With the storm battering the sides of the brighthouse, the heavy raindrops drumming against the windows kept Misty from drifting to sleep. It was her first night sleeping with all the new friends she had made in Maretime bay. Well, the first night sleeping anywhere that wasn’t her tiny room in Opaline’s lair. And somehow, she felt more uneasy than she ever had there.
All those nights alone there hadn’t been as bad as this. At least there she had the hope that she could one day escape and instead live amongst friends. But now that she is here? The pang of anxiety in her stomach just wouldn’t settle down.
She sat up in bed, glancing at the others in the corners of the room. Each of them had shown such kindness to her, despite what she had done. She tried her best to focus on what Sunny had said to her just before bed.
“It will take time, but you’re going to fit right in here. I promise.’
The warm glow that the Allicorn’s reassurance was quickly wearing off as the thunder rumbled outside. The anxious pit in her stomach deepened as the terrifying power of nature roared. The harsh shadows pouring in through the windows seemed to all be directly towards her.
Flashes of her betrayal of the others started welling up in her mind's eye. Most nights she was able to shut out images in her brain and replace them with those of joyful times she had since making her first friends. But tonight, each drum of the rain on the windows conjured up their expressions as she stood there alongside Opaline as she drained that baby dragon of its power.
None of this felt right. She didn’t belong here.
She silently slid out of bed, and went down the stairs as softly as she could. She quietly levitated the cloak onto her back, tying it tightly around herself as she went for the door. She needed to get out.
She needed to escape from here. Nobody here actually liked her.
Everyone only has me here because they think they have to. I don’t deserve to be forgiven.
As this thought entered her brain, she suddenly found her horn activating, magic coursing through it. It hurt. Alot. She could feel herself start to levitate slowly off the ground, with the table and chairs around her floating too. Something caught her eye, however. Instead of her usual magic colour, it was… cyan?
This was a mistake! What was she doing!
“H-HELP! HELP ME!” she called out as loud as she could, but it appeared she was blocked out by the sounds of the storm outside.
“P-PLEASE! PLEASE! SOMEONE! I’M SORRY! I DIDN’T MEAN TO-” she said, managing to let out one more loud wail before-
CCRRAACK!
She was gone.
Misty landed in a heap onto the wooden floor, bashing her hind leg quite badly. She let out a yelp of pain and tried to get to her hooves, but before she even had time to process what was happening she could feel herself get yanked into the air. It felt as if she was being held up by her hooves, which of course caused her cloak to end up covering her face. She struggled around to try and get it off, but froze as her apparent captor spoke up.
“H-How did you get here? What are you doing? Who are you? Did Twilight send you?”
“U-Uh! I g-got- I think i’m lost- I-I’m, my name is… T-Twilight?” she answered in a flurry, with her ear perking up a tiny bit at the last question. “A-As in Sparkle?”
“Who else?”
How did they know about the Alicorn Princess?
She felt the cloak get brutally ripped away, leaving her facing the upside down image of the red and yellow pony in front of them. Their hair twisted and curled around with its colouring making it almost look like a fiery blaze. Their cyan eyes pierced into hers in an act of intimidation, but she could sense the distress and sadness behind them.
“... W-Who are you?” Misty finally managed to get out.
“... My name is Sunset Shimmer.” she said coldly, moving a little closer to her. Misty let out a little squeak.
“G-Good to meet you! My name is Misty!”
She hung there awkwardly for a few moments.
“... Can you let me down now? I p-promise I won’t do anything! I’m not even any good at magic! H-Honest! I don’t even know how I got here!”
Sunset’s eyes narrowed, looking her up and down. Misty smiled back awkwardly.
“... Fine. Any funny business and you’ll be burnt to a crisp.”
Misty found herself greeting the floor in a heap for the second time in a minute. One more time and it would be a new record for her!
Rolling over to her front, she watched as Sunset moved back across the small room and onto the bed, where she used magic to float a book up to her as she started to read through it. Misty wasn’t an expert, but the runes inside made it seem like some sort of spell book. She was rapidly flicking through it, muttering to herself. Something about ‘Not what the spell was meant to do’.
Misty looked around the room. It was a small one roomed cabin with minimal furniture, a fireplace, and what looked like… a mirror? Looking out the window, she could see that it was still raining, but substantially less than by the coast. She could also see lights twinkling through the darkness. She moved up to the window to see that the lights were coming from crystals dotted around the forest floor.
“This is Bridlewood…” she mumbled to herself, and looked back to the unicorn on the bed. She had managed to visit bridlewood a couple of times, but she had never seen a Unicorn like this here. There was something almost… otherworldly about her. Sunset glanced over to Misty, which seemed to freeze her in place.
“Do you want something?” she asked shortly as a mug on the bedside table shimmered with cyan magic as it started to float to her lips.
Cyan Magic?
“U-Uhm… B-Before I appeared here, i, uhm… I started to float. A-And it was the same colour as your magic.”
Sunset stopped drinking, slowly lowering the mug, and eyebrow raised.
“Well that is… unexpected.” she said, her left eye twitching a little. She looked back into the book and started rapidly flicking through it. Misty’s stomach dropped a little as she saw her expression. It was one of panic?
“I-I’m sorry!” said Misty quickly. “I-I didn’t mean to do anything! I-If i did do anything! I d-don’t know if m-my feelings made things go bad and interfere with anything that you were doing-”
As she spoke of her feelings, Sunset stopped flicking through, and slowly met her gaze.
“May I ask… what emotions you were feeling?” she said with a surprisingly caring tone. One that she hadn’t expected to come from her.
Misty opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. Was she really about to spill everything to this random mare? She could feel tears begin to well up as the reality of her current situation suddenly slammed into her like a horseless carriage.
“I-I… I did something bad. R-Really bad. I-It almost ended up with an evil fire alicorn t-taking over all of Equestria. And this group of ponies… t-they said they forgive me but I know they don’t. H-How could they? After wh-what I did?” she said, failing to suppress the tears as they started to roll down her cheeks.
“A-And i decided to leave, and then I began to float, and then i… find… myself…” she trailed off as she looked back to Sunset, who was also… crying?
The pair of sad horses stared at each other, one with confusion, one with empathy.
“...” Sunset managed to compose herself enough to speak. “I-I can relate to that.”
“You can?” Asked Misty. Sunset motioned for her to jump up onto the bed, to which she complied.
Sunset took a deep breath.
“I-I’m not from here. From this time. I’m from… it must have been thousands of moons ago…”
Sunset explained her story. Her initial mentorship in canterlot with Celestia and her fall into darkness. Her plot to steal the element of harmony (which was a new concept to Misty), and then her defeat at the fall formal. Misty was staring at her throughout. She had heard the legends of the ponies mentioned, but had never heard of a Sunset Shimmer before. Then again, it was a long, long time ago. Sunset then got onto what happened after Twilight had headed back to Equestria…
“It was ok for a few weeks. B-But then… I just knew they didn’t want me there.” She avoided eye contact, instead looking at a book nestled away on one of the shelves. It had a strange purple star cutie mark that Misty recognised as Twilight Sparkle’s.
Misty stayed quiet. She needed to ask a question but she was starting to realise something.
“W-Why did you think that? I-If I’m ok to ask”
“I knew it. I-It wasn’t what they were saying. It’s what they weren’t saying, you know? When you just get that feeling that you don’t belong. That you don’t deserve to be forgiven.” She said whilst gazing sadly at the strange mirror in the corner of the room.
“That is horrible…” she said. She could feel the pain flowing through Sunset’s heart. It reminded her of her own pain and thoughts. She didn’t want Sunset to have to feel the same way she did.
“I-Its ok. I can feel your pain, too. You are going through something similar, right?”
“Y-Yeah…” she said. As a flash of lightning outside illuminated the room, so too did the realisation hit Misty like said lightning bolt.
“T-Thats why I’m here!”
Sunset had just finished wiping a tear from her eye as she heard her, causing it to drop back down to the bed.
“What do you mean?”
“W-We are the same! Can’t you see! W-Whatever spell you were trying to cast brought me here! I-It knew we could understand eachother! Feel eachothers pain! A-And maybe it-” she started to excitedly give her theory but was cut off by Sunset’s expression. One of deep guilt. Misty’s face also dropped.
“What… spell were you trying to cast?” Misty asked softly. Sunset took a deep breath.
“One to make me forget.”
Misty froze. No.
“F-Forget what?”
“All of my friends. S-So I didn’t have to deal with the pain I caused them.”
Misty’s vision went a little blurry as she stared at her. Sunset had already started crying again, but she was stopped suddenly as Misty placed a hoof on her shoulder.
“S-Sunset Shimminer.”
“Shimmer.”
“W-Whatever. Please… Do not use that spell on yourself. I-I have first hand experience of its effects. I forgot my own Father.”
“You… you what?” Sunset’s eyes widened.
“O-Oplaine, the fire alicorn, cast on me when I was just a little filly. It took me years to rediscover myself. And it hurt. I-It really, really hurt.”
Sunset’s eyes studied Misty’s face.
“Misty, I’m so sorry that… you had to go through that.”
“I-If it helps you not make a b-bad decision… then m-maybe it was worth it” Misty said, with a weak smile.
Sunset let out a growl and put both of her forhooves to her temples. “How could I have been so stupid… Some friend I am.”
“N-No! It’s not stupid! Y-You did it because you didn’t w-want to cause pain for others! A-And even though it was misguided… you were doing it because… you care.”
Sunset let out a little sigh of thought, before smiling. “I guess so… B-But hey! You aren’t innocent in that regard, either.”
“Huh?”
“You only left your friends because you thought that you were hurting them!”
Misty slowly nodded… that was true. Sunset looked back to the spellbook.
“I think in a technical sense… the spell I used didn’t work properly, and instead of casting it just brought the last target here to me. B-But in a… I don’t know… Fate sort of way?”
She looked back to Misty, cheeks rosy as she smiled.
“I-I think it brought you here for a reason.”
Misty nodded, returning the expression. “I think that we are e-exactly what eachother need right now. T-Thank you so much for helping me see.”
“Thank you, too.”
The pair let out an awkward laugh before embracing, squeezing tight.
Sparklesparklesparkle
It was Sunset who noticed first, but Misty was close behind. Their cutie marks had started to glow, and spectral images of their shapes rose up into the air between them, seeming to fuse together and combine. There was a great flash of daylight which dazzled the pair.
Misty was the first to open her eyes at the feeling of something landing on her head. Sunset let out a little cry as something seemed to fall on her head too. Both objects landed on the floor. The main body of the gem was an 8 pointed star shape. There was a marking on each face of the star; the imprint of a butterfly. Attached to the gem was a winged golden chain, making it seem like some sort of pendant to wear around one's neck. One had a red star and blue markings, the other had a blue star with red markings.
Both mares stared down at it; Misty’s confusion was juxtaposed with Sunset’s awe and wonder.
“No… Surely… It can’t be!” Sunset moved down and picked it up, examining them carefully.
“W-What is it?” asked Misty cautiously.
“They’re Element of harmony!”
“... A what?”
“I-Its an incredibly powerful artefact… it sealed away many evil doers over the years! I-Its even what turned me into that demon…”, she said awkwardly, ‘But this? This could help me protect m-my friends back at the school!”. Misty raised an eyebrow with a wondrous smile.
This was all happening so fast. The pair of them had just somehow created magical friendship gemstones?
To be honest, she shouldn’t be this surprised. Her former guardian had been eaten by a tree last week.
Carefully, the pair moved over, and placed the elements over their necks. As they locked in place, the pair’s eyes suddenly shone white as they suddenly floated up into the air. For a brief instant, their minds linked. Swirling pools of emotion and memories intertwined into one twisting strand of empathic DNA.
The two landed back onto the floor, both a bit out of breath, but both smiling.
“This is… this is Incredible! I can’t WAIT to tell Twilight all about it-” She paused, her ears dropping a little. “She’s probably so worried about me…” She looked back to Misty. “I need to g-go back to her. I should have never left.
“I need to go back too.” Misty looked out at the rain. She was giddy to show her friends her new drip, but the idea of turning up at the brighthouse like a soggy wet cat wasn’t appealing.
“... Tomorrow. That can wait until tomorrow.”
Sunset let out a little laugh, and stood there awkwardly beside Misty. Misty did the same. The two stared at each other awkwardly, both thinking the same thing but being too inept at friendship to initiate. Eventually, sunset rolled her eyes, and hugged Misty.
“I-I’m very glad that we met.”
“M-Me too.”
Attaching her element, Sunset moved upto the mirror, gazing into its reflective rippling surface.
“Uhm… G-Good luck.” Said Misty, carefully picking up her own element.
“You too.”
Sunset took a deep breath, and leapt into the mirror.
Misty was left alone in the cabin, the splattering of rain still dripping down on the roof above her.
She was looking forward to seeing her friends again.
And as one sun set, a new one would rise.