Holding Our Heads Up High
Rain-BOOMS!
Rain-BOOMS!
Rain-BOOMS!
The shouts of the crowd echoed down the narrow hallway to the dressing room; chipped, painted brickwork, damp with humidity and sweat. Seven girls finding their way along the corridor, each briefly illuminated by dim light from the swinging, low-hanging bare bulbs.
"That was a great show," panted Rainbow Dash, theatrically blowing her hair from her face as she set her guitar down in its stand.
"Indeed," giggled Rarity, pushing her way into the cramped little room, raising her voice over the din of the crowd and the thudding bass of the DJ.
"What should we do for the encore?" said Fluttershy, as she span her tambourine on her finger.
"Huh?" asked Sunset, wedging herself into a corner.
"The ENCORE", yelled Fluttershy, before giggling and covering her mouth in mock embarrassment.
"Ain't you s'posed to be the quiet one?", laughed Applejack, gently nudging her friend in the ribs. "Ah guess a crowd of folks chantin' yer name can kinda get you fired up, huh?"
"Yes," said Rarity, loudly, "and the crowd chanting our names is really quite splendid!"
"Hey! You didn't answer Fluttershy's question," said Pinkie, slumped upside down on the tatty dressing room couch.
"Technically, there doesn't have to be an encore," said Twilight, adjusting her glasses. "I mean, alright, maybe it's expected, especially after a great show -"
"And this was a great show!", laughed Rainbow, before noting Twilight's raised eyebrow and quieting herself back down. "Well, it was," she said, with a shrug.
"...Maybe it's expected," continued Twilight, "especially when the band leave their instruments up on stage..."
"My guitar stays with me," snapped Rainbow, and Applejack looked over with a smile to see if she was hugging it.
"...but there's always that element of doubt, isn't there? A kind of suspense," said Twilight.
"Yeah," agreed Sunset, deep in thought. "Like, the audience kind of knows we'll come back out, but there's always that tiny chance that we won't. That that really was the end. That we aren't going to send them home with a big hit, or with what they paid to come out and see... that the house lights will go up, and the roadies will come out and start taking the stage down, and the fans just have to go home. It's that chance that makes it exciting... and that's what makes it better when we come back out."
"I think a show can't be super fun without an encore," said Pinkie.
"A great encore," said Fluttershy.
"Well... I've been thinking about that too," said Twilight.
"Of course you have," said Sunset, grinning and rolling her eyes.
"Whenever you play," continued Twilight, "you all - we all - get filled with Equestrian magic. We don't know why, and we never got to work out what it means, or why it chose us. And if we pony up when we play music, or when we do something amazing together... well, it stands to reason that the magic is within us somehow, and we have the power to let it out, by sharing it with our friends, and with each other, and so I guess it could be from sharing it with the crowd too, right? Like... it's as if the magic needs someone to see it. Like a reflection."
"Ah don't follow," said Applejack, taking off her hat and scratching her head. "What's any of that gotta do with us playin' more songs?"
"It's just a theory," said Twilight, wiping her glasses on her vest. "It... well, it led me to some questions."
"It's almost December," said Pinkie, twirling a drumstick around her fingers as she lounged on the sofa. "We could go back out and play a bunch of Christmas songs!"
"Ugh," snorted Rarity, shooting Pinkie the look she always shot Pinkie when she said something ridiculous. "Can you imagine, playing a set like we just played, and then going out and saying goodbye with our Christmas songs? I mean... they're not bad songs or anything," she hastily added while looking at Rainbow and Fluttershy, "...but it seems a little, um, inappropriate, as an ending."
Sunset looked up at Twilight, her eyes wide. "I get it," she said, in a shocked half-whisper. "Oh, Twilight... I hope not, but... I'm sorry."
"I know," said Twilight, equally quietly, looking at the ground. "I mean, if I hadn't said anything... but now you know too. And that means it's already too late, doesn't it? I'm right, aren't I?"
"Maybe not!" said Sunset, but her voice lacked conviction.
"Would y'all mind tellin' the rest of us what you're talkin' about? You ain't makin' any sense," said Applejack, still confused.
"Well, have you noticed the crowd aren't making any noise any more?", said Sunset, not looking her friends in the eye.
"Maybe they all went home," whispered Fluttershy.
"Maybe they did," said Sunset.
"Whoa whoa whoa," Rainbow said, frantically, waving her arms. "No. No way. You can't be saying..."
"It's the end," said Sunset, simply, and Twilight nodded.
"No," said Rainbow Dash.
"Where's Rarity, Rainbow?", asked Sunset, and Rainbow realised she hadn't even noticed she was gone.
"No. We were too good not to at least get up there and play one last song! You know what they say, right? Better to burn out than fade away? C'mon, who's with me?"
"Or how's about we do neither, if'n we're gonna be given the choice?", murmured Applejack.
"I don't think we get to make that decision," said Sunset, and Applejack gave a good-natured shrug.
"Endings are hard," said Pinkie, leaning back in her chair. "I guess it would have been nice for us to say goodbye. All these people came out to see us, and now we don't get to say goodbye."
"I had so many different theories," said Twilight, wistfully, picking up a plectrum from the floor as another light went out. "I even wondered, for the longest time, if this world was just here as a... a by-product of yours. A magical mistake, conjured into being by a thaumaturgical leak. Which would mean... well, it would mean that none of us was real, Sunset. Besides you, and the other Twilight, we'd all be just... artifacts. Copies."
Twilight turned the plectrum over as she spoke, idly playing with it the palm of her hand.
"Not exactly figments of your imagination," she said, "but not exactly real, either. We'd be like less-developed versions of you and your friends back in Equestria. And maybe somehow the magic would preserve our memories and our personalities, or maybe we'd only be remembered because of you, Sunset. You'd be the one reason for us to exist... until you realised that, and then I guess that'd be how you solved the problem of what to do with a duplicate world when everything else back in Equestria was changing forever. You could go back to your own world... the real world."
"Twilight..."
Sunset pulled Twilight close to her, standing under the last remaining bulb, the two girls lit by this one final spotlight, surrounded by silent darkness.
"And whenever the leak got, uh... fixed, well..."
Twilight looked up at Sunset.
"Then that would be the end," she said, firmly.
"What would happen to me, in that case?"
Sunset held up the plectrum, just looking at it for a moment, tilting it from side to side, watching as the dimming light from the solitary remaining bulb flashed across the symbol printed on the plastic. A symbol she hadn't seen in a long time.
Her cutie mark.
"I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be," she smiled, and closed her eyes.
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A pity EqG never got a proper ending.
Or they perform for a room in Baltimare, but no one's allowed to record it for legal reasons. It's a great show, but all those of us who were lucky enough to see it have are memories.
Or the tour goes on for years, unofficially but just as good, if not better.
The beat goes on. It just changes instruments.
9943961
Yeah. I mean, I still have more EqG stories to write - I'm working on a couple of them right now! - but I really wanted to make this little meta comment on the show itself going out without a fanfare.
Like, how great would it have been to have a scene with Sunset writing to the newly-ascended Princess Twilight congratulating her on her coronation, but turning down her offer to come back to Equestria, because she's finally found a place where she's happy? Alas, it was not to be, at least not in canon.
9943962
The beat goes on. It just changes instruments.
An excellent motto and a fine sentiment, and one I completely agree with. I just wanted to do... something.
9943968
I've just got going with my writing. I initially thought EqG would keep going to plug the gap between G4 and G5, but with the new chibi series filling that role, it has just faded away.
9943970
Right there with you. That's kind of why I felt like I had to write this.
9944002
And why I feel I must keep going. I've got new stories landing in the next few weeks.
9943961
Agreed :(
9944007
Which is why it falls to the fans.
9944011
Indeed.
They said there was a deleted scene with Sunset, appearing and saying she became Principal of Canterlot School.
Uhhhhh
9944012
Yup.
9944056
I'm guessing it was a 'many years later' scene.
I still don't know what's actually going on with Equestria Girls, but in the meantime, I'm surprised and kind of heartened to see this - which didn't get any kind of reviews or attention or anything much at all, really, at the time of release - gradually and quietly picking up views (if not votes) as the months tick by.
https://www.fimfiction.net/group/213901/my-little-reviews-feedback/thread/437078/reviewing-not-fade-away
10247136
Thanks so much for the thoughtful review!
If it seemed rushed, that's because it was - I hadn't written anything in months (and kind of didn't intend to again, if I'm honest), but finding out that there apparently wasn't going to be an Equestria Girls finale of any kind just made me both furious and sad, and the idea just came to me there and then.
I arrived late in the fandom and caught up via binge watching the first four seasons and (at the time) two EQG movies in a few months, so I had more or less as much time with Sunset as a main character as with the Mane 6; it's hard to remember now, but there was no certainty we'd ever see her again after EQG 1, never mind that she'd become the emotional heart of the second movie (much like Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy). Her story is one of the most fascinating in all of MLP. She deserved better than this.
Part of me wishes I'd spent more time on it, because I do think the idea is the best part of it, and part of me is glad I just sat down and scribbled and got it out of my system.
What's most interesting about this story to me is that it's very quietly caught up with You Betcha! in terms of views - even though that one has all kinds of nice reviews and an Equestria Daily feature, whereas you're the first person ever to review this one. So, thank you again!
9944056
Really? That's shitty. Sunset doesn't seem like the teaching type to be a principal. I can see her being an animator, maybe going on to create a children's TV show telling the adventures of her close friends in another world. Because that's meta and I like it. Not being a Princapal, or even staying in Canterlot. Maybe she'd move somewhere else nearby, and end up marrying Twilight who discovers how two women can biologically have a baby and they have a daughter named Skyla. At least, that's what I think happens to them.
Short and sweet, made me cry a bit.
11/10.
10333826
One, yeah I somewhat agree with you in the fact that yes, Sunset wouldnt be a principal or the teaching type. However, no one keeps in mind that Sunset's special talent IS MAGIC, it wouldn't make sense for her to stay in the human world. She would at some point have to return to Equestria. I believe that the portal would remain open and she would visit time to time but I believe personally that she ascended after Friendship games but didnt go to magic Celestia's alicornification realm thing.
Also god tier story great job
10740860
She's clearly chosen to make a home for herself in the human world. That's where her friends and life is. It wouldn't make much sense for her to go back.
10741114
Still debatable, her mother figure i.e princess celestia is in equestria plus pri twi, friend groups move on. Her future most likely will go into equestria. Ofc she's not abandoning anyone but she'll most likely visit from time to time but permanent residence for someone who is by all counts an illegal immigrant is close to impossible. Theres a story that explains it really well that I think you'll like its called perspective on this site. Check it out its really good.
9943961
This is when I lost all respect for Hasbro
10741490
I feel like I may have to agree with LunaEclipsed here. Yeah, Sunset still has friends and family in Equestria, but by this point, she had made an identity in the Human World. Probably, after living in the Human World for 2 years, she would have made herself a paper trail and gotten herself into the system.
9943970
Not really. According to what I've read, Hasbro merely cancelled it because DHX Media had rebranded and lost the rights to make EQG, and they just didn't want to go through the hassle of making a new contract or getting a new animation studio when they're already near the start of Gen 5.
10333826
It seems, according to what I see online, people want to believe she got a leadership position, to complement her wanting to be a princess and rule something. Thus, they put her as a teacher at CHS or the Principal of CHS (And I tend to believe that Twilight would be her Vice-Principal or a fellow teacher or a teacher under her employment)
10788922
Let's hope they don't cock up G5.
10788946
That's how it felt at the time of posting that comment.