//------------------------------//
// The Final Choice. 
// Story: A Final Choice. 
// by overlord-flinx 
//------------------------------//

	The crystal mirror, gateway to the infinite possibilities of what may or may not rippled like clouded water as Twilight's hoof touched against it. The surface of the once solid glass wavered and splashing nonexistent water against the darkly lit room. From the small hole Twilight's hoof made against the reflective surface, expanding light shimmered from around her hoof and beat against the dark walls and against Twilight's eyes. Once the light touched her face, Twilight took her hoof back, momentarily remembering the sensation of fingers. If she had those fingers again, she would clench them once more and harden her resolve. Once more, she placed her hoof against the surface of the mirror. Only, this time, her hoof met against another hoof pushing hers back.

Twilight's eyes softened, her hoof planted against the crystalline floor, and she looked into the mirror; seeing not her own reflection anymore, but instead the reflection of Sunset Shimmer as her pony-self looking right back at Twilight with just as soft a look in her eyes. Twilight lowered her head, worlds of thoughts swirling within her head. And as Sunset Shimmer did the same, they both could see plain that either one of them had much to say.

When finally Twilight did speak, she was quiet in her approach, "Hello, Sunset Shimmer."

"Hello, Twilight Sparkle... It's been awhile," there were no words to be said to avoid what may be said as their meeting went on now; their eyes locked in a match of sorrow and grief.

"Yeah. It -uh... It really has. About two years..." Twilight laughed halfheartedly, trying to cut against what tension there could be.

Sunset Shimmer's muzzle turned to a smirk and she scoffed once at Twilight. "Eight-hundred and nineteen days... But who's counting, honestly?"

For that moment, they shared in a laugh. It was small, short, and perhaps forced on both sides... But it was a moment. "Sunset... There's something I've really been thinking about over these two years..." A moment that withered and died so that the purpose of meeting could grow. "But, it's something I will only say and offer once to you... Not because I'm 'feeling generous', or because I'm 'doing this as a reward' for you. I'm only doing this once because..."

Sunset Shimmer looked up to Twilight and saw she was holding on her words, paralyzed to admit what she had inside. So, Sunset opened her mouth and finished Twilight's thought for the both of them: "Because you yourself wouldn't want it offered to you a second time, would you?"

A simple nod came from Twilight as she collected herself and returned to looking at the reflection of Sunset Shimmer with purpose. "Right. Over these two years, I've learned a lot about you. About me... About a lot of things. But, I still have one question for you... Sunset Shimmer... Are you sorry?"

Sunset did not hesitate a moment to answer. The answer itself already clear to her after these thirty moons. "No... I'm not sorry for what I did..." Twilight sighed and looked down at the floor, only to look back up when Sunset Shimmer spoke once again, "I do, however, regret the choices I made and the horrible things I planned on doing. Not even for a second will I be sorry for what I did... But I wish I didn't do them. I wish..."

It was Twilight's turn to put words to Sunset's words as the other mare stalled on herself. "You wish you had known another way. Or, at the very most... Waited."

"Waited... Right. Waiting would've really worked out for me..." Sunset Shimmer spoke, malice burning against her words, "But... I've had a lot of time to 'wait' these past thirty moons... And I learned something from that time," she fixed herself and looked to Twilight Sparkle, "I learned humility from being stripped of power, a plan, and any way of plotting to power. For two years, I was completely humbled down to a human. Unlike the years before, people knew who I was and watched me for it... I didn't have anything above them any more. Because of all of that -all that time as just a human- I learned patience. How, with great power -the power every unicorn is born with- you can't speed through it and make it the best. You need to wait and have harmony with yourself... Harmony I never had inside me..."

"Until now," Twilight added, "Sunset, you've been away from home -your real home- for a really long time... And, while you were twisted with anger and bile when we first met, these past two years seem to have done wonders for you. That's why I came here... I want to offer you something."

"What would that be? A place in Canterlot again?" Sunset Shimmer, for the first time in their second meeting, gave a spiteful hiss and glare to Twilight.

However, that spite melted from her face when she saw something move from behind Twilight. Sunset's eyes narrowed, disbelief thumping against her heart and mind as Twilight's wings came out from behind her; one wing holding at the plume of its tip a shinning object against the dark backdrop around Twilight herself. It was an easy call to recognize with the golden wire frame and single purple gem as the head piece of the crown. Twilight's wing stretched out, not a moment's pause had as she offered out to Sunset Shimmer the Element of Magic. "Take this... And everything that goes with it."

Out before Sunset Shimmer was everything she ever wanted. The honor of the Elements, the promise of princess-hood, the greatest powers in all the worlds, and most of all: her final goal. Beyond her control, her eyes clenched tight and she started to shake her head. "If you take this now, you can be my student. And, someday, like Princess Celestia did to me, you'll be given princess-hood too. I would only give this to you, Sunset, because... Celestia, how different are we?" All the while Twilight spoke, small tears welled against her eyes and the crown against her wing shuddered.

"I could have been you. I could've grown up angry and selfish for more and more until it drove me to do what you did. My only difference is that I had my brother... I had Spike... and now, I have friends. Because of them, they kept me in harmony with myself. I know how painful it is to fail and understand why you did; but now having no power to change that. Celestia saw in me what she saw in you... Promise. It scared me when I thought about it. But if you had been in that school that day when that rainboom struck, maybe you would be here and I wouldn't. Maybe you would be wearing the crown and I would be behind the mirror. So... Maybe... You can have the second chance you always wanted... And the second chance I would have been begging for in your position."

"Twilight Sparkle..." broken, crackling, and now without restraint, Sunset Shimmer sobbed against herself and put her head firm against the floor, "I've only dreamed of hearing someone offering me a second chance. And here you are, giving me everything I've always wanted. But... I can't accept it. I won't accept it..." as best she could, Sunset Shimmer looked at Twilight Sparkle in her blurred, tear-filled vision, "That crown belongs to the ponies who earned it... It belongs to Equestria. And..." Twilight Sparkled watched silently as Sunset Shimmer's vision in the mirror turned back to a dull, flat reflection of Twilight herself, "...I can't go to a world that isn't my home."

Left alone against the dark crystal walls once more, Twilight dawned the Element of Magic upon her own head as small tears streamed down her face. "I know, Sunset... But, I thought I'd at least let you know I forgave you..."






"Our roles could have just as easily been reversed."

"...Or..."

"If things had been just a little bit better..."

"We could have been the best of friends."