Never the Final Word (Vol. 2)

by FanOfMostEverything

EileenSaysHi's Personal Log (Dewdrops on the Grass's "Star Trek: Phoenix")

Author's Note:

[Drama][Crossover][AU]

This is a supplement set after Season 1, Episode 9 of Dewdrops on the Grass's Star Trek: Phoenix (469,626 words at time of posting, 124,689 words through S1E9, [Violence][Adventure][Crossover][AU])

AS YOU KNOW, SIR...: Through some unknown mechanism in the Crystal Mirror, Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle are teleported, as unicorns, into the world of Star Trek during the Next Generation era, with no apparent way home. Growing up with a foster family, they pledge to join Starfleet and find their home planet; however, while Twilight is still at the Academy, Sunset is seemingly killed aboard the Enterprise during the events of Star Trek: Generations. Twilight grows angry and bitter, and her complicated feelings are compounded when Sunset, who not only survived but became an alicorn, returns home nearly three years later, having been stranded and forced to survive on an uninhabited planet, and then escape a hostile Dominion vessel.

Okay, okay, I got this. I can do this. Should I have written something down? …No, I got this. I know her. I can do this.

Personal log. Stardate 509… um… it really has been a long time since I’ve done one of these, huh.

It doesn’t matter, really. I dunno. All that matters is… it’s not when it should be. I should’ve… I should’ve been here so long ago.

Twilight, I know this must hurt. I know everything must have hurt. I tried imagining it, more than a few times. Thinking of you down there was just… awful. It was awful. Sometimes I worried you were just sick with grief, that maybe it broke your resolve, your spirit. Other times I felt certain you must have moved on, that maybe I’d been so far away so long already that it barely even registered.

But Twi… shit, how do I say this?

I wasn’t naive, about what it was going to be like when I came back after so long. At least, I thought I wasn’t. It’s, well, a question I’d kinda been preparing for already, in some ways, even before what happened. Back then, it wasn’t you and Mother and Mom I was preparing to face again… it was Celestia. It was Equestria.

I didn’t talk much about it with you, because I didn’t want to hurt your optimism. But I’ve never been sure about what it’s gonna be like when we finally find our home. When we see the ponies we knew, so many years later. Princess Celestia, your parents, all the fillies and colts we grew up with that are now grown ponies… especially with the time displacement, for me. What will they think of us? We disappeared. We’re dead. And when we get back… we’ll be ghosts, in a way. And ghosts are scary, unnatural. Out of place, even in their own home.

That’s kinda what I feel like now, Twi. Just this… thing that shouldn’t be here anymore. Like I just hurt everyone more by still being alive. Especially you.

And the more I’m saying out loud right now, the more I realize that I don’t understand how to apologize for that. I’m not saying I shouldn’t. I just don’t know how.

I’m sorry. I thought the words would just spill out. I guess words are spilling out, but, um, they don’t feel like the right ones.

There just wasn’t an easy way for me to come back. Starfleet doesn’t have a resurrection protocol or a guidebook for this. And it’s not like I could just gradually reveal that I was alive, even if I hadn’t been hurtling to Earth in a crashing Dominion ship. There isn’t a gentle way to break that. If there had been, maybe I could have found it. But you of all people deserved the truth. Far more than the Admiral and the disciplinary board.

The only reason I was able to speak as much as I did was just trying to imagine I was telling you, and only you. Not even Mother and Mom; I’d have tried to hide too much of how painful it was, for their sake. But even after all that time, I still felt like I could tell you anything.

Like we were still in this together.

And like I said, I knew this wouldn’t be all smiles, as much as I wanted it to be. But I wanted… I just wanted… I just thought we’d be able to work through it as sist—

Sorry, I’ve got something in my eye.

Oh gosh, where was I… ugh. I don’t know. I just don’t know how to get through this wall between us. I don’t want to just pick up where we left off, because I know that’s not possible. Hell, it wouldn’t have been possible even if I never disappeared. But you’re my sister. You mean the world to me. You mean all the worlds to me.

I know this was a setback. Regardless of why it happened, it hurt you, and I can’t make up for it. But I still want us to keep going. I desperately want that. In some ways, getting these wings makes me feel like we’re closer, so much closer to finding Equus. Like maybe there’s new signatures or traces in my magic that could help with searching, or maybe there’s some kind of link now between the Princess and I that I haven’t had the chance to discover.



And that’s without getting into Starfleet. Twi, there’s a mission opportunity that I’ve been offered. It does feel weirdly soon for me to be getting it, but, well, it’s big. Really big. And I want you to be involved. I won’t do it without you. I need you on this. Especially with war potentially on the horizon, this could be our only shot to keep focused on exploring. Searching. Finding Equestria.

Whatever you think of me right now, I know that still has to matter to you. And what matters to you will always matter to me.

Don’t you get that?

Don’t you understand that?



I just… Twi, I really don’t know how you could think I did this to hurt you. That what I did to save those lives was to hurt you. I know it must have been agony, but it was agony for me too! There were so many nights when I thought I’d never see you again, that it was all for nothing! That I’d lived just to die again on some wasteland of a planet, and you’d never know I tried to find my way home!

And I’m sorry! Please, Twi, I’m so— I’m so… sorry.

Everything I did to get back was for you, and Mother, and Mom. Everything. Every engineering feat. Every scouting trip. Every failed flight as I tried to learn how to search from the air. Every night in winter, every ounce of meat I choked down to survive… for you.

Every moment of pain I endured on the Dominion ship, for you.

And when that Vorta scum talked about how he’d heard of you, and how he wanted to hurt you, to kill you… I killed him for you. I burned the life out of his vile, cruel eyes, I watched him crumble into ash, and I did it with a smile, because He. Threatened. You.

…That probably should have stayed between me and Belle.

The point is, I’m alive, I’m here, and I know I survived for a reason. And I want to believe that reason is you, Twilight. Because what we promised to do so long ago… that’s not over yet. It won’t be over until we find our way back. And even with everything that’s changed about me, I can’t do that alone. I won’t do it alone.

I need my sister by my side.



And saying all this… I know I can never send it to you. I just can’t. This is… chaos, in log form. It’s not an apology. It’s a fiasco. And would probably just make things worse if you did hear it.

Maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t, I don’t know. But once I stop talking, I’m deleting it.



I’ll just have to tell you about that opportunity directly. And maybe that’ll get us talking again. Or something else will.



I really hope that day comes, sis. That I can be your BSBFF again.



Until then… I’ll see you around, I guess.



End log. Delete.

Comments

[EileenSaysHi]

Huge, huge thanks to Dewdrops on the Grass for allowing me to write this little snippet when I shared the idea with her, and for analyzing/proofreading my work, as I haven't yet completed catching up on Phoenix. (Given how much of my stuff she's reviewed for me, I more than owe her.) Also very glad she was there to ensure the accuracy of my Trek lingo.

[Dewdrops on the Grass]

Can confirm, this is fantastic and well worth reading. Need to promote on my blog~ Thank you kindly, Eileen!

[Vic Fontaine]

11735272
Phoenix's editor here. First, thank you so very much for writing this! That you felt so motivated by Phoenix's story that you wrote an addition like this is an incredible honor to the entire team working on the story. And what a beautiful addition it was too! You did a fabulous job. Thank you so much!