//------------------------------//
// Share Your Life 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Share Your Life


The claws of Cinder’s feet tapped rhythmically upon the palace floor as she waited for Sunset to be done with Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight Sparkle. 
Princess Twilight Sparkle. It was something that she had known about for, well, for as long as she had known about Equestria, courtesy of Sunset, but even so. Princess Twilight Sparkle. It was rather bizarre. 
In fact, the whole thing was rather bizarre; the fact that there was another world was something that Cinder could accept readily enough – it was just one more wonder in a world of wonders – but what was harder to get one’s head around was the way that this world was populated by alternate versions of people who lived in Remnant. Another Starlight, another Rainbow Dash, another Twilight Sparkle. 
A Princess Twilight Sparkle, she had done well for herself hadn’t she? It was… well, it was hard to imagine Twilight Sparkle, as Cinder knew her, as a figure of power and authority in this world. And yet, here she was, with the wing and horn combination that seemed to designate one as a figure of power and authority. At least among ponykind. 
Sunset, of course, had the same combination. Thoroughly deserved, of course, but still… no wonder she could so easily give the powers of the Fall Maiden away to Pyrrha, casting Cinder’s gift aside like it was nothing. She had no need of it. She had so much more already. 
Cinder glanced at the palace door as her claws continued to tap on the floor. There was no sign of anyone emerging. 
Her claws tapped on the floor over and over again.
“Are you nervous about what they might be saying in there, or just impatient?” Starlight Glimmer asked. She was waiting with Cinder beyond the doors. She was the only one; Cardin was being entertained by the rest of Princess Twilight’s friends, or at least, they were trying. Currently Rarity was giving him a tour of the palace; Cinder hoped that he was enjoying it more than Rainbow Dash seemed like she would enjoy it. 
She hoped that he enjoyed himself here, while they were here. 
It was as well that one of them did. 
Cinder looked down at Starlight; she hadn’t asked for anyone to wait with her, but she supposed that she ought to be glad of the company; if she took better advantage of it, then it might keep her from dark thoughts. 
“Neither and both,” she muttered.
If Starlight did not understand her meaning, then she gave no sign of incomprehension. She sat down, folding her forehooves, and looked up into Cinder’s newly scaly visage. “It’s going to be okay,” she assured her. “Sunset is going to be okay. Whatever they’re talking about in there, I guarantee that it’s nothing bad. They’re probably just catching up on old times.” She smiled. “So relax. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To rest?”
“That is Sunset’s cause for coming,” Cinder corrected her, “and I am glad that she may, at last, take her ease and lay down her burdens for a little while, but… I will find no rest here.”
Starlight’s brow furrowed. “Can I ask you a question?”
“If you wish.”
“Where did you learn to speak like that?” Starlight asked. “My father is obsessed with antiques and ancient history, and even he doesn’t talk like that. It’s… I mean, it sounds nice – although I don’t know how I’d feel about anypony I knew talking that way all the time – but it’s… odd. Ruby didn’t write that way, and Cardin didn’t talk that way, and not even you or Sunset talk that way all the time, so… so what is it?”
Cinder snorted. A smile tugged at the edges of her mouth. “I… when I was growing up, my only friends were old books in the libraries of my father… and later, my stepfather. I had no… I didn’t have any friends-“
“If you want to talk like that, I’m not going to stop you,” Starlight assured her.
“I don’t put it on like a coat,” Cinder insisted. “Well, not all the time, at any rate. As I say, even when my father lived, I had no friends, and after his death… my stepmother scarcely allowed me out of the house. But they both had plenty of books to assuage my loneliness, even if my stepmother and stepsisters were none of them great readers; a grand library is just one of those things that you have when you are a noble Mistralian, you understand. Probably built up over many generations, as you can proudly tell your guests when you show them around. Nobody cared if I read there by candlelight or even by the light of a stolen dust crystal. Antique tomes were my teachers, and their heroes were my friends. From them, I learned how to speak… and even a little of how to behave.”
“Really?” Starlight asked.
Cinder chuckled. “I fear our literature would horrify you with how violent and bloodthirsty some of its protagonists can be, how they might be possessed of scruples, but many of them have no actual morals to speak of at all.” Another chuckle escaped from out of her scaly mouth. “There’s a certain irony to the fact that Pyrrha is held up as the last flowering of Mistralian greatness, a hero stepped out of history and legend, and yet, in temperament, she is so unlike a true antique Mistralian hero as can be imagined: thoughtful, slow to anger, considerate of others – their persons and their feelings – kind, humble… only in her personal loyalty does she compare. Conversely, that was the only way in which I was not a perfect Mistralian hero out of myth and legend.” She paused for a moment. “I wonder if that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t like her. I mean, I had plenty of reasons why I hated Pyrrha Nikos, and one of them was that I detested the adoration that the Evenstar received from those around her, but I never… I never thought of it in quite that way, that I was by temperament and nature more suited to the role by far than she.”
“I’m sorry to say, but that doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Starlight murmured, with a slight nervous laugh. 
“Oh, no, it wasn’t,” Cinder agreed. “I know that it was not, and I am no longer that person. And yet…”
“'And yet'?” Starlight asked.
“And yet, I was magnificent,” Cinder declared. “I owned the stage. I cast a shadow over the world, and great men lost sleep in pondering my actions. And now…” She glanced at the palace door. “Now I wait beyond the palace door, while great ones hold confidence without me.”
“It’s nothing personal,” Starlight said. “Sunset-“
“Is just catching up,” Cinder murmured. “Catching up with she who is as a mother to her, now that she has returned home.” She looked back down at Starlight. “If you want to know why I tap my claws, why I will find no rest here in Equestria? I am sure it is a very restful place, a peaceable place, a place where the flowers bloom and the birds sing and all good things befall good people, but it is Sunset’s place. Sunset’s home, Sunset’s birthplace to which she was returned, blessed with her birthright, this ascension that means so much to you and bestows such power on her. This is her place… a place where she could stay if she wished.” She had marked well the embrace that Princess Celestia had given Sunset upon their meeting; if Sunset declared that she wished to forsake Remnant and their struggle there, then she would not be denied, not by the princess who had embraced her so. 
“A place,” she added, “where I am even more disposable to her than I am normally.”
The frown on Starlight’s face deepened. “I’m sure that Sunset doesn’t-“
“I cannot help her in battle,” Cinder spat. “I could not rescue her from the captivity of her other self. I could not… I couldn’t even bring her down when she was lost in her demonic form. No, that was Ruby.” She almost spat the name. “Can I… can I tell you something in confidence?”
“Your secrets are safe with me,” Starlight promised, “and not just because you’ve asked me that. As far as I’m concerned, everything you tell me is in confidence, unless you tell me that it isn’t.”
Cinder bowed her head. “Thank you.”
“But what is it that you’re worried about getting back to Sunset?” Starlight asked.
Cinder once more looked towards the door, and this time, she was glad that it was resolutely shut and showed no sign of opening. She didn’t… she didn’t want Sunset to come out and overhear this; it would be… a little hard to explain. “I… I am glad that Ruby didn’t come with us,” she confessed. “I’m glad that she will not be with us for the next leg of this journey.”
Starlight’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Cinder implored her. “You don’t know what it was like. You and Twilight – Princess Twilight – you spoke to Sunset about Ruby, you spoke to Ruby in a book, but you do not know what it was like, watching her make Sunset miserable day after day, night after night, tormenting her constantly while Sunset… it was like watching a spurned dog chase after the master who beats it… or watching a battered wife crawl back to her husband.”
“You’re exaggerating!” Starlight cried. “You’ve got to be. Sunset-“
“Loves Ruby,” Cinder cut Starlight off. “Cares deeply for her, is devoted to her… add in a healthy dollop of guilt for Yang’s death – and even more guilt for everything – and you have… it’s hard to watch someone that you care about subject themselves to torment, to constant carping criticism, to incessant badgering and upbraiding, while all the inner light that drew you to them fades away and they become a shadow of themselves.” Cinder took a deep breath. “There were times when I wanted to slap that girl, or else grab her by the shoulders and shake her and yell into her face that Sunset is suffering, can’t you see that? To ask if she could not refrain from adding to Sunset’s burdens, for pity’s sake?”
Starlight was silent for a moment. “As I understand, Sunset-“
“Felt as though she deserved it,” Cinder grunted. “But no one deserves that, not from someone they love, no matter what they have done. But… of course, Sunset didn’t see it that way. She thought it was all deserved, and more. Even as Ruby was making her miserable, even as Ruby broke her heart, she couldn’t see it as Ruby’s fault, only as her own just desserts. That… that was what forestalled my intervention. That was why I let it go on, although my palms itched to prevent it. Sunset… Sunset wouldn’t have appreciated it; she would have… she would have taken Ruby’s side, not mine. She might even have sent me away.” She paused. “Does that make me a coward, or does the fact that I wanted to do it make me a bad person, in your eyes?”
Starlight took a moment to respond. “It makes Sunset very fortunate to have someone like you in her corner,” she said. 
Cinder would have smiled at that, if she could have believed it. Instead, she shook her head. “As I told you,” she said, “she doesn’t need me.”
“Not in battle, maybe,” Starlight allowed, “but do you think Twilight needs Fluttershy in a fight, or Pinkie Pie? It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t need them.” She hesitated. “Maybe… maybe if you told her how you feel, then-“
“Sunset is aware of my feelings,” Cinder said sharply.
“Is she?” Starlight asked. “Does she know how deep they go? Does she know what kind they are?” She smiled. “Listen… I get it. My… my mother died when I was very little. My father-“
“The one who is obsessed with antiques?”
“Yes, he was…” Starlight paused. “He tried. He was… devoted. Cloying. Clueless. We didn’t get on, or at least, I didn’t get on with him. But there was one pony that I could trust, one pony that I cared for, one pony who mattered to me more than anypony or anything else.”
“Sunburst,” Cinder said.
Starlight’s eyebrows rose. “It’s weird how you know me, even though you… don’t know me.”
Cinder chuckled. “It’s one of the downsides of having a doppelgänger in another world.”
“Yeah,” Starlight murmured. “So… in this other world of yours… I fight monsters? Under Trixie?”
“Yes.”
Starlight was silent for a moment as she considered. “Okay,” she said. “Anyway, where…? Oh, right, Sunburst, the one pony who… who I could rely on. The one pony who I knew would always be there for me… right up until he wasn’t.”
Cinder frowned. She knew that Sunburst yet lived in Remnant – at least, he had been alive the last that Cinder knew – but it was possible that that did not hold here in Equestria. Yes, life in Equestria seemed a deal less fraught than it was in Remnant, but at the same time, that did not mean that no one – nopony, as they put it here – could succumb to illness, or a snake bite, or an unfortunate accident of some kind. “Did he-?“
“Oh, no!” Starlight cried. “No, he didn’t die, thank Celestia. No, he’s still alive. He’s Princess Flurry Heart’s personal tutor now.” She sighed. “But his mother had plans for him. Grander plans than a provincial life in some no-mark town. And so, at the first sign of any magical talent, she packed him off to magic school here in Canterlot, far away from me.”
“He left you alone,” Cinder murmured.
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“But it hurt you, nonetheless,” Cinder said. “Did you… hate him for it?”
Starlight didn’t answer, which sort of gave the answer away as far as Cinder was concerned. She said, “I… may have gone a little crazy,” she admitted. “I… I couldn’t stand the thought of being left again, of being abandoned. So I found a spot in the middle of nowhere to found a village, and I stole other ponies’ cutie marks so that they wouldn’t be able to survive outside of the village.”
“Unable to survive?” Cinder repeated.
“Right, you don’t know how important cutie marks are,” Starlight said. “Cutie marks are… cutie marks… how do I describe this to an outsider-?“
“Your gift to the world?” Cinder suggested. “Sunset has described the concept.”
“That’s a way of looking at it, sure,” Starlight agreed. “More prosaically, cutie marks are what ensure that you can actually make it in… whatever it is. They’re what makes the dressmaker able to imagine a gown, they’re what makes the baker able to conceive of a sweet treat, they’re… without them, it turns out that ponies are pretty incompetent. Equal, in their incompetence, but still.” She paused. “That’s how I sold it to the poor ponies whom I lied to and abused: that we were going to make a town where everypony was equal, where nopony was better than anypony else, set apart by destiny, marked as special or inferior by a mark on their flank. I think I even believed it a little bit; after all, it had been Sunburst’s cutie mark that meant they took him away from me. But mostly, I just wanted to make sure that nopony could ever leave the village, because it was only in the village that the fact that they had no cutie marks was a good thing instead of making them an object of pity or derision. So they’d have to stay with me, in my little make-believe where nothing bad could ever happen.”
“Until Princess Twilight,” Cinder said.
“Until Princess Twilight,” Starlight agreed. “Until she showed me… well, first, she tried to show me that our cutie marks are, like you said, a gift, that they don’t set anypony above or beneath others; they give us the chance to combine our talents with those of our friends to… well, I didn’t listen to the whole speech, but I’m sure it was building up to something. And then, after that, well… once she was through with me, I wasn’t alone any more.” She smiled.
Cinder hesitated. “So… what’s your point?”
“Huh?”
“I’m not particularly seeing the relevance,” Cinder confessed.
"My point is," Starlight said, "that when there is one pony, and only one pony, whom you can rely on to be there for you when you need them – or even when you don't – then it's natural to be afraid of losing that pony, that person. But Twilight showed me that there are better ways to handle it, and it starts with being honest with Sunset about how you feel: about her and about your relationship."
"Easily said," Cinder replied. "But what if…" She trailed off. What if Sunset didn't feel the same way? There were times when Cinder was absolutely certain that there was something between them, a spark of which they were both aware; how could Sunset not be aware of it? How could she not realise that Cinder was flirting with the subtlety of a boot to the same, how could she not realise that she was flirting back? She offered to give up on her dreams and her friends and her whole life to dedicate that life to taking care of Cinder, and just how was Cinder supposed to take that?
But then there were also times when Cinder wondered. When Cinder worried, as hard as that was to admit; when Cinder thought that Sunset would have made that same offer to anyone who was in Cinder's position. And after all, the flirting had been before Sunset knew the truth about who she was and what she was fighting for, and since then, Cinder had put Sunset in some uncomfortable positions.
She can't say that I don't have some claim on her, after all that we've been through.
But so much of what we went through was my fault.
Sunset was… hard to understand, sometimes. Worldly and naïve at the same time. Intelligent and prone to foolishness. Not well-versed in romance. Not that Cinder herself was any better in that regard. Did she not realise? Didn't she see? There was something there, something between them, Cinder could feel it; it felt so real that she felt as if she could reach out and touch it.
But did Sunset feel it too? That was the question, wasn't it? Sunset, after all, had spent most of this journey… not exactly ignoring Cinder, but she had been relentlessly focussed on Ruby – as little as the latter had deserved it – and she had… she hadn't exactly pushed Cinder away, but she had encouraged Cinder to go away, in a sense. How much had she meant that, and how much had that been a misguided attempt to help her?
Sometimes, Cinder wished that she had Sunset's semblance so that she could use it on her and find out just what she actually felt.
"I know it's a risk," Starlight conceded. "I know that there's a chance that you won't get what you want. But that's what opening yourself up to others means: risking rejection for the sake of having something that's meaningful and real. But you have to take your armour off to do it."
"Did you?" Cinder asked.
"Hmm?"
"Did you take off your armour with Sunburst?"
A blush rose to Starlight's cheeks. "Uh…" She laughed nervously.
"That would be a 'no,' then?" Cinder suggested amusedly.
"The timing hasn't been right," Starlight replied defensively. "The last time I saw him was the first time we'd met since we were kids, and I… well, I'd done a lot of kind of dark and unpleasant things since then, and I assumed that he'd become a great wizard. I wasn't even sure he'd want to speak to me again, let alone… like you, I guess I thought he'd be so far above me that he wouldn't have any need for somepony like me in his life."
"I hope there's a 'but' to this story somewhere."
"Well, let's just say that he had things that he didn't want me to know about, the same as I did," Starlight said. "We're friends again. That's… enough for now, I don't… I don't want to risk it by pushing too hard, too quickly."
"But you want me to do it to see if it works."
"I'm content with the way things are between Sunburst and I," Starlight declared. "You're not."
It was phrased as a statement, not a question, and as a statement, Cinder didn't bother to deny it. What would have been the point?
She wanted to know. She wanted it out there, in the open between them, no longer couched behind suggestion or entendre or words, gestures, that could be interpreted in a certain way or not. She wanted to know how Sunset felt for certain, one way or the other.
She wanted… as execrable as the phrase was, she wanted to be able to move forward.
"Very well," she said. "I… I will tell her."
The doors to the throne room opened. Cinder started to get up, but it was only Princess Twilight who emerged, and she shut the doors behind her. She trotted over to them, her wings tucked in at her sides. She was… not the same, and not just because she enjoyed power and rank and authority that her human counterpart in Remnant did not. That alone was a difference, of course, and an admirable one, in Cinder's opinion; just because she had changed sides and repented some of her past crimes did not mean that she had suddenly reconciled herself to the fact that Remnant was a world dominated by old men – undying old men, in the case of Ozpin – whose decaying hands clung to power and wealth and all the good things in the world, directing the affairs of men to their own benefit. It was an odd thing to say of a world that was ruled – and ruled openly, not from the shadows as Ozpin had – by an immortal princess, but from what she had been told and what she could observe with her own eyes, Equestria was a world where the young could accrue great power, influence, and respect. There was no pony Ironwood here, no Lionheart nor Jacques Schnee. In fact, aside from the aforementioned immortal princess, there was nobody of any import above the age of about twenty-five.
It was all… rather liberating.
But that was not all that was different between Princess Twilight and her human, non-royal counterpart, and no, she wasn't talking about the differences of species and anatomy. An Atlesian writer – who else? – had once proclaimed that 'every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier,' and the human Twilight Sparkle had embodied the wisdom of those words, bearing herself as though a weight of shame sat upon her shoulders, weighing them down and keeping her from looking up at the sun. Princess Twilight was free from that, so free that it was inconceivable that she had ever felt it at all; she bore herself with confidence, her back straight and her head held high; even when she did not wear the crown, it sat invisible upon her brow, and yet, even that scarcely seemed to burden her – at least not presently.
But then, this was a land at peace with itself and with its neighbours; it was fitting that there should be little in the way of burdens felt by anyone.
"Where's everypony else?" she asked. "Where's your friend, Cardin, wasn't it?"
"Everypony else is showing him around," Starlight explained. "I said I'd wait here with Cinder."
Twilight smiled. "I see. I hope he's enjoying himself. I know that he's in good hooves." To Cinder, she added, "Don't worry, Princess Celestia just wanted a quick word with Sunset in private. They won't be long."
Not too long ago, to hear that would have pleased Cinder. Now, the approaching moment made her nervous.
Pull yourself together, for gods' sake! You are Cinder Fall; you have defied four kingdoms and all the power of Atlas!
The worst that four kingdoms and all the power of Atlas could do was kill me. And besides, I was at least partway to being Fall Maiden at the time. 
Not that the power would have helped her in this, but the magic – and all to which she had subjected herself in order to obtain the magic – had lifted her above all human weaknesses like nervousness and anticipation. They had cut her off from so much of the human experience that was so unpleasant to endure. They had made her feel strong, inviolate, invulnerable.
She could have done with that.
In truth, she ought to have done this long ago. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t recognised her feelings for Sunset; they had been clear – to her, if not to Sunset – as early as their battle against Doctor Merlot, if not before. But she had failed to act upon them. 
She had had reasons, at first; not least of which that she and Sunset were, if not enemies, then on opposite sides of the battle. And then she had been Sunset’s prisoner, but even after that, even after they had begun to work together, still she had shrank back, still she had hesitated. Why? 
Because she was afraid. Because she feared that Sunset would reject her, because she feared that she was not worthy to be loved, because she feared that she was not good enough for Sunset in particular, because she feared that someone who had done as she had done did not deserve such happiness. 
Because she feared that what she had done to Sunset, what Sunset had endured because of a decision that Sunset had forced upon her, constituted a wall between them that could not be scaled. 
And yet, she would have to try and scale it. She would have no peace otherwise. Though she might fall, yet she would have to try. 
"So, Starlight," Twilight said, with the unmistakable air of someone making conversation in order to fill up a silence, "have you decided what you're going to do about your invitation yet?"
Cinder looked down at Starlight. "'Invitation'?"
"Oh, it's nothing really," Starlight said, before a nervous laugh betrayed that it was, indeed, something. "I've just been invited to a celebration at my… at my old village." Her voice quietened noticeably as she added that last part.
Cinder frowned. "The village that-"
"That I stole all their cutie marks and made them dependent on me, yeah," Starlight confessed. "I can't imagine why they want me back either." She bowed her head. "I don't know what to do."
"Maybe you should try practicing a little of what you preach?" Cinder suggested, her tone sharpening just a little.
The doors to the throne room opened again, and Princess Celestia and Sunset – Princess Sunset, Cinder supposed she ought to refer to her, but it was nigh impossible to actually think of her that way – emerged through the doorway, side by side.
There was something about Princess Celestia that made Cinder simultaneously want to recoil from her and bow before her at the same time. Bow before her, because this was someone who could make you accept the despotism of an immortal autocrat in the knowledge that it was a benign and enlightened despotism. There was a gentleness to her movements, a lightness to her tread, a calming delicacy about her that put all fears aside and calmed all doubts. She wore the crown as though she had been fashioned for it, the golden adornments that she wore seemed as much a part of her as wings or mane or tail. Just to look at her was to see one who had been destined to rule, and it was wholly proper that she should do so.
And yet, at the same time, Cinder also wished to recoil before her, before the light that shone from within her; in the presence of the princess, she felt a creature of darkness, of shadow-filled and slimy places, unfit to stand in such a place and such a presence. Someone fit only to be viewed with revulsion by such beings of light as Princess Celestia was.
And yet, Princess Celestia did not appear to regard her so; a soft smile sat upon her face and did not waver as she drew near. Rather, it was Sunset who seemed touched by nervousness, who could not look at Cinder, whose steps were awkward and a trifle halting as though there were something wrong.
Perhaps there was something wrong, but if harsh words had passed between Sunset and the princess, why did Princess Celestia seem so free of discomfort?
"Sunset?" Cinder asked. "Is something…?" She glanced at Princess Celestia. "Is something wrong?"
Sunset hesitated for a moment. "I… well, I… I have something to tell you," she murmured.
"What a coincidence," Cinder said. "I have something to tell you, as well." She smiled. "Do you want to go first?"
"Not really," Sunset muttered. "Can we… can we leave it, for just a little while? It will keep. For now… can we just… be?"
Cinder, having decided that she was going to speak to Sunset about this, was somewhat anxious to have it done and said and decided one way or another; but it was clear that, whatever Sunset wished to say, she wished all the more to take pause before saying it, and so, therefore, Cinder smiled and said, "Alright, let's just be."
And it was nice, as Sunset and Princess Twilight and even Princess Celestia herself acted as her guide around Canterlot. Princess Celestia herself! The ruler of the land, the senior diarch, the absolute and unquestioned mistress of Equestria, walking around the streets devoid of guards or attendants or any other signs of rank other than the radiant raiment which she wore, pointing out this or that little detail, this place of interest or that lovely view. It was… baffling, alien almost. It was not the sort of thing that one could imagine the Steward of Mistral doing, for all that he was not called a king – nor even a prince. It was something that Cinder imagined would grate even on some Atlesian councillors, the sort of thing that they would do only in a desperate attempt to demonstrate the common touch. And even then, they would only do in Atlas, never in Mantle nor the lower slopes of Mistral. 
But as Cinder was led around Canterlot, she got the distinct impression that there were no Mantles here in Equestria. Well, obviously there was a Mantle, but even the brief glimpse of it that she had gotten as they passed through it to their waiting pegasus chariot – a flying chariot, of all the ways to travel – had given Cinder the distinct impression that it was a far more pleasant place to live than its counterpart in Atlas: a mining town, yes, but devoid of the toxic smog, the grinding poverty, the rapacious profiteering the devoured souls and ground up bodies, the myriad problems that disfigured Mantle and shamed Atlas. These rather ridiculous-looking creatures, though they shared the names of humans, had somehow managed to do so much better, to avoid the mistakes that men had made. 
Maybe that was why they shared names with humans: to shame them by association, to hold a mirror up to them as if to say ‘you could do so much better! You could be so much more!’ Yes, they had magic, yes some of them could fly, but even so… look at what they had built. Look at what it was possible to achieve by those who were willing to raise their horizons and come together. 
It underscored, for Cinder, what wretched creatures humans were, that ponies should outdo them so. 
Cinder had seen Canterlot as they flew in, and even as they flew, it had seemed a fair city, a shining city, a true radiant beacon, all that Atlas aspired to be and yet was not, thanks to the foibles and the follies and the flaws of men. Yet now, as she walked the streets, she saw it with fresh eyes. Though it was a city built upon a mountainside as Mistral was, there was no sign of any lower slope here. Rather, the city seemed to shine from root to tip, the high towers of brilliant white rising to catch the sun, the spires of gold gleaming in the afternoon sunshine, the banners streaming in the wind.
As they walked the boulevards and the alleys, as they paused to admire the statues and the fountains, as they watched the fish in the ornamental ponds or to gaze admiringly upon the flower beds, Cinder found her gaze drawn back, over and over again, to Sunset. That was not to say that she was not paying attention to all the wonders of the city that were being shown to her; she was, and she noticed much about Canterlot, like the way in which ponies were surprised to see their princess but at the same time not so surprised as to suggest that this was something abnormal. It was a treat for them, one that set them to bowing and scraping in a way that made Princess Celestia seem uncomfortable for reasons that Cinder could not explain but which made her feel like she was probably morally inferior for not understanding, but it was not alien to them. They were not shocked to witness it. Clearly, Princess Celestia was not a stranger to her subjects, a name without a face handing down decrees from some remote and lofty seat. They might respect her, but she remained a part of their lives also. 
It was an attitude to power that Cinder would probably not have adopted, had she ever ascended to greatness, and yet for all that it was alien to her, she found herself drawn to it. After all, so much of what ponies did or built or had done was that which men ought to aspire to; why should not this be the ideal of governance and rule? Just because she could not quite understand how anyone, or anypony, could wield such power and not wish to laud the fact over others did not mean that it was not how power and majesty ought to be wielded. 
Far from it, like as not. 
And yet, over and over again, her eyes turned even from Princess Celestia to Sunset Shimmer. Sunset, who commented on all the things that had stayed the same and pointed out every change, Sunset in her natural state, Sunset who belonged here. Sunset who was home. 
Sunset, who was home and had no cause to ever leave again if she did not wish to. Sunset who could stay. 
Sunset, who had no need of Cinder. 
She had to tell her. She had to tell Sunset, honestly and with no dissembling or obfuscating or aught else. She had, as Starlight had counselled her, to bare her heart, with all her armour taken off and thrown clattering down. 
She had to tell Sunset that she wished to share her life, from now until life ended. 
And hope that Sunset felt the same way.