter spread over too much bread in a story where the author stole lines form The Fellowship of the Ring. Other things that stood in for the word "weary", too. [Thing punctuated as a sentence in spite of having no main verb].
"Look guys‑‑" Sunset said in that certain sort of way that meant, I think I'm going to end this conversation, and I'm definitely not planning on taking anything any of you have said to heart, before getting cut off by Rarity.
Rarity reminded everyone that she had yet to demonstrate how, in the hands of authors who didn't have the time or inclination to write well, her characterization could also be reduced to a simple stereotype. She did this with a single word. That word was, "Darling," and ‑‑with the reminder having been made‑‑ everyone waited with baited breath (m̪͂͝ọ̌͢s̮̋͞t̛͚̮͋l̲͛͟ÿ̵̴̝ ̷̯̮̅̽͢s̷͎̞̈͛h̲ͭ̅͘͞r͚̿̌͞í̵̵̬͐m̢̞̊p̶͖͇̙̃̆͂) for her to actually make that demonstration; Rarity did not disappoint, "if you'd simply allow me to give you a makeover, you'd feel perfectly fine."
Rainbow Dash said, "Doubt it," while Applejack said, "Nope," and Sunset said, "I'm gonna go with: no."
Rainbow Dash and Sunset high-fived. Applejack, reduced to being a background pony by the author, was not involved.
"Consarn it!" the formerly human and currently pony Applejack shouted. Basically no one noticed. Who pays attention to a background pony?
When she said, "So, as I was saying," Sunset was more than a little miffed, but well short of very miffed, "I don't think talking about this is helping me any, so I'm going to see if I can clear my head by taking a walk."
Using the words, "We're still on for that experiment this weekend, right?" Sci-Twi said, Wait, is my part in the story over? I've hardly said anything. I'm too young to become irrelevant!
Sunset said, "Yeah, sure," as she stood up, then headed for Sugarcube Corner's exit.
"Wait, we're in Sugarcube Corner‽" Pinkie shout-asked in a way that interrobanged the Hell out of every syllable.
"It's a punctuation mark you perverts," Pinkie said to the probably-not-perverted readership. "Anyway," she said to the other humans (and one pony) around the table, "now that we've dealt with that, and therefore kept the teen rating . . . I thought we were in the CHS cafeteria!" A moment later she asked, "Have we really been in Sugarcube Corner, which I think is supposed to be called 'The Sweet Shoppe' in this universe, the entire time we've been talking?"
"So it would appear," Rarity said at the same time Applejack said, "Seems ta be," and Rainbow Dash said, "I guess." Fluttershy also said something, but no one heard her. Even background pony Applejack got noticed more.
"That's so weird," Pinkie said.
It was not, in fact, weird.
Sunset, having reached the door in precisely the amount of time it took for all of that to be said, left the building.
⁂
Sunset walked along the sidewalk, and this matters, to the point that it appears in the story, because she's a protagonist, and protagonists do things. They do things that writers write about. That's why it's written here that Sunset walked along the sidewalk. It was a thing Sunset, the protagonist, was doing.
Doing a thing wasn't making her feel any better, though, and she was staring â̰̕t̛̹͌ ̧͙̑̐s̬̫̈́̀o̩̚̕͜m̘̂́è̗̚͜t̟̪ͫ̄͝͡h̲̣͐͘ĩ͉͓́n̤ͨ͢g̫͎̓͢ ̦͂̀ỏ̡̰̀r̥ͨ͝ ̧͕̉̀o͇̫̐͡t̢̜͈͊ͧ͘h͇̦̏ͣ͠e̛̬ͤͤr̥̆̀͡ that probably wasn't called a "to think". That change from starting to staring was precisely the kind of thing she didn't want to have to deal with. What verb she was verbing should be about her, not about spelling. Even here, walking alone, she wasn't free from this stuff.
She kept walking.
Her walk took her passed a soccer field where a team was freaking out because their leader had been replaced with leaded s̛̟̾ò̱͜m̔͏͙ȩ̷͈͍͛ͫt̼̙̉ͭ͡h̸̺̍̕͝ī̡̹̈n̸͍͗̍͜g̢̛̮̃͞. She sighed. She pinched the bridge of her nose and felt a headache coming on. Still, people who disappeared had to be found and/or restored, and it wasn't good having a leaded anything in the middle of a soccer field. She was Sunset Shimmer. She would save the day.
Just like every other day.
⁂
The next day, when Sunset woke up, she felt like she hadn't slept.
That wasn't, technically speaking, true. In fact, she felt like she had slept fairly well the night before, but it was already late afternoon, she'd been babysitting six kids ranging in age from two to four since the crack of dawn, and she hadn't had anything for lunch. It wasn't the same as feeling like you hadn't slept, not even all that close, but given how many words each description used, Sunset would absolutely describe it as feeling like she hadn't slept.
She went through her usual morning routine, which may or may not be available in music video form, and by the time she waked f̧̤̚r̥̅͡o̗ͫ͜m̡̲͎̏ ͔͋͢h͆҉̺̼e͉ͦ͗͜ṟ͕ͬ̀ ̧̠ͨ͝d̟̚͜ŗ̖͋͢ȩ̬ͭ͘ȧ̛͔̜̕m̷͉̏̂, she was quite irate.
"I was already awake!" she shouted at the world in general. Then she grumbled, "Now I'm going to be late," to herself when she noticed the time. She had been walking into the school, with plenty of time to get to class, before she woke the second time; now she was at her apartment which changed "plenty of time" to "not enough time".
When she got to school the second time, she had to listen to a lecture about how getting a good education ‑‑which, she was assured, included arriving on time‑‑ was the only surefire way to insure her future against theft, damage, and ordinary wear and tear. The fact that one could now insure one's future weighed on Sunset like a poor analogy that involved a great deal of weight.
By the end of the day the population of the country they were in had drastically changed as a result of the large number of people who had emigrated from it rather than immigrated to it throughout its history. Sunset concluded that the point of eye-twitching had long since been passed.
The day after that a politician suddenly had a history of crafting spears with barbed hooks. He had, it seemed, made a great many gaffs in his time.
That evening Sunset had tea with Principle Celestia, that being the Celestia who was an abstract concept.
Like most principles, Principle Celestia didn't speak to people so much as provide a foundation upon which one could build a conceptual framework. Said framework could then be used to inform one's thoughts and actions.
"I just want it to stop," Sunset said, laying her head on the table, "you know?"
Celestia the principle was all about friendship and teamwork and helping those in need.
"I know I'm better equipped to deal with these things than the average person," Sunset said. This was true. As the protagonist, her odds of success against the strange and eldritch forces that governed the universe were far higher than those of the unnamed undescribed characters who populated much of the world.
The principle of the thing, that being Celestia, indicated that Sunset should probably suck it up and deal.
"Ok, but that's terrible advice," Sunset said. "It doesn't help me in the least. If I just bottle everything up then nothing will be solved, I'll probably end up exploding, and people could be hurt by the figurative shrapnel. People getting hurt, I note, has the potential to harm friendships."
The principal in question wasn't s̜ͥ́ǘ̵̥r̢̻̔ḕ̜ ̪̃́h̆҉̖o̯̒͠w̳͐̕ ̻ͬ̀ṣ̎͞h̨͇ͣȩ͙̌ ̷̺͒h̒͏̖ȧ̟͘ḓ̷ͤ ̻̈̕ā̶̘r̢̥ͮr̬̃͜ḭ̌͜v̙͗͢e̛͙ͩd̴̰́ ͈̄͘a̸͎ͭt͎̒͠ ̬̊͡t̂͏͍h̹͋͘e͓̅́ ̭̊͞t̑҉̝a̡͎͗b̴̠̒l͚͂̀ȅ̱̀.͖̃͞
"Sunset, how and why am I here?" Principal Celestia asked.
Sunset bolted upright and said, "Thank God in all her manifest forms, you're here."
"Ok..." Celestia said with just the right tone to convey the message, I think you might be crazy.
"I was stuck here with Principle Celestia," Sunset said as though that explained everything that could possibly need to be explained.
Celestia said, "Oh," as her way of agreeing that that did cover all the important points.
"I'm just feeling so run down," Sunset said. "All of these things we've been facing . . . they never stop. Sometimes I feel like I can barely keep my head up." Sunset was actually wobbling slightly as she tried to maintain an upright position.
"I suppose we'll deal with the obvious first," Celestia said, "have you been sleeping?"
"I have," Sunset said. "If anything I've been sleeping more than usual. I'm still tired all the time."
"That's understandable," Celestia said. "Sunset, you can't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. If you work yourself to the bone all the time, you're going to burn out."
"Mix metaphors much?" Sunset asked.
Celestia responded with playful mock anger, she and Sunset had a fake argument, the two were able to laugh a bit, and Sunset felt less tired for a time. Eventually, however, they had to part ways.
Celestia said, "Just remember that if you don't take care of yourself, you won't be able to help anyone else," as her final bit of sagely advice.
"So . . ." Sunset said in that special way that meant, I'm not actually thinking out loud here, but I am pretending to do just that, "you're saying that selfishness is the way to be selfless?"
"Yes," Celestia said in a way that would make Nightmare Moon era Twilight Snarking Sparkle proud, "that is exactly what I'm saying."
Sunset didn't laugh, but she almost did, and after the resulting smile was over she ended the conversation with, "Thanks for talking to me."
⁂
Derpy, a character who hadn't appeared in the story before this point and had no reason whatsoever to be the point of view character, found herself shoehorned into this narrative as a point of view character, almost as though her part had been created before the rest of the story was written, and therefore before the rest of the story was of the form "Sunset's point of view, and Sunset's point of view only".
Her presence might, however, have been a subtle commentary on how authors, if they wished to excel, need to learn to cut parts, even parts that they like, when those parts don't fit with the rest of the story. (It wasn't.)
In a non meta-textual sense, Derpy happened to be in Canterlot's old industrial district (motto: Urban Decay and General Sketchiness) where, in a staggering coincidence, Sunset Shimmer was also presently located. Derpy noticed Sunset because protagonists tend to be noticeable to viewpoint characters.
Sunset was a fair distance away, but Derpy could still tell that she was something less than happy. Given that the industrial district wasn't exactly known for being a safe place to shout and draw attention to oneself, calling out to Sunset was off the table.
That being said, if Derpy's journeys throughout the multiverse had taught her nothing else . . . well, ok. If they had taught her nothing else then the one thing they had taught her would almost certainly be that one needed to be clever and cagey, not to mention circumspect and circumlocutory, when it came to describing intellectual properties you hadn't been born in. The last thing she wanted to do was cause problems for The Doctor Time Turner. (Derpy could think in strike through.)
Aside from that, though, Derpy had definitely noticed how very hard it could be to be Sunset Shimmer. Sunset lost all of her friends all the time. Injuries were common too. Just look at her "Oh look, I've been impaled" record. One Sunset was stabbed in a confrontation with Gilda and Lightning Dust, another in a confrontation with Gilda and two unnamed girls, yet another in a confrontation with Gilda and the Diamond Dogs, still another in a confrontation with Gilda and . . . what was it with all the confrontational stabbing Gildas, anyway?
Entirely apart from that point, even when people didn't seek to do her harm, universes often seemed to bend against their Sunset Shimmers. In what seemed, at first, to be a light and fluffy, downright heartwarming, example of creating a family, Sunset had a building dropped on her. Sure, it worked out in the end, sure it made for an engaging story, but still: a building dropped on her.
With all of that, and so much more, in mind, it was hard not to worry that this could be one of those stories when one saw a less than happy Sunset in Canterlot's old industrial district. Derpy would have to touch pace with Sunset. That didn't mean it was suddenly safe to shout, "Hey, Sunset, can we talk?" In the old industrial district, that was a good way to get yourself Gilda stabbed. Though . . . probably not actually by Gilda, since that would a cliché at this point.
Derpy sighed and fallow‑‑
Derpy sighed again ḁ̴͐s̸͚̲͂ ̷͚͂t̡͍ͭh̸͓̳̃ę̩̍͠ ̫̩ͫ̂͜w͈ͬͩ͝o̝̜͆͢͞r̸͓̬͂͢l̛͎ͨ͌d̟ͧ̓͡ ̬͙̃͢c̼̜̥ͦ̓͜ḫ̸̷̘̉ͭ͜ͅȃ̛̮̖̚n͗ͧ͊͏̡̯͞g̴̗͇͒̃e̸̘͙̖̍dͯ̌͏̻̟.
Derpy found that she was surrounded by fallow fields. In another story, that might have been surprising. In another story she might have wondered why they had all been left fallow and not one had been put to seed. In another story, she might wonder why there were fields in Canterlot's old industrial district (Motto: Urban Decay, Agriculture, and General Sketchiness.) In this particular story, it was pretty much what one expected. It was the sort of thing that might cause one to remark, "Oh, it must be Tuesday," though six times out of seven it wasn't actually Tuesday.
After following her through the old disused warehouses and recently plowed and harrowed fields, Derpy caught up with Sunset at some kind of shady urban black market slash humble agrarian farm stand. Sunset had already begun to haggle.
"Fnord," a shady character, who was probably named "Shady Character", said while making a wide gesture that left his hands as far apart as he could get them without risking injury.
"Fnord," Sunset countered, holding her hands about an inch and a half apart.
"Hey, Sunset," Derpy said. This, and all of her characterization really, reflected the author's personal beliefs about clumsy people, unlucky people, and people with misaligned eyes. How it reflected upon those beliefs was hard to say, because the author wasn't telling and Pinkie Pie wasn't there to break the fourth wall.
Some would say that the author wasn't even trying at this point (who cared about Derpy anyway?) and this reflected a failure of craft. Did the author number among the some who would say that? Probably not.
"Hey Derpster," Sunset said, deftly indicating that they had a nickname-level relationship, "what's up?"
The shady character said, "Fnord," with his hands slightly less far apart than they had been before.
"Fnord," Sunset replied, her hands now two and a half inches apart.
"Not why I came," Derpy said, "but we really need to do away with one word currency and the conspiracy group that implemented it, don't we?"
"Yeah," Sunset said with a total lack of conviction. "We have to get right on that."
Ignoring the next "fnord" from the shady character, Derpy said, "Ok, that? That's what I wanted to talk about."
Sunset gave another "fnord", then asked Derpy, "What is the that to which you refer?"
"You seem kind of . . . gloomy," Derpy said. "You ok?"
Sunset didn't say anything to Derpy for a while. Other than repeatedly contributing "fnord"s to her back and forth with the shady character, she remained silent for the entire duration of that while.
Considering the pace at which "fnord"s were being exchanged, that wasn't very quiet at all, but punctuating the silence toward Derpy with "fnord"s directed at someone other than Derpy somehow made the silence all the more . . .
Ok, honestly, at this point the exposition was overwrought. It really was. Any humor had long since passed ‑‑passed so long ago that it was lodged firmly in the past‑‑ and it was actually, if you stopped to think about it, kind of sad. If something didn't happen soon to distract the writing from these unpleasant‑‑
Finally, as though she realized that the story couldn't progress if she never got through this conversation, Sunset spoke.
"I'm just sick of it," she said, "you know? The way reality is squishy and lacking consistency. The changes. The restructuring. The fact that we have to deal with doppelgangers like Sliver Spoon, Susnet Shimmer, and Sorin. Suddenly finding myself in a kitchen because my walk turned into a wok. All of it."
Derpy nodded. Things were bad. When one traveled time and space in an acronym changes such as these were the stuff of nightmares. Also, what had happened to her sonic screwdriver was unspeakable. Literally. She had tried to speak it, the human voice wasn't capable. Neither were the voices of any of the creatures she had met in her travels. It was really, really indescribably unconscionably excruciatingly outrageously incredibly emphatically excessively exceedingly extraordinarily annoying to be utterly incapable of expressing what had happened to make her upset.
So Derpy could definitely sympathize. She could sympathize, she could work in crossover content, and she could stack "thing-ably"s like nobody's business. That didn't tell her how to help Sunset, though. After failing to think of anything useful to contribute for a while, she decided to look at things from an even more timey-wimey perspective than she had previously employed.
What, she asked herself, does a happy-Sunset timeline look like?
There were any number of answers, but one stood out in her eyes. Reconciliation was a positive staple of the happy Sunset thingamabobs. Therefore she said, "Have you considered going back to Equestria? Maybe Princess Mother-Figure could help you cope."
"Way to get meta, Derpster," Sunset said.
Derpy assumed that this was referring solely to "Princess Mother Figure" and in no way related to her thinking about the narrative on a level so meta-textual as to introduce features from other, related, narratives in an attempt to drive this narrative in her desired direction. As a result of that assumption, she replied, "I prefer to think of it as incorporating in-universe abstraction into my linguistic framework."
Since she had probably just accomplished her purpose as a walking plot device, there was only one thing left to do. Derpy reached for the thing that she must always have, lest her characterization checklist be incomplete. With muffin in hand, she said, "Muffin?" to Sunset, in a way that meant, Want to end this scene and have something on which to munch?
Sunset accepted the offer. That didn't just mean that she and Derpy began to go their separate ways, it also meant that she and the shady character finally agreed upon a price. The fnord in question, Derpy noted before walking out of the story, was about a foot and a half wide.
⁂
"Hey Twilight," Sunset said to Sci-Twi in what she hoped was the language of humans. It was kind of hard to tell at this point. It was hard to keep track of much of anything.
"Are you . . ." Twilight asked, "awake?"
"Think so," Sunset said, in spite of that not being a sentence.
Sunset watched through half lidded eyes, which were drifting toward being heavy-lidded, as Twilight appraised her appearance in an attempt to assess whether Sunset was in a state acceptable for the doing of science.
In the end, Twilight nodded to herself and said, "I think you should be good for tearing holes in the universe."
"The universe has it coming," Sunset said. Was there a hint of emotion in that? Sunset thought there might have been actual "real live person" type feeling behind those words. That, if true, was probably a good thing.
"Ok, maybe it's not quite my place to say this," Twilight said, "given that I'm, you know, me, but have you considered therapy or asking your doctor about mood regulating medication or . . . anything like that?"
"Let's just skip to stabbing reality and making it beg for mercy," Sunset said. That was what she said, and that was what she meant, because that was what she wanted. The fact that she wanted anything while in this barely awake, barely aware, semi-zombified state was a gift.
"Thank the four fundamental forces," Twilight sigh-said in relief. "I was worried that my attempt at being a good friend might prevent us from doing highly questionable science," she admitted.
Things actually went pretty well after that. They had to defuse a bomb that hadn't existed until their monitoring of diffuse magical energy went sideways, but that was pretty much par for the course these days. They took readings, made adjustments, checked checklists, and finally ripped a whole hole ‑‑dodged a figurative bullet there‑‑ in the veil between worlds.
"So," Sunset said, standing in what appeared to be a run-down castle in the Everfree, "this is what it's like to be a human in Equestria."
"Kinda boring," Twilight said, standing beside her, "don't you think?"
"Yes. I. Do," Sunset said with the most conviction she'd had in days. "Let's go back and see if we can duplicate the portal's species swapping functionality."
So they did, and they did. After about six hours straight of repeatedly ripping apart reality at the seams, someone showed up to investigate.
"Excuse me," a Pegasus guard ‑‑not Flash Sentry; there are many other Pegasus guards, and some of them might even have names‑‑ said just before landing. After landing, walking toward Sunset and Twilight with purpose, and somehow managing to look somewhat impressive in his armor, he finally got to the point.
He said, "I was sent to investigate the disturbance in this area," which Sunset recognized as guard-speak for, If you're dangerous, please don't hurt me; regardless of whether or not you're dangerous, please tell me what's going on so that I won't have to actually investigate.
"We're friends of Princess Twilight Sparkle," Sunset said with every intention of going on to say what they really were doing, though, obviously, in a way that implied Princess Twilight had signed off on the whole affair when, in truth, they hadn't even consulted her.
She never got the chance because the guard said, "That explains everything," took off, realized that was kind of rude, circled back, said, "Thank you for your time," and then hightailed it out of there. "There", again, being what appeared to be a ruined castle in what appeared to be the Everfree.
"That was weird, right?" Twilight asked. "It's not just me projecting my insecurities onto the situation; the reason I felt like that was weird was because it was genuinely weird." Twilight paused to take a breath. "Right?"
"Yes, Twilight," Sunset said, "that was genuinely weird."
"Shouldn't they at least have wondered about the Princess lookalike standing right here?" Twilight asked in a way that meant, What am I? Chopped Liver? Come on, I almost destroyed two universes here.
"Twilight, in the past few years Equestria's lawful government has been overthrown no less than seven times," Sunset explained, "and faced existential threats five times more than that. That's not counting the time that the Crystal Empire was nearly destroyed by a baby, because Equestria can survive just fine without that place."
Sunset paused. It wasn't because of the Crystal Empire. It wasn't even because she'd left Twilight herself off the list of existential threats. It was just because Sunset was about to shatter Twilight's mind with the kind of hard illogical truth that would make lesser ponies scream in fear.
Actually, Twilight's mind should be fine, but it still felt like there was cause to pause.
"Through all of that, do you know how many times the royal guard has faced enemies in battle?" Sunset asked Twilight.
"A bunch?" Twilight asked.
"Not once," Sunset said.
"But that's . . ." and at that moment, Twilight Sparkle, living encyclopedia and human thesaurus, ran out of words. Sunset was confident that this was a temporary state rather than an indication that Twilight's mind had indeed shattered.
"That's the royal guard," Sunset said. "After a while, you sort of get used to the weirdness."
Twilight announced that her brain had shut down with the utterance, "Uh huh." That was actually a good sign. The first step of rebooting was shutting down, after all.
"We should probably call it a night, Twi," Sunset said. The use of the nickname was a calculated effort to induce feelings of comfort in Twilight. It was time to get things back to where they should be, in a "Twilight's mental functioning" kind of way.
"Ok," Twilight said in a small voice that seemed to whimper, I need a hug, without ever actually saying even one of those words.
Sunset led Twilight back to the human world and said, "We'll pack it all up, you can go home, and then I'll go back to Equestria, through the usual portal this time, to smooth over any legal or political rough spots." She said that because she wanted to convey a message of, I'm not sure whether or not you'll get that hug, but you will be kept safe from harm, as clearly as possible.
Both of them remained quiet as they powered down and packed up the equipment.
"Sunset?" Twilight said in the sort of tone that tells any listener, I don't care that it isn't phrased as a question; it's a question, damn it.
"Yeah, Twi?" Sunset asked in very different tone which, none the less, fit within the same general category.
Twilight responded by saying, "Please tell me that the fate of the multiverse doesn't depend upon a group of ponies that don't actually do anything," Twilight remembered to breathe, "least of all military things, in spite of being an organized military force whose sole purpose is to do stuff."
Sunset turned and looked at Twiligth. She resisted the urge to scream, "Crap, doppelganger!" and instead continued turning until she was facing Twilight. Twiligth got away, without even being noticed by Twilight, but that was an acceptable loss. Twilight needed Sunset right now, and what kind of friend would Sunset be if she abandoned Twilight in this time of need?
The kind that prioritizes fighting evil from the depths of malformed scrivening over comforting a friend who is, in truth, going to be perfectly fine even if left uncomforted.
Sunset knew that, but that wasn't the point.
"Twilight," Sunset said to make sure the other girl was actually aware they were having a conversation; Twilight indicated that she was, so Sunset continued, "the fate of the universe does not rest in the hooves of the guard ‑‑or any other ponies for that matter‑‑ it depends, almost exclusively, on luck."
Twilight impacted Sunset with more force than Sunset would have believed Twilight could muster ‑‑given the times and distances involved, of course‑‑ and, as she performed that that impressive feat of full-contact hugging, said, "Thank you!" in a way that could only be described as an emphatic exclamation. While Sunset couldn't see Twilight's eyes, she was reasonably confident that they were shedding tears of joy.
Sunset smiled and hugged back. "No problem, Twi," she said. It really wasn't. All she'd done was speak the plain and honest truth, after all.
In some ways, the survival of the multiverse was like winning the lottery, it had very low odds of happening to a given individual at a given point in time, but ‑‑provided enough attempts were made‑‑ eventually it would happen for somebody (could an individual multiverse be said to have a body?) somewhere. In other ways it was quite different. The absurdly unlikely events that went into keeping the multiverse and total annihilation from being on speaking terms were legion, and they were spread out across the whole of space and time, by contrast a given person winning the lottery on a given drawing stacked all of the unlikely stuff into a single event that, by cosmic standards, wasn't actually all that unlikely to begin with.
Sunset thought thoughts such as these while they walked to Twilight's house, lugging scientific equipment (of a sort the world really wasn't ready for, when you thought about it) all the way. When they eventually reached Twilight's house, they paused before Twilight went through the door, as was and is traditional.
Sunset asked, "You gonna be ok?" in spite of the fact that she was basically going to ignore whatever words Twilight used to answer the question and instead concentrate on other factors and, therefore, really could have asked almost anything.
Twilight said, "Yeah. Yeah, I think I am," and Sunset, as a result of years of carefully honed skills in reading and manipulating people on cognitive and emotional levels, knew Twilight was telling the truth . . . provided certain allowances were made. Twilight would be ok. Twilight herself seemed to think that the probability of her being ok in the future times referred to by "gonna" was closer to an 83:17 split. Thus, provided one included "I think that's probably but not certainly the case" under the umbrella of "I think so", Twilight was telling the complete truth
⁂
When Sunset walked through the portal she remembered, finally, that she was supposed to drop on all fours before attempting to walk around. She then found the Castle of Friendship, Crystal, and Clashing (with the rest of the town) was empty, which was just as well because it honestly wasn't the best time for talking to Princess Twilight.
Amongst many other factors, it was sometimes difficult switching gears from Science Twilight to Princess Twilight and vice versa. The possibility of a Science Princess Twilight, which was hard to completely ignore when in the thick of switching said gears, was downright terrifying.
Sunset made her way to Canterlot via repeated teleportation, found that exhausting her mana took her mind off her mental exhaustion, came to the distressing realization that that distraction was short lived, discovered that Princess Celestia was off somewhere doing something, and opted to talk to Princess Luna instead.
At this point, she ran into a problem. Ripping apart reality, comforting Twilight, completely ignoring the fact that she'd let a probably-evil (they'd all been evil so far) doppelganger get away, coming back to Equestria, and ultimately coming to Canterlot had, somehow, mentally and emotionally energized her. Now that it was over, that energy was gone.
Luna noticed and asked the usual questions, of course. Was Sunset well, was she cursed, was she getting enough sleep, what ailed her, and so forth. It was only after all of those that Luna asked Sunset, "How do you feel?"
"Exhausted," Sunset said. "I feel so very tired. Like I'm completely overwhelmed. Even when hours go by without an error-based change, the weight of everything that's happened, and all of the unknown things that are yet to come just . . . drags me down.
"It's like I'm treading water, and I just barely have enough energy to do that, so there's none left for anything else, and I'm getting closer and closer to the point when I won't be able to keep my head above the surface anymore. And part of me is crying out to just give up ‑‑let the darkness take me. It says that it doesn't have to be like drowning, I could just lay down, curl up, and go to sleep."
That was true, and yet . . . and yet she'd spent six hours with Sci-Twi. And yet she'd come to Canterlot.
"There are other times, though," Sunset said, "when I can forget about that. I can focus on something so very much that the epidemic of changes is out of view, and while I'm zeroed in on whatever has my attention, it's like I've come back to life: I have energy and emotion, I have vim and vigor, I have initial assonance and alliteration."
Of course . . .
"Then, when the distraction ends, it all comes crashing back in on me," Sunset said. "It's crushing."
Sunset sighed. "I am so, so tired," she said. Even though sleep wasn't helping her, the fact she was talking to Princess Luna gave her an idea. She knew it wouldn't work, but she asked anyway. Tried to, at least. "Could you‑‑" was as far as she got.
"Sunset Shimmer, I am truly sorry," Luna said. "Sleep will not help you, for it is not your body, but rather your soul, that is weary."
"Yeah, I kind of figured," Sunset admitted. She silently added, and thank God in all her glory that Luna didn't tell me my sole was weary.
After an indeterminate time, Sunset asked, "Is there anything I can do?" She attempted to elaborate with, "We've faced‑‑"
Luna cut her off with, Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, but she must have used a fairly unique dictionary to make her translation from the original Italian because it came out as, "No, there is nothing. Whatever feats you have performed, or victories you have achieved, were within the limits of the rules that bind us all. We necessarily must abide by these rules, because they are beyond our ability to change."
"But my friends and I have seven Elements of Harmony at our command," Sunset said in the way that a filly might claim, But I'm I year older than I was at this time last year, I shouldn't have a bedtime. She elaborated by adding, "We have seven out of a possible six, we've‑‑"
"Again, Sunset Shimmer," Luna said, "whatever seeming impossibilities may exist in your life, they are bound by the rules of the universe. In an instant those seven Elements could become seven elementals or, indeed, the seven Elephants of Harmony, because even the power of the Elements of Harmony, the very strongest magic known to ponykind, is as nothing compared to the irresistible force exerted by the way in which they happen to be written."
"Ok . . ." Sunset started, meaning, I don't accept that, I'ma try ta find me a loophole.
Luna raised an eyebrow in a Did you lose all touch with grammar, spelling, and tact? kind of way.
". . . but why can't we change the fundamental functioning of our multiverse?" Sunset finished.
"Because that ability has not been given to us," Luna said. "When I was a young mare of your age, I thought as you do now. Eventually I even ruminated at great length on the way in which these errors of textual truth cannot be avoided in hopes that, at some point, the 'not' in 'cannot' would be omitted.
"Other than discovering the general lack of omissions of that magnitude in these errors," Luna said, "the only results of my ongoing efforts were frustration and fatigue." After a short, but not too short, princessly pause, Luna added, "I should point out, also, that I had already learned both how very few opposites are interchanged and how ineffectual those few are when it comes to gaining power over the words that make the world."
Rather than dwell on the fact that all of her hopes and dreams had just been crushed, Sunset simply said, "I don't know if I can take another Susnet."
"If it is any comfort," Luna said, "I assure you that I once believed I could not endure a repeat of Princess Lunar, the Princes Celestial, and ‑‑most harrowing of all‑‑ the exemplar of fallaciloquence, froward foulness, and fabrefaction of feculent farraginous ferity fecund for fractally facinorous fardels that was Cover the Clever, fie upon her name, yet I have endured. I believe you are capable of doing so as well."
"I would like to take a moment, Princess Luna," Sunset said, "to bask in the experience of hearing someone say 'froward' when they actually mean 'froward'."
"You may do so," Luna said quiet generously. 'Quiet generously', ȯ̬͝f̨͙͚̋͛ ̸ͣ͊̕͏̭c̜̯͌͌͜͢͝ò̢̟͋̚ǘ̢͈̫̓̃̕̕͝r̸̶̖͎͙̬̍ͯ͊̀͘s̷̢̜̘̅ͪ̅e̵͖͊́, being the opposite of 'loud generously', a̸̻̾s͖ͪ́ ͩ͏͔ĕ͕̕v̱̄́e̦ͫ͞r̘͂͞ỳ̷͕p͙̔͟ǫ͎̿n̲ͫ͝y̧̻͐ ̶̜̊k͍̐͠n̞͂͟ö̡̠w̴͚ͨs͕ͧ͜.̡̯͐
After taking that moment, Sunset said, "I suppose, now, I probably should get to the part where I tell you why I actually came here, given that you've repeatedly told me the topic at hand is insoluble and all."
It was a way of saying, Fucking fucksticks, I can't cope with this shit, but I have, however, reached the point where I can recognize that my inability to cope isn't sufficient cause to make a god-princess keep repeating herself, that did not violate the decorum that should guide one when talking to the kind of royalty that was actually regal.
"That does sound reasonable," Luna said. Sunset wasn't entirely sure whether that meant, Yeah, my patience is wearing thin; let's wrap this up, or not. It was, perhaps, the most unreadable statement Luna had made in the entire conversation.
Irregardless, Sunset fumed at "irregardless" but did not dwell ‑‑it now appeared in dictionaries, after all‑‑ as she gave Luna a brief primer on the nature of Sci-Twi and what "science" meant to that particular Twilight. By the time she had finished, Sunset was no longer fuming.
With Luna having been primed by that primer, Sunset got the to actual point and gave a detailed description of what she and Twilight had done in the Everfree slash human world. When Sunset finished, which was several hours after she had begun, Luna had one question, which she didn't quite manage to ask, "So the two of you were tearing apart the very fabric of existence and threatening the stability of two universes, for . ? ."
Luna had officially placed herself in a class of her own in Sunset's mind regarding princesses. More stable than Twilight, more aloof than Cadence, but willing to show her humanity ‑‑whatever the pony version of that word happened to be, which Sunset couldn't be bothered to remember‑‑ in a way that Celestia was not.
To wit Celestia would have passed that sentence through several internal committees before she spoke a single word, noticed that she was lacking some of the necessary words, and chosen some other, equivalent, thing to say so that she might avoid having her little ponies realize she could possibly be less than perfect.
Of course, Sunset only knew that about Celestia because Celestia had, at one time, been willing to let her guard down around Sunset, so it wasn't something Celestia always did, but for a pony that she'd only briefly met once before in the midst of a rush to solve a memory heist? There was no way Celestia would have done what Luna just did.
It showed a certain . . . "equanity"? "ponyity"? "pointy"? Definitely not "pointy", where had that one even come from? Whatever the word, it was [pony term for "humanizing"] in a way that Celestia never was around ponies that were, to her, as Sunset currently was to Luna.
"I find myself unsure regarding the modern vernacular," Luna said, either not noticing or choosing not to comment on Sunset's extended mental tangent, "what is the current equivalent of 'merdis et risionulis'?"
Sunset smiled. Then Sunset answered, one didn't keep a princess waiting after all, "It's word for word identical: for shits and giggles."
"It is pleasant to know that some things have remained the same," Luna said. It actually meant that. It had undertones of, I think we may get along in the future, and, I probably won't be need to have you executed, but mostly it was a sincere statement on the pleasant nature of linguistic invariants. "So, to return to my question," Luna said, you were engaging in the aforementioned activities for the sake of figurative excrement and metaphorical titters?"
"Pretty much," Sunset confirmed, "yeah."
Luna said, "I am impressed by your hubris and shamelessness, Sunset Shimmer," in a way that meant, Cool.
Sunset indicated that she was unsure where the conversation should go by calling upon her sizable vocabulary, "So . . ."
Luna said, "I suppose it is time to return to the topic of your predicament."
"I thought we had already established that there was nothing to be done," Sunset said.
Luna rolled her eyes. Definitely not like Princess Celestia. Though . . . Princess Celestia did have a sense of humor now, a trolltastic one no less, so perhaps eye rolling was not out of the question.
"Sunset Shimmer, what you are facing is a basic facet of the universe," Luna said, repeating what they'd already gone over in paraphrastic form, "which we are powerless to change. That much is true."
Sunset nodded a nod of, I just said that.
"That does not mean we have exhausted the topic," Luna said in a firm and commanding voice that somehow managed to ensconce itself within Sunset's ribs and reverberate there. "Your present condition cannot continue," Luna said in a significantly less intimidating manner.
Sunset nodded a nod of, Point.
"You do understand that I mean that literally, right?" Luna asked in a way that managed to be the polar opposite of intimidating without going near adjectives like "comforting" or "fearful". If Sunset had to give it a name, she'd probably call it "Sci-Twi-like".
She wouldn't, however, say that out loud. First off, it could be seen as insulting. Second off, she never actually used the nickname "Sci-Twi". No one did. The name had been proposed by the strange and metaphysical entity known only as "Pinkie Pie's direct line to the fandom", but it had been ‑‑quite quickly‑‑ shot down.
"Well . . ." Sunset said, "I do now." It meant, of course, Crap. I guess I wasn't paying attention enough. Please don't be pissed off.
"If you attempt to continue as you are," Luna said, "at best you will experience lethargy, detachment, anhedonia, and a variety of other depression-like symptoms. More likely, you shall have a nervous breakdown at some point and, at a point that may or may not be the same point, pass out." She said it in a way that had strong undercurrents of, This should be obvious. "These things shall almost certainly recur multiple times. Whatever the precise details of what may come, this is not a sustainable model."
"As much as I agree that that's a bad future I would like to avoid," Sunset said, "and as much as I can see that the current situation cannot be continued indefinitely, we've already established that things can't be changed."
Luna said, Shut up and pay attention, though the words she used to say it were "Sunset" and "Shimmer", in that order. She followed up with, "When you and the universe are incapable of healthy coexistence there are three avenues by which you can attempt to approach the problem." Luna paused, gave a look of, Ok, full disclosure . . . and added, "There is also, it should ‑‑unfortunately‑‑ be noted, a fourth option which is unpaved and traditionally referred to as, 'Let us combine pieces obtained from two or more of the previous options so that we might create some manner of hybrid abomination.'
"The first avenue is to change the universe," Luna said, "in this instance, as I have told you and you have repeatedly reiterated‑‑"
The message of "re-word re-word" was ‑‑as it has always been and will forever be‑‑ short and to the point. It simply said, You're a broken record, it's a digital age, put that crap on shuffle or something. Sunset, having at least a modicum of propriety, responded by appearing well and truly shamed.
"‑‑that is impossible," Luna continued. "The second avenue is to vacate the universe. You will find that this, too, is a dead end in this particular case. While a short visit to this universe might leave one with the impression we are comparatively sheltered from such things, I assure you that we have precisely as much reason to avoid so much as thinking the word for 'piano player' as you do."
Sunset attempted not to laugh. While she failed, the attempt did have a notable effect: the laugh came out as a snorfle.
"I fear you will find the rest of our multiverse quite similar in this regard," Luna said with genuine regretfulness. "The third avenue is to change yourself. Regarding the matter in question, this is the path that we all must eventually tread."
"So just say, 'Yeah, Rainbow Dash, it's totally awesome when walking up the stairs sometimes turns into mountaineering or all of the planets in the universe wink out of existence on occasion'?" Sunset asked; she meant, You remind me of a friend whose advice I'm not taking, and I'm not even trying to hide that. Sometimes, just sometimes, words did mean what they said.
The utter failure of the parallel structure in her mock quotation merely served to highlight how very little she was relying on artifice at the moment. It certainly wasn't a grammatical mistake on Sunset's part. No, it wasn't that at all.
Luna said, "I am going to attempt to use the modern vernacular," slowly before returning to her usual pace with, "and I shall likely fail quite horrendously. I remind you now, so that you may think of it when you consider laughing, that I have banished beings far more powerful than yourself to Tartarus."
"O . . ." Sunset said, "k."
"If you allow yourself to be bent out of shape by every little reality redefining thing, you're either gonna break or get bent into something unrecognizable," Luna said.
"Actually, in all honesty, that was pretty good," Sunset said with genuine honesty.
"Thank you," Luna said and meant.
Sunset pondered why people ‑‑ponies were people, it must be noted, just like dragons, donkeys, and humans were people‑‑ thanked other people for speaking the truth at times when there was, as in this case, no incentive to do otherwise.
"You have already put this off for too long," Luna said, "and that is affecting your ability to function. If you do not learn to live with the way the universe works, you will not live at all. Your mental well-being will continue to deteriorate under the constant onslaught of homonym switching, malapropism, letter transposition, letter insertion, letter deletion, and all of their myriad kin.
"You cannot continue to hope for and wait for a solution that does not exist, Sunset Shimmer," Luna said. "You must face reality and all the errors that it contains."
So that was it, then. She could be worn down under the never ending slings and errors of . . . well, just the errors, really. Her very being could be crushed by the weight of the sheer brokenness of the world. Her energy and vim, with her emotion and vigor, could be sapped from her until she was a hollow shell of the person that had once been known as "Sunset Shimmer" or . . . or she could look at the myriad error based changes the multiverse contained, and would contain in future times, and except them.
S͕ͯ͟h̛͖͕̓͘ĕ̛̇ͅ ̵̫ͦͮc̶͍͑o̯͋̕͠ͅu̸̶̱ͫ͗l̪̬ͬ͜d̶ͦ̓̑͏̯ ̴̱̽̌͂̀e̵̬̳͆͟x̵̷̪͙͇ͬ͠c̢̹̦͔͗͛e̴̡̹̝̿̏͜p̨͕̹̣̿͆̂͟ṱ̸̾̈͞ ̢̪ͮ͢t̼̳̄ͧ́ͅĥ̞ͤ͘͢ẹ͖͚̞͕́̒̑́͞m̧̼̥͒͑̓.̴̢̱̳̤̲̟ͨͪ͑͆̀̀
"Yes, error in my favor!" Sunset shouted as she jumped in the air and attempted to fist pump but ‑‑owing to her lack of hands and, especially, fingers‑‑ merely hoof pumped instead.
"We do not understand," Luna said, the shock apparently driving her back into archaism. Perhaps not archaism, really, just plain old pluralis maiestatis.
Sunset could have answered as a Twilight Sparkle would answer and quoted from a dusty old book. She could have said
ex·cept
/ikˈsept/
transitive verb (FORMAL)
: specify as not included in a category or group; exclude
She didn't. She chose to answer not with words, but with actions. The fact that the "actions" were in fact singular and the fact that the singular action in question was speaking words, did not in any way, in Sunset's opinion, invalidate the fact that she was answering with actions rather than words. Nope. Not one bit.
"I do hereby except," she said, "any and all future ontological textual errors from the multiverse in which I reside."
As light consumed everything around her, Sunset thought she heard Luna say, "Oh, look: another one." The distraction of having light suddenly and unexpectedly consume her world prevented Sunset from noticing whether Luna's words had been in the form of a grumble or, perhaps, something more positive.
⁂
"Trying to change the fundamental rules upon which the operation of the multiverse is based may, possibly, have been a mistake," Sunset said to herself, in a way that was disconcertingly echoic, as she took in her surroundings. Once again there was no world, but unlike the previous time there was also a notable lack of table, chairs, friends, and milkshakes.
Just a bunch of stars.
That and what might be smoke, or possibly a gaseous nebula.
"Sunset, I am so proud of you," Princess Celestia said as she materialized. "I do have a question, though: what did you do?"
"Um," Sunset said, "I either fixed the universe ‑‑it was broken, you see‑‑ or I destroyed it. Not really sure which right now."
"You would not be here had you destroyed the universe," Celestia said. "How did you‑‑" Celestia stopped herself. "No. Well, yes, I do want you to tell me the way in which the universe was broken and how you went about fixing it, but that can wait."
Sunset heart rang out with joy because Celestia was letting her guard down around Sunset, just like in the old days (not the bad old days, of course; the good old days), and that meant that Celestia again considered Sunset a pony very close to her, in an emotional and intellectual sense.
"There is another question," Celestia said, "one that I have wanted answered for some time, and it would be best if I asked it before we addressed the immediate situation."
"Sure," Sunset said.
"Why did you want to become an alicorn?" Celestia asked. "What was your true motivation?"
Sunset's mind first went to her early life. She'd been a homeless orphan filly on the streets of a large city. Nothing particularly traumatic had happened to her, but she'd lived with the constant unavoidable truth that she was nearly powerless, so more or less anyone could mistreat her in just about any teen-rated way without any notable fear of reprisal. That was three "any"s in a row, and they did not add up to a positive ambient emotional state.
How to express the link between that and her desire for alicornhood presented a bit of a conundrum, but rather than be confounded by it she simply called upon the most powerful magic of all, the Magic of Friendship, and a solution presented itself.
"To use an Applejack-ism," Sunset said, "no one pecks you when you're at the top of the pecking order." While this, or rather what it stood for in all its metaphoric glory, was a true answer to the question of why she had wanted to be an alicorn, it was also incomplete. Where Sunset's mind went first was not the only location to which it had journeyed.
Celestia said, "Oh . . . is that all?" which meant, What a letdown. Now I feel sad.
That made sense. Sunset was a disappointment. Depressingly so, in fact.
Something, though, niggled at the back of Sunset's mind. "What if . . ." it said.
What if . ? . What if .?. WhatIf.?.
This called for investigation, but even if it were true . . . if Celestia wasn't going to just come out and say it, then Sunset wouldn't either. She'd test the waters too.
"Also, I figured I deserved to be in charge," Sunset said, "since I was obviously smarter than everypony else." While that was true, Sunset didn't particularly care. While it meant, God, I was so stupid back then, that didn't really matter. What mattered was what it didn't mean, and how Celestia responded to that lack of meaning.
Celestia said, "I see," in a way that meant, I think my heart just broke. That settled it.
Sunset took a deep breath, and prepared to say something to which she'd never admitted ‑‑not even to herself, not directly at least, in the relative safety of her own mind‑‑ before this very moment.
"If I sprouted wings then you'd have to adopt me the way you did with Cadence," Sunset said. "That seemed a reasonable conclusion. I might not have wanted you to be my Aunt, but it would have been worlds better than you being the pony with whom I had no relation." This, too, was true.
Celestia let out a breath that neither she nor Sunset had realized she'd been holding in.
"Did you ever consider asking," Celestia asked.
"Not really, no," Sunset said. "I think, looking back, I was too afraid of you rejecting to me to even acknowledge what I really wanted."
Celestia looked away. If not for the fact that they were in the possibly magical land of Stars and a Notable Lack of Land, she would have been looking at either the floor or the ground, depending on where precisely they happened to be standing in that hypothetical not-where-they-actually-were place.
"I might have," Celestia said. "I might have rejected you. It took me a very long time to realize what you mean to me."
It meant, I'm sorry, and I was so very stupid.
"Even when you came back," Celestia said, "I wasn't sure how to act around you."
"You mean when you were all stilted and formal while Twilight was skating on the edge of a nervous breakdown?" Sunset asked. It meant, You don't say . . .
"I tried to inject some . . . lack of formality into the situation," Celestia said. While the words contained manifold nuances of meaning, at the core of it was a simple question, Is my sense of humor really that terrible?"
Sunset said, "I mean . . ." meaning, I started talking before I knew what I wanted to say. After collecting her thoughts somewhat, but not very much, Sunset said, "What you did was basically the equivalent of making someone think one thing and then shouting, 'Psyche!' but with the reversal being positive instead of negative, and that essentially makes it a form of prank, and ‑‑properly executed‑‑ that can lighten the mood, but it's not exactly what I'd call an 'ice breaker'," which pretty much meant, Crap, I've started talking and I don't know how to stop because my current awkwardness is overriding all of my social skills. Oh sweet fuck, I've turned into Twilight Sparkle! Either of them.
Celestia said, Given that you didn't tell me my sense of humor is terrible, I'm not going to call you out on that little mess, using the words, "When you left," then she actually got to the point when she said, "I remained in Equestria without you while you followed in the footsteps of Clover the Clever to rescue your human friends' stolen memories.
"It may have been awkward and stilted, but we had just been together as . . . friends . . . allies . . . something, and then it was gone," Celestia said. "That was when I realized how I truly felt (and will always feel) about you, Sunset, but I was terrified at the possibility you didn't feel the same way."
Sunset understood what that meant. Sunset basked in what it meant. Because what it meant was, If you had come back the next day, or any of the days that followed, and asked me to be your mother, I would have. The only reason I didn't say anything was that I was afraid you didn't want to be my daughter.
"I want us to be a family," Sunset said.
"Then we are," Celestia said. "The legal details can be dealt with later."
Celestia and Sunset hugged. Sunset remembered being a little unicorn filly snuggling with a majestic alicorn, who was too large for Sunset's bed yet never complained. Sunset was happy.
Eventually, all hugs must end, and so the two parted. Once they were at an appropriate talking distance again, Celestia looked Sunset in the eyes, and put a serious expression upon her face.
"Sunset," she said, "it is important to me that you understand this isn't something you have earned. Love is freely given or withheld; it is not a prize to be won or an honor bestowed upon the worthy." Sunset tried not to roll her eyes; she succeeded. "That," Celestia said, "is why I ultimately asked about your motivations before learning what feat you have accomplished this day," meaning, Please, please, please tell me I haven't fucked everything up by waiting until this moment to do anything.'
"I understand that now," Sunset said. "You don't have to worry." The terminal qualification, . . . about that particular thing, was understood, and therefore didn't need to be stated.
Celestia nodded a nod of, Thank you.
"In that case," Celestia said, "how was the universe broken, and how did you manage to fix it?"
"Well‑‑" Sunset said before realizing that there was an important question to ask. "You're sure I didn't accidentally annihilate reality as we know it?"
"Yes, Sunset, I am quite sure."
"Ok," Sunset said, "I'll take your word for it because it looks like all that remains is a sea of very small inconstant stars accented with a bit of haze."
Celestia rolled her eyes. Celestia actually fucking rolled her eyes.
Sunset's heart was filled with liquid joy? Why liquid? Because hearts are designed to hold liquids and therefore would encounter problems if faced with solid or gaseous joy. Plasmatic joy need not be discussed at this juncture because, were it to be, the concept of that filling a heart might put a damper on Sunset's joy.
Why the heart filling joy? Celestia was comfortable enough around Sunset to roll her eyes. That, or Celestia had taken up eye rolling in the time Sunset had spent in foreign lands. By "lands", of course, she meant "world, singular" but that would have messed up the flow of the sentence.
Luna rolling her eyes was one thing, it merely served to fill out Sunset's knowledge of her character. Celestia rolling her eyes, though, that was something entirely different. Never before had Celestia rolled her eyes in Sunset's presence, no matter how close they had been. This bespoke volumes.
"Alright," Sunset said, "pretty much as soon as I reformed," translation, When I became a protagonist, "I noticed that the world had a habit of changing in a very specific kind of way. Sweetie Belle got upset, for example, and she was crying, and the crying got worse and worse until, suddenly, she was wrapping the roots of trees (with their associated dirt, as you might imagine) instead of crying."
"Balling instead of bawling," Celestia said.
"Yeah, and I'm not saying that it wasn't useful," Sunset said. "We got a lot of landscaping work done because of what happened that day ‑‑turns out Sweetie is a very good baller. But it adds up, you know?" Without waiting to find out if Celestia did, indeed, know, Sunset continued, "At one point, when the rules of drama stated that everything should be pin-drop quiet, it instead got quite."
Celestia said nothing.
"Are you going to ask what they were quite?" Sunset asked.
"No," Celestia said, "I believe I understand you. Everything became very extremely," Celestia made a gesture of 'I don't know' and exhaled through closed lips to produce a 'ppppt' sound.
"That thing you said just said everything was extremely . . ." Sunset said.
"Ppppt?" Celestia asked.
"Is it a technical term?"
Celestia's response was a wry smile.
"Regardless, when everything is quite ̯̄ ̩̫ͮ̾ ̦̦͛ͮ ̯̥̌̎͂ ͚̲̬́ ̳̩ͮͯ̃̎ ̙̜̞ͣ̾ͭ ̞͛͊͂̂," Sunset said, and tried not to dwell upon what being able to say it said about her life, "there's nothing you can do but wait it out. There's no magic to diffuse. There's no monster to face. There's absolutely no difference you can make."
"I am familiar with the phenomenon, Sunset," Celestia said.
"And the things I could do," Sunset said, "facing monsters, redeeming villains, wielding the Elements of Harmony, starting a gaming channel on the internet‑‑ I came to realize that they made the problem worse. After any notable event, especially ones that were truly major, the frequency of changes increased."
Celestia nodded.
"In an instant plans would completely rewrite themselves because the verb "effect" is quite different from the verb "affect", and that difference is as nothing when compared to the difference between the noun "effect" and the noun "affect". And . . . and then, at one point, I had to stage a revolution because when what I needed was an idea, but what I got was an ideal. It was a very good ideal that no one had ever had before, to the point that it needed to be spread across the whole of society and that couldn't be done without overthrowing the current power structure."
"I shall not ask," Celestia said; "I merely offer my sympathies."
"I think it was Susnet Shimmer that finally brought things to a head," Sunset said. "After her I couldn't just shrug off the changes and reconfigurations anymore. From then on, even after they were dealt with, they all stuck with me, like splinters in my mind (to steal a turn of phrase), and each one left me with less energy than the previous.
"I was word weary (yes, I did mean to say 'word')," Sunset said, "and it got worse with every passing day."
Celestia said, "Oh, Sunset . . ." meaning, This isn't a good point in the conversation for me to hug you, but I'm totally giving you figurative hugs right now, because you clearly need them.
"Then, through a combination of happenstance and less haphazard things, I came to be speaking with your sister," Sunset said. "I like her."
Celestia told Sunset, That's good, because she's going to be your aunt now, which, naturally, took the form of saying, "The two of you have much in common."
"She told me, paraphrasing here, how there was no power that rivals the force of textual truth," Sunset said, "and, at that point, I was left to either keep fighting an unwinnable battle against the error based changes, or I could except those changes."
"That is a fairly common swap," Celestia said.
Sunset felt that she had finished her explanation. When the silence grew long enough for Celestia to become aware of that fact, Celestia said, "I feel I'm missing something."
"It wasn't that I could choose to except the errors," Sunset said, "it wasn't that I could attempt to except the errors‑‑"
Celestia groaned a groan that is well known in classrooms throughout most inhabited worlds. It does not live in every classroom, but ‑‑where it does exist‑‑ it is instantly recognizable. The Groan of Understanding ‑‑for that is what it is called‑‑ was, is, and shall forever be the only way to truly communicate the emotions one might attempt, and fail, to convey with a speech such as this:
Oh. That thing I've been struggling, and utterly failing, to understand for the past week, that thing which so flummoxed and confounded me that I believed it was an arcane and advanced feature of the language, the grokking of which would cause me to level up, figuratively of course, in my role as "someone who can kinda sorta read this stuff", that thing is neither complex nor difficult. It's just an accusative of respect. Nothing more. No further explanation needed because it's so atrociously simple. Say its name, and everything becomes instantly and completely obvious. Ok, then.
After that Celestia sighed a sigh of, That loophole's been staring me in the face for six centuries and I've never seen it, which means that I've unnecessarily missed the opportunity to use it in so many different situations.'
Sunset's thunder was, quite completely, stolen.
"Do go on," Celestia said; "I'd rather not have your triumph marred by my pangs of regret at myriad and manifold missed opportunities spanning centuries." Sunset got the message (Sorry for harshing your buzz. Let's see if we can get it somewhat unharshed) loud and clear.
"Well . . ." Sunset said, "textual truth is the thing at the very top of the order of precedence, right?" Celestia nodded. "So when it said that I could except the errors, that meant that ‑‑provided I did it all formal-like‑‑"
"And you criticized my terminology for lacking an air of sophistication and expertise," Celestia playfully mocked.
"I'm reasonably confident that 'all formal-like' is more formal sounding than 'ppppt'," Sunset countered.
"This deserves to be the subject of rigorous investigation," Celestia came back. "Quick: say, 'Ppppt,' but say it all formal-like."
Sunset surrendered in the face of Celestia's verbal onslaught. Specifically, she giggled.
When she finished giggling she said, "So then I just excluded ontological textual errors from the set that is 'Things that will exist in the multiverse', which I had the ability to do because textual truth said I did, and now, theoretically, the errors are gone for good. Excepting them made it so nothing multiverse-related has the power to reintroduce them‑‑"
"‑‑and no error will grant something that power in the future," Celestia finished, "because there will be no more errors of that nature."
"Exactly," was Sunset's smug reply.
They lapsed into silence.
Finally, Princess Celestia said, "Sunset Shimmer, you did something today that's never been done before, something even a great unicorn like Clover the Clever was not able to do," and she said it all formal-like.
"Ok," Sunset said, somewhat confused. "I kind of figured that out on my own."
"It is for that reason that you have gained access to this place," Celestia said.
"Yeah, about that, been meaning to ask," Sunset said, "where are we?"
"Guess," was the only answer.
Sunset was about to point out how extremely unhelpful that was, when she realized that it might actually be helpful. Just to be sure, she asked, "You mean . ? ."
Celestia nodded.
As she rose up for no apparent reason (for a given value of up), two sparks, one in each color of her cutie mark, came out of Sunset's chest and began to swirl around her. When the swirling grew so fast that the sparks appeared to be rings of light, Sunset could feel the very fabric of her being start to change. Moments later her universe was again consumed by light.
⁂
Once she was sure the world existed again, Sunset tested her wings. She didn't thrust them out into a "Look at me, I'm an Apple Bucking Alicorn!" pose or anything ostentatious like that. She just gently felt out the muscles the way a human might wiggle their fingers and toes after an accident of the "I seriously think that might have damaged my spine" variety.
With the existence of her wings and her nervous system's ability to communicate with them both confirmed, there came a question of what to do now.
She, Celestia, and Luna stood in the otherwise empty room where Sunset and Luna had spoken. Only alicorns were present. Well, alicorns and the smoking scorch mark on the floor where Sunset had previously been standing.
It was thinking about what she had been doing when she'd been standing there that gave Sunset a clear course of action.
Sunset said, "Ok, so, my soul is no longer weary," to Luna, thus closing the case on that whole thing, Luna actually smirked in response, "but could we," Sunset turned her attention to Celestia, "snuggle on a couch or rug or bed or something anyway?"
"You don't think you're too old for that?" Celestia asked playfully. It meant, of course, Yes we can, and indeed we may, but first you're going to have to convince me. It won't be very difficult to do so.
"I do‑‑" then Sunset realized that she wasn't completely clear on precisely where everything stood at that exact moment. She asked, "I'm a princess now, right?"
Celestia nodded.
"I do hereby decree that princesses are never too old to snuggle," Sunset said.
"It would be very poor form for me to countermand your first royal decree, Princess Sunset Shimmer," Celestia said, "so I suppose we can snuggle."
Sunset and Celestia looked at one another with silly smiles on their faces for an excessively long time. While it was excessive by the standards of standing around with that sort of silly smile on one's face, it wasn't, for instance, excessive by the standard of thinking before answering a question on certain quiz shows. This excessive, but not that kind of excessive, period ended when Celestia said, "There's a couch this way," and led Sunset in the indicated direction.
Before they could get out of earshot, Luna said, I think I know what's going on, but ‑‑just in case‑‑ Double-U Tee Ef? by asking, "Sister, what exactly is the nature of your relationship with her, again?"
"She's my daughter," Celestia said without breaking stride. It meant what it sounded like.
"It's not legally binding yet," Sunset said, also without breaking stride, "so, for the moment, postpone any official reaction." It meant, I'm you're niece now. Awesome, right?