Ashes to Inferno

by Sun Aura

It's Never Pointless

Author's Note:

I mentioned it in the last author's note, but inbetween last chapter and this chapter is the events of both Lack of a Reflection and Returning Home. They're not necessary reading, but they give further context.

It was strange to say that only a week had passed since the Friendship Games. Then again, Sunset hadn’t even been in her own house since the night after. No, she had to end up going on a roadtrip, meeting her Interdimensional Counterpart and said Counterpart’s girlfriend, while accidentally helping the cops catch a local crime lord. Oh, and she almost forgot the fact that she helped Pinkie meet her Counterpart’s girlfriend’s sister, who was now Pinkie’s girlfriend. Apparently.

And that had just been the weekend. She’d spent the last few days back in Equestria, making new friends and fixing old relationships. She hadn’t even been home long enough to pick her dog up from Fluttershy’s place, though she did decide that Rhea would have to wait until the morning, which she was sure would make Philomena truly reconsider staying with her again.

For a while, she stared at the journals in front of her. There was the original, of course, but three new ones as well.

The first was for Twilight and her friends, Sunset's friends too, now that she’d met them. She couldn’t go to Equestria all the time, and even though she suspected that Pinkie would just pop over whenever she wanted, this gave them a way to talk.

The second was for family. The book’s other half would be with Lance and Flare, but she could have them forward messages to her parents. That one already had a few pages used.

The third was nearly a duplicate of the original. One for Celestia. Though both admitted it would be used the least and perhaps not even necessary, she was still given the option.

But it was this third one that scared her, that confused her. In the end, she needed to talk to someone. The question is who? Philomena nipped at her ear comfortingly, but Sunset decided she needed a Human to talk to, someone who understood a little better. Not that she’d tell the bird. Poor dear could get a bit jealous.

In the end, she decided on the one who knew the least, despite the forgiveness. The number in her phone was almost second nature by this point.

“Hello?” Flash’s voice came from the other end of the phone.

“Hey,” Sunset swallowed. “Uh, can-can you come over today?”

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “I just need someone to talk to. I…. It’s not ‘bad’, but I think…. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Already in the car,” he said.

Hanging up, she took one last look at the books before heading back downstairs. Everything was too quiet.

She sat in the chair, waiting. Philomena tried to be comforting, perched on the back of the chair and occasionally giving her a gentle tap with a wing.

Philomena heard him first, looking to the door and squawking softly. At this point, he didn’t need to knock. Sunset gave an effort for a half-smile, but Flash was focused a little higher.

“When did you get a bird?” Flash asked.

“Her name’s Philomena,” Sunset said. “She’s…. an old friend.”

Philomena ruffled her feathers and squawked in annoyance.

“You are too old,” Sunset retorted. “I know for a fact you went through a Rebirth while I was away.”

“It’s a Magic bird from Equestria?” Flash guessed.

“A Phoenix,” she clarified.

Philomena hopped off her perch and flew over to Flash’s shoulder. He was more than a little uncomfortable, especially as he probably didn’t expect her to be so warm. The bird didn’t seem to mind though. In fact, she poked at the side of his face before turning back to Sunset, tilting her head, and then nodding emphatically.

“Mena, you know my type,” Sunset said, giving the bird a deadpan stare. “You really think that’s changed now?”

The Phoenix seemed to shrug.

“What’d she ask?” Flash asked. “And how can you understand her?”

“She asked if you were my boyfriend,” Sunset said. “Again, no. As for understanding, some of it is Magical. She’s a Familiar, which means there’s a Magic Bond between us. It’s not a direct translation, more like I get a feeling and my mind fills in the blanks.”

“Magic is still so weird,” he said, cautiously raising a hand to pet the Phoenix.

“I bet,” she sighed. “Mena, do you think you could leave us alone for a bit?”

The Phoenix tilted her head again.

“Not like that,” she huffed. “You’re worse than Rainbow. Seriously, Mena…”

Nodding, the Phoenix hopped over to a windowsill, tapping on the glass.

“Fine,” she said. “I know you can handle any creatures around here, but don’t agitate the machinery.”

Philomena seemed to roll her eyes, but did nod in understanding. After letting her out, Sunset sat back on the couch, everything coming back to the forefront.

As she wondered where to start, Flash sat next to her. She debated about what to say, or if she should say anything at all. But this was… she needed to talk. Maybe it would help.

“What’s going on?” Flash asked.

“I…” Sunset swallowed. “I went back. To… to Equestria.”

“Pinkie mentioned that,” he nodded. “Well, I think it was Pinkie.”

“Please tell me they didn’t both go to school,” she sighed.

“Both Lyras too,” he nodded. “Though at least those two figured out a ‘which is which’ system.”

“I can only imagine what they got up to,” she said.

“And while they were here, what did you get up to?” he asked.

Even though that was the point of all this, she hesitated. Because part of her wanted to push it all down. She wanted to just tell him about meeting the girls counterparts, or her family, or even the less expected meetings. But she couldn't.

“A lot,” she answered. “I got to see my family, even a little sister I didn’t know about. And I made some new friends, even if most of them were just the Pony versions of my friends here.”

“Did you meet the other me?” he asked.

“No,” she shook her head. “I didn’t go up that way. But…. How much have I told you about everything? About why I left?”

“Some,” he said. “I haven’t pushed, because you didn’t seem ready to talk about it with me. But you mentioned being a gifted Spellcaster and student to a Princess.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s… her name was Celestia, our Principal’s Counterpart. She’s different from the Principal in many ways, but most are Magical. She’s Immortal, and she controls the Sun. That feels wrong to say. It’s more like she is the Sun itself, its Magic condensed into a consciousness. She doesn’t just rule the country, she keeps the cycle of Day and Night.”

“Wow,” he breathed. “I can’t even imagine something like that.”

“Even for Equestria, it’s easy to forget,” she said. “It’s easier for older Ponies, since they can look back and say ‘she hasn’t aged since I was a foal!’. It’s easy to forget that she’s a little more than two thousand.

“But it also makes it harder to remember she’s a Pony,” she said. “Even just being the Princess, there’s this level of separation. The same way we can forget that celebrities are real people, we forget that she is as well. But combined with the fact that, while she refuses the title for several reasons, she’s one of the closest things to a ‘god’ we have, it becomes harder to see a Pony there.”

“And you had her as a teacher,” he said. “Did that change your perspective?”

“Somewhat,” she said.

Her hands shook, and she clasped them together to make it stop. A nervous habit she’d forgotten in years of being in this world was absentmindedly playing with the Magic around her. Now that feeling sprung back up, running through spells but never actually casting one.

“You can see it with the Principal, right?” Sunset said. “There are times where she’s being the Principal, because it’s her job. She smiles, or frowns, because it’s what a Principal is supposed to do. But there are other times where you can see her as a person, usually with Luna or Discord. And you can tell that she’d be a great friend if you got to know her like that.”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Flash admitted.

“The Princess was an extreme of that,” she said. “Smiles that never met her eyes, reprimands not because she was upset or disappointed but because it was what she was supposed to do. And-and compliments when I did well because that’s what you say when your student masters a spell. But it never felt genuine.”

“Maybe I would’ve been okay with that,” she continued. “She was a teacher and a Princess, after all. But I saw those small moments, moments I now understand, where I saw the Pony. Most of the time, she was sad. But I began to see her almost as two Ponies, ‘The Princess’ and ‘Celestia’. And with every small slip, I wanted to know more about ‘Celestia’.

“But I couldn’t get through to her. Nothing I did worked. And at some point, I thought it was because I wasn’t a Princess. And that led to the conclusion that I had to become a Princess too. So I pushed everyone else away, I studied everything I could and mastered every spell, and more than once I got into a fight with someone who thought I couldn’t do it. I pushed everyone else away, even my family, just for a chance to get that.

“For years I got stuck in a loop of ‘I’m not good enough’ and ‘why the hell aren’t I enough?’. I got lost along the way, of what the point of it all was, but I ended up being desperate enough to break into the Dark Magic section of the library. Of course the Princess found out, and we fought before she kicked me out. The portal was open, so I ran through it here.”

“Sunset, that’s….” Flash stopped for a moment. “Wait, I met you in Freshman year. How long-“

“Six years,” she swallowed. “I was thirteen when I came here. I was ten when all of this started. It’s why…. You asked ‘what it was all for’, everything that led up to the Fall Formal. It was all for that.”

“How?” he asked. “Well, more like why?”

“Because I thought I could,” she said. “Because as much as I loved being around you and everyone, I couldn’t be happy if I had to hide thirteen years of my life from you. And because of Twilight. She got everything I’d wanted. She was able to do things that made Celestia truly happy, and she became Princess because of it.”

“So you figured if you could do the same, you could have that,” he guessed.

“Yeah,” she said. “But the problem was that the Magic of Friendship is just that, Friendship. We’ve said it before, but there are several ‘Elements’; Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, Loyalty, and Kindness, all combined to create Friendship, to create Magic.”

Perhaps she was stalling for time, but she stood up. Flash took her hand, almost as if keeping her from running. Taking a shaky breath, she tried to hold together a bit longer. She tried to give a reassuring expression, though it didn’t seem to have warned.

“This is going to be awkward,” Sunset warned. “Because it involves taking off my shirt, but there’s something you need to see.”

“I trust you,” Flash responded.

Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, he let her go. With little hesitation, she began to pull up the edge of her top. She almost laughed when he looked away, reminded of Humans and their weird clothing culture. It did little to help her nerves, but it did some.

The blue fabric caught her hair for a moment, but she quickly pulled it free. To spare him a little bit, she kept the shirt on her arms, covering her front. Though she quickly realized how cold it felt, having not properly turned the heater on earlier due to Philomena’s body heat.

Her legs felt like they might give out, so she opted to sit back down, turning so that he could see her back. Words stuck in her throat, though she doubted he fared much better.

She jumped a little, feeling his hand on her back. After a moment, he tentatively ran a finger down the length of the scar.

“When…” Flash asked, despite knowing the answer.

“The… The Fall Formal,” Sunset choked out. “Dark Magic is just like the Magic of Friendship, running on emotions. When I used it, I became everything I’d done, everything I’d felt. A transformation like that leaves scars.”

“Does it hurt?” he asked softly.

“Not anymore,” she said. “I forget it’s there most times. But I needed you to know it’s there. Because I need to talk about what happened when I went home… When I saw the Princess again.”

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, tugging her shirt back on. “But I have to try.”

“You know I’m here for you,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. “When I went back, I didn’t know what to expect from her. Even Twilight’s assurances sounded strange. ‘She was concerned about you’, ‘she was glad to hear you were okay’. While I knew she cared for Twilight, and could be genuine with her, I couldn’t fathom her being like that to me.

“And then I met her,” she continued, breath turning shakier. “She-she hugged me, told me she was proud of how far I came. She- she was crying, happy crying, because of me. And it was so… so different. Because it wasn’t like she’d changed how she acted or what she said. All of that fit with what I remembered. But this time, it was real. And honestly it freaked me the hell out.”

“Isn’t… Isn’t that a good thing?” he asked. “Or are you upset because it’s what you wanted?”

“Neither,” she choked out, shaking her head. “Because I asked her. I had to know why. What had I done that made her change? What could I have done differently back then? Not in the ‘don’t be a dick’ way, because I know I made a lot of bad decisions, but in what she had wanted for me, what would have made her proud back then and I-“

She stopped, a sob bursting forth. As tears began to fall, Flash pulled her close to him. She tried keeping calm enough to talk, letting him gently run his fingers through her hair.

“It-it wasn’t me,” she said. “It was just- can you imagine Immortality? Everyone she ever cares about will die long before her. And the three other Immortals? One ran off to who the hell knows where, one was trapped in stone, and one banished to the Moon! All for things that she blames herself for! And that was a thousand years ago! Can you imagine that? Not only watching everyone you love die, but the only ones who were able to stick by you had to leave because of what you did? Or what you didn’t do?”

“No,” he whispered. “I can’t.”

“But that’s her life,” she sobbed. “And when that’s your life, you figure out how to go on. For her, she became detached. At first it was just refusing to connect with anyone, but over time she was unable to connect. And it wasn’t until a combination of me leaving, her losing a nephew, Twilight becoming her new student, and the realization that Luna could come back to her that made her get some actual help. As in a legit therapist that got her to connect again.

“But that’s the problem!” she shouted, her breath coming in gasps. “There wasn’t-there wasn’t anything I could’ve done! I was ten! I was fucking ten years old! By the time I ran away I was thirteen! I was a kid!I was just a kid trying my best, and I thought it was my fault! And sure, I did some shitty things, a lot of shitty things, but I wouldn’t’ve gotten to the point where I did that if it weren’t for that!

“And I just-just-I can’t blame her. She wasn’t doing it to hurt me. She wasn’t even doing it on purpose. And I know that I could've made better choices. But I was just a kid that ended up alone in another Dimension and torn apart by Dark Magic because I was trying for the impossible!”

She stopped trying to hold back, letting herself crumble into full sobs. Breaths that had been gasps seemed to stop. All thought seemed to stop as she shuddered. She felt like she might be sick from how intensely she cried.

There was barely any awareness. She was aware of how she felt, and of some rational part saying ‘pull yourself together’. And she was aware of Flash still there, speaking kind words and giving comfort.

She wasn’t quite sure when it stopped, when sobs became sniffs. Despite the pain in her throat, she knew her voice had returned.

“It-it feels pointless,” Sunset whispered. “Everything that led me here, was for the impossible. And while I’m glad I got to meet everyone in this Dimension, even with the bad circumstances, it feels pointless.”

“I don’t think it was,” Flash said.

Gently, he pushed her upright. Before she could protest his hands were on either side of her face, turning her to him.

“Let me ask you something,” Flash began. “If, back when you began as her student, Princess Celestia had told you outright that she had this problem, explained that it was difficult for her to emotionally connect with you, would you have stopped trying?”

“No,” Sunset answered without hesitation.

“Then there’s your answer,” he said. “Maybe knowing would have made you make better choices, but no matter what, you would’ve tried to be her friend, because it would’ve made both of you happy if you succeeded. And that isn’t pointless, even if it failed.”

“Do you really think that?” she asked.

“I know so,” he said. “It’s not the same, but it’s how I feel with us. Yes, everything you said and felt was real, but you couldn’t consider me, or anyone here, a friend because you couldn’t tell us about Equestria.”

“But that’s not because of-“ she began.

“I know it’s different,” he said. “But we couldn’t fully be friends until you told me about everything. But those three years, everything we did, even though it was impossible to be friends, I don’t find it pointless.”

“I….” she sighed. “Thanks. And I’m sorry for not telling you about Equestria before everything.”

“I get why you didn’t,” he said. “If I ended up in your world, I probably would’ve done the same. And while it would be great if we could’ve met under much better circumstances, it’s in the past. And short of doing some time travel shenanigans you can’t change that.”

She didn’t respond for a moment.

“Please tell me you’re not considering some kind of time travel spell,” he sighed.

“No…” she mused. “Maybe a bit. Not in the serious way, but in the ‘I wonder what that Timeline is like’ way.”

“Can I just point out the fact that we’re causally discussing Time travel?” he asked. “Because I was joking, but you sound like there’s an easily accessible spell for that.”

“Well, not easily accessible,” she said. “I’d have to pick a few brains to figure out the version that would let me go back more than a week, and that would involve going through Twilight so-“

“Wait,” he cut her off. “I’m going to stop questioning that before I get hit with the realization that this is my life now. Oh, too late.”

“Yeah yeah,” she snickered. “Seriously, bad decisions or not, I’m glad we ended up here.”

“Me too,” he nodded. “Do you want me to stay?”

“If you’re not supposed to be home,” she said.

“I’ll text Bramble,” he shrugged. “For now, I think you should let your bird in.”

“Huh?” she replied.

Of course, that was the moment she heard tapping on the window. Looking up, Philomena was on the other side of the glass. The bird had a look that almost said ‘you cool now, or do you want me to let you have more alone time?’. She knew what she meant, but Sunset made a note to herself to make sure she understood.

“Can you let her in?” Sunset asked, heading to the kitchen. “I’ll get us something to eat. Preferably warm. Are you in the mood for tea or hot chocolate?”

“Chocolate,” Flash answered, heading to the window. “Also, did you just ask me to ‘give you the bird’.”

She rolled her eyes, even with a smile playing across her face.