Sunset Shimmer, I presume? Are you okay? How would you describe the Everfree forest? It’s simply exhilarating, writing to you in the journal like this!
Dear Twilight. Everfree Forest dark, muddy and cold, so won’t say wish you were here. Some locals claimed that beating two saucepans together keeps timber wolves away; it’s worked so far. The clouds really move by themselves; trying to find a clearing for weather observation. The forest overhead right now is thick as Starswirl's beard.
Dear Sunset. Glad you’re safe so far. I couldn’t find the saucepan business in any book on the forest–mightn’t it attract other dangerous animals?
Dear Twilight. They’d probably smell me anyway, and I don’t want to surprise them. Also, not everything useful is written in books.
Dear Sunset. I know. It’s a tragedy of this world, LOL. That means laugh out loud. On the other hoof, Minuette had some original insights into the themes of Daring Doo and the Griffon’s Goblet, the last time we had lunch together.
Dear Twilight. Found suitable clearing, pitched tent, sick of eating hay. Why in Equestria were you having lunch with Minuette?
Dear Sunset. I’ve had coffee, donuts and lunch with Minuette and the gang several times, actually. She’s really quite smart. Twinkleshine is vivacious and kind. Lyra and Lemonhearts are really funny.
Dear Twilight. In short, it’s not just Minuette? Twinkleshine, and Lemonhearts? I repeat, why in Equestria? Their grades are almost worse than Snips and Snails!
Dear Sunset. You’re friends with Snips and Snails, aren’t you? Anyway, how are the observations going?
Dear Twilight. I've never gone out for donuts with those goons. Some intriguing cloud formations, but surrounded by giant spiders just at present. WHY, I repeat again, are you wasting your time with those ponies?
Dear Sunset, be careful! Most species of forest spider can kill or paralyse with a single bite–what kind are they? I’ve read all about their weaknesses, please describe them!
Dear Twilight, I don’t understand you. You’re the smartest filly in school. Those ponies are nothing like us. You don’t do friends. Why suddenly start now?
Dear Sunset, tell me about the spiders!
Dear Twilight, Is it because I can’t talk about those Daring Doo books? Is that why you found new friends? Behind my back?
Dear Sunset you will always be my best friend, that should be clear. It should also be clear that you haven’t been around the school for weeks! Minuette &C are my friends, and I’m glad of it Now please! Spiders! Description!
Dear Sunset, if you don’t write back at once, I’m going to Surge again.
Dear Sunset, I’m sorry. Sorry! I don’t need anypony but you, so please be safe, please…
Dear Twilight. It’s alright. Sorry I couldn’t write back; a few spiders broke through the Barrier Technique I used, so I had to blast them. That set light to a lot of spiderweb, but I managed to extinguish most of it. Saved the books and instruments as well.
Dear Sunset, So you’re safe now? Thank Celestia!
Dear Twilight, safe as I can be in Everfree. The spiders cleared out; they were red and black striped btw. Anyway, how’s your final presentation going?
Dear Sunset, nearly finished.
Dear Twilight, you started weeks ago, how could you not have finished?
Dear Sunset, I had to spend a while helping Lemonhearts and Twinkleshine, but Lyra had some good ideas about the musical aspect of my project, so nothing to worry about.
Dear Twilight, you mean you’re studying with these ponies? It’s not just coffee and donuts?
Dear Sunset, could we drop that subject please? You sound like a jealous husband!
Not that I mind it so much, put like that…
Dear Twilight, JEALOUS? ME?! Alright. Maybe your hubby needs to produce a little surprise for you. Have to stare at clouds now. Back in Canterlot for revision week.
Twilight lay back on her sumptuous dorm bed, hugging the journal. Her heart still beat hard from its earlier scare. But a weight she had borne since the year’s beginning was gone.
-0-
-0-
With her research from Cloudsdale and Everfree Sunset produced a stormy display, vast enough to make Canterlot itself stop and stare. When the batteries of lightning were finally over, and the sun broke through towering clouds, Sunset had naturally received the highest mark for Final Presentations. Twilight was overjoyed that her own singing windchimes came in second; Sunset got the final victory of her final year.
Apart from vocational colleges, higher education was almost unheard of in Equestria. School leaving ponies went straight into work or apprenticeships, according to their Cutie Mark. Sunset would be remaining at the palace, continuing her studies under Celestia’s eye. A tower had been prepared for her, with a small library and observatory.
The Princess had proposed a new field trip for the New Year, collecting rare crystals in the northern mountains. Lenses for Canterlot Observatory’s primary telescope ‘Big Tom’ could only be made with such crystals. Given the need for course corrections on distant stars, spare lenses couldn’t be numerous enough.
The Fourth Years’ graduation ceremony, in the Clover the Clever Hall of the palace, was packed solid; not only with past and current students, eager to send off the school’s most outstanding student by any measure, but scholars, reporters and curious society ponies. Sunset, the focus of all attention, appeared quiet and pensive. It was Twilight who seemed ready to burst with excitement. She even dared to ask Starry Flash if he wasn’t tremendously happy for his fillyfriend? Flash readily confirmed that he was.
“She isn’t nervous, is she?” Lyra peered towards Sunset from her seat, “I’d be bouncing for joy in her horseshoes.”
“Um, you bounce for joy all the time.” Twilight ventured. Lyra giggled; so did Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lemonhearts. Wonders had never ceased, since Twilight had become attached to their group of friends.
“Nothing,” Lemonhearts murmured, “Would make me nervous if I looked that hot.”
“Well, looks can be deceiving,” Mused Twinkleshine. Twilight shot her a nervous look, “Sorry, Twi. She’s your friend, she’s an incredible pony. I really wish her all the best. I mean, Sunset helped the Hoofball team win this year’s championship, she revived the Self-defence club, and she really helped out with Twinkle’s charity singing concert…”
“…and we got used to her loud guitar practise, eventually…”
“Sooner than your lyre practise, Heartstrings.” Minuette quipped. Everypony laughed again, as Lyra stuck her tongue out, “Yeah, I wish I could fill my time with so many extraordinary things as Sunset. Maybe that’s the meaning of this hourglass Mark. Or the meaning I’ll give it.”
Minuette was popular, strong-minded and reliable; she had already invited Twilight to the Winter DaringCon in Manehatten. All her new friends were good ponies. Twilight couldn’t conceive any rational objection Sunset could have to them.
“Twi? What’s Sunset doing after graduation?” Lemonhearts asked. Twilight answered, so far as she could, “Oh. I thought it would be bigger than that.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Minuette’s voice was pensive again, “Just not sure if she’s going to set the world on fire, or explode.” Twlight knew she should have answered, for her friend–but nothing came.
-0-
-0-
Sunset’s parents, both bespectacled grey unicorns, huddled together between the Unicornian columns and stained glass, apparently rather lost. They relaxed somewhat once Twilight had regaled them with some of their daughter’s accomplishments. They had known for a long time, they said, that Sunset was a special pony–sounding rather as if it were cancer, nobly endured. All they cared about was that she found her own happiness.
Twilight forgot about Sunset’s parents, the instant she spotted a hunched tan pony with red spectacles. Attired in a dustcloak, and a floppy hat. A.K Yearling–the renowned novelist hadn’t appeared in public for years–informed the voracious pressponies that Sunset had assisted her research for Daring Doo’s most recent jungle adventure.
“…really saved my flank, you might say, along with her young research partner. I don’t like unpaid debts any more than the next pony. So, as Miss Shimmer requested, I’m presenting her friend with the complete series of Daring Doo books, in first editions. Now…Twilight? Sunset told me about you. Starswirl reborn, she said. Let’s have a little chat.”
Twilight’s literary heroine had signed every book. She answered every question Twilight wasn’t too stunned to recall. ‘A little surprise’ hardly captured it. Twilight barely remembered to introduce Yearling to Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lyra–all of them looked even more joyfully stunned than she felt. Twilight dreamily stared across the crowded hall towards Sunset, who gave her a wink. Twilight mouthed back; Best. Friend. Ever.
Magnificent as ever, Princess Celestia distributed a scroll and heartening word to each fourth year graduate in succession. When Sunset bowed before her, she almost managed to smile–then her head dropped, and a murmur ran around the hall.
The Princess who held up the Sun could never be weak. But Twilight had never seen Celestia so burdened.
-0-
-0-
Two and a half Years Ago
“Why Sunset? Why wouldn’t you trust me, when I trusted you with so much?”
“You trusted me to interpret your lessons for myself, my Princess,” Still staring into the mirror, Sunset’s voice was eerily calm, “You taught me that a Princess must make her own path, and her own choices.”
Sunset lay on the stone floor with a forbidden book before her, but the mirror held her eyes like a vice. The royal sisters had recovered it from a castle in the South, where black unicorns with red horns had worked Black Techniques in the world’s youth. Some said that ponies saw their heart’s desire under the silver arc; others claimed that it would foretell their future. Nopony had looked on it for a thousand years, and
Celestia never had. No second reading of Macbeth; the tragedy of Prince Duncan’s horses had been required to perceive what evil knowledge the future would be.
From where she stood behind Sunset, Celestia could see what she saw in the mirror. Flame red wings, stretching above her back into the cellar’s darkness. An alicorn princess, imperious and invincible in her destiny. Sunset choked back a sob of longing.
“You are no Princess, Sunset. You are my student, and I taught you the evil of these things”
“I never expected it to be easy! I knew it would be near-impossible, even for me! If I put a single hoof wrong, you would discard me–my future and life, annihilated. Can you imagine it? Can you remember what it was to not be perfect? I had to have some assurance. Anyway, this is your mirror, and these are your books!” Sunset kicked the book of Black Techniques toward Celestia’s hooves. After breaking into the mirror’s cellar and seeing her destiny confirmed, Celestia surmised, Sunset had thrown off all restraint, “There are Techniques there that could end war and strife, even death itself!”
“Yes, even win you the world, at the cost of your soul! Sunset Shimmer! Princess and teacher, all I have ever done has been for my ponies’ good. You told me your dream was to help other ponies find their destiny. Now I see that even your kindness only serves your own ego and ambition!”
“I helped other ponies! I could lead them all to glory, as I led my school through the fire, if you only made me a Princess! I could change this world, but you sent me to hay kitchens and hospitals like some common drudge! You required everything, you promised me nothing–perhaps you never even saw my destiny, but the mirror did. I admit I went too far into Black Techniques. I’m sorry and I will not do that again, but you must see that I–”
“I must? I MUST?”
Celestia had not used her royal voice in over a thousand years. The guards behind her buckled at the knees. Sunset’s fierce blue eyes held her gaze, for only an instant.
“I am your Princess, Sunset! You are a thing with blind eyes, and a twisted heart, that might have been a Princess. I hoped and believed you would–but a pony that cares nothing for others is useless. You are no longer my student. You will be imprisoned while I decide whether to charge you with Black misuse of the Gift.”
The proud, Celestia had frequently observed, create their own torments. When Sunset realised what she had lost, there was nothing and nopony left for her. Nothing beneath to stop her fall. The Guards had to carry her from the cellar, where Celestia remained to destroy the mirror.
Then she gathered the hundreds of forbidden books seized by her sister and herself, from a millennium of wicked unicorns. Luna had felt that an understanding of evil was indispensable for its defeat; even after her exile, Celestia had honoured her ideas. Until now. She ordered the guards to pile every book and artefact in an inner courtyard, and burned them. She knew as much about evil as she would ever need.
Right and wrong, in the fortunate kingdom of Equestria, were determined by Celestia’s will. When she erred, something had to go; and alas, it could never ever be her.
-0-
-0-
Every day, Celestia visited the unused palace bedchamber that served as Sunset’s cell. She told Sunset that she had loved her, couldn’t have wished for a daughter more brave and brilliant. That love had fuelled rage, and spewed the very words from lips that would hurt Sunset most. She was sorry–
“Didn’t work for me,” Sunset’s voice was eerily calm once more, but her eyes were blank with flames, “Only one thing will.”
“No, Sunset. Accept the situation, rest, and let me decide what must be done.”
Sunset’s single laugh was high and cracked, “No. No! I will never be the pony that might have been a Princess! I will be a Princess before I die, the mirror said so! I need to kill you to make that happen, and I can't lose!!
Her Gift crunched into Celestia’s jaw. Blood flew from the alicorn’s lips.
“SUNSET!” The walls shook, “NO!”
Gold light flashed from Celestia’s body, throwing back the bricks and furniture Sunset hurled. An invisible mountain fell on the unicorn's back, driving her to the floor.
Celestia’s eyes blazed like fusion; her wings seemed to fill the skies.. She was the bringer of sunrise, saviour of ponykind. A flawless avenging angel, placing one hoof on a cowering demon’s head. Banishment or death were the penalties for treason, and her will was the only court required.
“SUNSET! DID YOU DREAM THAT YOU WERE STRONGER THAN ME? IF YOU KILLED ME, COULD YOU RAISE THE SUN TOMMOROW? OR DID YOU EVEN VALUE YOUR MISERABLE AMBITIONS OVER YOUR PRECIOUS, precious life! How did you come to this?” Sunset felt, though the fog of terror, a single tear fall onto her mane, “Farewell, Sunset.”
“I’m sorry, Princess! Wait! I’m sorry! I was wrong, I was blind and twisted, and useless! I was an ingrate, I was mad! I’m sorry! Please, please give me one more chance, and I swear to you, I’ll change! The mirror was an evil lie! I don’t deserve to be your student, I could never be as great as you, I even hurt you, oh my Princess, I’m so sorry! Just give me another chance….”
“No, Sunset. You are…my second chance.”
The mountain was gone. Celestia sunk to her knees before Sunset’s wild eyes.
“Princess? How…what…?”
“I cannot wipe out the past, Sunset. Your mistakes will have hard consequences, every one. But I forgive you, Sunset Shimmer. I will do all that is in my power to help you change. And I implore you, Sunset, please do not leave me again.”
-0-
-0-
Present
“Princess?” Concerned blue eyes searched Celestia’s face.
“I’m only…so glad that you made it.”
The Princess threw her wings around Sunset, dropping to her knees. A stronger murmur of disapproval was drowned in the applause began by Twilight, as Celestia rubbed her neck against her student’s neck, and nuzzled in her hair.
“I’m proud of you, Sunset,” she whispered, “So proud…”
Sunset had known it in her core for years. She would never be so great as the Sun Princess, never so royal in heart. She would never stand at her side. So she had fallen to the mirror, like a weak-willed fool.
She had dreamed of halting the Sun in the sky, before she left school. Celestia had never taught her how, perhaps never would; but here they were, together.
-0-
-0-
"It was just embarrassing," Sunset muttered, late that evening, "As if there was ever serious doubt that I would graduate!"
"Well, congratulations, anyway. On joining the adult herd."
Twilight, and Minuette’s group, had prepared a celebration for Sunset at Donut Joe’s, but the fiery-maned filly had left early. She was sitting in a rundown bar, in a crooked alley, next to a heavily disguised A.K Yearling AKA Daring Doo. The pegasus had donned a leather jacket and cloth
cap. She seemed utterly lackadaisical, but Sunset could see the eternal readiness in her wings and haunches.
“Thanks, I guess," She responded, "Thanks for that favour for Twilight as well.”
“It was a bit much, wasn’t it? You saved my life, almost got killed yourself, and waste the debt on an extravagant present for your fillyfriend? Just because she has, Oh! The horror! Other friends?”
“Imagine you were loved by the greatest pony who ever lived, and then you threw it into the midden. Too much is not enough, when you don’t know ‘enough’ from a bent horseshoe until you’ve won or lost. And I am not going to lose Twilight Sparkle."
Daring's wings twitched. She smiled, and leaned towards Sunset's ear.
“I told you I work alone, didn’t I? Not because of the secrets. Not because I prefer to live alone in a jungle hut, with barely a pony who knows I exist. I’ve had to choose between companions and a quest. Every time, I lost them both. So I work alone, and live alone. I’d advise you to make your choice, soon as you can.”
“You misunderstand. I need Twilight to keep me in Celestia's favour."
“Pull another one." Daring grinned roguishly, "You need her, same as I need to get my books out. We live for the applause, ponies like us, and the victory. Only, you're aiming higher than some ratty old idol in a tomb. You will fall, if there is any tool you won't use. Any weight you won't shed."
Sunset honestly liked Daring, but talking with her made the fiery-maned filly look for things to kick. All dash and action on every quest–sharp tongued and maudlin in between.
As for Sunset, she was out of school, still on her quest. No time to define the shadows in her feelings for Celestia and Twilight. She would seize herself a crown, and not because of a mirror's idiot prophesy. She would not fall again.