Act III-I
Despite the temptation, I had decided to keep what I had learned about Celestia and Sombra to myself for the time being. As nice as it would have been to have something to contribute to the conversation that was going on around me, my friends seemed to be content with discussing the latest gossip and events happening around the school. It was the kind of lunchtime conversation that I always felt like an outsider to.
Rainbow Dash always went on about something ‘awesome’ that she did the other day after school. Rarity would usually speak about some cute outfit she saw earlier that day in the hallway. During a quiet moment, Fluttershy would try to talk about some mischief that her rabbit got into, only to be interrupted by Applejack and Rainbow Dash getting into an argument about who was better than who at something trivial. Today it had something to do with who could hold their breath longer, but to be honest I rarely paid attention to the subject.
It was the kind of friendly banter that happened around each and every table in the cafeteria; friends sharing memories, stories, jokes, and more. And every time I just sat quietly and ate my salad, waiting for the ringing bell to signal the start of afternoon classes. I wished for something I could share with them, but I still felt like I had nothing in common with these girls who insisted on calling me their friend. I had little interest in sports, fashion, farms, partying, and it would be a huge mistake to entrust me with the well-being of anything that had a pulse.
Then again, they didn’t have much in common with each other either, but they seemed to have no trouble being friends. As I glanced up from my salad, I saw that Applejack was listening intently to Rarity, and to the untrained eye one might assume that Applejack had a vested interest in fashion and accessories. Yet I knew for a fact that the only fashion choice Applejack ever concerned herself with was ‘what would look good with my hat today?’
What could I share with these girls that they would feign interest in? My after school hours were spent on homework and reading because I lived with the vice principal who spent her free time moonlighting as my personal jail guard. I suspected that none of my friends were interested in hearing about how I spent last evening sitting on the couch with Celestia eating kale chips and watching a documentary on bubble gum.
Mentioning Sombra and Celestia was another tempting subject, but that felt like something I shouldn’t be sharing with anyone. Back in Equestria, Princess Celestia was guaranteed to be involved in almost any gossip worth hearing, especially in the capital. A school principal, however, did not invoke the same degree of curiosity. It’s unlikely any of them would know either, since the subject appeared to be a closely-guarded secret for Celestia. So despite how much I hated being intentionally left in the dark about something, I had to bite my tongue and endure. I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes as I did with the first Celestia.
“Hey Sunset, what are you working on there?”
Pinkie’s question snapped me back to reality, though whether it was from genuine curiosity or an attempt to get me involved, I could not say. During my silent contemplations, I had failed to notice that I had been tapping the pen I held in my free hand against a blank page of my notebook.
“I’m just trying to figure out what to do for my next article,” I answered with a half-truth. That particular subject was the reason I took out the pen and paper in the first place, but it hadn’t been on my mind for the past quarter-hour thanks to my thoughts becoming distracted by the conversation around me. “Yearling says my talents would be wasted if I just did sporting events, so she wants me to come up with something she can run in place of Gabby’s old gossip column.”
“It’s a shame that the gossip column is gone,” Rarity commented. “I mean, sure it tweaked a few noses here and there, but it really was one of the few things that actually made the newspaper interesting to read.”
And that was the root cause of my concern. The old Gabby had a popular following, which meant big expectations, and if I wanted people to keep reading my stuff after I dropped the pseudonym, I needed to become popular again. Strange how that task seemed so daunting this time around.
“I got an idea! You should write about me,” Rainbow Dash suggested while tapping herself proudly on the chest with a half-eaten carrot stick.
Like clockwork, Applejack was quick to start dousing the flames of Dash’s egoism. “And why exactly should anybody be reading about you?”
“Well for starters, I’m awesome, but you should all know that already,” Dash explained. She was too busy chomping down on her food to notice the rest of us rolling our eyes. “Not to mention, since the Fall Formal, I’m even more awesome now for helping take down that horrible demon, and everybody knows it.” Her self-aggrandizing grin vanished for a second when she shot a nervous glance over to me. “Um...no offense, Sunset.”
“None taken,” I muttered back.
“Rainbow does have a good point actually,” Rarity chimed in, much to everyone’s curiosity. “Remember what Sunset told us about her...dealings with the newspaper student editor? According to Tiara, stories about us were a hot button issue.”
There were a few raised eyebrows around the table, though I was the first speak up. “You’re not suggesting I start gossiping about us, are you?”
“Not quite what I had in mind,” Rarity insisted with a knowing smirk. “I was thinking more like highlighting the best parts of us, rather than airing dirty laundry. Like Rainbow said, she is ‘awesome,’ and I’m sure lots of students would love to read about that.”
While I wasn’t convinced that many students would be interested in listening to Rainbow’s showboating, there was a lot of merit to Rarity’s idea. It didn’t even need to be limited to just my circle of friends: there were probably scores of students with interesting stories to tell. The only hitch in this plan was convincing people to be willing to open up to me. Trust was not something I commanded in great quantities at the moment. However, using the Gabby pseudonym for a while might help generate enough popularity and respect that students might be willing to talk to me once I took this project to the school populace at large.
“Oh! I have an idea!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. She didn’t even wait for a response before grabbing my pen and paper. “I’m seeing ‘The New and Improved Sunset Shimmer: Twice the Fun with None of the Mean,’ what do you think?”
“I think that’s going to be a hard sell,” I replied with a light-hearted chuckle. Not only did I think that few would be interested in reading it, let alone believe anything it said, the notion of an interview with myself felt foolish. None of that seemed to impede my friend’s enthusiasm.
“So Sunset, you are one of the most recognized students in the school, but also one of the most mysterious,” Pinkie continued unabated, putting heavy emphasis on the last part of her sentence. “Who is the real Sunset Shimmer? What do you in your free time? Any hobbies?”
I don’t know why, but I decided to play along for the time being; it was more interesting than what I had been dwelling on before. “I don’t really have many hobbies at the moment. I’m trying to find some, but it’s not as simple as I thought it would be. I mostly just read and watch television once I’ve done all my homework.” When I phrased it like that, it made my life sound rather boring. It was the price one paid when they spent three years obsessing over revenge. “I’m thinking of looking into clubs outside the school to join.”
“I see, I see…” Pinkie muttered while scribbling wildly across my note pad. I had no idea if she was writing anything that I had said, but I was playing along for fun, not because I thought this was a good idea for a real article. “And what’s your favourite colour?”
“I’m kind of partial towards red.” A bit of an odd question, but that was to be expected from Pinkie Pie.
“What’s your favourite food?”
“F-food? Oh…I, um…” Because it was such a mundane question, my sudden bout of hesitation took my friends by surprise, and just made them all the more curious. They all began to stare at me with puzzled looks in their eyes.
Their piercing...scrutinizing...judging eyes.
Eventually, I was able to work up the willpower to blurt it out. “I…I…it’s called buckwheat bacon, okay?”
My friends continued with their confused stares until Applejack finally popped the question. “Buckwheat bacon? Ain’t never heard of that. Is that some sort of—”
“Yes, it’s an Equestrian food, as in back when I used to walk on four legs and had a horn,” I explained with the intent of getting through this awkward conversation. Talking about home was very uncomfortable for me since I worried they would just stare at me as if there was still a horn sticking out from the middle of my forehead.
“So what exactly is it?” Pinkie Pie asked, sounding more curious than astounded.
“It’s a variation of normal hay bacon. It’s basically a mixture of buckwheat meal and dried hay, which you can then fry or bake. I used to like having them with a poached egg and covered in hollandaise sauce.” At first, it might not sound like the kind of fancy breakfast you’d have while living in the Royal Palace, but when you imported the buckwheat all the way from Neighpon, it bumped the price tag beyond most people’s budget.
“Okay, next question,” Pinkie continued on. “When is your birthday?”
I let out a quiet sigh and shot Pinkie a disapproving glare. “Did you really do all this just so you could ask when my birthday is again?”
“Um, maybe.”
“I think this interview is over,” I declared before snatching my pen and paper back. I had to give Pinkie Pie credit for her creativity, but I wasn’t going to be duped into surrendering that information. If she wanted my birthday, she would just have to wait until I was ready to talk about it.
I would’ve followed my remarks up with some scolding about respecting my desire for privacy, but I became distracted by a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. And it wasn’t just any flash, it was Flash Sentry. I hadn’t spoken with him since the break-up a month ago, so while I had no real reason to fear retribution, I still planned on avoiding him like a hung-over sailor avoided direct sunlight.
Unfortunately for me, he had already passed the table that had all of his usual band buddies, which left one reason for him to be walking in the direction of me and my friends: it started with a T and rhymed with ‘-wilight Sparkle.’ One could hardly blame the kid; the two hit it off pretty well during the dance from what Rarity and the others told me. Once Twilight left as suddenly and mysteriously as she had arrived, it pretty much became something out of a fairy tale story. It was a shame that there was unlikely to be any ‘happily ever after’ for Flash, and it only made these conversations, which happened at least once a week, all the more uncomfortable for us.
With no obvious or easy escape route, I had to devise a way to make myself scarce with a minimum of movement. One quick, casual swipe of my hand and my pen was knocked away, giving me more than enough reason to duck under the table for a while. It was just in time, too, as I noticed Flash’s familiar baggy jeans standing at the end of the table—he still had that ketchup stain around his left ankle.
“So, um...hey girls. How’s it going?” A smooth entry by the one and only Flash Sentry. At least this time it didn’t involve any spilled drinks.
“Hello Flash, is there something you need?” Rarity was usually the first to respond whenever Flash came about. I imagine the others felt uneasy because his usual question would never be met with good news. And, as always, Rarity clung to the hope that maybe this time he would ask about something else.
“I was just wondering if, you know, maybe you heard anything from your...out of town friends.”
Poor Flash; such a hopeless romantic, he was. Even weeks after the fact, he still clung to the hope that Twilight could one day waltz back into his life. Perhaps if I had a bit of that optimism, I could make it through each day with a bit more spring in my step.
“I’m sorry, dear, but we haven’t heard a word from Twilight since she left,” Rarity explained for the third time in as many weeks. “We don’t even have any way of getting in touch with her.”
“Not even, like, a cell phone number or an email address? I’d even settle for a P.O. box,” Flash replied.
“It’s...complicated,” Applejack said, stepping into the conversation.
Personally, I didn’t think Flash would’ve had trouble wrapping his head around the idea that Twilight lived on the other side of a magical portal in a parallel dimension. He might not believe it, but he wouldn’t have any difficulty with comprehension. It was an unfortunate coincidence that I was probably the only person who had the understanding and bluntness to explain the situation, but at the same time I was the one Flash would be least likely to believe.
“Alright, I understand,” Flash answered with a familiar sigh. It was his ‘I give up’ sigh, which I heard plenty of times back when provoking arguments with him was how I passed the time during boring dates, which was most of them.
“We’ll let you know if we hear anything at all from her,” Rarity reassured Flash. Judging by the way he dragged his feet as he left, I doubt he was convinced. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for him: first he gets stuck in a relationship with an evil, manipulative brat, and now he’s stuck pining for a girl who lives on the other side of a magic mirror.
“You can come out now, Sunset,” Applejack announced with no effort to conceal the sense of amusement she was feeling.
“I had to get my pen,” I insisted.
“Oh really? Then where is it?”
Smoke screens only worked when you actually deployed the smoke, and the fact that my pen still sat on the ground next to AJ’s foot made it all too clear what my intents had been. I scowled and huffed before quickly scooping the pen up, trying to maintain the facade despite its crumbling foundation.
“You were hiding it from me.” A weak accusation, but it was enough to keep Applejack busy rolling her eyes.
“Are you still avoiding Flash Sentry?” Fluttershy’s diminutive voice peeped into the conversation. When she saw the exasperated look on my face, her concern only grew. “Oh, I’m sorry. Should I not have said that? I thought everybody already knew.”
“They do now,” I grumbled under my breath. To be fair, if my paltry display of subtlety before hadn’t tipped my friends off, then they really did need somebody to spell it out for them.
“When was the last time you spoke with him?” Rarity inquired.
I sighed and buried my face into my palms. “The break-up. I believe my last words to him were ‘you’ll come to regret this,’ followed by some...uncharitable adjectives for him.” Combined with what I did during the Fall Formal, I didn’t just burn the bridge behind me, I dropped a bomb on it, and then every other bridge in a ten-kilometer radius.
“Darling, perhaps it might be a good idea to try and reach out to him,” Rarity said, reaching across the table to nudge my gaze back up to her. “A simple and sincere apology could go a long way to helping people understand how much you’ve changed.”
“Oh, come on! I already did the whole apology thing back during the Fall Formal. Everybody was there!” Honestly, if I had to go through another round of apologizing, it was going to come out sounding forced and insincere. The first time around had already proven to be the single-most humiliating moment of my life, and now my friend was suggesting an encore performance.
“He was your boyfriend for a time, though,” Rarity reminded me.
“It wasn’t a real relationship.”
“It was real to him.” Fluttershy’s words caught me off-guard. She could be like a sniper with words: silent, precise, and utterly devastating.
Whatever appetite I had, it was long gone at this point. By some small miracle, the lunch bell began to chime, offering me the small mercy of a convenient excuse to leave.
*******************
“You know your ‘friends’ are just there to contain you. They’re afraid of you...of what you can accomplish…”
“Sunset, it’s time to wake up.”
I awoke with a startled yelp and a spastic flail that almost resulted in Celestia taking a backhand across the face. Frantic eyes scanned across the room, and it took my mind a few seconds to realize that I was laying in bed at home. With the last fleeting words of my dreams still echoing through my mind, I managed an apologetic smile.
“Oh...it’s you,” I said. I glanced over to the nearby window and saw that the sun had only just finished cresting over the horizon. “Wh—why are you waking me up so early? It’s Saturday.”
Though the lingering adrenaline left my heart ricocheting about my rib cage, I felt a renewed sense of tranquility when Celestia sat down on the edge of my bed. She looked concerned; she had that worried but reassuring smile on her face. The kind of smile that reminded you that you were never alone, regardless of how much you felt to the contrary.
“Another bad dream?” she asked, ignoring my inquiry.
“Probably just something I ate last night.” I didn’t want to come off as dismissive, but bad dreams were just the random products of my subconscious. There was no point trying to make sense of them, even if there was a recurring red-devil theme to them. “Now what’s so important that you needed to wake me up at—” I grabbed the nearby alarm clock and checked the time. “—six in the morning? What the heck, Celestia? It’s Saturday! I should be getting up at noon, not the crack of dawn.”
“Your friend Applejack contacted me after school yesterday,” Celestia explained. “She was wondering if you’d be interested in giving her a hand at her farm today.”
“I wasn’t aware being a farmhand was a part of my rehab,” I remarked. Even though Applejack was my friend, that didn’t mean I had to drop everything and work on her farm on a whim. Perhaps it was just my aversion to hard, physical labour that was speaking up, but I didn’t see how chores on a farm would be of any benefit.
“Please don’t think of it as punishment.” The way Celestia phrased her plea only made me think of it even more as a punitive measure. “Your friend sounded very concerned for you, and she genuinely believes that this will be of help to you. Apparently you’ve been having some issues with your friends at school.”
They were concerned for me? Even though I had no reason to doubt that, it still sounded like such a foreign concept. I wasn’t used to people worrying about me, let alone taking action.
“I guess I have been a bit...distant lately,” I said with a sigh of resignation. Perhaps if I wasn’t always sticking my head into the sand every time an uncomfortable subject came up, my friends would be able to help me find resolution. I still didn’t see how an afternoon as a farmhand would help me.
“If you’re not in the mood for a day at Sweet Apple Acres, I do believe Miss Pie extended an invitation to help her with some babysitting,” Celestia added.
Given the option between hard labour on an apple orchard or enduring Pinkie Pie’s ham-fisted attempts to divulge my date of birth, whilst dealing with screaming toddlers, it was an easy choice for me to make.
“Maybe I can pick up some fizzy ciders while I’m there.”
*******************
Despite having been roused from my bed at an unseemly hour of the morning, by the time I was dropped off at Sweet Apple Acres, I was feeling more awake and alert. It may have had something to do with the large cup of coffee that Celestia bought me on our way to the farm, or just perhaps the long drive gave me enough time to finish waking up.
“Howdy there, Sunset. I honestly didn’t think you’d make it here this early,” Applejack greeted. To no surprise, the farmer was bright and chipper upon my arrival; no doubt due to many weekends waking up at the crack of dawn. Personally, I would’ve made laws against waking me up before ten o’clock on a Saturday, punishable by summary moon-banishment.
“I’m just super excited about working on an apple orchard, ya know?” I replied with my best attempt at feigning an earnest smile.
“Wow. You really can’t lie first thing in the morning, can you?”
“Cut me some slack. I usually don’t need to fake sincerity until at least eight-thirty,” I answered. At least we both had a good chuckle about it. “Seriously, though, why invite me out to the orchard? You’ve never really been the type to ask others to help you with chores.”
From what I could remember of the stories Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy told me, you had to twist Applejack’s arm in several places and hold her over a pit of fire just to get her to admit that she might need help. The unsolicited offer struck me as uncharacteristic, which just made me all the more suspicious of her intentions.
“Remember when you said you were having trouble coming up with ideas for your next newspaper article?” Applejack began as she gestured for me to follow her over to the barnhouse. “I thought that maybe an afternoon in the orchard might give you something interesting to write about.”
“An article about picking apples?” I replied with a raised eyebrow. “No offense, but I’m not entirely sure how that’ll make for an interesting read.”
Were it later in the day, I might have phrased that to be less blunt, but as I had said, faking sincerity was difficult before one finished their coffee. Applejack did not look as annoyed about my skepticism as I would’ve expected, but in my half-awake state I thought nothing of it. I reminded myself that everybody had their own perspectives about what they found to be interesting. Plus, I was going to be out here until the late afternoon so I may as well give her idea the benefit of the doubt.
“What’s not to love out here? Just smell that fresh country air!” Applejack said as she continued to sell her idea. “And who doesn’t love the smell of apples in the morning? Smells like—”
“Manure.”
“Yes, that too,” Applejack deadpanned. “Listen Sunset, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m forcing you to be here against your will. If you’d rather be somewhere else—”
“No, no. I’m acting like a jerk,” I hastily apologized. “I shouldn’t be so snippy, especially to a friend, and I’m sorry.” There was a reason why my name was Sunset and not Sunrise, and my morning crankiness wasn’t doing me any favours. “You might be right about the article—I might be able to make an article showing the unseen side of the humble farmer.”
“Exactly! Show them city folks that there’s more to a farm than just haybales and hoedowns.”
“Do you actually do hoedowns?” I asked with morbid curiosity.
“Wouldn’t be much of a farmer if I didn’t,” she answered with a laugh and a wink. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. I just prayed I never had to find out. “Anyways, I reckoned a good afternoon on the farm could get you plenty of decent material, and it’d give us a chance to get to know each other better.”
“Know each other better?” I repeated with a hint of confusion. “You make it sound like we’re dating. We already socialize enough as it is at school, don’t you think? I’m practically attached to you and the others at the hip.”
Applejack rolled her eyes, smirking at what she saw as another transparent attempt to deflect the issue. “It’s not just about how much time you spend with us, it’s what you do with that time. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like you’re still keeping to yourself.”
She sure did hit the nail on the head there, and my silent, avoidant gaze as I stared at the patch of dirt between my shuffling feet was all the answer she needed. “I guess I’m just still having trouble adjusting to this whole notion of being part of a group,” I answered with an uncertain shrug. “Whenever you and the others are talking, I feel like I’m standing on the other side of a glass wall, looking in.”
“I take it you’ve never been much for small talk, have you?” Applejack remarked.
“It just...feels like I don’t have anything in common with the rest of you,” I tried to explain. “I mean, Rarity talks fashion, Rainbow Dash talks sports, and Pinkie will talk about whatever thought passes through her head. What could I possibly add to that conversation?”
She gestured for me to follow along, and she led me over to the barn. We gathered up some baskets and a wagon then headed out to the southern orchard. I asked if any of the other girls were going to be joining us, to which she gave a vague answer about someone being able to show up later in the day. I already knew that Pinkie Pie would be busy with her babysitting so at least I didn’t have to worry about her dropping in.
“Well I know this ain’t exactly my business, but what did you and Flash talk about when you two were together?” Applejack asked as we resumed our previous conversation while en route. Despite my repeated offers, my friend refused to let me help pull the wagon along. “I know you’ve said the relationship wasn’t real, but you’ve had to have gone on dates and spent time together, right?”
“You’d be amazed how little communication you need when you’re faking a relationship,” I explained while hating myself for how casual I made it seem. “One of the reasons I chose Flash was because he’d be low maintenance. Some flattering words here, and a sprinkling of batting eyes there, and he was hooked pretty easily. I’d let him do most of the talking, and then just nod along for the rest.”
“If only you could master relationships with the same skill you mastered fake ones with,” Applejack remarked. As much as the truth stung, it needed to be said. I had dedicated a lot of time and effort into honing skills that served only selfish ends, and now I was paying the price by playing catch-up to skills that even a child should know. I remembered a time when others considered me a kind and compassionate person; where did that happy little filly go?
I sighed in resignation. I got impatient with Princess Celestia and that got me thrown out of Equestria, and now it was happening all over again with my new friends. If Principal Celestia didn’t see improvement, would she toss me to the curb too?
“What am I going to do with myself?” I groaned in dismay.
“Like I said in the beginning: by getting to know each other a little better,” Applejack suggested as she and the wagon came to a halt. Hooked onto the sides of the wagon were a pair of ladders; we each grabbed one, and she directed me to set mine up alongside a nearby tree. “I figured it might be easier for you if it’s just the two of us.”
“That sounds like it might actually work,” I replied with an appreciative smile. It wasn’t as though I didn’t trust any one of my friends less than the others, but having all five staring at me at the same time could feel a bit daunting when you’re trying to open up. I felt hopeful that some one-on-one time might help ease me out of the social shell I had been living in since the Fall Formal.
Once we got the ladders and baskets set up, Applejack gave me a quick explanation on the best way to harvest the apples.
“This would be so much easier if I still had my magic,” I commented at the end of it. “A few simple spells and I could’ve had these trees harvesting themselves.”
“Self-harvesting trees?” Applejack repeated with a hint of amusement and wonder. “You unicorn folk must make for great farmers back in Equestria.”
“Not really, to be honest,” I answered with a shrug. With my ladder in place, I slowly made my way up until I had my head in the branches. It was moments like those, balancing on a tiny wooden plank several feet above the ground, that I really missed the stability of being a quadruped. “Earth ponies...um, that is to say regular ponies, they were the ones who knew how to grow food the best. A lot of unicorns, at least where I lived, had a tendency to look down on menial labour...myself included.”
“Guess some things never change, even as ponyfolks,” Applejack said. I felt bad admitting that I used be the kind of snob who would turn their nose up at a country gal like Applejack. I would’ve used terms like ‘low-brow’ and ‘backwater hillbilly’ to describe people like her. “What was it like...having magic and all that?”
It was a heavy question; one that left me silent for a few moments, save for the occasional thump of an apple dropping into a basket. “I thought magic was the one thing that could set me free,” I answered. “When you had magic, you had power, and with power, you could do whatever you wanted. Princess Celestia used to tell me that my position as a student, the magic that I was learning, was a huge responsibility. I never believed her, of course.”
“What made you get into magic in the first place?”
“I...don’t really remember,” I said with a shrug. “My father had an old history book on Starswirl the Bearded that I used to read a lot. I guess I got enamored on the idea of a powerful unicorn...admired and respected by so many. Even Celestia respected Starswirl’s abilities.”
I remembered that the only reason I kept reading that book was because it was the only one that I could get off the shelf as a tiny, magic-less filly. It was a good thing it wasn’t a juggling book or I might’ve grown up to be a clown. From history books I moved into tomes of magic theorem, which were easy enough to acquire when you had parents who considered material goods a valid substitute for parental love. At one point Applejack did ask about my parents, but I brushed the question aside; I was never close to them, and the less I thought about them, the better.
“Did you always want to be an apple farmer?” I asked, figuring it was due time for the conversation to go in the other direction.
“Goodness, no,” Applejack answered with a laugh. “How many little kids did you know that wanted to be a farmer when they grew up?”
A fair point, but then again I grew up in a privileged neighbourhood so I knew my past experience was going to be as misguided as a blind rat in a maze. “Well what did you want to be?”
Applejack was about to answer, but then gave a sheepish grin and startled laugh, hiding herself behind her hat. “Oh, I can’t. It’s too ridiculous!”
“Hey! You said we were going to get to know each other,” I said, wagging a finger at her. “You can’t hold out on me now. Think of my rehabilitation.”
The farmer continued to stew in indecision, her hands wringing at her hat.
“Please,” I added with my best pleading eyes. “I’ll be your friend.”
The ensuing bout of laughter seemed to ease my friend’s worries. I think she was playing with me just to see what I’d do to try and wrangle the information out of her, though I may have been over-analyzing.
“When I was a lil’ girl, I wanted to be a fashion model.” Applejack must have been expecting some kind of laughter or scoffing in response, but my general lack of a reaction appeared to come as a surprise.
“I think that’s a pretty common dream,” I eventually replied. Granted, it was never a dream of mine, but that was because I wanted to be admired and respected for something with meaning and lasting. People always did say to aim high with your aspirations, but they neglected to mention that higher aims also led to bigger craters when you fell back to earth. “I’m sure you’d make a great fashion model. Maybe you could ask Rarity to include you in one of those charity fashion shows she’s always working on.”
“What? Me on a runway with high heels? Ya crazy?”
Applejack must have been privy to information that I was not since the idea didn’t even sound remotely abnormal, let alone ‘crazy.’ Granted, I considered the whole concept of high heels to be the product of a syphilitic mind, but that came from growing up in Equestria. For ponies, high heels were small and rarely seen. Even taking balance issues into account, though, my friend’s concerns seemed unfounded. Applejack was as attractive as the next girl, and combined with Rarity’s ability to make even a boulder seem glamorous, a well-dressed country girl was sure to turn heads.
“I’ve learned how to cope with high heels, and I’m the one that used to walk on all four,” I reminded my friend.
“But with these thighs of mine?” Applejack added, pulling up the side of her skirt a few inches. “Great for working around the farm, but I’d make a better chicken than a model.”
“Now that is just absurd,” I scoffed. Having filled my basket with apples, I hopped down from my ladder and carried the basket over to the wagon. Having some strong legs of my own might’ve made the task easier, but instead I had to settle with some grunting as I unloaded the basket. “I know I used to say that people said awful things behind your back, but I’m pretty sure you’re the only person who thinks about the size of your hips.”
“I know it’s an absurd thing to fret about,” Applejack insisted. Shortly after I finished unloading my basket, Applejack came over carrying hers in one arm as though it were full of cottonballs rather than thirty pounds of apples. For a brief moment, I found myself thankful that I never pushed Applejack to rage back during my crueler days: she could’ve cracked me open like an egg. It was like realizing death had been shadowing you all these years. “But everyone has their little insecurities, and that’s one of mine. It may be silly, but that don’t change the fact that it’s all I see when I put on a bathing suit.”
“If people are staring at your hips when you’re in a bathing suits, it’s not because they think you have big thighs,” I said with a smirk.
Applejack chuckled and rolled her eyes before giving me a playful shove. “Oh, ha ha,” she scoffed. She gave me another shove towards my ladder with the reminder that we still had plenty of work to do. After several minutes, though, my friend popped a question that was a bit more unexpected. “Did you find it weird dating a person?”
The question took me by such surprise that I wound up fumbling with the apple in hand and almost losing my balance on the ladder before regaining my composure. “Weird dating a person? What do you mean by that?”
“I mean person as in a human,” she elaborated. “You used to be a pony, right? I can’t imagine there being much similarity between our kind. Have you ever found yourself attracted to people or are we all, like, big hairless monkeys to you?” There was a sense of concern and curiosity to her voice when she made her inquiry. When my friends asked about Equestria, it usually sounded like the childish curiosity you get when a child keeps asking ‘why’ over and over, but this was different; it was reassuring that I wasn’t just some novelty to them.
“Dating Flash never felt weird, but then again I never really considered myself as ‘dating’ him to begin with,” I said as I resumed my apple-picking duties. “I mean, everybody here does kinda look like a hairless monkey from my perspective, but I’ve gotten used to it. At the same time, being from Equestria meant it was never a big deal in the first place.”
“It wasn’t?” She was even more curious now.
“In your world, your options are limited to your species by a simple lack of alternatives,” I began explaining, “but Equestria has more than a dozen intelligent species in total, all of different shapes and sizes. Growing up in the Royal Palace, I was exposed to a lot of different walks of life. It seemed natural to me to stop constraining emotional connections by racial barriers. And once you’ve seen a twenty-tonne dragon be serenaded by a donkey, you realize that physiology shouldn’t limit what a person feels.”
“So...basically you don’t care about what they are, just who they are,” Applejack said in an attempt to follow my line of reasoning.
“Boy...girl...pony...human...gryphon...a person is a person to me. Besides, at this point, I’m so emotionally messed up, I’ll be lucky if I ever fall in love,” I concluded with an indifferent shrug. Friendship was a hard enough matter for me to grapple with, the idea of an emotionally-intimate relationship would probably give me an anxiety attack.
Applejack was unconvinced by my self-depreciative remarks. She let out a dismissive chuckle and gave me a reassuring pat on the leg (as I was still atop a ladder). “Now I think you’re the one being absurd. You’ve got yer whole life ahead of you, and you’re becoming a better person every day. Just give it time, and things will improve.”
“‘Be kind and be patient’ seems to be the mantra for my new life,” I said, followed by a disheartened sigh. It sounded simple, but both of those could be described as my biggest failings in life. On the bright side, I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so time was something I had in abundance.
The next few hours went by quickly. Between all the small talk and a sudden visit by Applejack’s dog, Winona, time just raced past us without even stopping to say hello. Soon the two of us were on our way back to the barn with a wagon loaded down with enough apples to repel every doctor in the city.
“You know, despite the whole ‘not getting paid in any meaningful way,’ this wasn’t such a bad day,” I commented as I helped Applejack push the weighed-down wagon. Oddly enough, one of the aspects that I enjoyed the most was just picking the apples. Having hands almost made up for my lack of magic—for the inhabitants of this world, hands were never something you gave much thought about. For me, somebody who had lived their entire life feeling the world through mere hooves was like wearing gloves all the time. But the gloves were off now, and without ambitions and nefarious plans clouding my mind all the time, I was able to bask in the strange, simple pleasure of feeling the waxy contours of a ripe apple beneath my fingers.
It was a strange thing for somebody to find peace in, but why couldn’t a person find happiness in such simple things? Applejack found her belonging on a farm, so who was I to say that I deserved something ‘better?’ As we round over the next little hill, I paused at the crest to take a moment to bask in the warmth of the afternoon sun, and the infectious countryism of Sweet Apple Acres.
At least, I did until I noticed something frighteningly familiar off in the distance.
“Why is Flash Sentry’s car parked next to your barn?” I wish I could’ve grasped onto the fleeting hope that it was somebody else’s car, but there was no mistaking that ostentatious decal across the hood.
“Oh good, he made it.”
Hearing those five little words felt like somebody had just upended the wagon’s entire contents onto my head. This was not some freak coincidence like bumping into him at the cafeteria; this was a calculated move.
“Applejack, what have you done?”
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Uh oh... Oh boy, is AJ in some deep s
t with Sunset! XD
uh oh.
And that´s my main problem about the Twilight-Flash pairing. How could someone so intelligent and cultivated like Twilight fall for a shallow boy like Flash? unless she was overhelmed by teenage hormones at the time.
Oh boy
I really needed this. PA is a nightmare to deal with. His idea of improving EqG1 Sunset is to make her a Mary Sue.
5984221
From the little interaction they've had, Twilight probably sees him as a white knight. Given more than an hour talking, I'm sure she would re-evaluate her perception.
5984221
That could actually be a completely valid thing from what little I know of horses. I heard somewhere that they don't have periods and only mate in springtime, so Twilight suddenly being in a human body that has mating season all year long could definitely be overwhelmed. It probably wouldn't help that she'd be right in the middle of puberty right then too. Changing species was probably a lot harder than just what they showed in the movie.
5984359
Who?
5985045
A dude who's rather obtuse.
5984221
well shallow Waters hold Little drowning hazard, and for someone new on the Dating Scene that might be a good Thing.
5984359
I can only imagine. I saw the 'retraction' post and rolled my eyes so hard, I think I dislocated something...
5986060
That's not even the worst.
He sent me a PM in an effort to disprove me. It was a list of things he'd do to "improve" Sunset in EqG1.
The short version is that he wants to make her a Mary Sue. The long version is that I cried a lot.
Also, your timing on this update was amazing. I think I would have died without it.
5986113
Well glad I could...um, recover your day? Well you have more patience than me - if I had to endure something like that, it likely would've ended in a double homicide.
5986154
PA is some kind of special. He's shown time and time again that he has no idea how story telling works, yet he insists he holds the superior position. I just... Blaaaaaaaaargh.
One of his posts did basically give me permission to go off on him. I might end up taking him up on that offer.
5986170
Do iiiiiiit. Join the Dark Side. Let the hate flow through you.
Not intended as actual advice
5986177
I'd normally jump at the chance, honestly, but there's so much to say. It's a lot of words, and words are hard :(
Yes, if Sunset is having problems managing being friends, dating would take a lot of effort, if she could manage it at all.
5984221
My theory? Oedipus complex.
Well, more accurately, big brother complex. Just look at Flash Sentry. Blue hair. White shirt. Shield shaped cutie-mark symbol on his chest. I actually thought he was human Shining Armor for a second when I first saw him.
I'm not saying Twilight is crushing on her brother, but the idea she uses him as a standard to compare people to and that the similarities made her more comfortable when she was stuck in a strange world isn't a bad one.
Uhhhh Sunset has been beaten in her own game
5987198 I think you nailed it with the Oedipus complex. I don't think it means Twilight is disturbed, she just really admires her brother. It's like, would you really be surprised if Applejack started dating a large, laconic farmhand who sang bass in an a capella group?
I really liked the relationship growth between Sunset and Applejack in this chapter, it felt really authentic to Applejack.
5990592
Oh hey, its you. Didn't think you'd show up for an AppleDash-less story.
5994687 "So far".
I figure there'd be no harm in it, eh? Eh? 
In all seriousness, I'm taking a liking to these Sunset redemption fics. Heck, I'm the one who pointed this out to Timaeus (who has probably commented recently, or at least plugged it on his group forum :P)
5994696
Yes, I saw his plug and nice little review. Guess I have you, in part, to thank for it. By all means, feel free to keep pointing this story out to folks.
Redemption fics are fun
5994832 They are!
I notice how you avoided answering the AppleDash part of my comment~
5994846
All the more to keep you in suspense
5994948 That's not an outright denial, so... fair enough! I'll be patient(ish)!
reminds me of tf2
Yeah...AJ...Two fingers, waaaaaay up. But they're not thumbs.
Yes, let the equality flow through you!
Betrayal.
"once I'm done with all my homework." , maybe?
"make it through each day with a bit more..." perhaps?
I hope she changes her mind and gives Fluttershy the opportunity to sing her Pet-Finding song.
This voice is starting to sound less like Sunset's inner monologue and more like whatever turned Luna into Nightmare Moon.
... do ponies ever even wear shoes? Like, shoes that aren't U-shaped and nailed on?
After Fluttershy, Lightning Dust and alternate Twi, now this? Screw it, ship ALL the humans!
Oh.
Seriously!?
6133108
Rarity's Gala outfit had freaking heeled glass slippers, Applejack's boots had weird pointed toes that made no sense, and we've seen ponies wear galoshes clearly designed for feet instead of hooves.
I see what you did there.
Welp, it's time I got caught up on this story. First things first, after coming back, I simply adore how you write first person. It seems so natural, so Sunset Shimmer. I feel as if she is narrating it herself, and it is beyond easy to imagine the scenes as they unfold. I miss this, I really do. It's a great story.
Now it's time to get reading!
... I like how this fluttershy can be as devastating as the old sunset, but no one can tell.
Fluttershy's da real MVP
Oh man, good times with PA two years ago. Brings me back...
8329455
Okay, I'm having a brain fart moment. What exactly is wrong with that sentence?
8329481
It's occurred to me that perhaps you were referring to heels, so "walk on all fours" might not be correct.
2015 C2 > 2017 C2
I had actually forgotten about this part. More specifically, I had forgotten it was part of this story. Oh man, here we go.
Aaaaaah aaaaaah
Couldn't resist
I understood that reference. LOL
Oh stars.. This part.