//------------------------------//
// Shared Experiences 
// Story: The Cloudsdale Chronicles 
// by Boltstrike58 
//------------------------------//

Swift Wing paced around his apartment for what felt like the thousandth time. His nerves were getting to him, knowing what was coming, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he'd made a terrible mistake. He couldn't even keep his wings still, as they kept shooting out from each side, waving around erratically. Thankfully, they couldn't lift him off the ground against his will, but that didn't stop stray red feathers from gathering on the floor.

Perhaps an explanation as to why Swift was freaking out would be helpful. His letter to Princess Twilight had been answered almost immediately, thanks to Equestria's rather prompt mail system. They'd set up a date when Swift could have visitors without interfering with work, and the Mane Six had agreed to all his conditions. However, Twilight had come up with an idea, something Swift would never have suggested himself for various reasons. It involved bringing somepony Swift hadn't met yet, but knew about, who might be able to relate to him a bit better.  

Swift had been torn on her suggestion. The guest was somepony Swift did admittedly want to meet, as awkward as it would be. On the other hoof, this was somepony who hadn't been around during his first disagreement with the Mane Six, and maybe she'd try to talk him into going back to Earth again. He knew Twilight would brief her on his situation, and she wasn't stupid, so maybe she'd know not to bring it up. Still, it was a gamble. In the end, Swift, unwilling to make Twilight feel bad, had agreed.

Now it was just a matter of playing the waiting game.  

Swift forced himself to sit on the bed, his hooves getting tired from walking around the apartment endlessly. He briefly wished he still had fingers, remembering his habit of scratching whenever he was uncomfortable. He settled for raising his back leg up to kick at his ear. He wondered if there was time to leave his house and just hide somewhere in the city. Later, he could tell Twilight and the others he just forgot it was today and—

The ringing of the doorbell abruptly knocked him out of his thoughts.

"Punctual. Of course," Swift groaned, getting back on his hooves.  

He trotted over to the door, undoing the simple lock and pulling it open, finding himself face-to-face with Fluttershy.

"Hi, Swift," said the yellow pegasus, smiling warmly at him.

Swift bit his lip, barely managing a grin in return. "Hey, Fluttershy," he said, without much enthusiasm.  

Fluttershy didn't seem to mind, however. She held up one hoof, and Swift reluctantly pressed his own against it.

"We're not too early, are we?" she asked. "I know this can't be easy for you, and I didn't want to make it worse."

"No, no, it's fine," Swift replied. "It's better that we just go ahead with it, you know?" He didn't change his expression at all, but he mentally swore, afraid he'd offended his other guest.

"I can see that," replied Fluttershy. She made a beckoning gesture on her right, signaling the other pony to finally come into view. Swift watched as the orange unicorn with the red and yellow mane walked into the doorway.

"Uh...hi, I'm Sunset Shimmer," she said, extending her hoof, "but I guess you already knew that."

"Yeah, I did," Swift answered, hoping that hadn't sounded accusatory. "I'm Swift Wing."

The two touched hooves, and then stood around awkwardly, nopony sure what to say.

"So, uh..." Fluttershy mumbled, "we thought it would be best if it was just you two. I'm going to...just go look around town for a while. I'll be back to pick you up, Sunset."

Sunset nodded, and Fluttershy walked off down the hallway. Swift briefly thought about calling her back, but decided it would be rude. With no other option, he beckoned Sunset inside, closing the door behind her.

Sunset made herself comfortable on the floor, sitting down on her haunches, while Swift parked himself on the bed.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked. "I don't have much, but I've got coffee, tea..."

"Just some water would be nice," said Sunset.

Swift busied himself filling a cup for her and passing it over, then moved back to his position on the bed.

"So..." he began, though he soon found himself unsure of how to continue.

"So," Sunset repeated. Evidently, she was having the same problems.  

Swift brushed his wing. "Er...how's life treating you on the other side of the mirror?"

"Can't complain," said Sunset. "We're coming into our final year of high school. I'm thinking about college options, trying to pick a major. I might be leaning towards graphic design, just so I could keep up with my artwork, but I don't know."

"That sounds nice. I saw some of your...'Flanksy' work, it's impressive. Of course, I'm no artist, so I'm probably not the best pony to talk about that. Interestingly enough, back in my world, we have someone who does the same thing, only we call him Banksy."  

"Interesting," noted Sunset. "You said our world is a TV show in your universe, and that includes me and the world I live in now?"

"Your world is a spinoff. Don't get me wrong, I love it." He smiled fondly, thinking of the Equestria Girls stories he loved so much. "I guess my first question is what made you stay? You're not like me, you can jump back and forth whenever you want. Why didn't you ever go back to Equestria?"

Sunset bit her lip, fiddling with her hooves, as though she were deep in thought. She remained like this for a minute, but Swift didn't speak up, afraid of being rude.

Finally, Sunset answered. "I guess...it wasn't just one thing. First of all, I'm assuming you know about what a jerk I was before the whole Fall Formal thing. I burned a lot of bridges back here, and yeah, I know now that Princess Celestia's forgiven me, but there are a lot of ponies who probably haven't. I don't blame them. Plus, back in the human world is where I have my friends, and even if there are versions of them on this side, they're not the ones I know. Not to mention, after spending thirty moons on that side plotting my stupid revenge, I kind of think of myself more as a human than a unicorn."

Swift smiled. "I understand that last part. For me, it's only been a few months, but I already think of myself more as a pegasus." He frowned a little as he thought back to his previous life. "Not that there aren't things I miss about being human. Fingers, for one. But I can live without them, and that's what matters."

Sunset smiled warmly at him. "Well, as somepony who's actually lived a life that involved moving between worlds, I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have, or help you with anything you might need."

Swift perked up a little. Thus far, it seemed Sunset was willing to listen and understand him. She hadn't made a peep about him going back home. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, and he'd been worried over nothing.

"Well, for the next one, how long did it take you to get over that feeling? You know the one I'm talking about. The one where you keep waking up in your bed, thinking you're gonna be back in the place you were born in, but then you open your eyes, and feel your different body?"

"Oh, somebody finally put that into words!" exclaimed Sunset, throwing her forehooves into the air. "Seriously, I've lost track of the number of times I've had to explain that to the others, but I've never been able to pull it off!

"As for when that stops happening...well, I'm not sure exactly how long it takes. I vaguely remember it being at least a year later that I stopped having that feeling, but to be honest, my memory of those days isn't the greatest. I've spent a lot of time trying to block out the thoughts I was having during those years."

"Mainly because those thoughts consisted of thinking about how to take over Equestria and make your former mentor grovel at your hooves, right?" said Swift. As soon as his brain caught up with his mouth, he quickly added an, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend," at the end. Thankfully, Sunset waved him off, showing there were no hard feelings.

"Pretty much, yeah," she replied. "I want to remember the things I did, so it's not like I'm pretending I never actually did them, but forgetting the pleasure I took in doing them? That I can live with."

"That's a good attitude to have. From what I've seen, you aren't the only one. You, Starlight, and a lot of others have had similar experiences." Swift chuckled to himself as a thought occurred to him. "Though I have to ask, using a high school as your evil army?"

"Not my proudest moment, I admit," said Sunset, laughing as well. "I may not have thought that one through, entirely."

"Do you ever get...y'know, homesick? I know you have the option of just hopping over whenever you like, but I'm guessing you still miss this place at least once in a while. Heck, if I'd been raised in Equestria, I'd always miss it."

"Sometimes, yeah. I do miss being Princess Celestia's student. And I wish I hadn't thrown that life away. If I hadn't, a lot of things would probably be different. But I've accepted that I can't change the past, and I'm happy with the life I have now." Sunset looked at Swift curiously. "Do you miss your original dimension?"

Swift swallowed. This was going down a road he didn't like. If Sunset got the idea that he was actually homesick into her head, then she'd tell Twilight, and then they'd—

Stop it. You're catastrophizing again, he thought as loud as he could at himself. Besides, after a conversation this personal, Sunset wouldn't tell anypony about it, not even Twilight. Nothing left this room. If she was going to do him that courtesy, he could at least be honest.

"Sometimes. Like I told Twilight and the others, I don't miss my sister, given how she treated me, but there are things I miss." He held up his hooves. "Part of me wishes I'd kept my hands in the transition. Easier to pick things up with. Of course, I've learned to use my hooves since then, and even my wings sometimes, but still." He waved his tail back and forth. "It took me a while to get used to this."

"I get it." Sunset ignited her horn, levitating up her cup of water to her lips. "Sometimes, I just forget I have this when I come back here." She set down the cup, then looked back at Swift. "Are you sure you don't miss your family? Your sister I understand, but what about your mom?"

Swift sighed. He supposed he should've seen this coming. "I do miss her, I admit. But our relationship wasn't the greatest. She tended to infantilize me, minimize my problems, and downplay the crap my sister pulled on me. That's why I stopped coming to her when I was depressed. She didn't understand me." He hoped that put an end to that discussion, and thankfully, Sunset didn't ask any further questions.

"I'm sorry about that," replied the unicorn. "I'm an orphan, so it's pretty hard for me to relate to those feelings. The closest thing I had to a mom was Princess Celestia, and as I'm sure you're aware, we had our rocky moments. We've patched things up since then, but those fights still happened."

"So you really didn't have parents?" asked Swift, his mind jumping back into fan mode. "Back home, that was a pretty big theory surrounding your character. Your past, prior to becoming Celestia's student, was never brought up, so a lot of people assumed that was the case."

Sunset shrugged. "I guess it gave me one more excuse to leave Equestria. I didn't have friends or anything, so all I had left to leave behind was Celestia." Then her curious nature seemed to take hold. "What else do the fans say about me?"

Swift thought back to Earth, and the MLP fandom. "Well, there were a lot of interpretations of how your split with Celestia actually happened, since we never saw it. And there was tons of fan fiction of the two of you reuniting, before the Memory Stone incident actually showed us. Now that I think about it, you were a super popular character."

Sunset giggled. "That's nice. I'm assuming that came post-rainbow laser to the face?"

"Oh yeah."

The two ponies shared a chuckle, before the conversation dropped to silence once again. Swift, for his part, was out of questions, even in the face of one of his favorite characters. Sunset didn't seem to have anything to add, herself. Swift guessed that this was a better outcome than her pestering him to change his mind, but the awkwardness was palpable.

"Is weather work very difficult?" Sunset finally asked. "I didn't learn a lot about it, since, y'know, I'm a unicorn. Really, all I know is the cloud-walking spell."

"It's like a lot of other fields, I guess," Swift replied. "There's good days, bad days. Some jobs are easy, some are a pain in the flank. I think my least-favorite thing to do is handle the storm clouds, because of all the electricity, but the rest of it's okay. It's interesting because, now that I'm a pegasus, I have that innate connection to the weather and forming clouds and things like that just come naturally to me. No Cutie Mark yet, but maybe that'll change." Another thought occurred to him. "Was it weird to transition to a world where Cutie Marks don't exist?"

"Oh, that was an adjustment," Sunset admitted. "It made me realize I had a lot of biases about ponies based on their Cutie Marks. Because, see, you can look at a pony's Mark and usually guess what it means they're good at, along with their name. Of course, you're not always gonna be right, ponies are diverse creatures. But in the human world, nobody has those, so you know practically nothing about anybody unless you ask. It forced me to face the fact that I pretty much relied on Cutie Marks to judge ponies, which is probably bad. Does your home world have tattoos?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, the first time I saw one, I kinda mistook it for a Cutie Mark, and I thought I somehow lost my Cutie Mark when I went through the mirror, and...let's just say when I figured out what it really was, I was pretty embarrassed."

Swift threw back his head and laughed, trying to apologize in between chortles. Sunset didn't seem to mind, though.

"You seriously...I'm sorry, that's just really funny," he managed to wheeze out. "Thank you, that was hilarious." He coughed a couple of times, clearing his throat again.  

Sunset shared in his laughter. "So they really didn't show any of my backstory? They just had me appear?"

"Well, the first time we saw you was when you took the Element of Magic. They showed a little bit of you as Celestia's student in the tie-in comic books, but those aren't considered canon. Like I said, back on my Earth, you're actually a really beloved character. A lot of people felt sorry for you during the whole debacle with the Sirens, since you were trying to prove you were better and yet nobody seemed to believe in you."

"That's nice to know," said the unicorn. "I don't really blame them for that, given how horrible I was. And most people have accepted me, so I'm happy now. Sure, there's still the occasional person who isn't willing to forgive what I did, and we had that whole incident with Wallflower before we managed to change her mind, but I can accept that."

Swift sat back, thinking what he wanted to ask about next. "How long did the species change take you to adjust to? I've adapted pretty well, I think, but it took time. I imagine going from being a quadruped to a biped is just as hard."

"Certainly. I was really freaked out by fingers. I thought they looked like little skin tentacles sticking out of where my hooves were supposed to be. Once I figured out what they were for, they turned out to be pretty useful, but they still scared me for a long time. Then there was the whole clothing taboo. I almost got arrested for indecent exposure early on. Trust me, you don't wanna hear that story. Was it any harder for you to do the opposite?"

"Probably not. I had an advantage you didn't, since I knew a lot about the world where I was going. I knew I wouldn't be wearing clothes very often, but that was still kinda weird to get used to. And then, when I did get here, I spent the first few minutes instinctively trying to stand on two legs." He spread his wings. "It took me a long time to get used to using these, let me tell you."

"At least I didn't have to deal with any new appendages," Sunset remarked. "I did lose my horn, so I suppose that makes us even. I lost count of how many times I instinctively tried to lift something with my magic."

The two smiled again, before a knock at the door interrupted their thoughts. Swift got up and answered it, finding Fluttershy waiting on the other side.

"Hey there, Swift," said the pegasus. "I'm here to pick up Sunset. I-if that's alright, of course. I didn't come back too soon, did I?"

"No, no, it's fine," said Swift, sneaking a glance at the clock. Indeed, they'd been talking for more than an hour. "You ready, Sunset?"

"Sure," replied the unicorn, getting to her hooves. She trotted over to the door, then turned back to Swift. "This was really fun, actually."

"Yeah. Maybe we can do it again some other time," Swift replied. He was being fully honest, he'd enjoyed this experience.  

"Maybe. Well, see ya later!" Sunset and Fluttershy waved good-bye, then trotted down the hallway, Swift closing the door behind them.

As he walked back over to his desk, Swift breathed a small sigh of relief. As calm and fun as his talk with Sunset had been, he always left social interactions feeling tired. He wasn't sure why. He had no plans for the rest of the day, thankfully.  

He grabbed a blank journal he'd bought a couple of days ago, picked up a pen, and thought about writing in it. He'd tried journaling a couple of times back home, but it hadn't helped, mainly because he usually only wrote when he was feeling depressed, and then gone back and re-read the entries, which only made him feel worse. But today had been good. Maybe if he wrote something positive, he'd have something happy to look back on when despair tried to envelope him.  

Steeling himself, Swift set his pen to the paper, and began to write.