Chapter 1
The Wondercolt statue had always been a significant landmark in their city, even to those who didn’t attend the school. A majestically rearing horse carved from marble standing atop a sturdy pedestal. Even when it had been covered in graffiti or a silly costume by their rival school, it still stood tall and proud. Looking up at it now though, all that was left were two cracked hooves atop its’ base.
Twilight Sparkle’s stomach churned at the sight. She’d barely made it out the front door of the school before it had caught her eye and stopped her in her tracks. I did that, she thought numbly. The images replayed in the back of her mind, and for just a moment, she was certain she felt something breathing hotly on the back of her neck. Something with wings and a horn, and a cruel laugh.
“Hey, Twilight.”
She jumped and let out a yelp of surprise. A warm laugh followed her reaction, and she turned to see Sunset Shimmer smiling apologetically at her. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Oh, hi Sunset. Don’t worry about it. My fault for zoning out like that.”
“What brings you to Canterlot High? I thought you didn’t start classes here until Monday.”
“No, you’re right, I don’t. I just came here because Principal Celestia needed me to help finalize some paperwork for my transfer. But then I sort of got distracted on my way out.”
“Oh, yeah? Distracted by what?”
“Um…” Twilight pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and glanced nervously back towards the statue, trying to think of how to explain.
Sunset followed her gaze, her eyes widening for a moment with apparent realization. “Oh.” She looked back to the girl in front of her with a sympathetic smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Twilight frowned, shifting her feet and staring at the ground before giving a hesitant nod. Sunset leaned against the building next to her, staring out at what was left of the statue and waiting patiently for Twilight to find the words to express what was on her mind.
“I keep thinking about everything that happened,” she said after a long silence. “I’m not really sure how to deal with it.”
“One day at a time,” her friend replied with a shrug.
Twilight smiled at that before she went on. “The way it felt to have all that power coursing through me… it was terrifying, but also… exhilarating. I could have hurt so many people, but in that moment, I didn’t care. What does that say about me?”
“It doesn’t say anything,” Sunset said earnestly. “That wasn’t you. Not really.”
“But it was a part of me, at least on some level, and now it feels like it will never go away. It feels like she’s right over my shoulder, that monster I turned into, watching everything I do and just waiting for me to make a mistake again, you know?”
“Oh yeah, I know better than anyone.”
Twilight looked up to find a crease in Sunset’s brows and a distant look in her eyes. She frowned at that, thinking for a moment before speaking up again. “When you saved me, you said you’d been there, that you’d made the same mistake. What did you mean?”
Sunset’s gaze narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I meant that I had made the exact same mistake. I tried to use magic I didn’t understand and it turned me into a literal monster.”
Twilight hadn‘t been expecting that answer. She studied the redhead’s face for a long moment, as if she was trying to find something there. “Does it ever stop?” she asked hesitantly.
“Does what stop?”
“The feeling that it’s watching you.”
There was an uneasy beat of silence before the girl responded. “It gets better. I don’t know that it will ever completely go away, but it’s there a lot less now.”
“This morning I looked in the mirror and I saw her instead of me.”
“That won’t last long.”
“And I keep having nightmares.”
“Those will last longer.” Sunset gave her a small smile. “Sleepovers help though. I never dream about it when I’m with the girls.”
Twilight looked bashfully to the ground. “I’ve never been to a sleepover.”
Sunset grinned. “I just went to my first one a few months ago. They’re great.”
They lapsed into a more comfortable silence for a bit. Twilight was the one to break it, in a very quiet voice. “What about the guilt?”
Sunset frowned. “You didn’t mean to do what you did. Stealing the magic was an accident, and other people pressured you to use it. So, for you at least, the guilt should go away with time. Just remind yourself that it wasn’t your fault.”
“For me? Does that mean the guilt hasn’t gone away for you?”
The intensity in Sunset’s distant stare caused Twilight’s heart to twist without fully understanding why. “I was not a good person, Twilight.”
The bespectacled girl gave a small smile that she hoped was reassuring. “You saved me.”
Sunset let out a single soft laugh. “I’m a better person now.” Her next words came out in a bitter whisper. “Everything I did, I did on purpose. I was a childish brat who thought I deserved better, and I hurt a lot of people to get what I thought I wanted. The monster I turned into was just an exaggeration of the monster I already was. It’s harder not to feel guilty when you know for a fact that what happened was your own fault.”
Twilight's brows knit together, as she found what she was hearing somewhat hard to believe. She had a difficult time reconciling in her mind the image Sunset was creating of herself with the image of the magical angel that had saved her only days prior.
“The important thing though,” Sunset continued in a much firmer tone. “Is that I’m not that person anymore. That was something I did, and there’s nothing I can do to change it, but it’s not something I will ever do again. It will always be a part of my past, but I refuse to let it define me. Because my past is not today, and neither is yours.”
Sunset turned to face Twilight, the intensity in her gaze just as strong as before, but for a different reason now. The strength reflected in the girl’s eyes almost scared her, and she wondered if she would ever be able to find that kind of strength in herself.
“We both became monsters once, but that’s not who we are now. We are good people, with good friends, and that’s what matters. As long as you remember that, the monster over your shoulder can’t hurt you.”
There was something about the way she spoke that made Twilight entirely certain she was right, and she found herself needing to swallow past a lump that was quickly forming in her throat. “Thank you,” she managed to choke out. “I think I needed to hear that.”
A comforting hand was placed on her shoulder. “I’m here any time you need to talk. Okay?”
Twilight nodded tightly.
Sunset smiled at the emotional display her friend was attempting to hide and pulled the girl into a hug. Twilight squeezed back much tighter than she meant to. Fortunately for Sunset though, she wasn’t very strong. When they pulled apart, the darker haired girl gave a watery smile of appreciation, pushing up her glasses to swipe at her tears.
“Hey, you want to go down to Sugar Cube Corner with me?” Sunset asked. “I think Pinkie just started her shift for the evening.”
Twilight laughed. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Sunset said as they made their way down the school steps. “You should expect a welcome party sometime very soon after you start here.”
“Welcome party?”
“Pinkie Pie will not let this sort of thing go uncelebrated. It’ll probably be right after classes on Monday in fact.”
Twilight contemplated this information, then shrugged. “As long as I don’t have to help her with the party cannons this time, I’m alright with it.”
The two girls laughed as they walked farther and farther from the school and it’s destroyed statue, the weight on their shoulders seeming a bit lighter in each other’s presence. When Twilight returned to the school on Monday, her gaze would not linger for long on the cracked hooves on their pedestal. Because her friends would be with her, and they would give her the strength to remember who she really was.
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Not the first story in this vein I've seen, but a good one nonetheless. Have a like.
It's kind of interesting to realize human Twilight would not actually be able to think of bad girl Sunset Shimmer because all she's seen is the good Shimmer.
this story was really good
Have a like and a cute fluttershy
Good story
Was kinda thinking that Sunset would've pointed out that Twilight wasn't the only one to destroy school property. Twilight might even be considered lucky she didn't have to repair the damages like Sunset did
I approve of this story.
Great story
I'm interested in the "Welcome to the gang Twilight" party.
Yay! We need MOAR Sunset/Sci-Twi hurt/comfort FEEEEELS!!!
Did that make any sense?
Sunset is definitely the one who'd comfort Sci-Twi after all that. And she's absolutely right, too.
I like it. A bit of awkward grammar, but I've seen worse in actual published pen-and-ink books, so don't worry about it.
The story, though short, is good. I don't doubt that Twilight and Sunset would have that talk, and you properly convey emotions despite the limited dialogue.
Try to use more visual cues; for example, putting 'Sunset walked Twilight over to the steps in front of the door, taking a seat alongside her' would have provided that much more power.
Nightmare Moon, Demon Shimmer, and Midnight Sparkle are all in the past! The past is not toooooodaaaaaay~
Certainly not the first, and certainly not the last story of this type…
But I still love it. And I think you handled the idea very well, too.
This requires a round of applause from best pony! fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/336/5/7/13860064636854_by_blknblupanther-d6whl0i.gif
This is an interesting bit of character writing because it emphasises the similarities and differences between Twilight and Sunset's experiences. It also reminds us that, of all the Seven, Twilight will have a difficult time imagining the place Sunset came from to become the person she is today. However, knowing that she made that journey may give her hope that she too can escape her demon, a disinterested, disconnected sociopath that only wanted knowledge and didn't care about the consequences of her actions on others.
"My past is not today" I totally called it.
Is anyone else slowly getting annoyed by all those "My Past Is not Today" line cameos? Because I am. Apart from that, great story.
A little short as in it could've had more chapters but not bad, not bad at all...
A*?
Song breaks 4th Wall.
6502258
Ah, thank you for pointing that out! Fixed now. Doesn't matter how many times I proof-read a fic, something always seems to get by me.
6495205
I get where you're coming from on that. I've seen a few fics where entire verses are shoehorned awkwardly into paragraphs, and it definitely breaks you out of the experience. I've always been of the opinion though that if you can fit song lyrics or references into a story in a way that feels natural, they can add a little something rather than detract. In this case, I felt like the line worked well with the flow of the conversation, so I put it in there. But if it didn't work for you, I totally get that. Glad you enjoyed it otherwise.
6514548
Like I said, I felt like it fit naturally with the flow of conversation, but I understand that maybe not everybody is gonna see it that way.
I'm assuming you mean it breaks the immersion? Breaking the fourth wall specifically refers to someone or something in a work of fiction calling attention to the fact that they are in a fictional world. Like when Pinkie Pie grabs the camera and directly addresses the audience. Pretty sure song lyrics don't do that, but I could see how they might break your immersion into the story. In which case, I'm sorry the line didn't work for you.
6516821 Well it probably wouldn't be such a problem if I hadn't read at least four other stories doing the same One of them was completely ruined by it because every second line in the grand finale was a quote or reference to that video and thus it completely lacked originality.
I'd generally advise to stay clear from such things, because even if they seem like a good idea at first, there will be tons of other authors that think the same and people will start to get annoyed.
It's like that 20 percent cooler meme.
But well, for your story it wasn't really a problem. I groaned and had to resist the urge to bang my head against the table when I came across that line, but apart from that it didn't take from the story.
Nice work.
6535520
As soon as I read that, this popped into my head too.
Awesome job
cute little story that one. I approve.
Awesome fic, and I loved the Reference to my Past is not Today.
Ignore those who say otherwise. My past is not today is one of my Favorite MLP Songs
6652330 as is mine.
6662425 Nice pic!
6662438 thanks
6538752 I'm pretty sure that was the whole point to make us see the connection to the song.
I for one was not bothered by the song reference—it’s well handled and deftly worked into the narrative. For that matter, it’s easy to imagine that is exactly how Sunset habitually thinks about the whole affair, since the song is, after all, an externalization of her thoughts!
Time to change the TS for the new Twilight Sparkle (EQG) tag
Wonderful story. It details Sunset's internal thoughts perfectly. I argue that Sunset is even better at the friendship thing than Princess Twilight simply because Sunset has hit rock bottom before and needed friends to pull her out of the darkness whereas Twilight didn't have friends but was living a life style that suited her just fine until she saw what friendship offered her outside of her world.
That period before the dialogue should definitely be a comma, and "Is" should not be capitalized. It's a clear continuation of the previous bit of dialogue.
This was a nice scene. I wish we saw more of this sort of interaction in Legend of Everfree.
This conversation felt very much in-character for both Sci-Twi and Sunset. I could definitely see this story as a legit canon occurrence without any changes. Very well-written. Thanks for sharing.
Well done. One of the greatest truths we can hear: Our experiences are not our identities.
Magnificent bit of early Sciset friendshipping. Thank you for it.
Want chapter two. Pls. 🙂 if you need an idea, how about twilight is sleeping over at sunset’ house, and she gets a nightmare. Sunset wakes up, wakes her up and they make tea or something and talk about it
This was really good.
An oddball ghost happened across your fic and read it. Have a review!
Loved this!! You really captured the voices of the characters!!