Starlight sat on the roof of her cabin in the woods. It was very late at night, with a faint glow showing where the sunrise would eventually occur. She was laying back, wrapped in a blanket and looking up at the stars when Sunset flew up to join her. The changes to her ears and the addition of functioning wings appeared to have been permanent.
“Hey pony gal,” Starlight said with a smile, looking over at her.
“Hey pet human,” Sunset said with a smirk. “I just got back from the hospital. Mary Jo and Ellen are conscious, at least part of the time. They don’t appear to have remembered anything that happened. I’m all in favor of not telling them.”
“I agree fully,” Starlight sighed. “The poor girls… I… I’ll do my best to help them, make sure they can grow up and survive on their own, but I don’t think I’m the right person to adopt them. Maybe Claire will bond to them more…”
“Yeah,” Sunset said simply.
“What about Marcus?”
“Well, the legal system doesn’t know what to do with him. Anybody from Milwaukee and the surrounding area will believe what he did, but the court’s in Madison, so…”
“So he gets off with nothing?” Starlight asked indignantly.
“Well, there is the matter of that homeless man he used in his ritual, Howard. Marcus is currently in custody for his murder. I’m hoping they can make that one stick, but with no body, my hopes aren’t very high.”
“Then I’ll make sure that he can’t get his slimy hands on any magic,” Starlight said as she looked back up at the stars. “That’s the least I can do. That’s the best I should do. Anything else and I’d be playing by his rules, not mine.”
“I’m way ahead of you—especially since I know you can’t do that, and I can. The police let me have all the time I wanted with him. I think they expected—and wanted—me to kill him, but I just sealed him off from all forms of magic, Earth and Equestrian. I think I might have taken away his sense of smell while I was at it, but that was absolutely not intentional. I am no sadist.”
“You did all of that...looking like that?”
“Well, no,” Sunset admitted. “I figured I would have to spend too much time explaining the ears and the wings, so I shut them off.” She settled down on the roof for the first time as those features disappeared. “I figured out that being an alicorn is kind of like Legos—there’s a bunch of pieces, and you can take off the ones you don’t need any time you’d like.”
“Go back,” Starlight instructed her.
“Alright,” Sunset said, obeying as her wings blossomed back into being behind her, before the change continued past just her wings, a horn shimmering onto her forehead and hands blunting into hooves, golden fur spreading across her body [Though many people, mostly horse people, would point out that it is a coat, not fur.] and she came to rest on all four hooves in front of Starlight, fully a pony and fully an alicorn.
Starlight gasped and reached out to touch her cheek, feeling Sunset as she actually was, not as a human disguise forced on her.
“You’re beautiful,” Starlight whispered.
“You’re something special yourself,” Sunset said gently, rearing up to give Starlight another kiss.
Starlight felt herself filling up with Equestrian magic, and something akin to pure joy. She pulled back to see a bemused smile on Sunset’s face.
“I think they look good on you,” Sunset said, summoning a two-foot mirror in existence to show Starlight her new pony ears.
Starlight was very wide eyed indeed as she beheld lavender ears which, when she reached up to touch, flicked slightly at the contact before she stopped them from moving. They peeked up through hair that was now multiple tones of purple, instead of brown and black, and she felt like it suited her very well. She looked from the mirror to Sunset with a laugh and a few tears in her eyes, kneeling down to pull the pony into yet another hug.
“I swear,” she giggled. “I’m going to dye my hair like this forever. From now on. I love it. So, why didn’t you make me a full pony?”
Sunset shook her head. “It wouldn’t be you, just a pony doppelganger. This is you, the way I’ll always remember you.”
Starlight slowly smiled, leaning back to look at her. “I knew I liked you for a reason,” she said softly. “Shame you’re leaving. You have to.”
“Yes,” Sunset said simply. “Equestria still has a problem, and arrogant little me is still convinced that I’m the only pony who can fix it.”
“And I can’t go with you,” Starlight concluded with a sigh. “Because… as much as I love the idea, I think I’m needed here more than ever. I’ve got to look after the twins, care for my cult, those that have come back at least… And maybe I can actually do some good here in my own world… In your world, I’d just be in the way.”
Sunset, who had realized this fact days ago, frowned. Seeing so intrinsically cute a creature so sad was heart-breaking to Starlight.
“And arrogant little you is probably right,” Starlight said quickly, to keep Sunset from thinking too much about their upcoming separation. “What puzzles me is why you took so long. Isn’t your world dying or something?”
Sunset nodded. “It is. And that’s the important part: it is. Marcus’ drain of the magic of my universe was never actually felt by any creature, because it happened between moments of time. That’s because the universes are disconnected; with your magic I can connect them together at any moment I want in Equestria’s timeline. All that causality demands is that it be after I left. But there’s no reason I can’t go back to a millisecond after I left.”
“So you’re really going back then,” Starlight said, sadly.
“I’m sorry, Starlight, I really am; my universe needs me to save it. It’s the only reason to ever leave your universe, really: to save it.”
“Even this one?”
“Even this one. Starlight, you’re human, and you need to embrace that. Imagination is your superpower. It’s so much greater than mine. And it’s infinite. Sure, as a species you’re good at imagining the darkness, because with your limited senses darkness is so much easier to see. So many of you are corrupted by that darkness. But you are saved by your hope. And when I return to Equestria, hope is what I’m taking back with me.”
Starlight smiled as she turned and put her hand very carefully on Sunset’s cheek. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”
“I doubt it,” Sunset said, leaning into the hand. “My arriving at this universe was an immense cosmic accident. I’ll have no way of getting back here once I leave.”
“Then…”
Starlight scooted closer, and very cautiously kissed Sunset on her big pony lips, before wrapping herself around the pony in a hug, curled up against her on the roof of that little cottage in the woods.
Sunset wrapped her wings around her, holding her close.
“Go save your world,” Starlight whispered. “Before I try to make you stay.”
Sunset looked over Starlight’s shoulder at the rising sun. “I promised you a song first,” she whispered, before gently pushing her to arm’s length.
“Oh I could hide, ‘neath the wings, of the bluebird as she sings,” she began, raising one of her own wings for emphasis.
“The six o’clock alarm would never ring. But it rings, and I rise. Wipe the sleep out of my eyes. My shavin’ razor’s cold, and it stings.” She accented that line with a smirk and a wave of a leg, telling Starlight something she didn’t know about her morning habits back when she was a human.
“Cheer up Sleepy Star. We can go so far. With a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.” She pointed to Starlight as the former, and herself as the latter.
“You once thought of me as a white knight and her steed. Now you know how happy I can be. Our good times start and end, without dollar one to spend. But how much baby do we really need?”
“Cheer up Sleepy Star,” the two of them sang together. “We can go so far. With a daydream believer and a homecoming queen.”
Under Sunset’s magic, Starlight found her own voice changing to be just as beautiful, and a perfect counterpart, to Sunset’s own singing voice.
And the looks they were giving each other. It was true: they were brainwashing each other. Two addicts drugged up on the song, hoping that if they overdosed, at least it would be together.
The rest of the song was just the chorus, repeated ad nauseum. But neither of them seemed to mind.
In a fairy tale, dead time doesn’t exist. Something exciting or dangerous happens, and the next thing happens right after that.
In reality, it took two days to get from the cabin back to the school with the statue of the rearing horse. They used trains, buses and a taxi. And nearly the entire time they were surrounded by strangers, so they couldn’t really be themselves. Even in the hotel rooms the walls were so paper thin that their neighbors would start inserting themselves into the pair’s conversations.
Finally, during another sunrise, the two of them were standing in front of the statue.
Sunset was wearing a trench coat, and nothing else. She didn’t need Earth possessions in Equestria, and she wasn’t sure that any of them would even survive the trip. With no one around, she manifested her ears and wings. She spent a few moments running her hands over the sides of the plinth she had emerged from, strengthening its connection with Equestria as much as she could.
“I’m sorry no one was here to rescue you when you came through,” Starlight said, taking her sunglasses off.
“I’m sorry too,” Sunset said, turning to face her. “I was forced to experience the worst of humanity before I was allowed to glimpse the best.”
“I think a lot of us got it in that order,” Starlight said, wiping tears off her cheeks before nodding. “Don’t forget Hope. Don’t forget the good we did here. If you do ever find your way back here, know that I’ll always be waiting to hear from you, number in the phone book, magic on the wind.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Sunset said, reaching over to take the newspaper tucked under Starlight’s arm. “I need to know when to reconnect the worlds.” She opened the paper to read the headline: Nationwide Protests Force President Nixon to Resign.
Starlight gave it to her, and tilted her head curiously. “You’re saying if you mess it up, you could end up coming back far far in the future, if at all?”
“Or before you’re even born. The two are equally possible.”
“Well then… I hope you find your way back to me sometime soon,” Starlight sighs. “Goodbye, Sunset, and good luck.”
“Thank you,” Sunset said, mentally preparing herself. “I’ll never forget you, Starlight Glimmer.”
“And I’ll never forget you, Sunset Shimmer.”
Starlight stepped forward and gave her a quick chaste kiss on the cheek, before stepping back and turning away. There was a flash of light and a whooshing sound, and then...silence.
Starlight stood there for a bit, watching the trees outside the school blow in the slight wind, and then finally she looked back, verifying Sunset was gone before she put her sunglasses on and walked away.