Sunset Shimmer shivered from head to toe and couldn’t hide it even if she tried. And she tried. If she could at all avoid her friends seeing her like this, she would. It came in spasmodic spurts, with only seconds of control in between, starting from her legs or arms and rocking up to her core. She took in shallow, longing-to-be-deep breaths to steady herself, but, as if to rebel against her, her body didn’t listen.
Sure, she could blame it on the chill leaking into the school now as if the thermostat system had been set to winter wonderland, but the boys weren’t trembling next to her, and since they were sitting outside the counselling office, it had to be pathetically obvious.
Flash and Timber were talking amongst themselves, hushed but not in a whisper. It seemed like they were including her in the conversation, letting her hear about what exactly Flash had to say in there. It made her love them for trying—seriously, on a level she’d only thought possible recently—but she also was a terrible listener at the moment, drifting in and out of her head only long enough to catch the outskirts of their conversation.
“... so I think I’m going to talk to my dad…” Flash said at some point.
“...some kind of emotional superhero these days,” Timber told his boyfriend, at another. “Like seriously, you blow my mind…”
“... and I guess, I dunno, I just want to help so bad…”
“... hey... Sunset?”
She startled. Wrapping her clammy hands around each other between her hospital-grade gelatin knees must’ve been a dead giveaway, but that didn’t mean she wanted it acknowledged. Somehow, that was even worse than having the whole school hear her thoughts. “What?”
Rather than pouncing on her with kid gloves, Flash waited beside her with a light, relieved smile. “Solstice helped me figure out why my power works the way it does. He’s good. I think we’ll finally have this solved.”
Sunset could feel the cold sweat between her jacket’s collar and her neck, but she nodded. “Okay. That’s great.” She hated how she couldn’t fake a normal tone.
Flash slid his hands into his pockets to shrug. “My dad taught me what soldiers do to calm down when I got really nervous for my fourth grade spelling bee. Combat Tactical Breathing. It’s good for nerves. If you ever had nerves.”
“Yeah?” Sunset asked. “Did you win?”
Flash stared at her for a second, the reels rewinding in his head almost so viscerally she could hear the sputtered squeal, and then he smiled. “Oh. I got third. They stumped me on the word castling because I thought it had an e in there somewhere, but I was super proud I could be so brave. My dad took me out for ice cream afterwards.”
Back when Sunset lived in a castle (with an e), while she technically could get ice cream whenever she wanted—technically meaning the palace private chefs knew her tricks and that she couldn’t have ice cream whenever she wanted by royal decree—but going out for ice cream with the Princess of all Equestria? It didn’t work like that, not when Sunset was little, anyway.
But her mentor did have an insatiable sweet tooth, so every now and then, when Sunset passed a practical pyromancy exam or scribed the right sigils in an alchemical formula, Princess Celestia decided to let the two of them eat cake in the throne room. Sometimes the Princess would even let her sit on the throne.
Sunset’s clammy, cold fingers massaged her forehead. “Your dad’s pretty cool.”
Flash took that as a permission slip to start monologuing aloud about tactical breathing: in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4. Of course, the music nerd in him counted it out like a 2/4 time signature. He even performed a demonstration of what that might look like, breathing to a beat of his own making.
Sunset let him. She thought she’d managed this breathing thing pretty well on her own all these years, she didn’t need a How to Guide. While the shakes didn’t stop entirely, she managed to calm them down to a level she hoped wouldn’t be perceptible.
Then, sooner than Sunset expected but later than she was hoping for, Twilight finally emerged from the office, thanking the counsellor on her way out. Sunset was almost too afraid to look her girlfriend in the eye. The door hung open after her like the toothy maw of a basilisk salivating strands of venom and ready to devour a fresh victim whole.
A new round of trembling burst to life in her legs. This time, she had no hope of hiding it.
“It’s been a pleasure,” the counsellor said. She assumed, to Twilight, but Sunset didn’t look over to so much as check, as if the act of looking would itself draw attention to her, and her shaking, pathetic form. “You’ve said you’re only here to support your friends, but… have either of you changed your minds?”
And Sunset would have been happy to continue staring off into the middle-distance, unreachable, but then, Timber Spruce slapped his hands on his knees, got up from his chair, and said, “You know what? Why not? Let’s get magical. I’ve got a few things to say.”
Sunset looked up then to see Timber send her a tired smirk before disappearing.
The shakes came thundering back up her legs.
What would he say about her in there? What were they talking about? Closing the portal won’t take long. Ray and Scruffles need me to bring them, I’d have to get them first. If I close the portal, is that it? Could anyone open it again? Would the connection be severed? Would the crack in the sky disappear? What happens here when it’s gone?
Sunset knew with a cold certainty from her lectures and studies on the Roots of Magic that there was always a source. An origin, a cause.
Sometimes, it could be tied back to a magically imbued artifact that meant a lot to somepony once, or runes so many moons old that ponies called them moon’s age runes, or significant places of sorcery and love; but most magic came from inside, like a lifeblood. Early scholars, relationship experts, and thaumalogians took that quite literally, in that if too much of a pony’s magic was taken from them, they’d die. Thank Celestia they were wrong on that front.
While Sunset knew magical understanding had come a long way since then, she’d seen the evidence that magic came from somewhere. So a world like this human one, with her friends, and Canterlot High, really all of North Amareica and whatever laid beyond (similar to the human economy, Sunset Shimmer understood little to nothing of human geography—and now she likely never would) ...
All of this beautiful, unpredictable, magicless world would go on without her. Any magic remaining would fade. Life would continue, unremarkably.
Sunset sat with that idea for longer than she was fully aware of.
She didn’t want to think about what that would look like for her friends, but she did.
She didn’t want to think about Twilight moving on, but she did.
In a small, cold place, she almost found herself excited for them. You go, girls. You’re going to be amazing.
The real problem with thinking about things she’d really rather not think about is that it, apparently, was a terribly effective way to pass the time. She didn’t so much as say a word to her girlfriend or Flash before Timber appeared in front of her, hand outstretched.
Sunset flinched and looked to her girlfriend, who sat beside her and, at some point, had taken Sunset’s hand, maybe to steady it. The little circles she revolved with her thumb stopped short.
Solstice emerged from the office and his eyes billowed a ghastly gas-like steam. The crackle of it startled Flash in particular who ripped out of his seat, but neither Twilight nor Timber reacted. Solstice waited for her like the ferryman at the perilous banks of the River Styx, lantern and steady smile at the ready.
Sunset knew she owed her friends this before she left.
So, with her friends at her back, Sunset Shimmer followed Solstice Shiver into his office for her very first counselling appointment.
The door shut the two of them in together. Even though his office was modest at most, Solstice guided Sunset to her seat on the purple couch. He laid a hand on her shoulder. Made sure she didn’t collapse on her way, which at that point, wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. “I want you to be as comfortable as you can. Let’s start there.”
Heart walloping against the confines of her ribcage, Sunset had to admit comfortable sounded so nice. Trying to stabilize one of her clammy hands with its partner, she nodded, mumbling, “Yeah, okay. Sure.”
That made him smile, teeth pale like a full-moon in the shadow of night. Combined with his still demonically slitted eyes, Sunset fought the thought that Solstice looked almost animalistic and focused instead on the gentleness of his voice. “You can zip up your jacket, my dear, I don’t want you to freeze.”
“Nah, I’m good,” Sunset said, even though the chill likely allied with her nerves to keep her a shambling, shaking wreck.
Solstice waved both of his hands. “Oh, no really, I won’t be offended.”
“Tcht. No, see, I’d be offended. It’s kind of my look, so...”
She gestured down to her open leather jacket in open rebellion.
It was odd to see a man with a doctorate pout. “But... it’s really quite cold. I assume, at least. It must be.” He double-checked a thermometer by the window and then nodded with himself. “Oh! Yes, that has to be frightfully frigid.”
She drank him in in full. It helped her own nerves to see the big bad opponent she was up against wore loafers like he was late for church service, wore his button-down not quite tucked into his belted slacks, and smelled like a coffee shop if it also used a wood stove. “Huh. You actually can’t feel cold?”
Solstice pocketed one of his hands. “Not terribly, no. You don’t feel your own balmy 97° body temperature but that would be a joyless heat wave if you projected it out onto, say, the entire atmosphere of the tri-state area around you.”
He wiggled his fingers in a downward motion, and lo, if Sunset beheld, a fine dust of frost twinkled down from his fingertips. He stopped to frown at his hands. “Heaven knows the central heating could use an upgrade with me around to challenge it, but well. Public school.”
Nodding along, Sunset hid her shaking hands underneath her thighs.
But Solstice caught that. “Really, are you sure about your jacket? I wouldn’t want you to catch a cold in my office, I’d never forgive myself.”
Sunset’s eyes went for a spin. “Think I’ll find a way to survive your office.”
Solstice paused long enough to stare at her jacket’s zipper, as if tempted to zip it up himself. If he had telepathy or the sheer force of will, all bets might have been off. With the steam still billowing off his demonic eyes, he looked much angrier about it than he probably actually was. Or maybe it really did vex him that much, Sunset couldn’t say.
Either way, he moved toward the kettle and basket of cookies. “Alright, it’s your decision. But speaking of dire choices: Can I at least get you anything? A hot beverage to keep warm?”
Sunset doubted the school counsellor would readily give her access to the type of beverage she really wanted to get through this. Fire down the throat always kept her warm, in a manner of speaking (especially if it was Nectar of the Gods, Sunset’s favourite Equestrian liquor; she’d never forget sneaking her first taste from the pools of Mount Olympus while on diplomatic missions with the Princess. Good times). She shifted on the plump couch cushion. “Tea’s good, if you have any. Camelmile?”
Whenever Sunset had an upset stomach—her codeword for nervousness or feeling upset, honestly—as a filly, Princess Celestia brewed her excellent tea. Trottingham chai, Zebrafrican rooibos, even a nice Griffonstonian oolong after a long day. It got to the point the sound of the kettle boiling in the hearth was enough to ease any irritation.
Nodding, Solstice smiled around his own shoulder, back at her, setting up the mugs, not unlike a bartender. The steaming tea trickled into the ceramic. “You know, you’re one of the only tea drinkers I’ve had. I’m a little surprised honestly, I would have assumed students would have the most refined palettes for caffeine. Truly, maybe they would if it wasn’t for StarBucks.”
His little wooden stirring stick whisked the cup in an erratic fashion. “Warping the minds of the youth with their overpriced... cake coffee. Oh, it sounds delicious, but what you’ve really gone and done is ruined a perfectly good pot of coffee and convinced swarms of innocent teenagers they’ve bought themselves a luxury item!”
He grumbled more into his own mug as he sipped to avoid an overflow before realizing; he swallowed his mutterings down with his coffee. “I have… a lot of feelings about beverages. Wine especially. But I suppose the point was that it’s nice to know I’m not the only ex-career student here.”
Sunset faltered. “I haven’t told you anything about myself.”
“That’s true. I apologize. I don’t know. Call it an educated guess, then,” he told her, carrying over her mug. “Maturity is usually hard-won, much like degrees and education. Or forgiveness.” Solstice offered a smile as he gave her the drink. “Your friends speak very highly of you, Sunset. Your story is something of a legend around here. You are.”
Sunset took the mug in her hands, heat seeping through ceramic, and took a sip. The warmth brought a little life back into her. “... Good tea.”
“Good. I’m glad.” Solstice took a grunting seat in the heather grey armchair opposite her, careful not to spill his coffee. “I know you may have never encountered a counselling office before now, so it’s perfectly natural to be a little nervous.”
“Yeah, for dumb babies maybe,” said Sunset Shimmer, proponent of counselling.
His lip quirked up and Solstice sounded like it was very hard for him to keep to a professional tone of voice. “Alright,” he managed, not laughing, “But even assuming someone was afraid and they weren’t a dumb baby. It would still be okay. We’re all prone to fear from time to time. Er, for instance, I’m afraid of the existential horror of losing control of my ‘demon’ half. And heights. I don’t do well with heights, not a fan.”
Would it be dramatic to say I’ve got a fear phobia? Sunset thought. “I’ve got a fear phobia. Only thing I fear is fear itself, you know? So if you’re wondering about your eyes, it’s cool, don’t worry about it. I’m not afraid of you.”
“O-oh, well, thank you. I... appreciate that.” The expression on his face might have been an embarrassed or uncomfortable smile, it was hard to get a read on. Especially because he still hadn’t dropped the demon eyes. “There’s a bit of a run-down before we begin. I always start by acknowledging the courage it takes to share your darkness. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and if everything were just, it wouldn’t ever. It’s something I’ve admired in you students.”
Nodding, Sunset almost smiled. She really could get behind this counselling thing if this was the message her friends would be getting from it.
“That said,” Solstice continued, wearing some reading glasses over his demon eyes now to run through some paperwork on his little clipboard, “the first session is usually for the purposes of intake so we can establish therapy goals to work toward during our time together. Usually being key. I trust it’s a bit different, given your circumstances.”
Sunset set her cup aside. “Yeah. My only ‘therapy goal’ is helping my friends.”
“I’ll do my best to help you achieve that, then.” Solstice handed her a waiver of some sort, complete with clipboard and pen. “Everything you say here is completely confidential. The only exceptions to that are if I’m required to disclose case-relevant details in a court of law, or, and this is important, if you pose an immediate danger to yourself or others. At which point, I would contact the proper authorities for safety reasons.”
Not that she had any plans on re-terrorizing the school or putting everyone’s lives in danger, but Sunset could almost hear the cell-doors clanking shut in front of her.
Whatever he saw in her expression, Solstice seemed to catch on. “Nobody will know what you’ve said here unless necessary,” he promised, taking his reading glasses off. “Do you have any questions about that?”
The authorities? Celestia, Flash’s dad would kill me if he knew I planned to leave Flash behind again. If Chief Magnus murders me, Flash might find out I’m leaving and try to stop me. “No.”
She signed her name.
Solstice took the clipboard back, looked once, and smiled. “Hm. Well, that’s a place to start.” He turned it back around for her to see, index finger tapping the wavy sun dotting the i. “I’ve seen this on your clothes or notebooks, even when you weren’t yourself. I’m old. I don’t recognize new brand logos, but if it’s in your signature, I’d think that’s personal, isn’t it? What does the sun mean to you?”
“Oh-ho, no. Nope. We’re not doing this, no,” Sunset said, arms barred across her chest like a luxurious stay at the Tartarus Juvenile Detention Centre. “I’m not here to talk about me, I’m here to help my friends change back.”
Solstice sat back. “And how far have you gotten by keeping everything to yourself? Aside from your phenomenal empath powers, the only thing you’ve told me is that you haven’t told me anything about yourself. Even if your reputation precedes you, you’re going to have to give me a little more to work with than that. So:” He tapped the clipboard twice.
Arms crossed. Sunset took in air just to sigh it back out like sand dragged back into the sea. “Force of habit, that’s all it is. That symbol doesn’t mean anything anymore.” She raised an eyebrow. “If you think this body switching problem has something to do with my old life, I hate to break it to you, but I would’ve known if I used to have the power to swap bodies.”
Solstice set the clipboard aside and the notion with it. “Of course you would have if it were that obvious, don’t misunderstand me, but the cause of this new power likely has its roots in who you are, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’d say magic in this world is emotion-based. Friendships create magical reactions because of the strong emotions involved. Playing music together is pretty similar. Or acting as your true self. The roots are how you feel.”
“Yes, precisely!” He leaned forward to the edge of his seat. “But the exact effect is dependent on you! Anyone can feel love for their friends, or joy, anger, fear—really, I believe you’re right, the intensity of your emotions correlates to the intensity of your magic. But if the power comes from you directly, it’s also my belief that exactly how it manifests is related to your individual psychology. Who you are, what those emotions mean to you personally.”
Sunset stared at him, mind tripping over itself with examples from the past year of her life. “That… wait, I think that makes sense. Did you just make human world magic not suck?” Despite herself, she laughed. “Tartarus, I should have seen it sooner! You figured all of that out by yourself?”
A stupid giggle bubbled to the surface. “I’ve had theories for years,” Solstice near-squealed, his eyes flickering back to their regular green, if only momentarily, and back again. “It wasn’t until I came here to help you students that I had any way of observing other samples besides myself! And the most marvelous part is I may have guided the students towards the answers, but they’re the ones to figure it out! And now they can learn to harness those powers for good! Emotional therapy meets magical theory!”
Sunset sat up straighter. “What the hell??? That’s so cool! That’s what you do in here all day? And you get paid?”
Solstice shrugged, with a blush visible above his sharply well-groomed beard. “It’s not a job that really existed when I was your age, magic counsellor, but you know. See a need, fill a need and all.”
“Huh.” A light smile started on her face like the flickering of kindling by a log.
He smiled back and then dove back into his notes, clicking his pen. “Right, then. Your feelings towards one Twilight Sparkle.”
Sunset’s pupils shrank. “My what.”
“Your girlfriend, I believe?” Solstice flicked his pen to and fro as he spoke with his hands. “She said she believed your dating history and, well, present might be involved. So I’ll ask a very general question: How do you feel towards Twilight?”
Rubbing her neck, Sunset could feel the sweat building back there. The metaphorical logs caught flame and caused a forest fire in her cheeks. She tittered. “We… we really don’t need to get into all that.”
He wrote something down. “Alright, no news is good news. You let me know if that Sparkle girl gives you trouble.” He looked up from his notes. “And how do you feel towards Timber Spruce?”
Sunset held her arm, shoulders tensing. “Don’t need to get into that, either.”
Solstice jotted something else down and the scratching of his pen was starting to eat at Sunset. “Alright, more neutral: how are you feeling today?”
“Seriously don’t need to get into that...”
“How do you feel when you use your empathic ability?”
“Oh, good question: Empathy! I feel empathy for people when I empathize with them.” She sat back, raised her hands behind her head and the only thing that would have made her more comfortable is if she had a table or stool in front of her to kick her feet up onto. “Got all you need? Fantastic, let’s change my friends back.”
The wind whistled outside.
“... Sunset? You know we’re not done.”
She dropped her arms, one lying along the back of the couch and the other hanging from it by the elbow, limb. Sunset glared off to the side. She forced the tremors to stop before they started again.
“I’m a counsellor,” Solstice told her. “Right now, I’m your counsellor. I’m not here to pry for details you’re not ready to share, but if you want to understand how to use this power, how to help your friends like you’ve said, you have to address what’s causing your role in this. Put simply, it would help me help you help your friends if you answered some of my questions.”
Not feeling too helpful, Sunset aimed a sharpened gaze his way like the business end of a fencing sword. “I’ve got questions for you, too, Doc. You don’t have to answer those?”
Solstice stared. The clock above the door clicked. A laugh broke out. “That’s not typically how counselling works.”
“But you’re not a typical counsellor, are you?”
He blinked and shook his head. “I have a unique specialization, you could say, yes.”
“Right, because there’s no university in the world that awards a doctorate in magic, but you did your best. Or demonology. But you did your best to study that, too.” Sunset sat forward, elbows on her knees. “You know what I’m asking.”
He dropped his animal-eyes to the floor, then back up at her, chin lifted.
“How do I know who I’m talking to right now? Solstice?” Sunset asked and tapped her temple beside her eyes, where the steam would billow. “The Lord of Shadows?”
He scoffed, shaking his head. “That was a ridiculous stagename I had as a teenager.”
“But you do have a demon form,” she said, voice low and rumbling. “You black out. Do you black out often?”
The wind picked up. “I would warn you if I did.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Can you still control it?”
He made a clawing motion with his upturned palms. “Don’t you think I am?”
“Can you even tell the difference anymore?”
“Do you think I’d risk all your lives that way?”
“Would you?”
Solstice stared at her. The clock above the door counted out, beating thickly, and he shut his eyes. Steam crawled out of them. When he opened them again, a green tinge marred the purple. “No,” he told her nearly soundlessly. “Never.”
Training her gaze on his eyes, Sunset’s grimace softened. “My friends and their safety come first.”
“Your friends are safe with me,” he told her, tapping his chest. The rims of his goat-like eyes glistened. “You’re safe here, Sunset. This is a safe space.”
Arctic winds blustered outside.
She nodded.
Considering the fibers of the plush rug for a moment, Solstice frowned. “You’re right.” Then, he stood up from his chair and made as if to offer it to her. “You are owed some answers.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Thought that’s not how counselling works.”
“Individual counselling works for the individual,” he told her. “I want you to feel comfortable here and if you’d be more comfortable asking me some questions first, I say let’s have at it!” He pumped an arm heartily.
Her rolling eyes came prepackaged with a smirk, getting up off the couch. Taking a seat in the counsellor’s chair felt almost ceremonious, but that was because Solstice half-bowed as she did. She laughed at him.
In the time it took for him to sit down on the purple couch, Sunset had her first question ready to go. “Alright, if we’re doing this, might as well shoot straight: What do you know about your demon half?”
Solstice cupped his coffee cup in between his hands. “Good question. He’s dangerous, but I suppose you’ve surmised that much already.”
Sunset nodded, gripping the arms of her chair.
“My magic is strongest when it’s based in fear,” he said, thumbing his coffee mug. “I’m a coward. Always afraid of this, that, or the other. And whenever I’m most afraid, he appears. He feeds on it. Perhaps not just my own fear, either. I’m not conscious when he is, so I don’t know the full extent of what he can do; but if he feeds on my fear to manifest, I have to imagine he’ll want more. I think… I think that’s why he attacks people in showy, impractical fashions. Snowstorms are just his way of throwing a fit. He considers himself quite the lead. Climactic battlefronts are his stage. Never give him one.”
Out of coffee, Solstice finally raised his gaze back to her. “You should also know he calls himself Sombra, the Latin word for Shadow. He’s a pretentious drama queen and you should never buy into his bullshit.”
“Tcht. Okay, maybe.” Sunset planted her cheek onto her palm. “But you’re way too hard on yourself for someone so cool.”
Solstice Shiver didn’t seem to know how to take that. “Cool?”
“Well, okay, you’re a giant dork, but you’re a good person. It’s amazing. You’ve got this horrific demon side you’re scared to death of, but you don’t let it hurt people. How could I not look up to that?” She blushed, and shrugged, looking away. “I-I dunno, it’s just cool, I could never do what you did.”
“Yes you could,” he said, but his tone said thank you.
Sunset laughed, pointing at him. “But, see? You care about people! You believe in them! You even believe in me.”
“Very much so,” he said immediately, without condition.
Tears welled in Sunset’s eyes. “Even though you seriously shouldn’t. But then, for some reason you do, and that… that feels… nice.” The breeze whistled outside. She chuckled at herself, rubbing her arm. “I haven’t had that kind of nice in a while. Any time I feel it it’s like wow. I’ve been missing so much.”
Even despite his eyes billowing smoke, his warm smile made her feel like they were sitting across from each other around a campfire. “I know precisely how you feel. I bought Bridleway tickets for two for the first time in years. I come to this school, and it’s overflowing with people like me.” He laughed, “It’s almost enough to make me think I’m as good as you say, if I might belong in a place like this.”
“Well, no duh, you belong. Of course you do.” The pressure in her chest released in a sigh, “I’m sorry, but you’re a good guy.” She shrugged, shaking her head at the circular rug. “Everyone I’ve met here is good. The students here are good. Their families are good. My friends are so, so good.”
Solstice nodded as he took an off-white, sealed envelope from the side table by his chair. He smiled at it. “You’ve cultivated quite the community.” He placed the envelope aside on his L-shaped desk to deal with later and returned to his seat.
“Yeah, and I love them. I really do,” she said, hunching in on herself. “And that’s a problem because I know I don’t deserve good people.”
Solstice grappled with the clipboard in his hands. “That must be painful for you,” he acknowledged. A gentle smile found its way back onto his face. “What would you think about exploring the source of that feeling a little deeper?”
“Horrified,” Sunset said without thinking, and crossed her arms. She was about to scold her counsellor for trying to counsel her again, but then, her breath caught and her eyebrows raised. “Wait…”
“It’s only a possibility,” Solstice admitted, hands raised to quell the thought. But he was smiling, and more broadly than Sunset was used to seeing from him. “I have other theories, one in particular I want to test. But I do think if you want to find out the origins of your magic with Timber, you have to find the commonality between you two. It’s not always so plain to see. That’s one of the main reasons I suggest individual appointments before group counselling: I want you to be able to say anything. I can help you decipher the connection from there.”
Sunset nodded, even if the sweat clinging to her neck shot shivers down her spine. “Okay… fine. If that’s what it takes.”
“Take your time if you need to think, but I’d like to start by honing in on what you said, just now: why do you think you don’t deserve the good people in your life?”
Not meeting his eyes, Sunset stared off into the grain of the floorboards as she accused, “Loaded question.”
But she paused. The clock filled in the gap.
Sunset grimaced. “You know, I wouldn’t have thought that before I came here. Not like CHS did it to me, like I used to be so damn conceited, I thought I was above everybody. I’m still honestly way more self-centered than I think my friends even realize.
“It’s hard to know where the line is, though. It’s not even just my past or my transformation into a she-demon anymore. Magic itself is getting dangerous. People get hurt. I can’t keep running away from that anymore, I have to face it head on because I’m not the only one it’s affecting. All the magic and every disaster it causes in this dimension comes from me.”
Solstice Shiver sat across from her, staring for a moment with his devil-eyes. “My… goodness do you ever sound like me. Er, it should also be noted that magical events did occur before you arrived at Canterlot High. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you didn’t create the portal between our worlds. I’ve also heard from other students about some rogue sirens that came to this world before you? And artefacts, like—” He checked his notes. “—A Memorial Stone? Sorry, Memory Stone.”
“Okay, maybe not all of it,” she allowed, rubbing her wrist. “But most of it started impacting people’s lives when I came through that mirror in the statue. You’re an exception, not the rule. Uh,” Sunset Shimmer found herself saying, “no offence.”
Solstice took another note. “None taken, my dear. I prefer it that way.” He looked up at her. “So before you came here, this egocentrism you’re concerned about, do you think there’s a reason that might have developed in the first place?”
“Well, that sun symbol in my signature’s a good place to start…” Sunset hesitated, watching him. “Do you know what a cutie mark is?”
The counsellor leaned forward in his seat. “Some sort of Equestrian hieroglyph? A unit of language?”
“Not exactly.” Sunset smirked. “You know, I don’t think I’ve heard you say the word ‘Equestrian’ before.” She could see even through the magic he hadn’t meant to let that slip. “How much do you know about the other world, anyway?”
“Scraps,” he said, tugging at his collar as he sat upright. “Nothing substantial until recently. Really, I’ve learned more in my time at Canterlot Highschool than almost twenty years of research on my own.” He shook his head. “I think by this point I have some grasp on the basics: I know there’s another world, parallel to this one. I know the magic from that world escapes. There’s a strange chaos in what it does to human beings—but I didn’t need anyone here to tell me that. Personally, what I find most fascinating of all is that, in a manner of speaking, you’ve escaped, too.”
“Escaped? Yeah I ran, but I didn’t escape—I didn’t need to escape,” Sunset told him, voice levelling out back to some kind of neutral to say, “Princess Celestia took good care of me.”
A pink flooded to the surface of his cheeks. “... O-oh. Oh that makes sense,” Solstice mumbled and cleared his throat. His eyes returned to their standard green, magic evaporating. “Sorry, I... hadn’t heard exactly what the other Celestia was like. Good for her. Royalty,” he said, sounded winded. “Your friends have mentioned your world’s Celestia, but always in relation to you. As your mentor?”
“Yeah, I was her protégé.”
“Protégé to a princess, goodness. You somehow find ways to be more and more impressive the more I learn about you. What was that like?” he asked, his eyes reigniting. Just as unnerving as last time. She glared at his therapising, so he waved a hand. “Remember: this is purely in the interest of helping your friends. There are methods buried in my madness somewhere.”
Sunset palmed a hand back through her hair, if only to do something with the sweat, then squirmed her way into a shrug. “It was... good.”
Solstice Shiver stared at her, eyes billowing steam. “Sunset.”
“Okay! Okay.” She watched the blizzard from the couch. “The Canterlot I come from is on a mountaintop. It’s gorgeous. I mean the whole city is built on these balconies next to a waterfall overlooking… entire countrysides, hills and valleys in all directions. And at the center of it all—and at the center of all Equestria—there’s a palace. Bigger, and more beautiful, than almost anything you’ve ever seen. And that’s where I grew up. That’s home. Princess Celestia gave me all that.
“And my cutie mark, which is this… representation of what you’re destined to do in life, what your greatest talent is—for me, it was like tattooing the word Special on a kid’s forearm, you know?”
When Solstice didn’t appear to know, she rubbed her neck, muttering, “Oh, right, I guess you’re missing some context here...” before raising her voice back up to say, “What you have to know is that I got mine for being a master of magic itself and that’s rare. Maybe not so much anymore, but I used to be one of the only ponies who didn’t just have a single skill I was destined to do for the rest of my life. I had potential. I had a kingdom of potential!”
Solstice poked his pen in the air above his clipboard. “So the Equestrians in this other universe, what would happen if they didn’t pursue this destined skill that they were most talented in?”
Sunset faltered, sitting back against the back of the couch. “... You can, but who would want to?”
He considered the ceiling and then laid out a hand. “Effectively what I’m getting at is, what would have happened for you, if you didn’t pursue this great, massive potential? If you had a perfectly happy life not doing what you thought you were destined to do?”
Sunset stared at him and laughed, “Uhhh, no, okay, you need more context here: everypony has a cutie mark because it’s what they’re best at in life. Everypony has something to offer by definition, even if I—” She rubbed her hand. “—didn’t always see the value in other’s talents as much as I saw in my own. But if you’re not an egotistical megalomaniac, you respect ponies for their passion. It’s an important part of who they are! The day every foal gets their cutie mark is celebrated—they’re celebrated.”
“If I’m hearing you correctly, Equestrians get their cutie marks… as children?”
“Uh-huh.”
He leaned his head to one side. “And they’ve then essentially got their lives laid out for them from that point forward?”
“That’s right.”
He covered his mouth for a moment, then finally said, “... And you don’t think that’s a bit prescriptive, rather than descriptive?”
Sunset waved him off. “You’re not getting it. I guess there’s a cultural barrier. I know the human world has this weird lack of destiny so maybe you’re not used to the idea, but in Equestria, where things make sense, the day you get your cutie mark… it changes everything.”
Solstice looked up from taking notes. “So the day you got your cutie mark, that made you who you are?”
“Exactly!” she said, like a teacher proud of their student. “I got mine early, too.” Sunset tried not to puff out her chest so much at that. “Before I got my cutie mark, I was scared of the dark. Stupid, I know. I couldn’t tell you why. I can tell you I lived at an orphanage, but I don’t actually remember living there. Not really. If I knew anything about my parents or my family back then, it’s all gone now. Who remembers preschool? All I have is…” Her eyes latched onto his. “Scraps.”
He nodded.
“What I know is I was little. Maybe I didn’t have anyone there to tell me it was going to be okay. There must’ve been a director or a caretaker during the nights, right? But even if there was, I guess I had to be pretty frightened. One night, I don’t remember why, but that night I panicked. I wasn’t about to go gentle into that good night. My magic must’ve reacted to that, but that night it did it in a big way, and the only way I’ve ever been able to describe what I did was that I kept the sun up with me a little longer.”
Solstice stared at her. “You had the power to move entire celestial bodies. As a child.”
Despite herself, despite everything, Sunset couldn’t force down the smirk on her face. “Okay, I should probably mention that it was one time, for less than a minute, and I felt like I was being crushed. Seriously, I was in infinitely more danger then than I was hiding under the covers from the dark. And for context, most ponies could never dream of raising or lowering the sun the way Princess Celestia does every day. That’s alicorn level magic. Regular old unicorns can’t do that.”
“Fascinating. How did you manage to lift the weight of the sun on your shoulders?”
Sunset stopped. She’d been asked how she managed to do it before, but she’d never been tempted to tell the truth. She’d always explained it away as some kind of hysterical strength or a burst of latent baby magic. But in reality? Nothing should have been able to give her that godlike power.
“I… I don’t know.”
The counsellor sat back in his seat.
Sunset’s hands shook in her lap, itself quaking thanks to her legs, and there was nothing she could do to hide it. “I-I’ve never been able to explain that much power. I used to try to tell myself it was because I was special, but I could never do it again. Maybe I stole magic from Princess Celestia. Maybe I’m that awful. If I did, I didn’t mean to—I mean, it was my fault, I chose to do it, but not like that. I just wanted the sun to stay up longer! I didn’t think I’d almost kill myself! I should’ve known not to, but when the Princess came to visit Her Majesty’s Home for Foundling Fillies, I got the stupid idea in my head that she should stay longer so somehow I just… I made her!”
Sunset brought her shaking hand up to wipe her eyes, to cover them.
Solstice offered her a box of tissues, which she took in both hands, staring down at it. She took a haggard breath rather than a tissue. “I don’t know what got into my head. But what I do know is that if you’re a foal and you stop the sun from setting, even for a short amount of time, you tend to get attention. A lot of attention.” She managed to steady her voice again. “There were reporters, I think. I have to wonder about the headlines, you know? Miracle Filly Stops the Night! or Little Nuisance Keeps All of Canterlot Up; Citizens Cranky! … probably depended on the paper.
“After Princess Celestia took me under her wing, I moved into the castle with her. She took seriously good care of me, I mean I never wanted for anything. Was she busy? Duh. She had a kingdom to rule. She can’t go around chasing after little fillies all day to look after them, but she and I knew where we stood with each other. I think. I mean, maybe that’s my stupid ego talking too, but…”
“You meant a great deal to each other,” Solstice provided, gently. “That much seems clear to me.”
“... Thanks.” She could feel the blush hotboxing her cheeks and couldn’t hide that either. “So, yeah. After I became the protégé to the Princess of all Equestria, everything changed. Everypony always knew who I was and what I was capable of. Power. Potential. Beauty. Tartarus, I needed attention so badly I thought I deserved a whole kingdom’s worth. I wanted everybody to see who I was. And they did.”
Sunset grimaced, speaking from the side of her mouth: “After a while, maybe I wanted that version of me to be who I really am.”
Reading over his notes, Solstice grimaced, as if pained on her behalf. “It’s more than understandable. Which isn’t to excuse or rationalize any of your behaviour that you feel came as a result of this inflated sense of self, but we’re our harshest critics. And you’ve been very adept at that. Listening to what you’ve said, it sounds like a lot of expectation to place on a child’s shoulders.”
Sunset shrugged and tossed the tissue box beside her on the couch. “Well, somepony had to: we had a war to prevent. Nightmare Moon, the demonic form of Princess Luna, was prophesied to return on the longest day of the thousandth year. ‘The stars will aid in her escape,’” Sunset recited, “‘and she will bring about nighttime eternal.’”
“High stakes,” he murmured.
She let out something between a scoff and a laugh. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“Why did it fall on you to stop that from happening?” he asked, considering her. “Because you theoretically could raise the sun?”
Sunset nodded. “That, and the part about the stars. That’s the most critical stanza in the prophecy, it’s the one that got reprinted in books all over Equestria. Sometimes that kind of prophecy can be metaphorical, it doesn’t have to be a literal star, but my cutie mark was a sun. These days we know the stars referred to Princess Twilight. Her cutie mark is literally a constellation of stars. It makes sense.”
Solstice perked up at that. “Oh, I’ve heard of this Princess Twilight. Among other things, she was involved in helping you overcome transforming into a she-demon, yes?”
“Yup. Stole her crown. Lured her to Canterlot High. Lied. Cheated. Failed. Got saved by my friends, including her.” Not that she’d ever dismiss the importance of what Princess Twilight did for her, but Sunset couldn’t get the words to sound right with the bitterness on her tongue. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “And now she’s about to be crowned Queen of Equestria in Celestia’s place, right where I thought I’d be. The kicker is she deserves it and I never did.”
“I can see how hard that is for you,” her counsellor said, scaring her to her core.
“Y-yeah, well. Her coronation’s tonight.” She shrugged. “All of Canterlot’s going to see what an amazing pony she is, if they somehow missed it already.” Her eyebrows tightened over her eyes. “I’m happy for her. It’s about damn time. And that’s all I’ll tell her because I can’t say the rest and still be the friend she taught me to be.”
“While it’s thoughtful of you to consider her feelings, you also know you have feelings of your own,” Solstice rephrased, listening. “Even still, given how many of your formative years were spent training to do exactly what she has, I’d say it’s only natural to be more than just happy for your friend.”
“The last thing I want is to be an ungrateful student again. And honestly, it was only ever a fifty-fifty chance I’d save the world from Nightmare Moon anyway. The stars aiding in her escape is where it either goes right or wrong. Back when I was studying under the princess, there were legitimate prophetic arguments that either Princess Celestia and I would stop Nightmare Moon together,” she bit her lip, then glared ahead, hollow-eyed. “... Or we’d doom Equestria.”
Solstice’s kind, understanding expression broke her heart.
Sunset rubbed her hands together, looking away before her eyes filled enough to drown her sight. “I tried so hard not to think about what would happen if I let everybody down.”
The counsellor got up and fixed her a glass of water from the cooler. He offered the glass out to her. “Your emotions aren’t something to be ashamed of, Sunset. If you need to cry, or express emotions you’re not comfortable with, you can do that here. That’s the only way to understand what’s hidden underneath them.”
Taking the glass in hand, Sunset looked up at him. “... What do you mean under my emotions?”
The counsellor clasped his hands in front of himself. “Sometimes what we feel is a symptom. Not always: Complicating factors like our genetics, brain chemistry, and circumstances out of our control play important roles and there isn’t any sense in denying that. But there can be other factors we’ve made secret to ourselves. In some cases, as massive and difficult and real as they are to deal with, the emotions we live with day to day are symptoms. Beliefs about who you are and the world around you are the disease.”
Ever the empath, Sunset could sense fear lingering in the air between them. Origins unknown.
“It’s courageous to share what you have so far and that’s no exaggeration. It’s the truth. I know your goal is to help your friends before yourself, and I’ll always respect any therapy goal you have. But as your counsellor, I would like to challenge you to think about that, and what it might mean to you.” He shifted, smiling broadly enough to reveal sharp incisors peaking out. “Because I do believe I have good news: I know how you and Timber Spruce swap bodies.”
Her eyes flashed, alert. She could feel her heart thrashing in her chest, warning her to run and run now. “What? How could any of that possibly be what we have in common?”
“It’s not the contents of your stories. You’ve lived entirely different lives, you’re rather different people, even as you share some loved ones in common, but magic, as you know, is about emotions,” he said, walking the length of the rug which meant dissecting the yin-yang design of it in half, then stopped with a smile that all but screamed, Why, it’s elementary, my dear Sunset! “How have you been dealing with your emotions?”
“Honestly, I… I haven’t.” Sunset’s brow pulled together.
The realization hit like a grenade lodged under the couch cushions she sat on. She shot out of her seat, exploding forth.
“Oh my—oh my Celestia! You’re right! Timber and I don’t deal with our feelings!” Somewhere deep in the depths of school, on the whiteboard with the circle of stylized heads meant to represent herself and her friends magical powers, Sunset could almost see the word labelling the line connecting her to Timber Spruce: Repression.
Or maybe, better yet: Emotional Escape.
Grappling with her forehead, Sunset Shimmer shouted, “Fuck!” She stumbled back, pacing. “This is all my fault. I-I’ve been doing it all along! Neither of us knew how to deal with each other at the restaurant, or Flash and him at our lunch table! I keep running from my problems. I still am, I—”
“I think it’s important to acknowledge that you returned to your body,” he told her. “As for your friends, I would have to have more appointments with each of them to discover if there’s a correlation between feelings they have yet to accept and the bodies they’ve wound up in. That can be left for another time. Let’s bring our focus back to you. The question then becomes rather deceptively simple: What have you been running from?”
Sunset’s legs felt unsteady underneath her. She grabbed her arms as the cold seeped through her jacket. The thermometer on the wall sunk to inverted heights. “I… I-I don’t know, I—”
“Yes, you do. I believe in you. Let me rephrase,” he said, and she found him standing on the other side, now closer to the couch than she was. “Why do you think you don’t deserve your friends?”
“Because I’m not good like them or the princesses,” she said, tone dead and buried low. “I steal magic and crowns that don’t belong to me. I’m a fraud. I’ve hurt my friends and the people around me, even when I’m not trying. I’m out of chances. I took them all and look what I’ve done with them. I’m still like a poison to them. Sooner or later, they’re all going to realize it.”
“Why do you think you think it has to be that way?”
Sunset shook her head, shoving her eyebrows together so hard it hurt. Her breath swirled visible in front of her. “All these disasters—the reason people need to come to you in the first place—that’s because of me! Magic isn’t supposed to exist here—I’m not supposed to exist here. Midnight Sparkle, Gaia Everfree—none of it happens if I don’t exist! No one’s demons have that much power. For fuck’s sake, Sombra never would have attacked them in the park! You attacked them because of me.”
Solstice Shiver froze.
She grabbed the opening of her jacket, pulling it together. “They shouldn’t have to go through that. No one should have to—they deserve so much better. They all deserve better.”
He covered his toothy mouth and stumbled back to sit in the armchair.
Sunset walked behind the armchair, stopping where he wouldn’t see her. Shaking her head, she huffed out a sound that couldn’t hold its anger. “I really wanted to leave before I let them down.”
She muffled herself. Eyes raised toward the stars that couldn’t aid in her escape. She blinked, eyes stinging and her skin with it in the cold. She roughly wiped her eyes before grabbing her arms and letting her eyes drop to the floor. “I’ll change everything back to normal and destroy the portal. And then I’m never coming back. I’m sorry if this is goodbye. It was nice knowing you, while it lasted.”
The clock froze solid on the wall.
“... Who do you think you’re talking to right now?”
Slowly, Sunset turned back toward him. The billowing steam almost obscured the one slitted eye staring back at her over his shoulder.
Her eyes twitched back and forth on him. “... Solstice?”
“How do you know?” he asked. “How would anyone know? I’m everything you fear you are. Is there any difference between us? There’s hardly an us about it, it’s all me. It’s always been me.” He gripped the sides of the armchair. “You need to run. I don’t think he likes your plan to take all the magic with you.”
Of all the times Sunset Shimmer had been given the chance to run, she’d never wanted to more. Her body screamed at her. Instincts like the sirens echoing in city streets before a natural disaster or impending attack.
Sunset stole nerves she didn’t have from somewhere else to stand in front of him. “Like hell I am. I know exactly who I’m talking to.”
The growl building at his throat tore at the nerves in her stomach, but she stayed firm. “Listen to me. This isn’t a suggestion like zipping up your jacket from the cold.”
“I did listen. You told me this was a safe space,” Sunset told him, hating the quiver barely concealed in her voice. “I know you. You’ve got more self-control than anyone I’ve ever met. You believe in people even when it’s hard. You’re dramatic and a good listener and you like coffee way too much for one person.” Startling, Sunset patted the air before rushing towards the coffee station. “Coffee. I can get you coffee!”
She seized a mug from the cabinet and shoved it under the nozzle of the coffee maker. The red light sputtered on, the sound of the internal mechanism working to boil the water. “Dammit, come on…”
Sinking in his chair, the counsellor growled again. “It’s not going to do you any good. You need to leave.”
“You don’t know that. You’re scared,” she said, nearly out of breath, looking for a sweetener, “I get it. You think I’m not terrified, too? You’ll be okay.”
Sunset could hear him muttering and at first, she thought he was talking to her, trying to get her attention, but it sounded low enough to be a conversation carried on purely by his lonesome. “Calm, peaceful surrender… calm, peaceful surrender…”
“That’s right.” Sunset nodded, grabbing his Bee Positive mug. “You’re in a calm field. Or on a beach—a-and there’s a seafront spa. There’s always a spa. And it’s peaceful, and you can hear waves.” She couldn’t find where the sound of ocean waves had come from the last time she was in this office. She suspected he must’ve played it off his phone. “You don’t need to fight anymore. You’ll be okay here. The students need you. This is where you belong. Stay with us. You’ve gotta take your girlfriend to Bridleway.”
Mug in hand, she came over to him and offered a mug of piping hot coffee. He took it in his hands, and drank as if from the River Styx or the River Lethe. While he did, Sunset staggered back, taking a seat on the purple couch.
She watched him. Come on, Solstice.
“Thank you, dear,” he said, chuckling lightly to her. He smiled, steadied. “I’m sorry you had to see me like this. It’s never been easy for me, you know, suppressing this side of myself... It takes a lot out of me to even make it through a day. But you kids,” he laughed, “you're remarkable! You're extraordinary. Unimaginable. You even have a word for it now… a whole school…” he said, sounding winded. “And if... and if they'd have me then... perhaps the demons of this world need a king.”
Sunset stared, breath puffing out in front of her. “You don’t want this. I’ve been where you are,” she breathed, shivering, “I’ve made this mistake.”
“Oh, I know you have.” The counsellor rose from his seat and ice crackled across the floorboards from every step. The temperature dropped to the arctic depths of mountainous heights. Outside, the raging storm beat against the fogging, fractalling glass. His hair flourished, dark and waving as if in an arctic breeze. “How many times, god only knows, but I know exactly who you are.”
Sunset went cold. The kind of cold she couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried. Every muscle in her body felt sapped of energy, urging her to rest, wait here, die here. If Solstice Shiver didn’t kill her, the cold would. She was running out of time.
“I never had a word for what I was when I was your age.” He spoke and stalked around her, graceful and lithe for a man old enough to own a doctorate degree. “But you have a lexicon, don’t you? Disappointment. Deserter. Letdown. She-Demon. Thief. Fraud. Poison. Quite the destiny you lead.”
“I…” The cold crept into her bones, her heart, her lungs, then into her empty, fateless soul. She lost the energy to grit her teeth. “You’re better than this.”
“Pity,” he marveled, teeth glistening, lengthening out of his mouth. “So precarious. A stiff breeze could send you into shambles. And what of your little friends, then, hm? Destined for disaster.” He cackled cartoonishly, delighted. If only he had a cape to flourish. “At least you’re finally self-aware, hm?”
A panting started and Sunset didn’t realize it was her own. Tears streaked. Her vision dappled with darkness and sparks. Maybe she was dying already. Maybe she’d never make it to the mirror at all. Maybe she’d die here. No destiny, no reason she wouldn’t. An empty future. No guarantee.
Sunset Shimmer knew she would die purposelessly at Canterlot High.
I’m dying... I’m dying…
Her chest imploded in slow motion, tightening. Panting.
Smoke rose from her eyes. “The portal… I have to—I have to close the portal…”
“Hushhhh,” he told her. “You’re in no condition. You’ve failed. But it’s alright. I’m always here to listen and I’ve heard everything I need to know.” She could hear the smile rise in his voice. “I’ll make certain everyone sees who you really are.”
Sombra set a hand on her shoulder. In the moments to come, the sickening dizzying moments, Sunset recognized by now exactly what he was willing her to do. Their connection and desire to suppress this moment strong enough, her and Timber Spruce’s magic responded in time.
Finding herself in the body of her counsellor, Sunset slumped.
She heard her own voice cackle in delight. “Well, well. Theory proven. The doctor was right.” He laughed maniacally at his own joke. “Fear does attract fear. A shame it’s consuming you, otherwise, I might invite you to join.”
“Join you where?”
“Where Sunset Shimmer belongs, of course. Ruining everything for those she loves most, causing fear and mass panic wherever she goes.” King Sombra popped the collar of his leather jacket. “It seems I have a coronation to attend.”
Shadows swallowed her vision as a demonic Sunset Shimmer left into the halls of Canterlot High.