As I have already told you, my name is Sunset Shimmer. I was born in Canterlot to a family of very little note, whose wealth was sufficient to be able to support the three of us, but not to afford any of the finer things the city had to offer. I remember very little of my parents to be honest, they cared for me and doted on me, of that I am sure, but over the years they have almost entirely faded from my memory. When I was a young filly barely four years old they were both struck down by sickness. I was too young at the time to know precisely what was happening, simply that one night I went to sleep and when I woke the next morning neither of my parents did the same. As young as I was I had no real comprehension of what death meant, and tried my best to continue with life as though nothing had happened, crudely attempting to feed myself with what was left about the house and parodying the various things my mother and father did to keep the home clean and tidy. It was after about three days of this that somepony came to check on why neither of my parents had been seen in the last few days, and they found me alone in the kitchen while the bodies of my parents lay undisturbed upstairs.
From there I was taken to an orphanage, where I went through a brief dark patch of depression and mourning. As my recent loss began to finally sink in I became despondent, refusing to speak with any of the other children and barely interacting with my new carers. Indeed it was not until one of my carers decided to have me attempt the entrance exam for magic kindergarten at Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns that I truly came out of my shell. I passed my test with flying colors and quickly found myself under the attention of the Princess herself, who had apparently been looking for a young prodigy to take beneath her wing. The orphanage arranged a series of meetings with her and I quickly found myself taken in as her 'ward'.
I will not go into all of the details of my early life and education, the important thing you must realize is that as her ward I wasn't technically a part of the family. I was treated with the same love a mother might show for her child, I was cared for, doted upon, never left wanting, but I was not family. Honestly I didn't care, I had everything a young filly could ask for, I was practically royalty and I was going to be learning magic from the leader of all Equestria. Not being held with the same regard as her extended family of minor nobles and Princes like Blueblood was a small price to pay considering how much I was set to gain.
Those early years practically flew by, I was almost entirely engrossed in my studies and paid little attention to the goings on of the rest of the world, I loved my mentor and had no real reason to share that love with anypony else. I had no time for friends, or even for brief acquaintances, the immortal Princess was everything I wanted in my life. And so things remained for what seemed to be the longest time. My studies broadened as I aged, and I came to study not just magic but also nature, politics, history and science. In my dreams I saw myself being groomed to be the next ruler of Equestria, a mare of intellect and superior reasoning, far better suited for such a position than self-centered fools such as Blueblood. Indeed it was not until I was a young adult that I came to realize the futility of such dreams, and even then it was not my own inferiority that shattered my aspirations, it was my pedigree.
I can with perfect clarity recall the precise moment my dreams shattered, it was the arrival of the Princess' newly adopted niece Cadance. Neither myself nor any of the true nobility had heard of her name before that day, then, out of total obscurity, Celestia seemed to pluck a second alicorn, a pretty pink young mare whose body fit perfectly with that aspired form that so many unicorn mares sought. She was like a miniature Celestia, a second Sun to shine upon the fair city of Canterlot, and despite some initial doubts from a few select members of the nobility, she was quickly beloved by all. How could they not love her? She was perfect in form, radiant in appearance, polite in her manners and humble about her sudden ascension to a position of power. It was little surprise that she was quickly crowned 'The Princess of Love'. Yes, Cadance was beloved by all but myself.
I did not hate the mare, no, I never hated her, but her presence around the palace reminded me of my own shortcoming. While I was tolerated, she was loved; while I was a prized student, she was family; while I was the greatest unicorn of my generation, she was an alicorn. Jealousy is not a pretty thing and, in hindsight, I regret certain spiteful things I said towards Cadance during those initial few weeks of her coming to stay at the castle. As if to only further hammer home my own inadequacies she responded to my petty cruelties with all the grace and composure one would expect of a ruler, taking my jabs and jibes in her stride, making constant attempts to be the friend that she felt I was sorely lacking, and in general being the better mare.
It was not long after Cadance's arrival at the castle that my own stay came to an end. Not wanting to spend too much time around the newly crowned alicorn I made many excuses to keep out of her presence. The most predominant of those was that I wished to have more time for private study, an activity that saw me frequently sequestering myself amidst the stacks of the castle library. My reading was prolific and I rapidly consumed the information the library had to offer, including discredited pseudosciences and long obsolete theories. It was there, amidst dusty old books that my fascination with life was truly reignited. I had learned my fair share of medical magics while working as Celestia's student, but never really practiced them. I had read on the subject quite extensively, but it was one specific book, hidden away at the back of the library that made me consider it as a potential career (since it was now clear that 'Princess' was not in my future). The Black Book (as I came to refer to it) had no title, and its author went simply by the initial 'S'. It was a small tome, bound (distastefully) in black leather and horn written by a single individual. The author possessed an incredible knowledge of equine anatomy, postulating on functions and qualities of our anatomy that doctors had only recently come to realize. This 'S' seemed wildly ahead of his time, and the passion with which he wrote instilled me with a desire to follow his path. He wrote, for example, about the manner in which he had seen a recently deceased frog be reanimated by the careful application of lightning, its limbs moving as they had in life, despite its recent demise. Though he never seemed able to actually bring a body back to life he showed an extensive knowledge of the prerequisites each body part needed to live.
My private reading was backed by a few personal experiments. They were not common, I could hardly go out and acquire dead animals without raising a few eyebrows, but when opportunity presented itself I didn't shy away. A pigeon that had crashed into the palace windows and snapped its neck, a rat that had been struck by a cart and fallen dead into the gutter, in one sorry case a kitten that had made its way into the palace gardens only to drown in the pond; each was carefully seized and hidden away in my saddlebags to later be experimented upon in private, replicating the experiments of 'S' and giving me my first foray into the precise art of surgery. My initial attempts were clumsy, like a butcher with a slab of rotten meat, but with each new cadaver my precision became finer as I learned from my mistakes. To the great joy of my mentor I approached her about lessons in needlework, a pastime she deemed fit for a young lady like myself, never telling her the true purpose behind the skills she was helping me nurture.
So things continued until Celestia finally approached me about the matter of my future.
"Sunset," she said to me one day, at the conclusion of our magic lesson. "I cannot help but notice that you seem to have made no effort to make friends with other ponies, either about the palace, or at school," it was a strange obsession of hers, one that she constantly brought up, that I should make friends with my fellow ponies.
"Why bother? I'll likely never see them again when they leave the school, so why put the effort in? I can look for friends when I'm older and actually settled in life," at the time I genuinely had little interest in friendship, it seemed a barrier that would only slow my studies, and my superior knowledge suggested that the friends I would have wasted time making at that point of my life would only last till the end of my schooling.
"Sunset," Celestia sighed, "Friendship means a great deal more than you give it credit for, in many ways it is the bedrock of Equestrian society. I worry, Sunset, that without friends you might never be able to truly complete your studies as my student." It was laughable really, the idea that 'Friendship' might be deemed to be a part of her curriculum, perhaps if I had been pursuing social studies, maybe, but for my own interest in magic and the physical sciences? No.
"Perhaps if I knew where these lessons were meant to be taking me then I might understand," I muttered beneath my breath.
"Where do you think they are taking you?" she asked with one of the motherly smiles I had come to love her for.
"I don't know, a minor noble, an ambassador, a court magician, a teacher at your school, a doctor..." she watched me in silence as I listed off the possible futures that I had imagined she had in store for me, it was not until the last one that she showed any real emotion beyond mild curiosity.
"A doctor, Sunset?" She asked me in surprise. "Is that truly something that is of interest to you?" the question was not asked with any hint of disbelief, it was clear that she had not expected that answer but she made no sign of wishing to dismiss it.
"I guess," I replied, rubbing the back of my head. "I've been reading up on the subject and it would be nice to maybe stop other ponies having to go through what I did," the fate of my parents was not something we often spoke of, it was a touchy subject, one that was largely in the past, but I had never truly gotten over that first great tragedy in my life. Under Celestia's care I wanted for nothing, but she was never able to replace my mother and father, while they were quickly fading from my memory I could still recall their abundant familial affections, a love that Celestia had never been truly able to replicate.
"Do you truly consider this as something you would like to try?" her choice of words confused me slightly, 'try', as though she had no real expectation for me making a long term career out of the profession.
"Yes, it's a fascinating subject, and I could really help some ponies," I saw no real reason to bring up that my fascination had come from the curious little black book I had found in the library.
"Very well then," Celestia replied after an extended pause for thought. "There is a small town, not far from Canterlot, called Ponyville. The locals there are kind and amicable, but their hospital is sadly understaffed. If this is a career you are genuinely interested in pursuing, then I can arrange for you to intern there and study under their head of staff." I smiled at the suggestion, I would probably have preferred a larger, better equipped hospital to work at, but a small town had its own charms, privacy to pursue my own studies chief among them. "However," Celestia continued, "I have one small favor you must carry out for me while you are there," she leaned down and smiled playfully, perfectly playing the role of the kindly caretaker, "try to make some friends."