A Sparkling Sunset

by Ferhog

A Look At The Interdimensional-Sunset Shimmer

By the bright light of the two mare's horns, the words were revealed out of the darkness of the night. Words written centuries ago by Starswirl the Bearded himself.

The alicorn was almost shaking with excitement.

This earned an eyebrow raise from Sunset. "Wow, I'd expect you to have read this already."

"I have!" Her voice was at a higher pitch than usual. "Twice! But now...I'm reading it with a microscope! And a guide!"

Sunset continued to stare at Twilight with her eyebrow still raised. The lavender mare's eyes widened. "Oh, and with you of course."

"No, its not that, its just...I'm still getting used to your...reactions to books."

Twilight's gaze dropped to the floor. "Yeah...sorry." Her voice had a hint of sadness in it.

"No worries. Its...kinda cute."

Despite the darkness, Sunset thought she saw the alicorn's face start to blush.

'Dammit Shimmer, did you really have to say that! Way to make everything awkward!'

"Why don't we start looking through the book now..." Sunset just wanted to forget about what she just said.

And forget it she did. The book was filled with information the unicorn never dreamed she would ever learn. The pages hadn't even mentioned the human world yet there was still a gold mines worth of magical knowledge. The theories he had on Inter-dimensional travel, the construction of his prototypes, even the studies he had taken on the subject. The book actually talked about Starswirl's years as little more than a student! She had rarely even thought about something like that! It was actually kinda weird to think that someone she had grown up learning about had to spend a period of their life learning themselves.

They had barely even scratched the surface with just reading the first few pages. Twilight had recently gotten hold of an advanced guide to ancient magical symbols, and thanks to this, some of the things written in the book were much easier to understand, and the two mares might have been able to replicate some of the magic that was mentioned among the pages.

It was a bit into the book that Starswirl started to talk about the prototype mirror he had built before the one that lead to the human world. Sunset was honestly surprised, she had read all she could about the mirror (without Celestia catching her), and she hadn't learnt anything about a prototype mirror. She was even more surprised when Twilight said that she and the others actually encountered the prototype themselves, and told this long story about an alternate universe with an evil Celestia, a good Sombra, and a tear jerking love story with a surprisingly deep and tragic ending (Twilight had been on some weird adventures).

The book got really interesting when Starswirl started to write a log on his progress with the main portal.

Sunset was quite surprised by the tone of the entry. It didn't really...match the image of Starswirl the Bearded that she was usually exposed to.

"Starswirl sounds like a...strange guy."

"Yeah..." Twilight seemed almost as weirded out as the unicorn. "Luna did mention that his personality was comparable to that of Pinkie Pie's."

It sounded like a good idea to just continue reading.

The rest was just updates on his progress that spanned over a few months. A couple of entries in, it appeared that Starswirl had successfully built a bridge between Earth and Equestria.

As interesting as Starswirl's exploits were, Sunset couldn't help but yawn. The words began to blur as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

"Sunset..." Said Twilight. "If you're feeling tired, we can go to bed now. There's always the opportunity to read it some other time, and I don't want to force you to stay up all night."

Sunset looked at Twilight face to face. The merge of Sunset's aqua glow and Twilight's magenta glow caused a beautiful cyan light to shine across the alicorn's face.

'She looks...really pretty.' She thought. 'Whoa Sunset, keep those thoughts out of your head. You're just really tired.'

"Sure." She said drowsily. "Why not?"

The book became encased in magenta light, and slammed its pages shut as it was placed back onto Twilights desk. A yawn escaped from Twilight's mouth, and she guided Sunset out of the library, the latter trying to stay upright as she walked.

The castle was beautiful enough during the daytime, but during the night, with the light of the mare's glowing horns reflecting off the shadowy crystal walls, it was something if an experience. Sunset wished that she could appreciate it more, but she was too busy trying to simply stay awake.

Sunset's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden feeling of her bumping into Twilight.

"Oops." The alicorn almost fell over before balancing herself on her four hooves. "Wow, I guess you are really tired. Well, its a good thing we've arrived at the guest room."

She used her magic to open the door and light up the room inside, revealing a surprisingly large chamber with a crystal themed bed, a wardrobe, a desk and chair, and a large window blocked off by curtains.

"Thanks...Twi..." Sunset stumbled over to the bed. "I guess I'll...see you...in the morning."

"You too, Sunset." Twilight said with a smile, closing the door behind the unicorn.

Despite the pitch black darkness, Sunset still managed to find her way over to the bed, and let sleep consume her mind as she crashed onto the soft, duvet covered mattress.

The red corridor was back.

Sunset looked back at the path behind her. Whatever it led to was cut off by black shadowy darkness. It didn't matter anyway. She knew that she couldn't go back. All she could do was walk forward into the pitch black ahead, even if she didn't know what lay ahead of her.

As she walked onwards, she once again looked at the shifting cinnamon marks on the walls. The shapes they took didn't look familiar, but for some reason they disturbed her to the point where she couldn't look at the walls anymore.

But the scariest thing wasn't the images on the walls, or the darkness. And it wasn't the return of the red corridor either.

The scariest thing was the lack of voices.

No matter how far Sunset walked on, she couldn't hear the slightest hint of sound. She should have been glad at this, but all it did was make her feel uneasy. It reminded her of that time in the human world when she made the mistake of trying to play Five Nights At Freddy's. It didn't matter whether or not one of the animatronics was at your door or not, there was always a feeling of deadly stress and uneasiness.

Like the previous night, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. But unlike the previous night, she didn't run towards it instantly. In fact, she stopped in her tracks completely. What if there was the same room at the end of the corridor as last time? She couldn't experience that again.

But she couldn't go back either.

Reluctantly, she slowly trotted forward into the light.

What lay at the end of the corridor wasn't a room of the same color. In fact, it was nothing like the room from the previous night. What she found was...her room?

The floor was comprised of brown wooden boards, and the walls were a simple beige color. The room had nothing else besides two plain windows on one wall, and six identical beds. But the shocking thing about the scene was that on top of one of the beds she saw...herself?

That didn't make any sense. First of all, why were there two of her? Secondly, she was human. Sunset looked down and saw her front hooves. Yeah, she was still a pony. She came closer to the other Sunset to see what she was doing.

There was an expression on her face that spoke of malicious intent, and she was in the process of typing something on her phone. The pony Sunset moved behind the human to get a better look. She was sending a text message to Pinkie Pie. Okay, that seemed perfectly normal.

It was then that she saw something really odd. The spot where it was usually labelled as her own name was instead labelled as Fluttershy. That didn't make any sense. It was clearly Sunset's cellphone, so why was her identity labeled as Fluttershy? She then took a look at what the human Sunset was typing, and a wave of memories came rushing back to her.

Now Pinkie, I want this auction to go off memorably, so I want you to pull off the biggest party you can put together. Confetti, subwoofers, balloons, the lot. Please don't disappoint me.

As the human Sunset tapped the send button, a wicked laugh escaped from her mouth. The pony had no choice but to watch in horror.

She remembered that day. That was the day she had gotten hold of Fluttershy's e-mail details. The day she impersonated her and sent the message to Pinkie Pie asking for a huge party to be present at Fluttershy's auction at the animal shelter. But Fluttershy's auction was meant to be a quiet, serious event. If Pinkie threw a major party there, it would ruin it, along with her friendship with Fluttershy. But that was exactly what Sunset was trying to do at the time.

'You idiot!' Sunset thought, aiming her thoughts at her past self. 'You'll destroy their friendship! Just like you did with Applejack and Rainbow dash! Pinkie Pie and Rarity! Just like you did with EVERYONE! You're creating fractures in something beautiful! Something you were never meant to touch! How could you do something so...EVIL?!'

And from underneath Sunset's bed, cracks started to emerge.

'What?! This never happened!'

The cracks spread across the room, growing in size and numbers. They moved their way through the wooden floor, as the planks split and sent splinters flying. Then they made their way up the walls, shattering the windows and splitting the walls to reveal a dark blue void beyond them. The most horrifying thing was that when Sunset's past self turned around, there were cracks spread across her body as well, as if she was a fractured piece of pottery. And the most horrifying sight of all was when she shattered to pieces.

And as the human Sunset split into fractures, so did the entire room.

The pieces flew in multiple directions, and with nothing to support her, the amber mare fell into the abyss. All she could see around her was darkness, and all she could see below her was fire. She closed her eyes, screaming as she braced for the flames.

But the flames never came.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing on some kind of red platform. It took a second for her to realize that this was a hand. When she turned around, she found herself face to face with the she-demon.

Her skin was an unsaturated red, her hair, mane, and dress made seemingly out of fire. Upon her head was the crown with the star gem, and below that lay two pitch black eyes with aqua irises that stared into her soul. She would recognize the color of those irises anywhere. They were hers.

The she-demon that had once been Sunset Shimmer stared at the mare maliciously, the flames dancing around her. She began to laugh. A horrible wicked sound that had the stench of evil.

But the laughing was cut short as her head exploded into white light.

Her entire body disintegrated into white sparkles, and Sunset found herself falling into the abyss once more. But again, she didn't fall into the fire, but she didn't fall into the hands of her demon self either. Instead, she found herself on a flat blue floor, the color of a sapphire. As she looked up, she saw the white light that had destroyed her demon form. It had become a round shape, and looked almost solid. In fact, it looked kind of like...the moon.

And from the white light came the silhouette of an alicorn, that flew down towards the amber unicorn. When it landed in front of her, she saw that it was a navy colored alicorn mare. Her mane was sapphire colored like the floor, and sparkled like the gemstone itself, but the most striking feature about it was that it shimmered and flowed like smoke. Her flank was pitch black, as if someone had poured ink on it, and her cutie mark was a white cresent moon. She was well dressed too, as she was sporting sparkling white hoof shoes, a black necklace with her cutie mark embedded on it, and atop her head was a simple triple pointed pitch black crown. She stared at sunset with light cyan eyes.

"Hello, Sunset Shimmer."

That voice took Sunset completely by surprise. It was one of the last voices she expected to hear in Equestria. It was a voice she heard several times at Canterlot high. A voice she usually encountered when she got in big trouble.

"Vice Principal Luna?" She asked.

"Excuse me?" Responded the alicorn with a confused look on her face.

Sunset booted up her brain into remembering that even if she was dreaming, she was still dreaming in Equestria, and that there were some slight differences between this place and Canterlot High.

"I mean...Princess Luna?"

The alicorn's confused face faded away, and she spoke with a voice that sounded pretty regal, yet also pretty casual. "Yes, that is my name."

"Umm..." Sunset didn't really know what to say. "Why are you in my dream?"

Luna put on a slight smile. "As the Princess of the night, I have the ability to enter the dreams of my subjects. I can assure you, you are not imagining me. I am what you might call 'the real deal'."

"That's.." Sunset was still struggling for words. "Actually kinda creepy."

The navy alicorn let out a slight giggle. "Yes, I suppose it is. But I don't do something like this unless you are in need of serious guidance." She then put on a more serious face. "I know a lot about you Sunset Shimmer. When you can enter the mind of anypony, you'll find that you get to know some things. And one thing I know is that this isn't the first time you've suffered a dream like this."

Sunset found it hard to look straight at the alicorn's face. "I don't know why I keep having them. I thought that I had let go of my past. And I'm pretty sure that I did. My friends at Canterlot High have accepted me despite what I've done, and they've helped to put it behind me. But recently...I've been having these nightmares. It's like my past is physically chasing me, and I just can't outrun it."

Suddenly, her demon form rose out of the ground. It wasn't moving, and looked as if were nothing more than an apparation, but Sunset couldn't help but feel extremely uneasy at the sight of it. The strange thing though, was that it wasn't alone. Next to it stood a large black alicorn, whose mane was like sparkley blue mist. She wore light blue armor that was comprised only of a helmet, boots and a chestplate. Her cutie mark matched Luna's exactly, but was a pale blue instead of white. Both apparations were frozen in a position of maniacal laughter, their white fangs shining.

Luna approached the black alicorn image with a look of sadness. "I understand you Sunset Shimmer. Though we have never met, you and I are extremely alike. You are aware of the story of Nightmare Moon, correct?"

Sunset nodded in response. While just about every pony in Equestria knew who Nightmare Moon was, she was reminded of stories she had read during her studies, and stories she had heard very recently from Twilight and her friends. It was strange to think that the almost normal looking mare in front of her had once been the monster that had tried to bring forth eternal night to Equestria.

"Even now, I still feel the backlash of my actions as Nightmare Moon." Luna was face to face with the apparation of her past self. 'While most of Equestria has forgiven me, I still can't help but notice those who still shiver in fear at my presence. I too have been plagued by nightmares similar to these, and there are days when I look at my shadow and see remnants of the mare in the moon. That is why I can relate to you Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset stared at the alicorn before her, and then at the two monsters on display. She had never really thought about how much she and Luna had in common. Of course, she had never met her, and didn't even know that much about her, but it was still strange that this had never occurred to her based on what she'd heard.

Both she and the princess had walked a path of darkness, become complete monstrosities, and were reformed by Twilight and her friends. And both of them had recently sought redemption for their mistakes. And from the conversation they'd been having, it seemed that both of them had trouble letting go of those mistakes.

"So...how do I stop...having these dreams?"

The princess looked down on her with a motherly look. "The dreams will remain as long as there is something you doubt about yourself. Though you claim to have thought that you had gotten over your past mistakes, it seems that there is something in your subconscious suggesting otherwise."

"What am I meant to do?"

"That is unclear, even to me. This is something that your subconscious says is a problem, but you don't have the exact answer of what it is. All I know is that your mind has projected an obstacle personal to you, and that means that you must be the one to overcome it."

"So...where do I start?"

Luna turned away and looked into the distance. "I've done all I can to help you by pointing out why you have these nightmares, but the rest of the journey you must travel on your own, but that dosn't mean that there isn't someone who can help you."

Suddenly, the landscape started to blur, and Sunset saw that the princess was crumbling away into white dust, which was being blown away by a non existent wind.

"Wait, Luna!" Sunset called. "Who's supposed to help me?! What can I do?! What does it all mean?!"

The princess just looked at Sunset as a sparkle briefly shined in her eye, before her head was also blown away as white dust. The blurring landscape consumed Sunset's vision, and everything went dark.

She woke up to find herself sitting up in the guest bed, small fragments of the morning light shining through the curtains. Her head felt fuzzy as her mind was slowly getting fully conscious.