"So," said Rarity cheerily, "how did you learn to play the guitar anyway?"
Sunset Shimmer plucked at her guitar strings, smiling faintly. Then she seemed to register something had been said and looked up. The group had sat down on the floor of Applejack's barn for a break from band practice, most of them leaning against the haystacks and not doing much of anything. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were playing some manner of card game in a corner. "Huh?"
"Been kinda wonderin', too," Applejack added. "I mean, bein' a pony and all. Can't be easy to play instruments with fingers if you ain't used to it."
"What kind of instruments do you have?" asked Fluttershy. "Are they like ours?"
"Oh, we have instruments very much like yours," said Sunset. "We have pianos, and tambourines. Drums, too. And all sorts of strings. Violins, cellos." She plucked a couple of chords. "Guitars, too. We use magic in place of electricity, but we do have records and turntables and amps. Unicorns use magic to hold and play instruments, too, but it's not as common as you'd think. We've got pretty dextrous hooves. Everything's eerily similar once you stop to think about it, but I guess that's par for the course for parallel universes as close as ours." She squinted for a moment. "I wouldn't know how similar it is, though, because I never played music as a pony."
"Wait, what?" Rainbow Dash and, in turn, Pinkie Pie looked up from their cards. "No way! You're too good!"
Sunset went a slight shade of pink and smiled. "No, I'm telling you. When I was little, it was all learning and magic and," she hesitated, looking for words, "basically, becoming like Celestia. I mean, as a kid, she was just... Celestia. I don't even know what to compare it to."
"Like a favorite teacher?" said Fluttershy.
"The world's most famous pop star?" suggested Rarity.
"Or athlete!" added Rainbow Dash.
"The president?" said Applejack after short deliberation.
"Santa!", yelled Pinkie.
"Yes!" Sunset chuckled. "All of that! And more. I mean, she makes the sun move! Literally! She's been around for a thousand years and more! And I got picked to be her personal student and protegé. Oh, I loved that. I loved every second of that. I was the happiest little filly you could imagine. You'd think someone like that would be stingy with praise, but no. Every time we met, she'd compliment me on what I had learnt and all that. I didn't even like hitting the books all that much. Before I got to her school, I never did any work. But when it was for her, it was the easiest thing in the world." Her expression darkened. "Of course, then I had to go and ruin everything."
The group, even Pinkie, exchanged some guilty looks. "We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," Rarity said, accompanied by supportive nods.
Sunset met their sorrowful looks, blushed and broke out in stifled laughter. "It's called foreshadowing, guys. You're my friends, it's fine! Lighten up! If I wasn't going to finish my story, you think I'd even start?" She smiled and spread her arms. "You know this story has a happy ending. I mean, you are the happy ending. You can sit through some doom and gloom with me."
"Hell yeah!"
"Doom and gloom! Woo!"
Laughter spread through the barn, shining like rainbows.
"Here's the thing. Everything was about Celestia. About getting praised by her, about getting to meet her, about doing the things she wanted me to do, so she would be happy. But that meant nothing else mattered. Nobody else mattered. Why would I care about the other kids? Or the teachers? I was special, after all! I was better than everyone! Oh, I was unbearable. You can probably imagine."
"We can," said Rarity and Applejack in unison. Fluttershy stifled a snicker with her hand. Rainbow just rolled her eyes.
Pinkie Pie pondered. "Oh, like Rainbow Dash! She's kind of like that sometimes! But still a really good person, once you get to know her!"
"Thank you, Pinkie," said Rainbow in a deadpan tone devoid of thankfulness.
"You're welcome!"
When Sunset Shimmer managed to stop giggling, she continued. "Eventually, I got scolded for the first time. I'd started giving lip to teachers and other students, and of course the teachers eventually told Celestia about it, and she started telling me about humility and, well, in so many words, that I should stop being such a little brat." She pondered for a little while. "It's hard to imagine her being that blunt, but if she had been, that might have worked. But all I understood is that all the others were jealous of me, and jealous of my relationship with Celestia, so they were trying to put me down. And that was easy to deal with. I just had to pretend. Kind of like you play pretend with little kids. Just play nice so everyone does what you want." She shuddered. "I got pretty good at it. Of course, I was still mean to the other students, but only when I could get away with it. I started playing them against each other for fun. I'm pretty sure you can imagine that."
There were some sheepish smiles, but everyone nodded their heads.
"At some point, I started wondering what I would grow up to be. When I was really little, I always wanted to be Celestia. When I realized that was impossible, I started thinking I might want to be a really famous scholar, or magician. Someone who would get asked by Celestia to complete important tasks, or do important research, and who would meet with her all the time and all that. But at some point, while I was reading about history, I found out that there had been ponies - regular ponies, unicorns, like me - who had become like Celestia. Who had become a prince, or princess. I couldn't just be close to Celestia. I could actually be just like Celestia. From that point onwards, it was all I could think about. It was all I cared about. And from that it really grew out of control. I got into a huge fight with Celestia over it, and that eventually brought me here, and you know the rest. How did we get into all of that?" Sunset stared at the ceiling, eyes squinted. "Yeah. No music. I never even thought about music while I was in Equestria."
Applejack scratched her head. "Huh. That's right. Me and Rarity wanted to know how you learned to play the guitar, didn't we?"
"Though we certainly don't mind!" said Rarity. "It's so touching to see you open up to us like that. I don't know what to say." She sniffed loudly and blew her nose into a kerchief she'd pulled from her school bag halfway through Sunset's story.
Sunset smiled and shook her head. "No, I had a reason for going into all of that. I kind of forgot halfway through, but I think I remember." She scratched her chin, pondering. "You know I was with Flash for a while?"
"Sure," said Applejack.
"You were just using him to become popular, I believe you said," added Rarity helpfully.
"Because you wanted all of the school to become your personal army so you could overthrow Celestia and replace her so you could be Equestria's one and only princess, like you've always wanted!" added Pinkie, the epitome of helpfulness, proud to have connected the dots. "What? You're always telling me to pay attention! Did I get that wrong?"
"No, you're pretty spot on, Pinkie," Sunset said with a smile, watching her friends slowly recover. "Of course, Flash had other things in mind."
Rainbow got a gleam in her eyes and broke out into a dirty grin. Applejack bonked her on the head before she could say anything.
"Did he take you on dates?" asked Rarity.
"Sure."
"Long walks?" asked Fluttershy.
"That, too."
"Did he play sweet, sweet music for you?" asked Rainbow Dash, earning another knock on the head, pinning it to the ground. "So worth it," she pressed through her teeth.
Sunset breathed in and out deeply, and smiled. "He did."
She said it very quietly, almost whispering, but the resulting silence was absolute. Not one of the others risked a word, or even particularly noisy breathing, while they waited for Sunset to continue.
"You understand, I never was really interested in him. Nothing to do with him being human and me technically not, mind you. Not sure why; you'd think that would be a problem, but I guess that's part of the change." She held up her hands and looked at them. "These were a bit of an issue for a couple of weeks, but they're so useful, you kind of get used to it pretty fast." She slowly lowered her hands into her lap, slowly following them along with her eyes. "I think he noticed from the beginning I wasn't really wild about him. I mean, I was pretending, as best as I could, and it was enough to reel him in. But he noticed. And I guess he thought it meant he had to try harder." She lifted her knees and held them, shrinking into herself. "I was the worst."
"Keep going," said Rarity, as encouragingly as she could.
"Doom and gloom," whispered Pinkie Pie.
"With you all the way."
Sunset had tears in her eyes. But she smiled, and sat up again. "It wouldn't have been so bad if he had just tried to go over the top with it. Tried to impress me. If he had just played my game. Gone fake. But he didn't. He just genuinely wanted to be closer to me, to get that distance to go away. To him, that meant playing me the guitar. Sometimes we sat in the park, sometimes we sat in his room. And he played, and sang. And I didn't outright hate it. I mean, what I wanted was to be known as the girlfriend of the most popular guy in school. Everything else I just faked my way through so he would stay with me. The music, I kind of liked. Eventually, he started teaching me to play. Just basic stuff. And I kind of liked that, too. And I know what you're thinking."
"We're not thinking anything," said Rainbow, grinning.
"Nope."
"Nothing whatsoever."
"What would we even be thinking about?" asked Pinkie, incredulous. "Him brushing up to you, his hands touching your hands to show you the right positions and grips? Or maybe how he's just behind you, your bodies touching, his head peeking over your shoulder, his breath tickling your neck, his voice entering your ears loud and clear even though you can't see from where, because he's just so agonizingly present, and somehow, even though he is so close, so intimately close, you're still supposed to listen, and even though his hands are so warm, so firm, yet still so gentle, you're supposed to concentrate on how they're holding the strings instead of all the other things he could do with them?" She looked at the others. "What? You keep staring at me."
Rarity's glare quickly broke down. "Pinkie, you don't happen to do any writing in your spare time? I'd love to have a look."
"Don't encourage her," grumbled Rainbow.
"You have your priorities, I'll have mine."
Sunset clapped her hands twice. "I'll correct myself. I think I knew what the rest of you were thinking. I will never again, for as long as I live, claim to know what Pinkie is thinking."
Pinkie giggled. The others nodded in solemn agreement.
"What I remember from those moments isn't Flash, or what he did, or how he did it. Somehow, the guitar lessons stuck with me. I started humming tunes to myself, songs Flash played, or that I would pick up elsewhere. It went on for a while. Eventually Flash broke up with me. You might remember I didn't take it too well."
"Oh, you were a nightmare!" said Rarity. "Fluttershy didn't come to school for days. She was just too terrified."
Sunset winced. "Really? Damn. I'm sorry, Fluttershy. I don't even remember half the stuff I did."
Fluttershy smiled. "Don't worry. But if you didn't like-like him, why were you so angry?"
"I still thought I had wrapped him around my little finger, you see? He messed up my plans. I couldn't have that. And I guess the rejection itself stung. It was a little like getting rejected by Celestia all over again. I was just furious. And then I decided if I couldn't be the girlfriend of the school's best guitarist, I would simply replace him. And so I bought a guitar, and records, and books about playing guitar, and spent every second of free time I had with it." She picked up the guitar again and played some basic chords. "Once I got good enough, my plan was to break up his band and then snatch up his former bandmates to form my own." She blushed. "Man, actually saying it out loud is even worse than remembering it. I sound like a movie villain."
"A bad movie villain," mumbled Rainbow Dash. She was thoroughly shushed. "Sue me for having an opinion," she muttered under her breath.
"So, what happened?" asked Applejack. "At school we just thought you'd kinda mellowed out, and just leading up to the Fall Formal you turned into a nightmare again."
"I think I can show you what happened." Sunset closed her eyes and started playing.
At first, she repeated the basic chords from before, slowly escalating in speed and variations; then she started playing proper tunes. First, fairly straightforward ones, but quickly escalating in complexity. She started playing recognizable melodies from songs the others knew from the radio or albums, and some they didn't recognize. Eventually, it was all stuff they had never heard before. It sounded angry, haunting, powerful. Then, on occasion, it grew wistful, and from there, melancholy. When it stopped, everyone was startled, and looked in Sunset's direction.
She rubbed tears out of her eyes and took a deep breath. "Eventually, I had forgotten all about Flash, and his band, and my plan. I was just playing because I felt like it. Because I liked it." She started playing again, bolder than before, almost happy. "And then I realized what was happening." She stopped.
And then she took off the strap and sat the guitar down against a haystack next to her. "The more I played, the less sure I became that overthrowing Celestia and taking her place was worth it. Whether or not I was missing something. It was making me think in ways that I hadn't thought before. It was starting to reach me, right here." She put a hand on her chest. "And I couldn't have that. So I put the guitar away and dedicated myself once more to being a horrible person."
There was a short pause.
"And that's it?" said Rainbow Dash.
"That's it. You know the rest."
"Aw," mumbled Pinkie. "And here I thought the power of music was going to fix everything."
Rainbow Dash blinked, and gave her an incredulous look. "Pinkie, you remember what actually happened, right? How did you think this story was going to go?"
Sunset giggled. "If it helps, Pinkie - Remember what the magical elements were called that you used to help me?"
"Huh? Oh, Laughter, Kindness, Generosity and whatzit?" Pinkie scratched her chin in thought. "Elements of Friendship? Elements of Pony Magic Stuff?"
"Harmony!" exclaimed Fluttershy. She shrunk a little as the others looked at her. "Twilight called the crown her Element of Harmony."
"Exactly!" said Sunset happily. She opened her mouth to say something else, then grew ponderous.
When she spoke up again, it was slowly, trying to weigh each word. "Here's the thing. The Elements of Harmony kind of... take everything inside you that's jumbled up and wrong and twisted and put it right. They clear away all the dust you've been kicking up to hide the things that you don't want to see. In my case, it's that I never understood why being close to Celestia made me happy. It wasn't because being Celestia was the greatest thing you could possibly be, and just being close to her made some of that greatness shine onto you and make you special. No, no. It was because Celestia comforted me when I was feeling down, because we could laugh together, because I could ask her anything and she would teach me, because she always kept her word, because I could trust her with anything, forever. It was because Celestia was my friend."
"That's all the Elements of Harmony did. Let me see my one mistake for what it was. That changed everything. And I felt it, right here." And she smiled, and put her hand on her chest. "Just like I did when I was playing the guitar back then. When I felt I was missing something. So, maybe the power of music didn't fix everything, but I'd say it put up a good fight. And then you came and made certain its valiant effort was not in vain. Or something like that."
Pinkie made a thoughtful expression. "Yeah, I can live with that." she finally decided, smiling. "That makes a good story, too."
Everyone chuckled, only Sunset stayed silent, hand still resting just above her heart. "Um, would you mind if I leave band practice early?" she asked.
Applejack laughed. "Band practice was over half an hour ago."
"You go do what you need to do," added Rarity. "It seems important."
Sunset nodded. "It kind of is." She got up and grabbed her guitar, carried it to her case resting on one of the haystacks, and put it away.
When she turned around, she found the others had gotten up as well, and were in a small gaggle right in front of her. No one said a word. Fluttershy moved first, throwing her arms around a somewhat startled Sunset Shimmer, followed by Applejack embracing them both, then Rarity joining in, followed by the others.
Something unrecognizable came out of Sunset Shimmer's mouth, distorted by sobs and snot, and muffled by the gaggle of friends holding her tight. They understood her anyway.