//------------------------------// // Chapter 20 // Story: Equal Opportunity Ascension // by Cast-Iron Caryatid //------------------------------// Twilight was not really a jealous sort of mare, but the way the princess immediately asked, “Where is she?” without so much as a greeting kind of ticked her off. The princess had appeared facing away from the hospital and was jerking her head back and forth, almost in a panic, looking for her student. With a sigh, Twilight gestured with her hoof, directing Princess Celestia to the large, two-story building behind her. “Show me to her,” Princess Celestia said. Twilight attempted to object. “She’s—” “Show me to her,” she insisted. It went about as one would expect. The ponies were all flustered to have Princess Celestia there and were quick to show the two of them to a small room where Sunset Shimmer had been placed. “She looks so… young,“ the Princess whispered, tentatively walking forward. Twilight blinked. That sent alarm bells ringing in her head. “Princess, this isn't by any chance the first time you've seen her since the train, is it?” Princess Celesetia was so distracted that she wasn't really concerned with what Twilight was implying. “Yes.” “You mean to tell me…” she said, trying to wrap her head around it. “…That you pardoned and forgave Sunset Shimmer… through the mail, without ever actually talking to her face to face?” The princess nodded. “Succinctly put.” “Meaning that you haven't once looked her in the eye and asked if she was actually sorry,” Twilight clarified. “Don't be ridiculous, Twilight,” the princess scoffed. “Of course she's not sorry.” “But—err—what?” Twilight stammered, caught off-guard by that answer. “I’m not an idiot, Twilight,” the princess bluntly asserted. “I know perfectly well that Sunset has as much intention of quietly making friends as you did when I first sent you here. “If you’ll forgive me the trite metaphor, life is a journey, not a destination, and it is the way of such things that the road we travel shapes us far more than we shape it. “Even from the few interactions I’ve had with her, I can tell that Sunset’s time on the other side of the mirror hasn’t done her any favors. She has, if anything, become more cunning and callous than the filly I remember. That is why, so long as she remains fixated on this relatively harmless path which keeps her in Ponyville, I am content.” Relatively… harmless… path? That… That… Twilight almost managed to suppress her reaction. She had just blown up on Rainbow Dash the day before, and she was better than that. Still, she couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath, her lips were pressed into a line and her only response was a stilted and flat, “I see,” followed by an equally unemotive, “Okay.” Then, she decided to take a page out of Sunset’s book and disappeared in a flash of pink light. *** Twilight still didn’t have any words when she slammed the library door open and stomped in, having appeared directly outside precisely so that she could do so. “That… that mare! Argh!” she shouted, seething. “Oh dear,” Rarity exclaimed from where she was sitting with a steaming cup of tea and a book with a stallion on the front. “What's gotten your dander up this time? Or should I say, ‘who?’” “Hoo,” Owlowiscious agreed from where he was having a staring contest with Rainbow Dash. Twilight pulled up short when she realized she wasn’t alone. “Sorry,” she said, and stopped to take a breath and calm herself down. “It’s just… Celestia.” Rarity’s ears perked up at that. “The princess? Did you get a letter?” “No, she actually came in person,” Twilight explained, then belatedly added, “To see Sunset, of course.” “So, she still thinks her old student can do no wrong, huh?” Rainbow Dash guessed, not taking her eyes off of Owlowiscious. “In a manner of speaking,” Twilight said, walking over to the table that Rarity was sitting at and seating herself, hanging her head between her hooves. She then went on to explain the very short discussion she had had with Princess Celestia. “…And she thinks that Sunset coming to Ponyville to steal my magic is just some harmless distraction. That was what she called it—harmless!” “Well, that is unusually careless of her,” Rarity admitted. “But surely with Sunset in the hospital now, you’ll have plenty of time to finish your research ahead of her, so it should be a non-issue.” That only made Twilight sink deeper into her hooves. “Finish?” she said. “Rarity, I’m no closer now than I was five minutes off the train. I don’t even know where to begin.” “If you can’t do it, then what are you worried about?” Rainbow Dash said, sounding like she’d solved world hunger with a hotdog. “I mean, she’s got, what, five or six less years of learning magic than you, right? She’s got no chance!” “It’s not like this sort of thing is in the regular curriculum, Rainbow,” Twilight said, rubbing her temples to ward off a headache. “I’ve only talked to her for a few hours, and it’s already clear that she knows more about handling raw magic than I do. Don’t forget—she managed to turn herself into a crystal pony by connecting to the Crystal Heart and she had some plan to do something with the Element of Magic, too. I wouldn’t underestimate her.” “What about that box that you received from Princess Luna?” Rarity asked. “That was all of their notes on the Everfree, yes?” “Years and years of logs that mostly say things like, ‘the far canyon felt moderately Everfree-y today,’” Twilight said, waving her hoof dismissively. “Look, I appreciate your confidence in me, but I’ve already gone over all this in my head enough times. I haven’t given up, but the fact is, no matter how smart I might be, all the things I know are just things that other ponies figured out.” “My dear Twilight, you don’t give yourself enough credit,” Rarity insisted. “We all know that there is more to these things than the sum of their parts.” “Besides,” added Rainbow Dash. “What about that whole thing when our cutie marks got mixed up? The answer to that didn’t come from a book, did it?” If anything, Twilight’s mood only soured even more. “We’ve been over this,” she said. “Celestia made the whole ‘new magic’ thing up. She. Was. Lying.” “Be that as it may…” Rarity said, picking up the subject. “Rainbow Dash does have a point. Just because your ‘new magic’ was in no way a unique achievement does not mean that it wasn’t ‘new magic.’” “It was based on a broken spell to begin with,” Twilight instisted, still dismissive. Really, at that moment she was considering just asking Rarity and Rainbow Dash to leave so she could go lay down for a bit. “Fine,” Rainbow Dash said. “Maybe it was just a magical crossword that you solved with words from the friendship dictionary. Don’t you still think it’s kind of important?” Twilight lifted her head up off the table to look at Rainbow Dash. “Why would it be?” she asked. “Duh!” Rainbow Dash said, tossing her arms up in frustration. “It still shot off your ascension, didn’t it? Don’t you think that a spell like that would be someplace to start when you’re trying to move magic around?” Twilight stared blankly at Rainbow Dash. “Oh. Kinda, yeah, I guess?” *** “I can’t believe that you just left me there,” Spike grumbled as he searched the shelves for a book that wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Sometimes, the fact that her library was a public library really came back to bite her. “And I can’t believe you’re still bringing it up,” Twilight said, not looking up from a treatise on spell modification. “I said that I was sorry.” “What’s all this, then?” Cadance asked, announcing her presence from the stairs while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Twilight blinked. “Wait, you’re up?” she said and glanced at the clock above the library entrance. Sure enough it was already approaching late afternoon. “For a certain definition of the word,” Cadance dithered, finding a seat across from Twilight. “Coffee?” “I’ll get it,” Spike volunteered, giving up on his search for the moment. “So, what’d you do this time?” Cadance asked again. Twilight rolled her eyes and explained, “After getting Sunset Shimmer to the hospital—you do remember that, right?” “Mmgh,” Cadance grunted, furrowing her brow in concentration. “I remember Sunset on the floor bleeding. That wasn’t a dream?” she asked, then added, “I didn’t do that, did I?” “No—no!” Twilight assured her, waving her hooves. “I’m pretty sure it was a timberwolf bite, though now that I mention it, I don’t think I ever got confirmation from Nurse Redheart on that. “Anyway,” Twilight continued. “After getting Sunset to the hospital and bringing you back here to sleep off your innuendo—” “Oh!” Cadance exclaimed. “Now I remember! I caught you staring at her—” “Injury,” Twilight interrupted right back. “And again, after all of that, Spike and I went back to the hospital to wait for something concrete to tell Princess Celestia. Long story short—she showed up and got into a… I wouldn’t even call it an argument, but I got annoyed and teleported off.” “And left me there to make excuses for her and take the books she brought,” Spike finished as he brought out a steaming princess-sized cup of coffee for Cadance, who didn’t even let him get halfway across the room before she took it from him with her light blue magic. It was an awkward minute or two until Cadance stopped making obscenely appreciative sounds. “So,” Cadance said breathily over her half-empty cup. “How is Sunset, anyway?” “Sunset’s fine, though they’re going to keep her in the hospital for a while,” Twilight explained. “You’re not going to ask about what happened with Princess Celestia?” “I was a teenager when I became an alicorn,” Cadance reminded Twilight. “In spite of Sunset clearly holding the gold medal for it, I did have my own disagreements with her from time to time. You’re overdue, and I won’t pry if you don’t want me to. I can guess, though.” Twilight considered it, but shook her head. “I’ve already ranted about it to Rarity and Rainbow and it really isn’t something that takes all that much to unpack.” “Alright,” Cadance said and took a long, blissful sip from her cup. “Now, about that letter-sending spell…” “Actually,” Twilight said, glancing at the clock again to make sure that it wouldn’t be too late. “We should go check on Sunset again. If she’s up, she wanted to learn it, too.” “That is the exact opposite of what I want, Twilight,” Cadance deadpanned. “Well, given that I wasn’t sure if you wanted Princess Celestia to know that you flew all the way down here just to yell at Sunset…?” Cadance managed to communicate her negative response with a blush and the shake of her head. “Right,” Twilight said. “Given that, I asked for her notes on the spell on Sunset’s behalf instead.” “Wait,” Cadance said, pulling her face away from her coffee for a moment to give Twilight an inquisitive look. “You don’t already know it?” “No?” Twilight said, thinking that should have been obvious. “I have a Spike,” she said, gesturing at her assistant. Somehow, that didn’t seem to appease Cadance. *** The trip over to the hospital was quiet and uneventful, which was probably a good thing. Twilight very much doubted that it would have gone over well if, for instance, Rainbow Dash had decided to join them for this particular visit. Maybe later she would get her brash friend to apologize, but it would have to be much, much later. Not that Rainbow Dash was the only one who had a bone to pick with Sunset Shimmer. “Actually, maybe this isn’t the best idea,” Twilight said, having second thoughts as she signed her name on the hospital’s visiting list. “Relax, Twilight,” Cadance reassured her, briefly placing a hoof on her shoulder as she took Twilight’s place and signed her own name. “I’m not going to pick a fight with an injured pony.” And she didn’t. Not exactly. The first words out of Cadance’s mouth when she saw Sunset Shimmer were, “Geez, you really are just a filly, aren't you?” Sunset's immediate response was, “Bite me.” Cadance won that exchange with the addition of a raised eyebrow and a glance at Sunset's bandaged flank. “…Okay, yeah, that wasn't my best,” Sunset admitted, disgruntled but accepting. “Anyway, what are you doing this far south, lovebutt?” “Oh, you know,” Cadance said with a nonchalant shrug. “I got an interesting piece of correspondence and decided it deserved a personal response. “Oh?” Sunset said, acting innocent. “Must have been some letter.” “It was very enlightening,” Cadance said, approaching Sunset’s bed. “And, you know, a little enlightenment never hurt anypony.” Sunset had to shift herself in the bed to back away from Cadance, who was getting awfully close. “Oh?” she said, still pretending not to have any idea what Cadance was talking about, but clearly getting uneasy with her status as a captive audience. “Yep!” Leaning in, Cadance said, “The answer is, ‘no.’” Sunset blinked. Suddenly, she didn’t need to fake her confusion. “No?” “Yep!” Cadance said, backing off. “No, as in, ‘No, I don’t have any problem keeping warm at night,’ thank you very much.” Sunset… blushed.