//------------------------------// // Year 2 - part 1 // Story: The Sun and I // by Ghostfriendly //------------------------------// ‘No letters from Sunset’ was the flaw throughout Twilight’s Hearth-Warming holiday. She wrote to Sunset’s parents in Hoofington every week. The reply always came that, ‘Our daughter is not presently residing at this address. We regrettably cannot inform you at what juncture she will return’. Twilight imagined she would get on well with Sunset’s parents. Then the new school year had arrived, and Sunset wasn’t there. The Royal Guard were mildly surprised to see a small purple filly galloping across the palace courtyard, demanding to speak with Princess Celestia at the top of her lungs. The Princess drew Twilight aside to the velvet draped sitting room, where a hearth burning warm against the chilly air. Her tasks had become steadily more practical over the previous year, though often still surprising. Twilight had expected a week’s hard graft in the palace greenhouses, for example, to yield fresh knowledge of rare plants. But it was tending a common geranium with her own hooves that taught lessons of growth, learning and herself–as soon as Celestia told her, she knew it was so. Twilight’s awe at the compassion and wisdom of her Princess had grown faster than the most prodigious vine. Celestia explained that Sunset’s holiday research trip had extended itself. She ought to return in a few weeks; but where she was and what she was doing were secrets of state. "I trust you understand. My personal students must learn many things which no classroom or exam hall could contain." “Oh! A secret mission…I suppose she really is your protégé.” “As are you, dear Twilight. Your present studies are the foundation of a wonderful future. Now, I recall setting the Amniomorphic Technique for you to learn over the holidays. Are you ready to show me?” Though a little nervous, Twilight had practised the Technique to death. It left her panting, but came off well. “Excellent work, Twilight.” Celestia's voice was like a gentle kiss, “We will look at related Techniques, soon, but this week I would like you to prepare reports on the flora, fauna and ancient cultures of the Tenochtitlan Basin. Please submit them to me daily, starting today, as a matter of first importance.” Twilight’s relish for the task was unalloyed. She would have set about it with no less commitment and much less composure–Celestia was sure of it–had she known where Sunset Shimmer was, and what she was about. Serious matters often did not appear so, until too late. Twilight would learn it, as Celestia had learned. Learned, and learnt, cramming her beautiful head with wisdom, until there was barely room for herself. And still failed her sister, as she had failed Sunset. -0- -0- Dear Princess Celestia… Sunset paused over the journal that sent messages instantly to her teacher, pushed back her broad-brimmed hat, and glanced about. On every side, smooth rubber trees shot up above her head into starry darkness. A stew of vines and mud under her feet swept down the vine-shrouded river, and her boat. She was resting on the body of a tiger; some native ponies had set it on her during a brief stop. She had snatched a spear from them with the Gift, and impaled the creature through its back. Everything grew free, in every direction at once. She would take Tenochtitlan over the Canterlot gardens, any day. Dear Princess Celestia. Still alright. Three days by river away from the fortress of Talacon. Back in two weeks. Dear Sunset Shimmer (The reply appeared), I am glad to hear you are safe, but I would be more glad if you returned directly to Canterlot. I sent you on a fact finding mission, not to run such risks. Dear Princess Celestia, you sent me to find facts and I found a crazed monster, poised to dominate a region on our border. I’m not overblowing, or understating, my strength. For the sake of Equestria, I can take him. Dear Sunset Shimmer, for the sake of your life–I ask you to return. Please understand. You are precious to me. (Tell me in pony, then…) Dear Princess Celestia, thank you, but I don’t understand. You told me to put other ponies before myself. I’m doing this for the ponies of Equestria. If I don’t make it, at least I was doing something that mattered. No reply came. Sunset picked her way back to the boat, whistling between her teeth. Humility and self-sacrifice mattered to Celestia; she had picked up that much in three years. Equestria mattered to Sunset; but whether a clown like Ahuizotl controlled Tenochtitlan mattered very little to anypony. Only one question mattered, in the end. “…Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia whispered, miles away, “How far will you go?” The next evening, as Twilight’s first report was appearing in Sunset’s journal, Daring Doo was preparing to enter the Lethal Labyrinth of Lessolobnor. When Celestia’s pet phoenix swooped in with a shower of brilliant feathers and a message. Daring read it, mumbled something about babysitting, and set off towards Talacon, after Sunset. -0- -0- Twilight went to her next weekly lesson with Celestia wriggling like a worm in an apple. She quickly pleaded to know when Sunset might return. “S-she shouldn’t miss so many lessons! And-and it’s something dangerous, isn’t it? Please tell me she’s going to be safe, Princess! If you just tell me, then I won’t be afraid at all…” Celestia closed her great eyes. Twilight’s knees almost buckled as she spread a wing over her body. “Because of that very trust, my dear Twilight, I cannot promise you that our friend will be safe. But I trust and hope that she will.” “Princess…it can be hard to be Princess, can’t it? I never knew.” “I try to ensure that most ponies do not.” Celestia enfolded her student in soft feathers, “Now, how is it to be Twilight Sparkle?” “Um, not so good. I just missed Sunset all through the holidays. All our study sessions, staying up late together. Even the little arguments over theory, or silly things.” “Ah, yes. Years have passed since even a friend would argue with me, or stay up past three discussing Haycartes’ postulates…but I remember. I also miss Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight could feel the weight of years in Celestia’s chest; see sorrow trembling on her eyelashes. She had only thought she knew how hard it was–but surely Sunset would never be like this, even in twelve hundred years? “Princess?” She quavered, “Sunset told me about the trouble she had, before I came. But I’m, um, I’m sure she’s changed since then…” “She has, and she will. The truth is so often both better and worse than our fear. Twilight, I sent you to volunteer at the Royal Homeless Stables and Hay Kitchen last year. Remind me how you got on?” “Oh, yes, Princess! I was sure there was something else you wanted me to learn, like the time with the greenhouses. I’d never met any, um, poor ponies before, so I prepared an exhaustive survey on the cause of their homelessness, any other problems and the help they required. Only, most of them were rather rude about it. You gave me another chance the next week, and told me just to talk to ponies, normally. “I think some of them had run away from their families. Others had Nightplague. Some ponies seemed to have given up hope. But some of them, ponies with the worst problems of all, never gave up on their dreams. They even helped each other. I think I learned, Princess, with hope, and kindness, even the humblest pony can find happiness.” “Yes. You did wonderfully, Twilight. But do you know that the Royal Homeless Stables became royal because of Sunset Shimmer? “No way! I mean, she never said…” “I gave her the same weekly task in her first year, and it extended to a month. She transformed a lacklustre hay kitchen into something that has helped so many. She inspired ponies, brilliantly, as she was born to do…but it might have turned out better for Sunset herself if she had learned a lesson like yours.” “I…don’t understand, Princess.” “Don’t worry, Twilight. Only be a friend to Sunset. She needs you, perhaps more than you need her.” Twilight buried her smiling face in Celestia’s side. The Princess recalled, with a cold pang, how Sunset had loved to be needed too. -0- -0- Sunset Shimmer had already been beautiful and self-assured, the first time Celestia saw her. Trotting into the middle of the exam hall; staring at her Princess every possible second. Her dream was before her, incarnate, and she had never dreamt of its magnificence–the Sun Princess very nearly blushed. As she would with Twilight, Celestia had arranged a special entrance exam. Turning coal into diamonds, an impossible task for a filly. Sunset had persisted for hours, until her legs gave out, and sweat glued her to the floor. “We don’t have all day, Miss Shimmer.” “I do. This is my exam! My life!” Sunset’s tongue was hanging out, her eyes rolling madly, when Celestia placed a hoof on her shoulder. And she saw that the block of coal lay on a bed of diamond dust. “Sunset Shimmer. You are one of the most exceptional unicorns I have ever met.” With those words alone, the fire-maned pony had thrown herself at Celestia’s hooves, weeping with joy. “Thank you, my Princess! Thank you! If I died right now, I'd be happy!” Sunset had drunk up Celestia’s words like a vine drinking water; she seemed to grow and flower in every way at once. Editor of the school newspaper, lead guitar in a band that played throughout Canterlot, and Fall Formal Princess. She would do anything to help a troubled student, even sit still and listen. A leader–a bearer of light–from the moment her Cutie Mark had appeared. A beautiful young unicorn, utterly sure of herself–a quality the immortal ruler of Equestria respected very cautiously. A leader had to be sure of her talents, her principles, her decisions. If she believed one instant that she, herself, mattered more than the ponies she led–she was no leader. A self-serving imposter, steps away from madness. The lesson her sister had once forgotten, as had she. Her sister had fallen, and she had remained. Remained the same, over a thousand years of ponies. A perfect Princess, a frozen flame. Sunset had been raw, thrilling, swept away by her Sun Princess, and she had been so lonely. She had given the talks about humility and friendship, tried not to praise her up to the heavens. But in the end, she had given Sunset all she wanted. When she tried to withhold and slow down, it was already too late. Celestia would always remember the question in Sunset’s eyes, when she received the hay kitchen assignment. Is this all my works have prepared me for? It said, Is this all you think I deserve? “Dear Sunset, are you unhappy with this task?” “Oh no–you are the Princess. I will complete any task you set. Only, I could do so much more…” “You will, Sunset. When you are ready. The highest tower demands the most careful foundations.” Celestia had personally opened the new Royal Homeless Stable–her patronage had been essential to perpetuating her student’s work, after Sunset returned to the school. Sunset had smiled so much that day, surrounded by adoring student volunteers. Fillies she would distain to be seen with, within six months. Sunset had spent her first year working and giving, all to gain the highest place she could. When she could no longer rise she could only strike downwards, at any pony who threatened what she had earned. The newspaper club, and all those confidences from trusting younger fillies, had been very useful to her–Celestia had ended up discontinuing the newspaper entirely. She still didn’t know what Sunset had done to make Diamond Broach withdraw as Princess of the Spring Fling. Most likely, Sunset’s rage alone had reduced the beautiful filly to the gibbering wreck Celestia had seen. And then the evil hour had come, when Sunset had seen the mirror. Nothing had been certain for her since. Almost eleven hundred years ago, Celestia and her sister had stayed up all night, discussing the existence of the Divine Alicorn. Somepony must have moved the Sun and Moon before ponies existed, Celestia maintained, or created them to do so. But the teaching of virtue, friendship and self-responsibility, she had insisted, would make for a better nation than ancient scriptures, or a silent god in the sky. “Has he not left us his name?” Luna had countered, “Does he not speak through the Cutie Marks he givest? And thou might be in daily contact with him, so certain thou seemest of his approval!” “Oh Luna! Thou knowest one has found nothing in two centuries that one could believe a divine message. One simply wishes to do the best a pony may do, to craft a kingdom of friendship and happiness, for a pony is all that one is!” “Sister…how many ponies believest so?” Princess Luna impetuously flung her forelegs around her elder sister’s neck, and gazed up at her, “Our subjects know of no being higher than thou, so they must make thou their god….and I understandest them truely, my dear sister! But who might dare to advise a god? To approach a god as a friend? If a god makest any mistake…then who might ever forgive them?” Celestia remembered how it had felt to laugh. It had seemed so simple, when they first took up the Elements. The Royal Sisters, saviours of Equestria from the monster Discord. Together for all time. Luna had been the other half of her spirit. Dark and passionate, giving birth with her to empire. Luna had loved her, deep as night skies. There had never been any other pony she needed. But when her goddess-sister had denied her what she prayed for–or even an evening alone together–then love had turned to hate, and history had come full circle. Now, she was the adored Sun Queen. Saviour of ponies from Nightmare Moon. Lone Sun and lone Moon, circling through the night, with nopony to save them from regret and misery. They had wanted to build churches to her, but she had not let them. She was no goddess, or devil. She had clung to her sanity over a thousand years full of free and happy little ponies, because she was just a pony. She was not the one responsible for everything. Somepony–two ponies–someday, would take up the Elements of Harmony again. Celestia had almost lost hope for herself and Sunset. Then Twilight had appeared–and she had believed for the first time in centuries, that Laulus had a hoof in mortal affairs. -0- -0- Sunset Shimmer returned from her study trip with a sunhat, a blowpipe, numerous empty salt-lick packets, and a splint around one foreleg. Presenting herself in the throne room, she tersely gave her report. "…I’ll get my leg checked out tomorrow. All that background you sent on Tenochtitlan was a help, Princess. And I appreciate you sending in, you know, Daring Doo as well." “That’s quite alright. How is Miss Doo?” "Better since I pulled her flank out of that crocodile pit. I liked her. She says what she's thinking." “Did Ahuizotl swear revenge on you, perchance?" "Quite vehemently, yes." "Well, I wouldn't worry too much. Well done, Sunset. You did well…only, take care of yourself.” “Understood, Princess. I’ll do better next time. ” With the briefest grimace of satisfaction, Sunset hobbled from before the throne. Celestia stared out of a towering window, at the clouded sky. “I miss thee, sister. I miss you too, Sunset Shimmer.” -0- -0- “Sunset! What happened to your leg?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sunset grinned foxily. She was resting on her dorm room bed, while Twilight almost hopped around her with nervous excitement, ooing over the scratches that covered her body. “I suppose you can’t say. But you could’ve told me you set up the Royal Homeless Stables!” “I didn’t do so much. A few of the right words to the right ponies just got everyone working. It’s so different from anything I’ve done since.” “I guess. Um, Sunset, have you seen Flash yet?” “Before my adorable fellow student? Haven’t seen him, but he’s taking me out for dinner this evening. Best restaurant in Canterlot, and guess who isn’t paying? His family are old money, you know. Must be where he gets his manners, though if he wasn’t quite such a goody four-shoes I wouldn’t mind…Twilight?” “I’m sorry…” “Oh horseapples, did you like him? Come here.” As Twilight plopped down on the bed and dried her eyes, Sunset hugged her with one foreleg, “Sorry, Twilight. You know me, I see something I want and take it.” “It’s…okay. I hardly spoke to him, it was just a shallow, school-filly crush…and I never had a chance against you.” “Twilight Sparkle. One day you will take all the passion and energy you now devote to your studying, and make some lucky pony a very happy stallion. Didn’t the Princess set you the amniomorphic technique? She didn’t set me that until third year.” “Ooo, really?” “Yeah. You’re her prize pupil.” “Sunset, that’s rubbish! I barely get out of the library. You’re going on secret missions for Celestia while you're still in school!” “Well, it was about time I did.” Sunset limped from the bed to the window, staring towards distant lights in the dusk, “I always learnt more in the field. Doing. Testing. Being tested. I can do more than this; I’ve not even begun to do what I need to. This school feels a dinky playpen already. Just like Hoofington.” “You could count yourself Princess of infinite space, in a nutshell, apart from bad dreams…” Twilight stared at the floor, suddenly afraid of Sunset’s dreams, “…but, can’t you be happy? For a while?” Her friend lifted her chin with a hoof. “You say the strangest things, Twilight–but you cheer me up every time. It’s a very useful gift, the right words. I’m glad you’re here.” Then Sunset had to change into a purple gown fit for a Princess, and go out to meet the carriage Flash had hired. Twilight watched them laugh and nuzzle each other, from the window. Her fiery, beautiful friend, with her gallant and handsome stallion. Leaving plain, timid Twilight behind. Had she ever had a chance with either Flash or Sunset? Twilight crept back to the main dorm room. She stayed up half the night, alone, reading mystery novels about Prancy Drew and her inseparable friends.