//------------------------------//
// I Am Sunset Shimmer 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


I Am Sunset Shimmer


The world trembled.
It probably wouldn't be long now.
Sunset could feel it, her own destruction. Time was hard to mark here, within the recesses of her own mind, but she guessed that Dawn had been in possession of her body for hours now, perhaps as long as a whole day.
Had it been so long? Yes, it had to have been. It had to have been at least that, because she already felt as though she'd been here for centuries.
There was nothing and no one. She was all alone. All alone and waiting to die.
To die, to sleep, to disappear from consciousness, to be absorbed into some gestalt, to become a part of Dawn Starfall, whatever exactly was going to happen to her. Sunset didn't know what it would be, what it would feel like. She could hope that it would be painless, more like falling asleep than bleeding to death, but all she knew was that Sunset Shimmer, as she had been, would cease to exist.
The mare who had once dreamed of becoming a great hero, of shining brighter than any star in Remnant's sky, would pass away, unnoticed and unmourned, unloved and uncared for.
Good. It was more than she deserved.
In such dark thoughts, Sunset languished, waiting for the end, waiting for her candle to be snuffed out, waiting… waiting.
And now, the world trembled.
Sunset took that to be a sign of the approaching end.
She was still on the train. The train, unlike the real one that she recalled, never stopped or reached any destination. It just kept rumbling on through the darkness, the rattling sound of wheels on rails echoing inside, not because there were any wheels or rails but because Sunset remembered the sound. The train just kept rolling on, carrying Sunset nowhere and everywhere, and the world shook.
Sunset's eyes were dry. Even within her mind, it seemed that she could weep all her tears away. And besides, she was no longer upset. She had… made her peace. She had had time down here, alone; there had been nothing to do but come to terms with the approaching end.
She had been a bad person and a worse friend. She had been selfish, proud, stubborn, cruel, vindictive, deceitful. She had used her friends and enemies alike. She had not been kind, generous, or honest; still less had she been forgiving. Loyalty was the one virtue that she could ascribe to herself, and even that was tempered by the selfish nature of her loyalty.
She had caused the deaths of good people like Yang and Professor Ozpin. She had driven away all her friends through her own faults and actions.
She had been quite simply awful, and that she was doomed soon to die was all for the general good. Cinder, Ruby, Blake, even Jaune and Pyrrha would be better off without Sunset Shimmer in their lives. She had no doubt that they would find some way to, if not defeat Salem, then at least to stay her progress and preserve the world of Remnant for the new generation.
Sunset had no doubt that her friends, so much better than she was in every way, would find the right path.
And, having no need of her, they would keep moving forward until they forgot her completely, and the absence of a fourth member of their team was little more than a curiosity unremarked upon.
Yes, yes, this was for the best.
Perhaps if she kept telling herself that, it would not pain her heart so, although Sunset was starting to doubt it, considering how long she had been repeating it, and yet, still her heart ached at the prospect of disappearing from their lives, no longer a part of their adventures, so little a part of the story that her name was not even spoken.
Perhaps Cinder will start wearing leather jackets to wordlessly evoke my memory.
That's probably about the best I can hope for.
Sunset climbed to her feet. The world shook so violently that Sunset was almost knocked off her feet and to the ground once more. The tremors were coming more quickly. Could it be long now? She wished for it to be over. Better to be snuffed out than to linger like this, torn between acceptance and heartache.
She did not want to rage her way into oblivion, but nor did Sunset wish to idle any longer here, waiting for an end that seemed increasingly and cruelly drawn out.
She knew where she wanted to go and who she wanted to be with.
Sunset closed her eyes and took a step forwards.
The sounds of the train vanished; only the low rumbling of the shaking world of her collapsing mind remained as Dawn claimed all that had once belonged to Sunset.
Sunset opened her eyes. She knew where she was at once, and not just because it was where she had wanted to be; she would have known Celestia's palace anywhere. This was the throne room, with the long red carpet covering the centre of the gleaming marble floor, leading past the great columns that held up the chequered ceiling, all the way to the raised dais and the stately throne that sat above it.
The throne was empty. The whole throne room was empty, devoid of guards and petitioners, of anyone but Sunset.
She had a little way to go just yet.
Sunset took another step forward, and as she walked, so she transformed, no longer a human but a pony once more. In her mind, the transition from two legs back to four was as swift as thought and required none of the adjustment that she had needed to get used to two legs in Remnant. She trotted forward, and as she walked upon all fours, the tremors of the earth barely affected her. None of them came close to knocking her down.
That was a side benefit of her transformation; the reason she had done it was because it seemed fitting that she should end as she had begun.
Especially considering who she wanted to end alongside.
The beat of Sunset's hooves were muffled by the carpet as she walked down the length of the throne room and out of the smaller doors at the back into the maze of corridors that formed the palace. A maze, to someone less familiar with them than Sunset, or to someone for whom this wasn't all in their head and existing entirely at their whim.
Perhaps because it was all in Sunset's mind, it didn't take very long to get where she wanted to go, passing through the empty corridors with their walls of gleaming marble and coming swiftly on to a doorless archway, with only a red velvet curtain blocking it.
Sunset hesitated, silent, waiting. She sighed, and her horn flared with a bright green light as she brushed the curtain aside and stepped out onto the marble balcony.
Princess Celestia was waiting for her, sat upon the centre of the platform, her long and luscious mane blowing in the gentle breeze that Sunset's imagination conjured.
The sky was dark. In Sunset's mind, the sky was bright and blue and cloudless, but that had not communicated itself, for the sky was black; not night black, more like a stormy darkness, a cloud obscuring the light. Probably another sign of the approaching end, like the vibrations beneath her hooves.
It didn't matter, because Celestia was the light; memory made her radiant as the sun, a shining figure of lustrous pearl, and her mane and tail were luminous. She looked around, a soft smile upon her gentle face. "Welcome home, Sunset Shimmer."
Sunset felt tears pricking at the corners of her dry eyes. "Thank you, Princess," she managed to stammer out, her voice choked and hoarse. She approached, each step carrying her closer until she was standing right beside the princess of the sun, looking up into her eyes of royal purple. "Princess, I…" She trailed off, unsure of how to say it. "I… I'm dying."
The world shook. All the spires of gleaming Canterlot spread out around them swayed and trembled.
Princess Celestia was silent for a moment. "Is that your choice?" she asked.
"Yes," Sunset replied. "And probably the best choice I ever made."
Princess Celestia did not reply, though her expression was solemn and touched with melancholy.
Sunset continued. "At first, I wanted to cover myself in glory," she said, "but even when all I wanted to do was help people… I couldn't. I just ended up making everything worse."
"Sometimes, our best intentions go awry," Princess Celestia reminded her, "but that does not change the fact that we have good intent."
"That's just the thing," Sunset confessed. "I… I'm not even sure how good my intentions were really." She screwed up her eyes tight shut. "All I wanted was to share my life with them."
She felt the feathers draping around her body, feathers softer than the finest silks in Mistral, warmer than the cosiest rooms in Atlas, gentler than Flash's most tender touch; feathers embracing her, drawing her close, pressing her against Celestia's body as the princess arched her neck over Sunset's and nuzzled her with her cheek.
"My poor little sunbeam," Princess Celestia whispered into her ear. "For all that you have suffered, I am so sorry."
Sunset did not reply at once. She simply remained, relishing the warmth and comfort of Celestia's embrace. "Will… will you stay with me, until the end?"
"Oh, Sunset, of course I will," Princess Celestia replied. She paused. "I know that you are a little old for it now, but… would you like me to read to you?"
Sunset nodded. "Yes," she whispered. "I'd like that."
"Very well then," Celestia said, and her voice was as soothing as a cool wind on a hot day. Sunset felt but, with her eyes closed did not see, Celestia pull her head away from Sunset. "A story of Clover the Clever? They were always your favourites, as I recall."
Sunset opened her eyes, looked up at the princess, and smiled. "Yes, please."
Celestia nodded, a smile upon her face. Her horn glowed golden as the sun as a book which had appeared from somewhere rose – similarly illuminated in gold – up towards her face. She cleared her throat. "The story of Clover the Clever and-"
"So this is it? You're just going to sit there and give up?"
Celestia's wing withdrew, allowing Sunset to turn her head around and behold of the source of the familiar voice. Sunset's eyes widened. "Amber?"
Amber was much taller than Sunset's pony self would have been, even standing, and she cast a shadow across the marble balcony. Just as when she had appeared to Sunset before the attempt upon the Pass of the Raven, she had no scars upon her face, although her clothing was familiar to when Sunset had known her – or known a part of her, at least. Her expression was grave, and she could not – perhaps she did not wish to – hide the disapproval on her face as she regarded Sunset. 
"Hello, Sunset," she said. "I wish that our meetings were under better circumstances."
Sunset climbed onto her hooves, turning around to face Amber directly. It felt strange having to look up at her like this. "It… it's really you, isn't it? You weren't conjured by my mind."
"Once a Fall Maiden, always a Fall Maiden," Amber murmured. "Yes, this is really me."
"But why?"
"You're sitting here waiting to die; why do you think?!" Amber snapped. "You made me a promise, Sunset. I walked into your dream, and we stood beneath the shadow of the mountains, and you made me a promise. You promised that you would find Uncle Ozpin and protect him from false friends and from enemies alike. Or does the word of an Equestrian gentlemare mean nothing now?"
"Use a little less pepper ere you chide me again!" Sunset growled. She sighed and looked down at her hooves where they rested upon the marble floor of the balcony. "I… I'm sorry, I just… I know that what I've done, or at least what I'm doing, must seem like a betrayal-"
"Because it is," Amber declared.
"If that is so, then it is oathbreaking for the best!" Sunset cried. "I have…" She felt tears beginning to well in her eyes again. "I would call myself a harbinger of ill fortune, but that would ignore the role my own decisions have played in these disasters."
"'Disasters'?" Amber replied. "'Ill fortune'? Is that what you think? Is that truly what you believe? Is that how you sum up all your efforts and your struggles? Or is that what you have been told to believe?"
"It is what they say," Sunset moaned.
"Where? Here?" Amber asked. "Of course the conjurations of your psyche love you not, for you do not love yourself. Where are your wings, Sunset?"
Sunset glanced behind her. Her flanks were uninterrupted amber coat, as they had ever been. "I… cannot imagine them."
"Can you not?" Amber asked. "After so many years of dreaming of the day you would attain them?"
Sunset cringed at the reminder of her youthful arrogance. "My wings were broken ere I gained them."
Amber was silent a moment before she took two quick steps forward in approach, kneeling down before Sunset and gently holding out her hand. Sunset stood still, neither speaking nor shying away, as Amber placed her palm on Sunset's cheek and gently stroked it.
"I've never seen anything quite like you," Amber whispered. "You are… incredible."
The corner of Sunset's lip twitched upwards. "I wish I had the enthusiasm to be flattered by that," she confessed.
"Oh, Sunset," Amber murmured. "You are so much more than you have let yourself believe."
"Ruby told me that she wished we two had never met," Sunset said. "That… that was not a conjuration of my mind; that happened. If I do not love myself, it is because there is nothing to love."
"Ruby speaks with more cruelty than she intends, and will realise it-"
"So I've been told," Sunset cut her off. "I am not so sure."
"And so, because of some hard words thrown in anger, you will give up?" Amber demanded, pulling her hand away. "Surrender your body and your magic to an invader? Die?"
"Why not, when living is such torment?!" Sunset yelled, as tears stung the corners of her wide green eyes. "Why must I endure through all the sorrow and the suffering? Why must I keep pushing onwards through endless mud and blood, accomplishing nothing? Why must I live for cold and unforgiving duty? Why can I not rest, as you are permitted to rest, and bring an end to mistakes and all their consequences?"
Amber was silent for a moment. Her eyes glanced down towards the ground. "You're right," she said softly. "I am at rest. I can see how that would make me more fortunate than you. Believe me, I know what you have suffered. I have watched you and Cinder ever since you freed the better half of me from her soul. I know that it must seem a pleasant option. But I am dead, Sunset; I will never meet anyone new who is not or was not the Fall Maiden; I have my cottage with Dove, but I will never fill it with children as I once dreamed of; I will never read any new books or learn any new songs; I am… preserved in amber," – she let out a little chuckle – "just as you see me now. It is an existence free from fear and pain and suffering, and thus, it is not unpleasant, but it is not living."
Sunset looked away. "I'm sorry."
"I didn't tell you that for sympathy."
"You have it nonetheless; it is my-"
"Nor did I tell you that so you might flagellate yourself yet further!" Amber cried, rising to her feet. "I told you that because… because you must live, Sunset."
"Live so that I may be hated by those I love?"
"Live so that you may change your fortunes and regain your place in the hearts of them that love you," Amber replied. "Death will only freeze your situation, Sunset; only by living can you improve it. And besides, your fears are all within yourself, not in the world; Cinder and Pyrrha, Fall Maidens past and present, love you well, and even Ruby I’m certain does not hate you. The only person who does not love you is yourself.”
“Even if that were true…” Sunset shook her head. "I'm tired, Amber."
"You have forgotten who you are," Amber told her.
Sunset shook her head. "I know who I am; I'm the one who ruined everything."
Amber was silent for a moment. "Will you come with me?"
Sunset hesitated. Then she glanced at Princess Celestia, still seated, looking out over the city, seeming to pay no attention to Amber whatsoever. "Princess, would you mind if we postponed the story until another time?" If we are granted time.
Princess Celestia smiled. "Of course, Sunset. I'll be here if you need me, waiting for you."
Sunset bowed her head. "Thank you, Princess." She looked up at Amber. "Lead on."
Amber turned away, and Sunset followed. And as Sunset followed, she was transformed again, no pony now but a human again, walking on two long legs that swayed uncontrollably as the world shook all around her.
Amber did not seem troubled by the vibrations, but as Sunset tumbled and collided with a column, clinging to it for support, she turned and said, "We don't have much time. Come on, Sunset, this way."
Sunset followed, forced to quicken her pace as Amber did likewise, until the late Fall Maiden had brought her back to the throne room, the place she had appeared in this palace.
Except it was not quite the same. The carpet, dais, throne, and columns were all present and accounted for, but the stained glass windows that lined both sides of the colonnade had been replaced with other images – images that Sunset found she recognised, even through the stylized representations in the windows: Amber herself, rising out of her glass coffin, looking like a creature of magic, radiant and aglow; Cinder, rescued from Salem's malign influence; Sunset herself, blazing with magic, destroying the grimm, Sunset couldn't tell whether it was meant to be Vale or King's Camp; Blake, wearing the uniform of Atlas Academy; Jaune defying Cardin, defying Sunset; Professor Ozpin writing to Princess Celestia; Adam dead, and his menace ended.
"You did all this," Amber reminded her. "These are the deeds of Sunset Shimmer, or had you forgotten?"
Sunset stared at them, her eyes flickering from one window to the next, bouncing across the room and then back again. "Blake earned her place in Atlas; I didn't do that."
"Blake might have died by the hand of Rainbow Dash if it wasn't for you, or else languished in a Valish prison cell. You found Blake and helped her, just as you helped Jaune, just as you restored Uncle Ozpin's hope, just as you saved me-"
"My motives then were never selfless."
"Whose motives are always selfless?" Amber asked. "Some people's motivations never are, but that does not make them monstrous. My motivations for coming here to help you are not selfless; I am not here solely for your benefit, but because I want you to stop moping around and help Uncle Ozpin, but that does not make me wicked, I hope, or change the fact that my advice is good."
“I don’t deserve to stand by Professor Ozpin’s side,” Sunset moaned. "He died without-"
"Because of you, he will be reborn with his faith renewed," Amber insisted.
“I… I suppose I have been useful, I suppose that I’ve tried to help where I could, but…” Sunset hesitated. "What… what would have happened if… if I had not been there? Could Ruby still be right, and things would have gone better without me around?"
Amber shook her head. "No one is ever given any story but their own, Sunset," she said. "But ask yourself, who could have saved Cinder except you? Who could have brought me back except you? Who could have destroyed the grimm before the walls of Vale, or at King's Camp?"
Sunset frowned. “Well, when you put it like that… no one that I can think of. But all the same, I-"
"Have made mistakes; of course you have," Amber allowed. "But not every loss in this war must fall upon your shoulders; Uncle Ozpin, Yang, even me, we all made choices, and those choices led us to our ends as much or more as anything you did. You cannot let others place the blame for all the evils of the world upon your back; still less should you do it to yourself. Yes, you've made mistakes, but only by living will you get the chance to make them right."
"Or make more of them."
"Perhaps," Amber whispered. "But at least you'll be there, fighting alongside those who mean everything to you. Isn't that what you want?"
"I don't know what I want any more."
"Yes, you do," Amber declared. "You've put it away because you were ashamed, because you felt unworthy, just as you were unworthy of your friends. You're hiding your desires, just as you hid your desire for friendship, love, and acceptance, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't there. Even when you were pretending that you could get by just fine on your own, it wasn't true, and your heart opened when it got the chance. Now, you hide your desires for fame and glory-"
"That's not who I am anymore,” Sunset said quickly, before she could finish.
"Then Sunset Shimmer is already dead," Amber replied. "Who stands before me?"
Sunset did not reply.
"Who stands before me?" Amber repeated. "And what does she want?"
“I’m Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset whispered. “Truly, I am, but I… I have been humbled, and so I will be humble all my days.”
“Wasn’t it you who said that we have nothing left once we surrender our pride?”
“Are you sure it’s only Dawn who’s been raiding my memories?” Sunset asked.
Amber chuckled. “There is no shame in seeking after renown,” she said. “Do not the oldest written tales venerate those who fought for no cause but reputation?”
“Those old Mistralian heroes aren’t exactly paragons.”
“Neither are you,” Amber said bluntly. “But the world is not divided between paragons and monsters.”
“I know it well enough,” Sunset declared. “But all the same…”
“All the same, to speak true, your desire for renown was not the cause of your poor choices.”
Sunset laughed bitterly. “No,” she admitted. “That was my selfishness and the fact that I loved not wisely but too well.”
"No one is told any story but their own," Amber repeated. "I cannot tell you what might have been had you been elsewhere, done otherwise. I cannot tell you who Ruby would have partnered with in the Emerald Forest instead of you, nor what would have been my fate absent your intervention. But I have a gift of foresight; I don't know where it came from, perhaps I inherited it from my parents, or perhaps I was blessed by the gods. It is not a power of the Fall Maiden, that much I know. I can see things, though I am not always blessed to understand the things I see. And yet it is clear enough that I see many battles more ahead, great and terrible encounters with the fates of thrones and kingdoms at the hazard. And I see your friends in the midst of all these battles: Pyrrha, Jaune, Cinder, Blake. All there, all fighting alongside Uncle Ozpin. All of them standing against the darkness. Will they stand alone?"
Sunset hesitated. Put like that, it seemed so obvious; of course the battles would continue. Of course her friends would fight on; they probably already did. They fought on without her now, but only because they were separated by distance and oceans. In future, they would fight alone because she had made the choice to abandon them, to leave them behind, to put her rest above their lives and the lives of all others.
Is it not rank arrogance to assume they will be dead without my help?
Is it not foolishness in the extreme to pretend that there is no chance that I could save them if I were to join them? 
If I give up my body, if I allow myself to die, if I become a part of Dawn Starfall, then I turn my back on Pyrrha, Blake, Cinder, Jaune, on all of them. I do not say that I abandon them to their death, but certainly, I leave them to the risk of death amidst all the hazards of the battlefield.
That is not the way of a huntress, even a weary one.
So, am I a huntress still?
She had made no oaths, and it was likely that she would never get the chance to do so. She had never completed her curriculum at Beacon, and she would never get the chance to do that either. 
But she had resolved, in that prison cell, to live as a huntress; she had given Amber her word that she would guard Professor Ozpin in his new and vulnerable state. 
And she had been prepared to abandon that, and why? Because Dawn said that it was for the best? Because she hated herself? Because she believed that the phantoms in her mind that chided her with such relentless wrath were the same as the real people?
Because she was tired? What kind of a lame excuse was that? Ruby had cause to quit the battle – she had found her family and a new place in the world – but Sunset? Sunset had nothing, but… nothing but head games and honeyed words and a weight she wished to be rid of.
More selfishness. Selfishness and stupidity, what is worse – and more demeaning. I’m such an idiot. 
An idiot who will have to make nice with the other Sunset and with Dawn so that they continue to take care of Ruby after I’m gone. 
And maybe make them something to defend Freeport with, as well, since they seem to feel in such need of it.
"Salem is on the move," Amber continued, before Sunset could concede to her earlier point or ask for her advice on how to deal with her other self.. "Vale was the first step but not the last. She stretches out the tendrils of her darkness across the world. Mistral, Atlas, everywhere will feel the touch of it ere long."
"Do you see so?"
"I know as much," Amber replied. "This is not the war that Uncle Ozpin fought for so long. This war will shake the heavens themselves and make of those who fight in it heroes to stand alongside the immortal names of the Mistraliad in song and story."
Sunset stuck her hands into her pockets. She would be lying if she said that the notion wasn’t tempting; she would be lying in the same way that she’d been lying to herself. She had done her best to burn all such ambitions out of herself, and they had burned… but when a fire rages through the forest, the ash simply fertilises the soil, waiting for the moment when new green shoots shall spring forth out of the earth. "When I was a girl in Equestria," she said. "When I was a filly, I should say, I… even when I dreamed of becoming a princess, I was… I was haunted by a secret fear that even if my dreams came true, even if my destiny was fulfilled, then… what need would a realm that had Princess Celestia have of Princess Sunset Shimmer? I feared to be a mere ornament with wings and crown."
"You are no ornament here," Amber told her. "You are the Grimmbane, you are the hero who saves heroes. You are Sunset Shimmer, and the world is threatened by a great evil. This is the hour for heroes if ever there was one. Will you turn away from the gravest of perils and the greatest of opportunities alike?"
"No!" Sunset cried. "Because I am Sunset Shimmer, and I will neither turn from my friends nor from my destiny. I will help them all, not as I did before but better, and I will protect Professor Ozpin as I swore to do, and I will redeem my reputation. In fact, I will do more than that; I will earn so many honours in these wars that the Breach and all my faults in Vale will be forgotten, buried beneath the gleaming treasures of reputation I shall win."
Amber smiled. "Now, Sunset Shimmer stands before me once again. We don't have much time-"
Sunset just about managed to keep her feet as the world shook once more. "I can imagine."
"No, not just that," Amber said. "Cinder and Ruby are in grave danger."
"What?" Sunset cried. "What kind of grave danger? Have you seen something?"
"Once a Fall Maiden, always a Fall Maiden," Amber reminded her. "That applies to Cinder too. I can keep an eye on her, just as on you, and I can see her peril. The Sun Queen has betrayed you and made a bargain with the servants of Salem; Ruby is to be put to death, and Cinder will be taken back to the dark fortress to be punished for her treachery."
Sunset's mouth hung open for a moment. "That little…" She was going to string the other Sunset up by her own guts from the rafters, and that was nothing compared to what she was going to do to Dawn. "And you!" she snapped. "You could have opened with that!"
"You had to want to come back," Amber told her. "Else you would have felt as empty as you did before and been just as vulnerable as you were to Dawn. Also, one more thing… they don’t remember you right now."
“WHAT?” Sunset shouted.
“I think they must have been made to forget somehow, but I don’t know how,” Amber explained. “I just know that Cinder suddenly forgot, and so did everyone else.”
“Well, isn’t that just… ugh,” Sunset groaned. “Okay. Never mind. I’ll deal with that… later. After I’ve wrung their necks to get them to tell me how they did it. In the meantime, let’s go save Ruby. Again.”