5 - Answers
Sunset Shimmer sat on the steps outside Canterlot High School, watching people go home. The metal chariots, which she had managed to learn were called cars, had congregated on the edge of the road, and even from here she could hear the warm chatter as child greeted parent after a long, stimulating day at school or a tiring day of work respectively. Some parents simply walked to Canterlot High, receiving their children on the sidewalk with a warm embrace that seemed to be more a game of good-spirited embarrassment than a genuine gesture. Other children simply wandered off into the interminable maze that was this world, proud smiles on their faces and words of camaraderie bouncing between them like rabbits that just got into a shipment of sugarcane.
Meanwhile, Sunset sat on the steps. She waved as each of her new friends left to go back to their families, their homes, and their beds, her smile only enduring through sheer force of will. If I focus on how happy they are, her thought process ran, I won't remember how sad I am.
It wasn't until everyone had left that the smile finally disappeared. Sunset lay back on the steps, staring up at the sky as twilight painted it orange, and tried to choke back the tears. Her hands went to the journal almost on instinct, her old habit of thanking Celestia for her beautiful sunsets and critiquing her technique not yet gone from her head. She managed to stop herself before she unzipped the bag, though. She wasn't ready to open the journal yet.
"Déjà vu, ma petit étudiant." Principal Celestia appeared at the upper edge of Sunset's vision, upside-down and looking no less serene for it. "How long have you been sitting out here?"
"I don't know," Sunset admitted as she sat up. "How long ago did school end?"
"Two hours or so," the principal said, with more than a hint of concern in her voice. "Weren't you cold, out here by yourself?"
"I've been pretty cold all day, Cele— principal." Sunset only spared a glance at the statue this time. "I guess I didn't notice."
"You could at least have joined me in the office. I could have made us tea."
Of course it would be tea. It had to be. It couldn't be coffee, or orange juice, or the blood of virgins, no, it had to be the same thing that Princess Celestia always made time to share with her. What was the point of running away if the place you got to was the same as the one you left?
"I thought you were trying to avoid scandal." Sunset got to her feet slowly, taking care not to lose her balance.
"You didn't actually buy that, did you?" Celestia laughed as she walked down the steps. "I just wanted to get you out there making friends."
Sunset laughed, picking up her bag and following after the principal without really thinking. "I thought you said it was so you could get a sense of where I am academically."
"What, are aptitude tests also not a thing wherever you come from? If I only wanted to know how much you didn't know, we could have spent the entire day filling out forms. No, today was about getting you settled in. After all, you'll probably be here for a while." Celestia turned suddenly and gave Sunset a look. "Or were you still planning on leaving?"
She asked it so innocently, that was the problem. There wasn't the slightest hint of accusation to her words, as though she were only asking as a matter of curiosity. Sunset had to take a deep breath before she could say anything.
"I like it here. I think it's a good place for me to be."
"Glad to hear that." Celestia pulled out a keyring, and pressed a button on some kind of small device. The car in front of them beeped, and she opened the door before turning to Sunset. "Are you coming?"
"Where?" Sunset asked, watching the car and its driver with more than a hint of suspicion.
Celestia smiled. "You need a place to sleep, don't you? I was thinking I could put you up at my place."
Sunset looked at the car, and at the open door leading into a seat. With the way that all humans were basically the same shape, it looked custom-made for her. She looked back at the stairs, and weighed her options. Even in the increasingly unlikely event that it was a trap, being attacked in someone else's home was still preferable to being attacked in the streets. At least the first option had a higher chance of a warm meal beforehoof.
"Well, if it's not too much trouble." She got into the car and wasted no time in settling into her seat, drawing the weird strap of cloth across her chest and clicking the metal bit into the other metal bit like she had seen the other students do. Celestia nodded just a little as she did the same, and then the car was started.
Sunset Shimmer didn't know what she'd been expecting from the city house of a Crown Princess, but this wasn't it. There was no overwrought stonework, no tacky plastic battlements on the lawn, not even a color scheme that resembled Canterlot Castle. It looked just the same as every other house on the block, without even so much as the slightest decoration to tell it apart.
"It doesn't always pay to advertise," the principal said as the two of them stepped out of the car. "I honestly think less than half of the student body actually know I'm the princess."
"That must come in handy," Sunset said with just a little bit of satisfaction at correctly using a human phrase. "You know, for assassinations and such."
Celestia laughed as she walked across her lawn to the door. "Assassinations are rather old hat in this part of the world, Sunset. The politician's concealed weapon of choice is now the smear campaign. They fight with words and doctored images."
"That sounds dull." Sunset crossed the threshold, expecting to be blown away by the house's interior. Instead, it was just as perfectly normal as the outside. It had a floor, a selection of colorful but understated carpets, and she could see into a living room that contained a couch that could probably seat three people rather comfortably.
"Oh, it is. Incredibly dull. Say what you will about dueling to the death, but at least you can't fall asleep during one of those." Celestia smiled, and indicated the couch. "Please, have a seat. Make yourself at home."
"Thank you," Sunset gave a little bow, "princess." Her heart fluttered as that word passed her tongue, and she held the bow a second longer than she had meant to. When she looked up, there was that serene smile, the one reserved for the kind-hearted and the penitent who came before Celestia, the one in all of the portraits.
Sunset fought back her tears and marched over to the couch, sitting herself down as fast as she could. She let her bag fall to the floor, her ears half-expecting to hear the journal vibrating between her new math textbooks. She looked down at the bag, and imagined her fingers closing around the zipper, opening it up, taking the journal and seeing what the final message had been. No. Not yet.
"What do you want on your pizza?"
Sunset blinked, then looked up at Celestia. She was standing just inside the living room, toying with her cell phone. "Pizza?" Sunset repeated.
"Yes, pizza. Did you not have pizza as well in your little corner of the world?"
"No, I know what pizza is," Sunset shot back, "it's just... you don't strike me as the sort to have a pizza oven in your house."
Celestia smirked, and held up her phone. "I order it on my phone. It's like a catering service, except anyone can access it so long as they can pay. So, what do you want on your pizza?"
Sunset pondered that for a moment, running through the pizza toppings she remembered and comparing them to what she had seen in the cafeteria earlier. "Cheese," she decided, adding a quick 'please' to the end. Celestia nodded, and she toyed with her phone a little more before putting it away.
"And now, the question of sleeping arrangements."
Sunset nodded, and began looking around for a nice corner to sleep in. One of the corners of the room was positioned just right that, when the sun rose, it would fall right on her face and wake her up bright and early, and the carpet looked really soft. "I'll take that one," she said brightly.
"What?" Celestia looked at the corner, then back to Sunset with an expression of utter disbelief. "You think I'm going to make you sleep on the floor?"
Sunset ground her teeth together. "Actually, I was thinking I would decide to sleep on the floor."
"And whyever would you decide that? I know I don't exactly have the house ready for guests, but I can certainly lend you a blanket and the use of my couch until I can get a bed for the spare room!"
"I wouldn't want to trouble you," Sunset mumbled, sinking further into the couch and focusing very intently on the oak coffee table right in front of the couch.
"It's no trouble, Sunset." Celestia was drawing closer now, circling around the table to sit next to Sunset. "I'm only sorry I can't do better."
"You've done enough," Sunset growled, flinching away as the principal sat down. "More than I deserve."
"Sunset Shimmer." Only the slightest trace of an edge in that voice, as if she were aware of how many times Sunset had heard the full venom of Celestia's rage and wished to spare the rod. "There is no such thing as deserving anything. It is my choice, and my privilege, to show you kindness when you have suffered so much." Her hand went to Sunset's shoulder, but she batted it away.
"Stop." Sunset Shimmer turned on the fake, and bared her teeth. "Just. Stop. You know nothing about what I've been through, or what I've done. All you have is my own word that I didn't kill anyone. As far as you know, I'm a serial killer, or a drug dealer, or maybe I'm just a walking talking international incident whose very presence is bringing an army you can't even dream of bearing down on your doorstep!" Sunset got up from the couch, and growled down at the creature calling itself Celestia. "So why? Why in Tambelon's name would you help me? Why haven't you asked any of the hard questions that would tell you exactly what you're messing with? Why are you just assuming that none of what's happened to me was my fault? Because it was my fault, Celestia! ALL OF IT IS MY FAULT!"
It had been years since Sunset Shimmer had just let loose and sobbed her heart out. She collapsed on the ground, clutching her chest and screaming all of her anguish out in whatever way she could. She cried until the world was nothing but a blur, and screamed until her voice gave out. Then she just lay there on the floor, a quivering mass of guilt at the feet of a princess.
"Why is it always the way of mortals to take blame for the faults of the gods?"
Sunset looked up from the floor at the principal, who had turned away from Sunset and was looking at the coffee table. She tried to croak out the words "What are you talking about?", but they only came out as a low whining noise. The principal sighed, and slid open a drawer in the table. She pulled out a heavy, leather-bound book with two bands of gold set into the spine and a perfect replica of Celestia's cutie mark on the cover, and Sunset stared. It was a near-perfect twin of her own magic journal.
She wiped the worst of the tears from her eyes, and saw that the principal's journal was brimming with bookmarks, each emblazoned with a cutie mark. Some were obvious, like Clover the Clever and Smart Cookie, but others were a mystery. The only thing she could say for certain was that they were old, so old that she had seen them more commonly as motifs in ancient works of art rather than in mark registries. All except for hers, which stood out in the way that only the familiar amidst the mysterious can.
"She... told you about me?" Sunset coughed, but couldn't bring herself to look away as the principal opened the journal.
"She told me quite a lot. About everyone." The voice sounded old, as though a hundred thousand years had suddenly settled on her shoulders. "At first, it was just a matter of security. She wanted to be sure I knew what to expect if they had to use the portal to exile anything. Then, it was us being penpals. Then, grief partners." Sunset watched the hands passing over and stroking the pages as though exploring the skin of a lover after a long absence. "For me, this book is nearly thirty years old. For her, it's coming up on two thousand years."
Sunset rose to her knees, and looked at the journal. She saw how thick it was, how many pages lay between each new bookmark, and how many there were once her bookmark was set in. It wasn't more than all of the rest, but it was certainly more than she expected. "She never told me about you."
"That's good," the principal said, her voice growing younger as she flipped closer and closer to Sunset's pages. "We decided very early on that my world should remain unknown when possible. She was very... illustrative of the possibilities that this place offers to the mind of the usurper." At last, she reached the part of the journal that concerned them both. "You know, Sunset, she hasn't had a student like you in a very long time. You seemed to do something unexpected every single day."
"Not always a good thing," Sunset mumbled. To her surprise, Celestia laughed.
"No, I suppose not. Oh, where was it... Ah yes, here it is. The time you set Restaurant Row on fire because you were trying to make, and I quote, 'the perfect cup of orange juice'. What a brilliant magnifying glass you used to do it, though."
"I tried my best." Despite everything, Sunset smiled.
"Yes, always." The principal's own mirthful grin faded. "Sometimes, if you can believe it, you tried harder than she did. She compared you to Starswirl once, you know. Quite favorably."
"And then I messed everything up." Sunset pawed at the carpet in frustration, not even trying to hold back her tears anymore.
"Really? You messed everything up?" The principal held the journal in front of Sunset's face, and turned a page. "Then explain that."
The page was covered in multiple attempts at a sentence, nearly all of them crossed out or scribbled away. The only clear phrase, in horn-writing that was unmistakably that of Princess Celestia, read:
She's gone, and it's all my fault.
"No," she whispered. "That's a lie."
"Is it? She knew your destiny, Sunset. She knew that it didn't have anything to do with being an alicorn, or having a kingdom, but she let you believe it anyway. She watched while you made yourself bedridden from magical exhaustion, listened to you cry yourself to sleep when your latest experiment did nothing, unlocked more and more forbidden sections of the library for you and never once said that this wasn't the path you were meant to walk."
Sunset got back to her feet, and grabbed the journal away from the principal. "This changes nothing. I still tried to kill her for denying me what I thought was my destiny."
"Yes, and if she had told you the truth earlier, you never would have tried it." The principal got up and turned the pages, while Sunset's eyes scanned them on instinct. "The moment your blast hit, she realized who was really to blame. She wanted to apologize, to say that she was sorry. But you had made your own decision, and you ran."
"That's a lie," Sunset repeated, "and you know it. If she wanted to say sorry, why didn't she follow me? Why did she close the portal if she wanted me back?"
"I did warn you that your phone was ringing."
Sunset looked at her bag. She handed the journal to Celestia, then knelt and unzipped her bag. There was the journal. She pulled it out, and flipped to the latest page.
Dear Sunset Shimmer,
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that you thought you had to become an alicorn to be a proper student of mine. I'm sorry if you ever felt that I wasn't already proud of you. I'm sorry that I wasn't fast enough to stop you from running away. But most of all, I'm sorry that I can't be telling you this in person.
I don't control the portal. It opens and closes at its own bidding, and on its own clock. We haven't really tried to study how time passes differently between here and there, but on our side the portal is only open every thirty years. As bad luck would have it, last night was the last night. I swear, I have been trying for hours to get it open again, but there's been no success. The only thing I can do is try to send someone to help.
Hopefully, you've met her already. I know, it's a little disorienting at first, but the world you've found yourself in isn't all bad. And don't worry, she knows what's going on. You couldn't be in safer hooves. Well, hands in her case.
Again, I am sorry, Sunset. Of all the ends to your apprenticeship I envisioned, this was not one of them. I promise, the moment that the portal is open again, I will come for you. Even if all of Equestria is in flames, I will come for you. I cannot keep these things on paper. I need to be able to say it, because it can only mean so much on the page.
I will come for you, Sunset Shimmer. Make no mistake of that.
Sunset Shimmer put down the journal, and turned her gaze to Principal Celestia. She was holding a pillow and blanket in her arms, and smiling a kind of smile that Sunset had never seen on her own Celestia. It was hopeful, but also wary. Sunset greeted it with a bright, optimistic smile, and wiped the newest batch of tears away.
"I need a pen."
The principal nodded, taking only a moment to spread the blanket over the couch before reaching into her suit pocket and producing a pen. Sunset took it and sat down on the couch. As the doorbell rang, she poised her pen on the next page, and began to write.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I forgive you.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- QueenMoriarty · 7.5k words · 109 2 · 2.1k views
- yupyup · 1.6k words · 209 0 · 6.6k views
- shallow15 · 6.2k words · 93 3 · 2k views
- Mystic Shadows · 5.3k words · 79 4 · 5.3k views
- Impossible Numbers · 12k words · 28 3 · 1k views
- Tethered-Angel · 6.5k words · 49 7 · 3.1k views
- Rose Quill · 2.6k words · 103 3 · 1.8k views
- Rose Quill · 1.7k words · 82 2 · 1.7k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.193 seconds
Total duration
1,075 users online
1,951,127 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Tentatively marked Complete so that I can submit it to a contest it almost certainly won't win.
Well at least this Sunset is on a better road now. She will not need a scrubbing with the elements, hopefully.
8036162
Love the story. Here's to hoping that you do well in that contest!
8036162
I think you underestimate the quality of your writing. This is really good.
8036213 Yes, but nepotism.
8036215
True. We can only hope, I suppose.
8036233 Hope is overrated. I prefer to change targets before I know if the harpoon made impact.
Well that turned out nicely. I particularly liked your take on Principal Celestia; I don't recall seeing anyone tackle her in that way.
8036239
Fair enough. Still, it was an excellent piece of work. Keep it up!
Hmm. This is interesting. The redemption of Sunset through Principal Celestia was really well done, though I found that Principal Celestia being Princess felt a little off (was it just for the contest?).
It's difficult to say this without sounding like an asshole, but I mean it as truly constructive criticism. I think that this fic would do very well with a slightly different focus and set up. Building up a world where two Celestia's (probably not in contact) have very similar personalities and having Sunset forced to examine her own misconceptions would be very interesting. Personally, I think a comparison of the two worlds in terms of society and culture would be very interesting, but in this fic it seemed like the only comparisons going on were that Equestria Girls is the modern, enlightened place that Equestria is normally presented as while Equestria is a Victorian dystopia. I presume some of that was Sunset's bitterness, but one thing that struck me was the idea that Sunset would not have any idea of public education, when Equestria fairly demonstrably has some degree of public education, as we can see from Ponyville's school, and frankly, Celestia's School makes just as much sense as a public school with entrance exams similar to post-secondary education wherein Celestia has a role attached to the school, but not in terms of owning it anymore than she owns anything in Equestria, as a monarch.
But this has gotten rambly, and I'm sure fairly confused, so I'll just leave it at this.
8036279 In order;
Yes, Principal Celestia being a princess was purely done in service of loyalty to the contest prompt, though I do think it's kind of interesting regardless.
You don't sound like an asshole, you sound like the kind of feedback I wish people would dole out more frequently. I definitely agree that a more balanced comparison of the various aspects of societal difference would be more interesting, but A) the focus of the story was more emotional, and B) I was on a time-crunch.
As for the public education bit, I'd like to respectfully rebut that her main lack of knowledge shown in the first chapter is as regards who runs schools, and also this story takes place roughly thirty years before the events of the show. The perspective of Equestria being slightly less advanced in this story is mostly a deliberate choice to subtly point out that Sunset's Equestria is the past, not the present.
As for Celestia privately running her academy, I admit that's mostly just headcanon.
Interesting. The mention of aptitude tests made me wonder if you altered the story due to reader feedback, or if this was another case where we should calm down and trust the author. "Keep calm and read on", maybe?
I would like to see more of this. The ending felt a little abrupt, but perhaps it was because I was hoping to keep reading it for some time.
8036547 The ending is mostly abrupt because of coming down to the wire on the deadline and being stressed. As for the aptitude tests, it's mostly an unsubtle pointing out to that one guy that I had a reason for not doing them. Also, aptitude tests make for boring reading material.
As for more... Well, I'd honestly have to figure out where to go from here.
8036566
Yes, I read that comment. I thought that you might have had a reason that it was written the way that it was. My "Keep calm and read on" was reference to the fact that that was not the first time on this site where a some patience for a chapter or two would explain a character's actions.
As for where you go from here, if you don't have a story, then fair enough. One of my favourite authors, F. Lee Martinez, has almost never written a book for which I did not want to read a sequel, and he has not to my knowledge ever written such a sequel. He just keeps writing one excellent unrelated story after another. No reason you can't do the same.
Interesting and fun read.
Even if it was conceived just for the contest, this concept deserves to be explored more.
I know it is silly, but that ending made me think that, at this point, Sunset should have needed to use her mouth to write. A scene of her avoiding doing that at school would have been funny.
And just like that, Sunset Shimmer saved her soul.
Additionally, this story got transferred to my watch list to my 'Favourites' list.
If Pony Celestia has the journal for 2000 years, and Human Celestia had the journal for 30 years, and the next time it opens in Equestria is in 30 years, then it will be .45 years on human world or about 164 days.
I must say that you surprised me by ending the story so soon. But I still love it. I hope you write a sequel on Sunset's life in the human world and how her new attitude affects the lives around her.
I'm with Wysteria. Also, Princesscipal Celestia is a very interesting idea that I'd very much like to see more of, from you or others.
Is this feedback appreciatable enough for you?
8038695 Glad to see you enjoyed it! And, yeah. It's an interesting idea, definitely a weird one, but one that really makes the least-discussed version of Celestia much more worth talking about.
And, yes. Thank you for feeding my addiction to actually knowing what people thought of my stuff.
This story wants me to read more. You brought tears to my eyes. you get a
8039211 Oh no, the story's become sentient! Run for your lives!
8039221 ROFL! I guess I was trying to say I want to read more of the story. That's what I get when u have fat fingers and a small phone to type with!
This story wants for a sequel, I would think. Definitely an AU I find pleasing, and at least, it seems, you are implying in this version, Sunset doesn't go mad with power.
At least it's far harder to map here -> EQG1. So I shall assume it didn't, and ended much happier
As for feedback - No real negatives at play. It hit the heartstrings in the nicest of ways, and my biggest complaint is now I want this to be an AU I can enjoy more of.
I am assuming too that human-Celestia is mortal-ish given the time-differential, but the way she speaks kind of hints she too could be a demigoddess, which made it double-interesting.
this needs a sequel it was amazing
This totally deserves a sequel!
This story requires a total canon , it is soo good
Also , is it just me or is human celestia modeled on "Revolutionary girl Utina" between her demeanor, and the way you described her , I kinda just see this as one and the same
8046759 Would you believe me if I said I'd never seen Revolutionary Girl Utena?
8046767 yes I totally would
So, for various reasons, decided to go review a bunch of fics submitted for this event, including this one. Enjoy.
This is better than Sunset's canon portrayal.
Oh, snap, right in the solarplexus. D:
So is this AU because you can't draw a line between it and canon Sunset? I hope so.
8087336 Well, pretty much everything this story says about Principal Celestia is AU, and despite what most of my readers say, it's certainly not meant to result in the same plot as the first movie. Not to say Sunset wouldn't go crazy in this timeline, she'd just go crazy for... different reasons.
Also, would you mind telling me which punch was the gut-punch?
8087374
dat last line
it's a hard thing to do D:
8087691 Yes.
And much like killing, it doesn't get easier.
8087704
Someone should write a fic about that. :V
So many feels with this story! Though I'm not really a fan of the EQG setting, you've done a masterful job of pulling me in and putting me in a setting that I really enjoyed.
Initial reactions are to feel sorrow for Sunset, but that quickly became irritation as she refuses to do anything but blame herself for everything. Additionally, the idea that Principal Celestia is also a Princess felt very forced, but I also understand that it was written as such for the purpose of the contest. I feel like it might have been more effective if she wasn't also royalty.
I did enjoy how you covered Sunset not having a home though. That last chapter was truly brilliant. The idea that the two Celestias were in constant contact is something that I find very appealing. A story about their correspondences would be one that I would love to read.
As many have commented before me, I would love to keep reading more to see if Sunset becomes the person that we first met in EQG.
Overall, a very moving story that I really enjoyed!
Really liked this. I do wonder how it changes things further down the line for the EqG movies, but I can appreciate how that's left as an exercise for the reader.
And yeah, I'm a total sucker for Prodigal Sun fics in any form. :D
...this needs to continue.
I love how seeing one factor could change everything.
This was a great and well thought out story. It needs a sequel.
Well, this was a very different take on Sunset's exile, and of Principal Celestia, and the whole not-so-magical land of Pedestria. Quite a lovely read!
An interesting twist. The ending would imply that in this continuation Sunset never becomes the queen bee that we saw in the first EQG movie or attempts to steal Twilight's element. There are a lot of fascinating places you could take this, but if you don't it was still very enjoyable. Kudos.
Very strong story, and nice interpretation of the link between best Sunhorse and best Principal.
Wow. This story was just outstanding. I'm sorry, but I think most of the other praises I could think of for this story have already been said.
Great work, I really loved it, start to finish!
This was sublime. I loved how understated but beautiful the prose was. Rarity and Fluttershy's descriptions in particular were just so good.
I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel
This was excellent
This was surprisingly beautiful.