Sunset Shimmer Goes to Hell

by scifipony

"Was it Satisfying Anyway?"

Hay. It's me. Really. You know, the one who worked out her demons, literally, on the other side of the mirror enchanted by Celestia and Star Swirl the Bearded. I now play guitar in the Rainbooms and help save the world, stuff like that. After Princess Twilight read White Stocking's contribution to her research surrounding the effects of her "magic flare," she invited me to comment on one passage.

She wrote me telling me that the Changeling Ponies, a race of ponies I'd never heard of, had almost conquered Equestria a second time. Though she promised to tell me the whole story one day, she did say my contribution to what could have become a final history of Equestria was incomplete.

She wanted me to report on what had happened when Starlight Glimmer had lured me into her EBI sting operation.

Something new had come up and Twilight had "conflicting accounts of my actions." I was of half a mind to refuse to answer, but I had already experienced the cathartic effect of spilling my tragic history with Brandywine. Princess Twilight Sparkle was a good friend, the best, so I picked up my favorite gel pens (the gold and the bright red, of course), turned the paper black (to fit my mood and for appropriate color contrast), and wrote into the never ending supply of pages in Celestia's magic book.

Dearest Princess Twilight,

I hope everything is going well and you've worked out your issues with Starlight's unexpected talents. It's good that she helped you solve your problem with those shapeshifting ponynappers. While I love you both, two Twilight Sparkles I already know is sufficient for any linked universe!

Sorry! I know that's a bad joke, and if I could erase the ink I ought to have, but remembering anything about how I lost Brandywine really ticks me off.

Even with the girls in this two-legged world there is an enormous number of romance novels, and Rarity and AJ keep shoving them in my face! The theme of first love lost and how it effects the survivors is a pretty big genre in itself. Silly me. I'm an avid reader with an addictive personality.

As a myriad of authors on both sides of the mirror have written, I'd like to say "everypony has moved on."

I haven't.

As for the passage you shared from your book: I certainly had not moved on then. You exorcised the raging she-demon years later, but even these days I blame your Celestia for the finality of her judgement though I better understand my contributing faults. Maybe one day the coward will she'll write me and explain why she wouldn't believe me, or look for an impossible truth when she had her own impossible truth hovering over her in in the form of a thousand-year curse she shared with her sister foretelling the rise of Nightmare Moon. She needed us—you and I—desperately but never said so.

I'm still amazed by your inspirational story of Princess Luna—and that I ignored the clues that a simmering tragedy existed when I entered CHS and realized it was a mirror world to ours in so many ways. Even after meeting Vice-principal Luna, I still didn't see it. So my principal, who looked and acted like Princess Celestia's good twin, had a sister? No biggy.

I'm avoiding your question.

When Agent Fellows showed up, yes, I was in some sort of dream state, a type of pony hypnosis. I'd probably have forgotten, just like when you wake from a real nightmare—and I don't mean the type Princess Luna assists you ponies in today—but I had been thinking of a particularly odious royal guard I knew and suddenly there was a pegasus royal guard in the sky and constables all around—and they were shooting off force bolts willy-nilly. The transition between that dream state in the real live nightmare was as harsh as it was jarring.

Even as I pushed over a cafe table and hid within the Farrier Day magic cage the woven metal slat surface provided, it knocked something loose inside. Just as I remembered the dream of leaving Tartarus, I remembered a certain deputy I had met beyond yet another, albeit flaming, mirror. I'm still not clear how deputy White Stockings and Starlight Glimmer's Running Mead could have been the same pony (nopony returns from Tartarus, right?*), but they had the same unique spilt beer stein cutie mark. At the time, I felt as if I'd been struck by a bus thanks to the nettle-ewe I wasn't ever going to obtain again. In my fogged state, in the sudden battle, puzzle pieces clicked together: a coincidence that couldn't be a coincidence. This stallion, this evil crime boss, was the one and the same scum I had encountered locked away in Tartarus after which I'd awakened with a big gap in my memory from a nightmare that proved to be real, screaming to Celestia what proved to be insanities, eventually not only to lose me the only mother figure I ever knew but Brandywine, too. Please share this with Princess Celestia, even if I don't understand the circumstances.

Maybe she will.

That ink blot spelled Brandywine, by the way. I just started crying. You understand.

One thing Starlight taught me successfully, if not spell queuing, was concentration. Yes, I threw the bottle of pickles and winged his noggin. But then I saw him do the unspeakable. He touched the constable blocking his way after which she inexplicably turned and shot down the royal guard pegasus, Green Gabbles, who was supporting the raid. I knew then. I really knew. He was my worst nightmare manifest in the waking world.

I transformed into the Queen of Cliffside one final time. Starlight Glimmer did go on to be all sort of rotten as you've told me, but she was a real tortured soul in the worst literary sense; to the Queen of Cliffside, Starlight was my subject and I understood her twisted logic and I had to protect her. That night, Starlight had made sure I'd have no choice but to confront my drinking and self-abuse. This was her way of saving me while saving herself, but she had no conception of how far she had actually pushed me. She'd shown me only the second example of true friendship I'd ever yet recognized. Today, I understand it was the highest degree of love she was capable of offering. It overwhelms me.

Wait. I'm crying again. I'll be back to finish—

Sorry.

No. I did not try to kill White Stockings. Even the raging she-demon would never be that evil. By then I understood the limits of unicorn magic and why I'd failed Brandywine, which didn't make that any better... nor does it assuage my guilt. Even if Starlight hadn't broken through my psychological block in using Force, she had reinforced Brandywine's initial targeting lesson that I couldn't actually hit a pony, or a sentient being, directly with the spell—the lesson that immature foalish me had totally ignored.

Had I wanted to kill Running Mead, I would have thrown him at the wall with a higher arc and let the spell short-circuit drop him to the ground as it had Pear Brandy, only from a lethal height.

Was it satisfying anyway? Well...

Yeah it was!

---

*[It's complicated, Sunset, but both times you met him he hadn't escaped Tartarus. —Princess Twilight Sparkle]

Author's Note:

The short story Prance is another epilogue to this novel in a different point of view. Check it out.

Comments

[kajisora]

Great story.
I especially love your characterization and worldbuilding.
Why it doesn't have more likes is beyond me

[scifipony]

9800757

Why it doesn't have more likes is beyond me

You’re helping with that, I think...