Sunset sat in the breakroom and sighed as she opened a bag of chips. Work at Spitshine Shoes was precisely as she remembered it, with customers leaving boxes around, shoes being left out of their boxes and discarded, and people leaving trash on the shelves as though they’d never heard of the concept of a trashcan. The only saving grace was that business seemed slow on her first day back to work.
On the morning after returning to the human world, Sunset sold some of the jewelry to a pawn shop and used the money to fix her car. On her second, she lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering what the point was. On the third day, she called Mr. Shine and returned to work.
She chewed on a few chips before her eyes tried to bore into the far wall. She wasn’t freezing anymore, and magic wouldn’t whisper its dangerous temptations anymore. Sunset was back where she belonged, where she couldn’t hurt anyone.
“Sunset.”
Well, that wasn’t true. Sunset had hurt plenty of people here before, even without magic.
“Sunset.”
Maybe she didn’t belong anywhere at all. Maybe Sunset should find a forest to live in, some tiny little hermit shack she could build for herself. It’s a shame homesteading laws stopped being a thing for a few hundred years here.
“Sunset!”
Shaking awake, Sunset turned to see Mr. Shine stare down at her with a soft look. “Hi there.”
“Um, hi, Mr. Shine. Sorry.”
“It’s alright. I just wanted to come by and check up on you. You look a little down, and I wonder if grandmother’s passing is the only thing bothering you.”
Sunset gave a soft smile of her own. “Oh, no, no, I’m fine. Just have a lot on my mind.”
Mr. Shine gave her a long look. “Sunset. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But there’s definitely something bothering you, and I want to make sure you’re alright.”
Sunset blinked before she turned back to the wall and frowned. “I… It’s…”
There was a long second of quiet before Sunset spoke up. “I…I just don’t…”
She didn’t have the right words for it, but Mr. Shine was caring, and that meant something. He always cared; he’d always marked down the birthdays of his employees and bought cake without a word being spoken by anyone. He’d gladly listen to her with no judgment.
“I…I had a bit of a fight,” Sunset said. “It wasn’t bad, but I think it’s best if I don’t go back home. I should just stay here.”
“Oh, Sunset.”
“It’s… it’s fine—”
“It’s not,” Mr. Shine interrupted, “and don’t lie to yourself about it, either. Losing your home is never something that’s ‘fine.’”
“I don’t know if it’s healthy for me to be there,” Sunset said. “It’s normal for people to leave places that aren’t healthy for them.”
Mr. Shine nodded. “I know, but you called it ‘Home.’”
Sunset paused and looked up at Mr. Shine, realizing her heart had broken apart.
“You lost something, Sunset, and that’s terrible, and I’m so sorry.”
“It’s…” she began before her voice quavered. “That’s not…I don’t…” Tears began to fall from her eyes as everything crashed into her. Terrible realization slammed into her. She wanted to be in Equestria. Not just to be there but to be there while being the new her. Sunset had her second chance, and she wanted to return Home and prove she’d become better.
She wanted it for so long. And now, after all this time, she killed the hope of returning with her own hands.
“I don’t know…what to do.”
Mr. Shine shushed her comfortingly. “I’m sorry, Sunset.”
Home had been ruined. Going back now, when Old Sunset stood stronger than she had ever been, would destroy whatever joy in Equestria she had left. Sunset desperately wanted to return, but it would only be ash after all this. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, heaving a sob.
“Sunset, Sunset,” Mr. Shine said, rocking her softly. “I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t tell you what to do.”
“I…I need to know.”
“Sunset, I can tell you only two things.”
“What?”
“It’s something my grandfather used to say. The more you tell someone about who they are, the less you need to tell them what to do. I know you are kind and strong and want the best for the people around you.”
“That’s not true!” Sunset said. “I’m a horrible person.”
“No, no. You? The girl who always drops everything to help her friends? You, one of my best employees? Never.”
“I was a demon,” she sobbed.
“When?”
“Before!”
“That’s who you were, Sunset, not who you are.”
“I can’t,” she wailed.
Mr. Shine hushed her again. “Sunset, why don’t you take the day off? I think you need to take some time for some soul searching.”
“You’re sending me home?”
“I’m just giving you some time, Sunset,” Mr. Shine said with a smile. “If you’re going to find out what you’ll do, you’ll need to determine who you are and who you want to be. That’s hard to do while giving our customers great service. So just take the day.” With one more smile, Shine left, leaving Sunset alone in the break room with her open bag of chips.
---♢---
Sunset pulled into the drive-through and gave her usual. “Number 1, medium, with lemonade, please.”
“Of course, that’ll be 6.44 at the next window,” the female voice in the speaker said.
The Burger Bliss down the street was her regular dinner-time haunt, but she decided they could put her lunch together since she had the day now. She pulled her car around, wanting to sulk over being told to leave, but too devastated by what Mr. Shine told her to really put her heart into it.
The cashier smiled as she approached the other window and handed over the payment. “I thought it was you!” the cashier said with a smile.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re normally here every other weekday. We haven’t seen you in like two and a half weeks. Did something happen?”
Sunset blinked. “Um…just…just some vacation.”
“Oh, did you have a good time?”
Sunset saw the Crystal Empire glowing with the dazzling lights of the sun. She stared down at the snow-covered north from the tallest mountain in the world. She felt the warmth in Flash’s smile as he tried to leave their past relationship behind them and saw the new her for what felt like the first time. How he cared about ensuring they were both safe in the wilderness made her smile.
The frown on Flash’s face when she told him she was returning to the human world still stung. The awkward morning after the fight rang in her head. The long train ride to Canterlot echoed in her soul.
“Well,” Sunset said before swallowing, “y-you know, highs and lows.”
“Well, it’s good to have you back,” the cashier said before handing Sunset her food. “I’ve gone ahead and upgraded your meal to the Heavenly Stack on the house.”
“Oh, well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome!”
Blinking, Sunset drove away, her emotions roiling from the sudden gift after reminding herself of her low points. She found herself at even more of a loss. All she managed to do was drive toward her house, thinking about everything, while she mindlessly chewed on a fry or two.
Her disappointment of an apartment awaited her, and as she parked next to the building, she found that her feelings hadn’t subsided. She went to her small pair of rooms and sat on the bed, still in a daze.
“The more you tell someone about who they are, the less you need to tell them what to do.”
How was that supposed to help? Sunset knew who she was. She was a pony that couldn’t be trusted with magic. How else could she put it? When she had access to magic again, she immediately started pulling other ponies’ minds into doing what she wanted. What’s worse is that when she wasn’t trying to pull puppet strings, she was just bad at doing what she needed to do.
She was only a better person when she didn’t have magic.
Laying down, she pulled out her phone to start mindless scrolling when she noticed it was dead. Going through the portal had down something to the battery, and the phone hadn’t decided whether it would hold a charge for days or empty in an hour. Grunting with annoyance, she rolled out of bed and moved to her desk.
With a press of a button, her computer hummed to life, and she plugged in her phone before noticing the Chaos notification.
She opened it and was bombarded with chats from her friends.
“There she is!”
“Sunset, jump on to voice chat. It’s been forever!”
“We’re celebrating Rarity’s Final Finals Week! The Final Final, which is actually final, unlike that game series that had like fourteen different ‘finals.’”
Sunset blinked before putting on her headset and heading into the chat room.
“Where have you been?” Rainbow’s voice said through the headset. “We texted you like a dozen times.”
“Between being in Equestria and my phone dying, I’m not sure it’s the best way to get a hold of me,” Sunset said.
“You were in Equestria?” Twilight asked.
“And you didn’t tell us?” Pinkie asked. “We could have thrown you a ‘have fun in Equestria party!’”
“You were all having finals,” Sunset said. “You just finished having finals. I couldn’t get in touch with you guys.”
“That’s fair,” Fluttershy whispered over the call.
“You need to turn up your mic, Flutters,” Rainbow said.
“I don’t want to talk over anyone, though.”
“Really though, I would have loved to know you were going,” Applejack said. “I would have asked if you could bring that apple from my counterpart’s farm. See which one of us is the better farmer.”
“I was nowhere near it, Applejack. Although, I probably would have preferred it.”
“What do you mean?”
Sunset sighed. “I…I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Uh oh. What happened, Darling, and how can we help?”
“I don’t know if you can help.”
“All the more to talk about it, then,” Rarity said with a smile that Sunset could hear.
Sunset sighed before glancing out the window.
“The more you tell someone about who they are, the less you need to tell them what to do.”
“I…I think I made the right call, but I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“So,” Sunset began, hoping the girls would be able to point out where exactly she went wrong with this whole thing, “I had magic back for the first time in a long time, and I had to use it.”
“Okay, makes sense,” Rainbow said.
“But…it wasn’t good magic. I had to change some memories to keep from being stopped or too many questions from being asked, and…I felt like the best thing to do was quit the mission and head home.”
“Really?” Rainbow asked. “What was the mission?”
“There’s a really dangerous artifact over there, and I had to find it and bring it back.”
“And you just quit?”
“No, I found it. I just didn’t get it for her. I let Princess Twilight know where it was. It’s not like I abandoned her.”
“That’s…I mean,” Rainbow began before trailing off.
“That seems unlike you, Sunny,” Applejack said.
“I had to leave, alright?” She said, her voice sounding more defensive than she meant it to. “I couldn’t keep working with magic that close to me. I could feel the…the old me coming back.”
“And you let that stop ya?”
Sunset’s mouth hung open. The casual dismissal of Applejack’s statement and the apparent expectation that Sunset should have also forced her to pause. Her mind spun in circles as it tried to comprehend what Applejack said. “What?”
“I’m surprised to let the old you stop ya. I would have thought getting the chance to curb stomp her again would have appealed to ya.”
Sunset blinked, still unsure how to respond.
“Sunset,” Twilight said, “I’m not sure if you remember, but you did transform into an angelic being that beat the devil version of me and closed multi-dimensional portals. I’m pretty sure you had access to magic. Not to mention the Everfree gemstones.”
“Those…those were different!”
“Were they?” Pinkie asked. “I dunno. The destructive power of explosions and confetti was pretty strong. I could have done a lot of mean things with it if I wanted to. I don’t know if reading minds is different from changing a thought or two, but you could be pretty evil with either of them.”
“It’s a huge difference!” Sunset said. “Abusing the ability to plant memories and thoughts into a pony is terrifying!”
“And did you abuse the ability to read minds?” Twilight asked.
“No, but that’s not the point!”
Rarity spoke again. “Sunset, I believe what everyone’s trying to say is that you’ve already beaten your old self. You don’t need to worry about her.”
“But I started manipulating ponies immediately! She was there again!”
“What kind of ponies?” Fluttershy asked, her mic still too quiet.
“What?”
“What kind of ponies were you lying to?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because if you were lying for the right reasons, I’d have to disagree with you. Sorry about that. I hope that doesn’t make you angry at me.”
Sunset stared at her computer screen again.
Rainbow spoke up again. “Look, if you’re worried about changing back into your old self, you can ask us if you’re heading too far off the deep end. We know that old hag better than anyone, and we know who you are. We can tell the difference.”
“The old Sunset,” Applejack said. “Lied left and right to hurt everyone around her. Now, you might stretch the truth a bit in ways I don’t necessarily agree with, but you’ve never tried to hurt someone with them. If I find out you’ve lied, I can trust that you thought it was the best thing to do at the time.”
Fluttershy spoke up. “I’ve watched you when you were your angriest. You’ve gotten really mad during video games, but I don’t think you could be that mean to anyone standing in front of you. Not anymore. You weren’t mean even when the whole student body was bullying you.”
“From the sound of it, some of the spells you cast weren’t even for your own benefit,” Rarity said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, dear, but did you change those memories for someone else’s sake?”
Sunset didn’t answer.
“I’ll take that as a yes. If so, then I can hardly blame you. It’s not like you changed the memories of hardworking ponies to get your way, was it?”
“N-no…”
“Then it sounds like you’re nothing like the old Sunset, Sunset. You’re doing what you had to to help, and the old Sunset would never have done that.”
“The only thing I can think of that was like the old you was that you left Princess Twilight to finish this on your own,” Rainbow said, “but like you said, you still made sure she had everything, right?”
Twilight spoke up. “I can’t really offer much. I didn’t know you this old you like the others. I wasn’t there, but the thing is, we know better now, don’t we? We don’t know what they were like, but also that they were liars. We know our old selves always tried to seem stronger than they were, and if we’re going to leave them behind, Sunset, we can’t start believing them now.”
Sunset couldn’t find any words.
She stared at her computer, mouth opening and closing as she tried to find something to say. An excuse? A rebuttal? An agreement? Sunset wasn’t sure what she was trying to say, but her throat wasn’t working whatever it was. She could only stare at her computer screen in stunned silence, trying to navigate everything the girls said. When she brought this up, Sunset had expected…well, she wasn’t sure what she expected, but not this.
She’d been a manipulator, a liar, corrupted by her old habits before she abandoned Twilight and Flash in their hour of need. The girls then turned around and told her she was kind, strong, honest, generous, and loyal despite everything. That’s who she was to them.
Even if she couldn’t feel it.
“Sunset, dear?” Rarity called.
She didn’t feel kind. Sunset knew better than to think she was honest, but her friends thought she was. And, even if she had already let Princess Twilight down, it didn’t mean she had to let the others down, too.
“I…I need to go. I need to go back.”
“Do you want us to go with you?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“No, no. You still have things to do. It’s my… it’s my responsibility.”
“Alright,” Rainbow said, and Sunset could see her nodding and smiling through the word. “That’s more like the Sunset I know.”
Sunset disconnected from the call and stood up. She spun on her heels, grabbed the book off her bed, and a pen from her desk before she started writing.
“Princess Twilight. I’m coming back.”
She tossed the book aside momentarily before picking up her phone.
Sunset made the call, and it rang twice before Mr. Shine picked up on the other side. “Hello?”
“Mr. Shine?” Sunset said, her voice shaking with…excitement?
“Yes, Sunset?”
“I…I need to go home.”
“Yes,” he said warmly. “Yes, you do.”
“I-I don’t know if I’ll be back.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. I’ll be waiting, though.”
She hesitated a moment, not sure what else to say. “Thank you, Mr. Shine.”
“I’m just glad you know who you are. Goodbye.”
“Bye,” she said, hanging up as the book buzzed on her bed.
“You’re coming back?”
Sunset smiled and wrote back. “Yeah, I have a job to finish.”