Chapter 5
Different
Sunset Shimmer stared up at the blank ceiling of the hospital ward. It was the only place she could look without feeling embarrassed.
The doctors wouldn't let her out. They said her magic wasn't recharged enough yet. So she was stuck here, in this bed, in this room, in this hospital.
That wouldn't have been so bad, if only Twilight's friends hadn't kept sending her stuff.
The reason Sunset had to stare at the ceiling was because she didn't know where else to look. Everywhere she cast her gaze, there was another sign of abundant generosity. A bouquet of flowers at on her bedside table, along with a very large homemade 'Get Well Soon' card with everypony's signature inside. A bunch of balloons ─ red and yellow balloons, to be precise ─ were tied to the foot of the bed. Pinkie Pie had sent her a box of candy, and Applejack a small basket of apples. Rarity had washed and pressed Sunset's clothes ─ they were folded up on the chair on the other side of the room ─ and from what Sunset remembered of her last visit had been talking about making some more for her.
Nopony had ever been this nice to her before. Nopony had ever given her this much stuff at once before. The closest Sunset had ever come to it before was getting presents from Princess Celestia, and that didn't really count because it was like getting presents from your mom. Sunset didn't know what she was supposed to think about all of this stuff, what she was supposed to do with it.
She'd started eating the candy and the apples, because you ought to take what you can get when you can get it, but that didn't lessen her confusion about why she'd been given them in the first place.
When she was a filly, Sunset had gotten tonsillitis. She'd been pulled out of school and taken to hospital. In the end she had to have an operation. When she got back it was as though she'd never been away. Nopony had cared. There'd been no card, no candy, nothing.
She just didn't get why they were doing this. What did they want out of her in return?
Or where they just doing this because they thought she was a hero? The thought made Sunset sick in her stomach. She'd never bothered to hide who or what she was, the world could take her as it found her or not, she didn't care. Sunset wasn't sure she wanted to start living a lie now.
Of course, there was one pony who hadn't sent her anything. That hurt a little. You would have thought being laid up in hospital would be enough to get a little sister's attention, but apparently not.
And she'd been the only pony who seemed to care when Sunset had tonsillitis, too.
"This sucks," Sunset murmured, reaching for the box of candy. The doctors had forbidden her from using magic until she was fully recharged, so Sunset had to fumble with her hooves to grab the box and then contort her neck like a circus act to get her teeth around one of the soft centres.
Mmm, strawberry cream, tasty.
"I miss hands," Sunset muttered, after she swallowed down the last of the chocolate.
The door to her room slid open. Sunset was expecting the nurse, or maybe a doctor. Possibly lunch. Instead, Twilight's friends walked in, minus Twilight Sparkle herself, to stand in a line expectantly in front of the bed like they were some kind of welcoming committee.
"Howdy, Sunset Shimmer," Applejack greeted her brightly. "How do you feel?"
"I feel like I'm malingering sitting in this bed," Sunset replied. "Just because I can't do magic doesn't mean I can't walk around, does it? Earth ponies seem to manage okay."
"We wouldn't want you to get hurt again from overdoing it," Fluttershy murmured.
"You wouldn't?" Sunset asked. All of these ponies had been there when she followed Twilight back through the mirror from the other world. They all knew she'd been bad. Weren't they at least a little glad to see her like this?
Or was this all because they thought she was somepony that she really wasn't?
"Why in Equestria would we want you to get hurt again?" Rarity asked.
"We wouldn’t want to hurt you," Pinkie Pie said brightly. “After all, you never did anything to us. You must be getting us confused with the other us, silly, the ones that you tormented and terrorised and threw a fireball at when you turned into that big scary monster.”
"She did what?" Rainbow Dash demanded.
"Oh, just a dream I had, probably nothing," Pinkie said, her tone still bright and breezy.
Sunset coughed. "Yeah, so, anyway. Girls, can we just cut through it for a minute?" she squeezed Bab the bunny close to her between her leg and her body, as if she were still a filly and thought that he might give her courage. "I think you should take all this stuff back. I know I've eaten some of the candy, and a couple of the apples, so I'll pay for those when I get out of here, but as for the rest─"
"Take it back?" Fluttershy asked. "Did I pick the wrong kinds of flowers?"
"No, the flowers have a really nice smell and they do make the room look a little brighter but─"
"Didn't you like the balloons?" Pinkie Pie asked, her eyes as soft as a puppy-dog's.
"No, I liked the balloons, good job picking the same colours as my mane by the way, it's just that─"
"Do you not like the card?" Rarity asked. "Should I not have let Sweetie Belle and her friends make it. I know they won't be getting their cutie marks for designing greetings cards any time soon but I thought it had a certain charm to it."
"The card is very nice," Sunset said, a touch of impatience finding its way into her voice.
"Did the candy give you a stomach ache?" Pinkie guessed. "Ooh! Or was it the apples?"
"Hey, mah apples are all one hundred quality assured by Granny Smith herself," Applejack protested. "Apples indeed."
"It's not the candy or the apples," Sunset growled.
"Then what is it?" Rainbow Dash demanded.
"Why are you all being so nice to me?" Sunset shouted, causing Fluttershy to recoil from her a little. She continued more quietly. "Nopony is ever this nice to me. I don't understand and I don't want to owe any of you anything. I don't want to owe anypony anything. I don't know what you want from me. I don't want to know. I just...I don't want you to fake it with me. I don't want you to pretend because you think you'll get something. I don't want to owe you anything," she repeated. "So please, just take all of this stuff and go."
There was a moment of silence. Sunset looked down at the sheet that covered her body. She squeezed her bunny rabbit tighter still.
"Owe us?" Rarity sounded incredulous. "Whatever are you talking about, dear?"
"Huh?" Sunset looked up. Twilight's friends looked confused, but not angry as she'd expected.
"We didn't give you this stuff because we wanted anything out of you," Applejack said. "We did it to say thank you, for the way you helped Twilight get away from those canine varmints."
"I mean, I could have totally stormed those caves and rescued Twilight myself," Rainbow Dash said. "But you saved me the effort, so that's cool too."
"You always know the right thing to say," Rarity remarked archly.
"It's a gift."
"These little things are the least we could do after what you did for us," Fluttershy said.
"You helped our friend out of a tight spot, and that kinda makes you our friend too," Applejack said.
Sunset's lips worked silently, no sound coming out of them. It took her a moment to find her voice. "You mean... it's free? No strings attached?"
"Well, duh," Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes.
Sunset blinked. "You guys. I don't know what to say." She paused. "Literally, I've no idea what to say next, I've never been here before."
"How about, 'thank you'?" Fluttershy suggested.
"Oh, yeah. Um, thanks. It, er... thanks."
"You're welcome, Sunset," Fluttershy said, a contented smile settling on her face.
Then Pinkie Pie started to giggle. "Oh, silly. The reason why nopony was ever nice to you was because you weren’t nice to them! Now that you're doing good things for other ponies, you'll start to see them doing kind things for you!"
Sunset kept her mouth shut, even as her mind recoiled from the inanity of such kindergarten-level moralising.
Kindergarten...but not without a grain of truth or two to it. Sunset cast her mind back through her life, and through the lens of Pinkie's words, trying to think of anypony who she might have expected to care whether she got sick or not, whether she ever came back to school. Her memory drew a blank. It did, less than helpfully, supply a few names who might have been quite glad to never have to set eyes on her again.
You're thinking like a biped. This is happy-happy land where everypony forgives on the drop of a hoof and nopony holds a grudge. Or was it? The people she'd met on the other side of the mirror all had their exact duplicates in Equestria: Pinkie Pie was just as crazy and Rarity just as much a diva as the other Pinkie and Rarity she had known and made miserable. Was it possible there was no moral difference between the two? Was it possible that the Equestria she had plotted to overrun had never really existed at all, that she had created it in her mind during her long absence, like a sailor who returns from a lengthy voyage to find his home is smaller and dirtier than he remembered?
That would explain why nopony had ever rushed to be her friend. A storybook hero might weep for their enemy, but in Equestria there were neither heroes nor villains - even Twilight Sparkle and her friends, who had more claim upon heroic status than anypony in Equestria save, perhaps, Princess Celestia herself, had disclaimed it - only people, and the compassion of people was, no matter what certain poets might say, a strained resource. It had to be earned before it could be tapped.
And what does that mean for me? Sunset had claimed the villain's mantle because the hero role had been denied to her, but if there were neither villains nor heroes, then what had she been doing?
Was I never as different as I thought I was?
Or does the fact that I can think like this prove that I always was different?
You could hurt your head letting it go around in circles that way, and besides if she sat there without saying anything for too long everypony was going to think there was something wrong with her, so Sunset forced a smile and said, "I guess so, Pinkie Pie. Hey, can I ask, where is Twilight Sparkle anyway?"
"She's gone to Canterlot," Pinkie said.
Sunset frowned. "Huh. Okay. Do you know why?"
"She came to speak to me," the door slid open again, and this time it was Princess Celestia who stood in the doorway, barely avoiding having to stoop in order to fit through. "In Spike's absence, it was the swiftest way for her to send me a message. She will be returning shortly."
Twilight's friends bowed as Princess Celestia strode majestically into the room. Sunset herself could not bow, obviously, but bent her head and averted her eyes as best she could. Celestia was radiant, giving off such brightness that, if she chosen not to raise the sun but merely to walk in its absence, she could still have given day to all Equestria.
"I trust you are all well, my little ponies?" Celestia asked, implicitly excluding Sunset from that statement. "It is wonderful to see you all again, but I am afraid I must ask you for some privacy while I speak with Sunset Shimmer."
They took the point, filing quickly and quietly out of the hospital room. Only Pinkie Pie remained to offer a cheery, "See you soon!" Then she bounced out after her friends.
Sunset was left alone with the princess. Celestia did not look at her, walking to the window and staring out of it. Sunset felt the urge to look away in turn. There was an abyss between them, an abyss of Sunset's own creation. It was so wide and so deep, Sunset was not sure why Princess Celestia had come. What could possibly bridge the gap between them?
"It's a nice day, isn't it?" Sunset said, aware of how stupid she sounded but at a loss for anything clever to say. "But then, I suppose you'd know. After all you made it this way."
Celestia murmured some half-spoken acknowledgement. Then she said, "You look well. I trust you are being well looked after?"
"Oh, yeah. If I'd known you could get all this free stuff from getting ill I'd be sick more often," Sunset replied.
Celestia did not laugh. "I am glad to know they're taking care of you."
"Really? I thought you'd be glad I couldn't do magic for a few days," Sunset spoke without thinking. "I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that."
"Perhaps I did," Princess Celestia said softly.
"Huh?"
Celestia turned around, to look Sunset in the eye. "When Twilight told me what had happened...what you had done, I scarcely believed it. If it had been anypony but Twilight Sparkle, I doubt I could have been convinced. I did not think that you could ever do something so... so selfless. Evidently I was wrong. When I think of what could have happened to Twilight...I owe you a debt, Sunset Shimmer, but more than that, I owe you an apology. I was wrong about you." A single tear rolled down Celestia's cheek. "It appears I have misjudged you terribly."
Sunset was shocked by the tear, by the look of regret on Celestia's face, all of it. More than that, she was uncomfortable. This was worse than the squirming embarrassment she had felt as Twilight's friends praised her for something she had not done, worse than the gratitude of Twilight Sparkle herself. Princess Celestia had been a colossal figure in her fillyhood, inviolable as the sun itself. To see her like this, vulnerable, flawed, felt deeply wrong on some instinctive level. She had never thought of the princess this way, nor did she really want to.
It was too much. Far too much.
"Please, princess, don't do that," Sunset said quietly. "I don't deserve it."
"But-"
"I ran away," Sunset confessed, the tightness in her chest lightening as soon as the words left her. "When those dogs appeared I got scared and I ran and I left Twilight to them. She doesn't remember that because they knocked her out. But I did. I abandoned her. I ran away because I was afraid and the only reason I went back was because I got even more scared of what would happen if I showed up without her. I don't deserve these things, I certainly don't deserve to have you standing here and apologising to me. I'm just a coward, and I deserve your scorn worse than I did before."
"Oh, Sunset, no," Princess Celestia said, her tone maternal as she shook her head from side to side. "There is no shame in fear, none at all. If you were not afraid you would not be a pony. Did you think you had to be completely fearless in order to be brave? It does not matter how frightened you were when you went back for Twilight. What matters is that you did go back, and you saved her. Actions speak louder than words every time, and your actions on Twilight's behalf were very brave. You did not let the fear you felt rule you, and that is what matters."
"But you're not afraid of anything," Sunset protested. "And, even on the other side, in this whole world, even when I turned into a monster, Twilight Sparkle never seemed afraid of me."
"You are wrong, Sunset," Celestia replied. "I fear many, many things. And, though I cannot speak for Twilight, I imagine that she would say the same."
Sunset lay down, the pillow scrunching up beneath her head. "Everypony has been so nice to me," she murmured. "Princess, do you think there is something wrong with me?"
"Wrong with you?"
"When I was a filly," Sunset said. "I used to have this book, an illustrated history. It was all broken down into stories, very old-fashioned, not serious scholarship at all, but I loved it. I used to read the stories about Clover the Clever over and over again, sometimes I'd just stare at the gorgeous pictures. I used to wish that I could go on a quest like Clover did, that I could be the hero and save everypony."
"And then I'd look at everypony all around me, laughing and joking while I sat there with my books, and I realised that I could never be the hero and I could never go on a quest because I wasn't a good girl like everypony else. I couldn't make friends, and if you can't make friends in Equestria then you'll never be anything but a nopony, and nopony will ever care about you.
"Then I started to wonder why I couldn't make friends, why I couldn't laugh with everypony else, why they all seemed so stupid, so small to me. I wondered why I was so different to everypony else and I realised that it must be because I was some kind of freak: abnormal, unclean. And freaks don't get to be heroes, even here. So I became the villain instead, because I thought it was the only part there was for a bad girl. But now I've started thinking about how nopony seems to think like me, and whether that means that I'm even more of a freak than I thought, and maybe the reason the Element of Magic turned me into a monster is because in my head I always was one."
Sunset closed her eyes. "I used to hate the way you'd tell me to do things that I couldn't do, like make friends. I used to wonder why you didn't just use your magic to make me normal if that's what you wanted. But you couldn't, could you, because I was too broken. So I suppose I should thank you for treating a monster like a pony for as long as you-"
"Hush," Celestia knelt down, draping one wing over Sunset's form. "Hush now, and say nothing more. You are not a monster, you are not a freak. You may be different but that is not something to reproach yourself over."
"But-"
"Sometimes," Celestia murmured. "Equestria can be a cruel place. I am sorry, Sunset."
"Sorry?" Sunset's voice was quiet, childlike. "What for?"
"Every mistake I made with you. I learned from them, but for you, I learnt too late," Celestia replied, her tone filled with anguish. "I am sorry."
"Don't apologise, it feels weird," Sunset said hoarsely. "After all, it isn't as though I haven't made a lot of mistakes myself. I suppose I'd better start learning from them too."
Celestia laughed as she stood up. "I suppose you had. Let us both agree to learn and do better from here on."
"I'm sure Twilight will keep me in line," Sunset muttered. "Princess...I'm glad you came." The chasm between them felt a little narrower now.
"I'm glad we had this opportunity to talk," Celestia said. "With hindsight, we should have spoken like this earlier. Every mistake I learn from it seems I make a new one. Such is life, it seems, even for me. Goodbye, Sunset Shimmer."
Sunset bowed her head. "Goodbye, Princess."
As Celestia left, she said, "All right, Spike, you can go in now."
More visitors? Sunset facehoofed. Just because she didn't have a lot to do didn't mean she didn’t want a bit of privacy some of the time.
But no, there was Spike, scuttling in with an inscrutable look on his face. He stood there, glaring at her. Just the sight of him made Sunset want to flick his face. She wasn't sure why she enjoyed riling Spike up more than anyone else, unless it was because he was more openly hostile to her than any pony.
"I don't like being wrong," Spike said defiantly.
"Children rarely do," Sunset drawled.
"But apparently you did a pretty good thing for Twilight-"
"That's what they tell me," Sunset replied.
"Why are you acting like this?" Spike demanded. "I'm trying to apologise here!"
"Maybe I don't want your apology."
"Well too bad, you're getting it!" Spike yelled. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so hard on you! You're not as bad as I thought!" His tone was the perfect opposite to his words.
Sunset started to laugh. "Making an apology sound like an declaration of hatred, that's quite a talent, Spike."
Spike glowered at her for a moment, then started to chuckle.
Sunset grinned. "Come here a moment."
Spike approached.
"No, closer, right up to the bed," Sunset waved him nearer. Spike came close, close enough to touch. So Sunset poked him in between the eyes with her forehoof."
"Ow! What was that for?"
"That was remind you not to be too nice to me," Sunset said simply. "I don't want everyone to start giving me flowers, it's too much at once. I need you to keep me on my hooves, okay?"
"Um, okay?"
"Thanks, jerk," Sunset said brightly.
Spike frowned. "Why are you calling me a jerk?"
Sunset rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to insult me back. I say 'jerk', I say something else, I saw it on TV."
"TV?"
"Never mind," Sunset sighed. "Run along, Spike."
She rolled over onto her side as Spike left. The sooner I get out of here the better.