As she left Starlight Glimmer behind and followed the guards, Sunset Shimmer could only imagine the backlash and harsh lecturing that she was about to receive from her parents. After so many years, they would all be reunited together as a family. Sunset could feel her stomach turn in knots, and a cold sweat work its way down her body. She was nervous beyond belief. Walking up to the doors to the throne room, Sunset took an enormous gulp and closed her eyes, trying to maintain her composure.
"Open the doors!" bellowed Princess Luna, the doors opened and the guards led Sunset inside. Sunset wanted to freeze and not move towards her family, but she had no other choice.
"Sunset Shimmer, show yourself at once!" A voice commanded.
Doing as she was told, Sunset walked past the guards and advanced towards the throne where Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Spike and her parents were waiting.
Upon seeing her daughter for the first time in a long time, Solar Eclipse ran towards Sunset Shimmer and pulled her into a deep embrace.
"Sunset, my baby!" she sobbed, hugging her daughter tightly. "You've returned to us at last! Do you know how much we have endured since you have been gone?"
Sunset didn't know how to react to her mother's question. True, she may have held her ego above everything else, but she had no idea up until that moment just how much her parents were hurt by her disappearance.
"I know you've endured a lot," Sunset finally said after a long silence on her end. "I made you, Dad and the rest of my family worry about my whereabouts for years."
Sunset then turned over to her father, Wild Fire, who also was starting to become emotional. At the same time however, he couldn't help but want to either hug his daughter or beat her to a pulp for abandoning her family and her homeland.
"You are absolutely right, young filly!" cried Wild Fire, trying to hold back tears. "Your mother and I have been worried absolutely sick since you ran away! Why did you do it, Sunset? Why?!"
Sunset remained silent to her father's questions for she didn't have the answers to what he was asking her.
"I wanted more, dad," she replied, walking up to her father with worried eyes. "I wanted to prove something to you and Mom. Prove that I could be great in our family. I wanted to be a princess just so I can be noted for who I was supposed to be!" She shook her head “It was foolish of me to think I was ready, and now it will never happen! My own foolishness cost me everything.”
Wild Fire could only stand there and be mortified at what he daughter was saying to him. He couldn't believe that Sunset Shimmer, his only daughter, wanted to be a princess just so she could be better than anyone else in her family.
"Sunset, I can't believe what I am hearing from you," he said, coldly. "You don't have to be a princess to be greater than anypony else! All we wanted was the best for you. Do you know how lucky you were to be a normal pony, that could say they had the ruler of Equestria as a mentor?" He pointed to Princess Celestia to prove his point.
Celestia felt a little uncomfortable about being put on the spot like that, but she didn't say anything. She knew that Wild Fire and Solar Eclipse were unleashing years of worry into the air. She was just as much to blame for not at least informing them after learning of how Sunset had changed.
"Even if you weren't a princess, Sunset," added Solar Eclipse. "You know very well that we would love you just the way you are. If you had returned to us sooner, we could have helped you pursue a different goal. We want you just the way you are Sunset. We want us to be a family again."
Sunset could not believe that she was hearing all of this before her eyes. She couldn't believe of all the hurt that she had caused to her family. Yet, they were willing to forgive her and welcome her back as if it were all okay.
"But, how can we be a family again?" cried Sunset. "You focused all of your attention on my brother and not on me!"
"That is not true, young filly!" retorted Wild Fire. "Just because your brother was older and was following in your old stallion’s footsteps, doesn't mean we could not focus on you!"
Sunset couldn't believe what her father was saying, he had sung her praises to high heaven upon learning his daughter would be Princess Celestia’s student, and it was the first time in her life that she could recall him ever being so proud of anything she’d accomplished. Even her early magic feats had recieved lukewarm applause at best.
As these memories came flooding back to Sunset Shimmer, her anger began to raise. "Lies!" she snapped as she pushed her father away, her voice raising and causing everypony in the throne room to jump. "It's all lies! Why should I believe you and everything you and Mom say?! I know the truth, you want nothing to do with me anymore! I burned the last bridge we had when I made that decision to run away!"
"Sunset, please…" Celestia tried to say, only for Sunset to give her a hard stare and stop her in her tracks.
"No, Celestia!" cried Sunset, tears flowing down her face. "I can't do this! I can't face these two ponies in front of me! Not like this! You may think I’m ready, but we all know your judgement isn’t perfect! You thought I was ready to learn humility and to understand why I couldn’t become a princess, and we both know how that turned out! I may have learned a lot from the other world, but it all means nothing here! Here, I am still the same wanted fugitive that tried to steal Princess Twilight’s crown! Anypony in their right mind would stay away from me!"
And with that Sunset ran out of the throne room, nearly knocking over one of the guards as she ran by.
An awkward silence fell over the throne room that was quickly interrupted by Solar Eclipse's sobbing over her daughter reaction. Even Twilight couldn't help but feel a tear trickle down her face.
"No," she whispered, her eyes widened open, before lowering her head down in shock and sadness. "That's not true. Sunset is just overreacting."
"It would seem that returning to Equestria has done her more than harm good. It has reopened old wounds." Sighed Princess Luna, who was already admitting defeat.
"No, sister," said Princess Celestia firmly as she and Twilight started to walk towards the doors. "Sunset is just afraid, afraid of facing the truth. We have to keep on trying to encourage her, to accept what is in front of her."
"How can you convince her to accept what we are telling her?" asked Wild Fire as he consoled his sobbing wife. "If Sunset won't listen to us or to you, then who will she listen to?"
While everything was unfolding in the throne room, Starlight Glimmer was standing down at the foot of the stairs. She was surprised when she saw Sunset running past while sobbing loudly. But before Starlight could say anything, Sunset ran past her and out towards the gardens.
"Something happened in there," Starlight thought to herself. "And I've got to find out what it is, for Sunset’s sake."