A Lily on the Windowsill
Sunset Shimmer jumped at the buzzing against her butt. She should have gotten used to that by now—she’d had a cell phone for many years. But she hadn’t worn her jacket today, and she rarely kept her phone in her pants pocket.
She tapped the message notification, and “luv u <3” popped up on the screen.
That always brought a smile and a little huff of laughter. Derpy was just the sweetest girl!
Her smile lingering, Sunset watched the houses zip by out the window. Derpy’s mom, Prim Hemline, still sent a car to pick Sunset up after school each day, but at least it picked her up in front of the school now. So she could study with her girlfriend, do homework, hang out, or… well, Prim didn’t need to know about the kissing.
Then the phone buzzed in her hand.
“and sorry” popped up.
Huh? For what? Crap, had Derpy read something into Sunset not responding right away? Or did she perceive some minor slight about…? No, Derpy was the most consistently happy person Sunset had ever met. Nothing ever got her down. Sunset was overthinking this.
“luv u 2,” she tapped back. “and sorry 4 what? you haven’t done anything”
“i know” Then a second later: “never mind, just being dumb”
Sunset frowned. Derpy had never been dumb in her life. Naive, yes, absentminded, sure. Not dumb. “almost there, see u in a minute”
Soon enough, a happy face came in reply. So, problem solved? They’d just turned onto Derpy’s street anyway, so it wouldn’t take long to find out. Without even looking, Sunset recognized that pair of bumps in the road, then three, two, one, there went the turn signal, and pause—must have been a car coming the other way—they pulled into the driveway, around the long curve. Stop, and an attendant opened the door.
“Miss Muffins is in—”
“Yeah, I know. The courtyard.” Sunset smiled and waved at her.
“Yes, Miss Shimmer.”
When was she not waiting in the courtyard? On rainy days, she guessed. Or the rare times she’d already gotten in the pool. Sunset knew the way, too, though the attendant of course offered to guide—
Sunset let out a sigh. Something about this place had that effect on her. The attendant was a person. She had a name, Velvet Glove.
The usual turns through several hallways, then Sunset emerged into the sunny courtyard in the middle of the whole enchilada. Which only made her think about quesadillas and how Twilight just acted weird around them.
Derpy hadn’t heard her. She sat on their bench, making a pencil sketch of some butterflies on the japonica bushes. A really good sketch.
“Hey,” Sunset said, her arms encircling Derpy’s shoulders.
Derpy immediately put her drawing pad down and took hold of Sunset’s wrist. She beamed the way Applejack’s collie would, just thrilled to have someone’s attention and soaking up the love like a changeling. “Hi!” She breathed in slowly. So did Sunset, taking in the hyacinth of Derpy’s shampoo.
“I didn’t know you could draw. Why haven’t you done that around me before?” Sunset asked, but she only got a shrug in reply. Derpy seemed to take up a new hobby every month or so, but what always made Sunset grin was how legitimately well she could do a lot of them. Come to think of it, Sunset could go for some saw music right about now.
Of course Derpy blushed. “I’m no Watermelody.”
That earned her a squeeze. “You don’t have to be. But when you can come pretty close, hang with Pinkie in a baking contest, nearly out-chemistry Twilight… well, not many people can claim to. That’s why you’re amazing.”
Derpy shrank, as if she could avoid Sunset’s notice. As if Sunset could ever not notice her. “Y-you’re awfully kind.”
“Awful nothing.” Sunset plunked down next to Derpy and took her hand. “Oh, and the goggles you accidentally burned up at the Friendship Games? Rarity’s got a new pair for you. She glittered them all up. Now what’s this about being sorry?”
“Oh… that.” She rolled her eyes to the side and moved to stand—
“Nuh-uh. You’re not getting away that easily. Spill it.”
With a sigh, Derpy settled back down. “I don’t know. I just felt like you could do better.”
“You’ve never let that bother you before. Well—one, no, I couldn’t do better, and two, what’s gotten you on about this? That’s supposed to be my hangup.” Derpy had on the skirt Sunset loved, the one Rarity had made for her. “And you still look hot in that.”
Derpy almost erupted in laughter, but she covered her mouth and blushed furiously. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s true, and one of these days, you’ll believe it, too.” A little kiss on the cheek added the proper punctuation. “So, you ready to study for history?”
Right away, Sunset gave herself a mental punch in the arm. “I’m sorry,” Sunset continued, “I didn’t mean to change the subject.”
“What subject? Studying is why you’re here.”
Sunset gave her a pointed stare. “You’re why I’m here. And you’ve got me a little worried. Something’s up.”
“No,” Derpy replied with a smile absent from her eyes. “I guess I am acting a little off, but honest—it’s not for any reason. I’m okay.”
For a moment, the wind played tag with the loose ends of Derpy’s hair, and the sun filtering through the cherry trees lit up her eyes. The japonica’s fragrance blended with the sweet basil in the herb garden, a little rush of freshness from the world outside these walls. Or inside them.
Derpy watched, and her smile softened little by little, until she finally giggled, her eyes as bright as the row of lilies behind her.
“There it is!” Sunset said. “Let’s just leave it that we both have the wonderful fortune to deserve each other, right?”
“You said that on our first date!”
Yes, when they’d gone to the science museum and had lunch at the cafe next door. And only the day before, Derpy had come up to her out of the blue and asked her out. Sunset, former terror of the school and generally unapproachable thug. Well, she hadn’t exactly asked either. “Hey, we should go out sometime!” Such self-assurance, based on a presumed or very subtly perceived mutual love of science.
Derpy started to open her history book, but Sunset tapped it shut and leaned into her with a hug. “We’ll have plenty of time to study. Right now, I just want to enjoy you.”
Her posture finally relaxing, Derpy melted into Sunset’s arms and at last looked happy. In Equestria, Derpy had wings, but here, this Derpy sure made Sunset feel like she had them.
“Man, you and Twilight wrecked the curve on that chemistry test,” Sunset said as she slid next to Derpy at the cafeteria table. And picked a couple of fries off her tray.
“You still got an A,” Derpy replied through her chewing.
But they sat across the room from each other, and Derpy had made a beeline here to beat the rush through the lunch line…
“What, did you look at my paper?”
Derpy flicked a hand at her, the gentle curve of her fingers glinting with a bronze-tinted shade of nail polish. It really… brought out her eyes. And her hair. And went with all the medals in her room.
“…Sunset?”
One eye wandered a bit over, but that had never bothered Sunset. Just like a soap bubble that might bob around while she did the dishes, wafting on some random air current, but staying close and just generally being cute. Sunset shook her head. “Sorry, what?”
“I didn’t need to look. I knew you’d get an A. I believe in you.”
Derpy… Sometimes it felt like her chest would pop, the soap bubble finally settling down and giving way at the slightest disturbance. Yes, she had friends, but not like this, and—she needed to say this out loud.
“I just… Derpy, I have good friends now, and before that, I never really had a desire to love anyone. Now, I love all these girls, and it feels good to. But you’re different. It’s like I have so much to give, and I finally have someone I can, and—”
Rainbow Dash and Rarity had taken seats at the table. Dash looked like she had a barely contained laugh in the back of her throat, but Rarity glared at her and threw her an elbow in the ribs.
“I really love you. A lot.”
And here came Fluttershy: “Awww,” she squeaked out, just above the background noise level.
A small tickle on Sunset’s cheek—she quickly wiped at it with a napkin. Stupid tears.
Derpy smiled and looked down, as always. “Are you sure you should be saying all that right now?”
“Can’t think of a better time.” Sunset rested her head against Derpy’s and hugged her. “Besides, it seems like you needed to hear that lately.” Then softer, into her ear: “Are you doing okay?”
Then the rest of the girls showed up, and Derpy sort of huddled together and shrank. So Sunset just whispered again, their own private moment. “C’mon. We fit together well. Don’t make me use calculus to prove it.”
“Seems like probability would be more appropriate…”
“There’s my science girl,” Sunset said, giving her a squeeze.
Finally, Derpy looked up, and she had a silly little grin that said she already knew the answer she’d get. “Sounds like Twilight.”
“You know how awkward it would be to date an incarnation of the pony who took my place as royal apprentice after I stormed out in a fit of rage?” And judging from Derpy’s gaping mouth, she hadn’t expected that response. That girl was just so interminably sweet—the only person Sunset couldn’t figure on having reservations about her in the back of her mind, that she wouldn’t regress to her true self. She’d liked Sunset when nobody else had, Sunset included, because she saw something of value. As Derpy had explained it before, even at the height of Sunset’s tyranny, she never tormented what should have been an easy target. She’d somehow seen a kindred lover of science and treated her with quiet respect.
Derpy burst out laughing, and the other girls all attempted to hide their smirks. “Y’know,” she said, “we never did get around to studying for history yesterday. And the test is tomorrow.”
“Alright, after school today.” Sunset held out her fist, and with a giggle, Derpy bumped it.
Sunset peered over at the empty desk by the window. Derpy had seemed okay last night, and no message from her today. Something like the flu could come on quickly, she guessed, but wouldn’t Derpy have said something?
She jerked her head back down to the paper. Another five minutes had flown by, and she had only gotten through half the history test so far. Stay focused.
Stupid, stupid, she knew these answers! They’d gone over and over it while studying, and as each question flashed by, her pencil whipped across the page. Sentence after sentence, all correct, no doubts.
But she stared at the empty seat again. Her hand twitched toward her bag, but she couldn’t. No phones out during class anyway, but especially not during a test. The teacher could automatically fail her for cheating.
What in the world had happened? Sunset rested her chin in her hand and watched another few minutes tick away on the clock. Something didn’t feel right about this.
She fiddled in her bag and pulled out a tissue, the teacher’s eye carefully on her. Sunset gave an apologetic smile back and wiped her nose. Then covertly dropped her phone into her lap from inside the tissue.
“u ok?” she tapped out, then scribbled down another response on her paper. And another.
Glance down, nothing, move on to the true-false questions, three of them done, four, five, glance down, nothing. Only ten minutes left in class, but the rest of the exam would go quickly: just some more true-false and matching questions.
Three dots popped up at the bottom of the screen, and Sunset’s heart missed a beat. Just feeling a little sick, right? She clenched her jaw and willed those words to appear. C’mon, Derpy.
The dots went away for a moment, reappeared, lingered. Fled her screen again. Nothing ever came up.
Then the bell clanged, and Sunset dropped her pencil.
“Papers up front!” Cranky Doodle called.
Quickly, Sunset fumbled for her pencil, filled in the obvious ones, and took wild guesses at the rest. Lunch next, and she’d have to suffer through an afternoon wondering. She’d take her motorcycle over there right now, but Prim had complained endlessly the one time she’d done that. Not the kind of vehicle she wanted seen in her driveway, and she’d send a car every day after school anyway. Sunset would just have to wait with her wings folded and no hyacinths to smell.
Did Prim even know Derpy had missed school today? If not, maybe that was a blessing. She probably wouldn’t have let Sunset come over to visit a sick daughter who needed her rest. Of course Derpy wasn’t sitting in the courtyard—Sunset had barely even peeked out there. She’d be in her room.
Sunset knocked on the door, but no response. So she opened it a crack, and the shadows inside stirred as if someone had desecrated a sarcophagus. Even a breath of it made Sunset take a step back, like a sigil proclaiming dire curses on any intruder.
She pushed through, closed the door quietly behind her, and sat on the edge of the bed. It always amazed Sunset how big this room was. All the hobbies she’d picked up lay strewn about: medals from the last several years of High School Chemistry Olympiad hanging framed on the wall, a recurve bow with some broken arrows, a sketch pad with her butterfly drawings from the other day, a music stand with her saw and a violin bow on it. Honestly, who would seriously play the saw? But Derpy was good at it, and she’d even made friends with Octavia after the talent show. A target for bullies? No, she drew people to her.
Over on the windowsill—Derpy had dug up one of the lilies from the garden and potted it. In the dimness, it strained toward the slits of light through the window blinds. And beside it sat one of the bonsai trees Derpy liked to grow with Roseluck and Wallflower Blush.
Derpy’s back was to her. “What’s wrong?” Sunset said, running her fingers through Derpy’s bangs. Only so much as a touch would have told her everything—if she had her geode. But she’d always made a point of leaving it in her bag whenever she was with Derpy. A good girlfriend shouldn’t need it.
Derpy sniffled. “I don’t know,” she whimpered.
“Are you sick?” Sunset’s hand moved from Derpy’s hair to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
A shrug came in reply.
For the second time today, Sunset flinched toward her bag. No, she’d promised herself. No geode, not with Derpy. Instead, she leaned over Derpy and wrapped an arm around her. “It’s alright. I’m here.”
At least Derpy took her hand. She held it against her lips. “I just want to be happy. Why can’t I be happy?”
Never before had such a freeze run down Sunset’s back. “You’re the happiest person I know. And that includes Pinkie. You never let anything get you down. You know how much that’s meant to me? Through these years of second-guessing myself and wondering whether I’m really worth it?”
“No, you’re the one,” Derpy answered, finally rolling over to look at Sunset. “I’d be in the background, forgotten, if not for you.”
“That’s not true. Look at all the friends you have. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash hang out with you on the track team, and you and Bulk Biceps are practically joined at the hip, you like playing music with Blueberry Pie and Raspberry Fluff. Not to mention all the people in the science and cooking clubs with you.” Something about that had made Derpy look at her bookshelf.
The row of medals. Yeah, Derpy had explained about those before. “I used to be fast, Sunset. Really fast, faster than Dash.”
And then her eyes had gone askew and robbed her of it. “But you didn’t stop. You do it for the fun of it now. That’s one of the many, many things I love about you. The things you’re good at—you don’t obsess about them. You’re content to avoid the spotlight and just be a good runner, a good teammate, a brilliant chemist.” Sunset glanced at Derpy’s outfit: the one she adored. Not only the skirt today. The whole thing. “And someone I’m honored to have love me.” She added a soft kiss.
Even though she smiled, Derpy had begun crying. “Why isn’t that enough, though? Yeah, I didn’t mind when I stopped winning medals.” She swallowed hard and wiped her eyes. “So why do I care now? Why do I want to win something? Why do I feel like you’ll have to settle for second best with me?”
“Do you trust me?”
“I mean, you’re from somewhere amazing, with magic. And after that cruise ship disaster, I got to see it!” Derpy shook her head and rubbed the back of her shoulder. “I had wings, Sunset! But I wasn’t there long enough to use them.”
“Is… is that what’s bothering you? I can take you back there if it’d help.”
Derpy pursed her lips and shrugged. “No, that’s not it. But your Derpy, over there—” she flicked a hand toward the sky “—she can, and…”
“You’re my Derpy. I haven’t even met the other one, she can’t send me cute text messages, she’s not a chemistry whiz—well, that’s not fair. She might be, but that’s not really a thing there. It doesn’t matter, though. I love you.” Plus she hadn’t been listening earlier. Sunset said it again: “Do you trust me?”
Immediately, Derpy sat up, and she nodded as hard as she could. “Of course I do!”
“Then trust that I know you’re worth it and more.” Sunset had to chuckle. “And we’ll both have to get over this feeling that the other is too good for us.”
Derpy nodded again, more gently this time, but she also shook. “I just want to be happy again,” she whispered. “Why’s it so hard?”
If people couldn’t count on Derpy to be happy…
Sunset swung her legs up onto the bed and held Derpy with both arms, against her chest. And she laid her head on Derpy’s shoulder. With her cheek pressed to Derpy’s neck, she could smell the hyacinths, feel the steady rhythm of her heart. Over and over, reassuring in its constancy. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this.”
If Prim walked in on them now, there’d be hell to pay. Oh shit, Prim! Sunset couldn’t stay here indefinitely. They had a regular time when the car would return her to school so she could pick up her motorcycle and go back to her apartment. She’d have to leave by then.
“Derpy, when I get home later, if I text you, will you please answer? I want to keep talking. I don’t think you should be alone.”
“Okay,” Derpy said, snuggling in harder. Good thing she seemed to accept that someone cared about her. Not that it had presented a problem before, but with her acting like this…
“The test wasn’t too bad today. I might have tanked it a bit, but—” she inhaled more of Derpy’s floral scent “—that’s my own fault. It won’t give you any trouble when you come in to make it up.”
Derpy grunted, and her breathing got deeper. Had she fallen asleep? Maybe she’d tied herself in knots all day long and gotten exhausted.
An hour ticked by, most of another, and Derpy merely lay there peacefully with a grin on her face, a shallow one, like the moonlit tidal pools on the beach, little minnows glinting in the silver aura. No, gold. Derpy, with her golden hair and her golden eyes and her golden heart.
Sunset held her until one more minute could bring Prim’s wrath down upon her, then silently slipped away from Derpy, covered her, and headed off to her appointment with the driver.
That night, she tried sending a text, but Derpy must not have awakened to the chime.
“You must have noticed Derpy missed school again today,” Sunset said as the car pulled out of the school lot.
The driver briefly diverted his eyes from the road and peeked in the rearview mirror. “Yes, Der—um, Miss Muffins did stay home again today.”
“And Velvet Glove knows too?”
“Yes, Miss Shimmer.” His eyes went forward again.
“But Prim doesn’t?”
No answer. Which was an answer, with plausible deniability, she supposed, but he should know she wouldn’t use that against him. As if she’d ever have a reason to.
“We’re here, Miss Shimmer.”
As usual, Velvet Glove came out to meet her. Sunset gave her a nice long stare before asking, “Is this the first time this has ever happened?”
No answer from her, too. What the hell was wrong with these people?
Sunset didn’t bother walking to the courtyard. She’d tried texting again throughout the day, but no responses popped up. Not the three dots of an imminent one, either, though she couldn’t pay that close attention to her screen today.
Straight to Derpy’s room, and Sunset gave a muted knock before opening the door. She approached the bed, ran her fingers through Derpy’s hair, rested her hand on Derpy’s neck, felt the steady thrum of her heart. Her phone wasn’t even on the bed. Over on the windowsill, the lily had begun to wilt.
Sunset would let her girlfriend sleep. For a moment, she hovered her hand over Derpy’s phone, on the dresser, then she tapped the screen. Fourteen unread messages. Most from Sunset, not all, but that was as much of an intrusion as she could justify.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Sunset whispered, but Derpy only continued breathing in the dark.
Sunset hadn’t gone to Prim’s office for some time, not since before she’d somehow earned her approval, whatever that meant. But it would still feel like sitting at a defendant’s table. Nothing ever seemed to please that woman, and every conversation weighed on her as if she needed to gain her approval all over again.
She knocked on the door, and a grunt came in reply. “Velvet Glove? Making your evening rounds already?”
With a steadying breath, Sunset opened the door, walked into that room all heavy with mahogany and brass, and sat in the chair where she used to endure getting grilled about why a street thug deserved her daughter’s attention. A little puff of dust floated up from the armrest as she flopped into the chair’s confines. Prim only stared back as if Sunset had grown pony ears.
“I’m worried about Derpy.”
“Her name is Muffins,” Prim replied, and went back to her computer as if she could expect the same kind of nonsense to continue.
“I’m serious. I think she’s depressed.”
Prim’s eyes kept tracing line by line down her screen. “Depressed?”
With a sigh, Sunset glanced over to the array of photos on the wall. She’d seen them before, of course, but she hadn’t really noticed the order until now. As Derpy’s eye became more askew, she stood further and further down the podium. “She likes to run, just for the fun of it.”
“Mmhmm.”
“It’s upset her lately. She misses winning.”
Another few seconds passed as Prim’s fingernails clicked against her keyboard. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
“I know.” And Sunset couldn’t say anything about the wings. “That’s exactly it. She needs help.”
Prim finally paused, and she took her glasses off. “You’re her friend. Can’t you help her?”
“I don’t mean that kind of help. She needs a professional.”
Once or twice, Prim tried to say something, but she bit it back. Finally: “She’s strong enough to handle this on her own.”
Sunset gritted her teeth. Then she stood, leaned over the desk. “This isn’t about what’s weak or not! Derpy is the most irrepressibly cheerful person I know. Nothing gets her down. Except now everything does.”
Prim’s eyes widened, but she kept her voice calm. “It’s just a phase—”
“Did you know she missed school the last two days? She spends the whole day in bed—”
“Oh, it’s just an illness then. I’ll get the physician to come by—”
“This is your daughter!” If the fire masking Sunset’s vision were real, she would have just scorched every paper off the desktop. “She’s sad, and she desperately wants not to be, but she doesn’t know how to start climbing out of that hole.”
Prim’s hands shook. If not for that, Sunset might have really torn into her.
“And I gather,” Sunset continued, “this has happened before.”
“Y-yes,” Prim said, her voice wavering, “when she was thirteen. But she snapped out of it after a week or so. Perhaps if we wait—”
“You can’t gamble on her like that!” When had Sunset started crying? She wiped the worst of it out of her eyes and gasped for a breath. “You’re lucky it went away so quickly before, but you can’t assume it will again! I’m afraid for her.”
Finally, Prim turned away from her screen, and her face paled. “Afraid…?”
“Yes. We can’t wait. We have to do something.”
“I… I’ll call in the morning… get her an appointment.”
Sunset almost fell back into her chair. Of course she hadn’t slept well lately, and it all hit her in a rush. She trudged to the door anyway. “I’m going to sit with Derpy and make sure she knows she’s loved.”
Prim sat with her head in her hands. “Her name is…”
Before Prim could finish, Sunset closed the door behind her.
Bees kept swarming around Sunset’s head. She swatted at them, but they only came back. Louder and louder they buzzed at her, but—the sound wasn’t constant? On, off, on, off.
She blinked and rubbed the dryness out of her eyes. How long had she been asleep? She still had her riding jacket on, and her helmet sat next to her on the bed. She must have barely dragged herself through the door after coming home from Derpy’s just after midnight. Prim hadn’t said anything, if she even knew.
Her phone buzzed again. Sunset opened her message app, and—
Her eyes shot wide open.
sorry I luv u sorry sorry I luv u so much
sorry
sorry
sorry
sorry
She scrolled down past page after page of them. Twenty, thirty, forty? She scrolled, she’s scrolling, she scrolls. She swipes to the bottom. Then the last few. And she gasps.
sroy ilv sirt
sory
droy
lv u
Shit. Every nerve tingles as if she has ants crawling under her skin, and she grabs her helmet, stops at the fridge for a slug of cola—anything with caffeine—and runs out the door. What time is it even? She glances down at her phone. Almost three in the morning. Then the phone goes in her pocket as she hits the starter and her motorcycle rumbles to life.
She peels out and tears off like she has an ursa on her heels. No time, no time, she twists the throttle until she can barely hang on, side streets and stop signs and traffic lights flashing by. It doesn’t matter. The roads are deserted at this hour. Especially in the ritzy part of town.
Abandoned storefronts and greasy yellow light soon give way to manicured lawns, accent lighting, and wind chimes, and Sunset races through an open gate, Derpy’s neighbor left it open, he always leaves it open, past the arbor into Derpy’s yard, and she squeezes the brakes—dammit, the sprinklers have left the grass slick, and she rips a muddy gouge through it before she finally slides into one of the posts supporting the patio awning.
The motion-sensing lights pop on, and Sunset charges for the back door. She’s seen Derpy punch in the security code enough times. The door flings open, glass breaks, but no time, up the stairs, someone steps out at the end of the hallway, brandishing a heavy-looking—
“Sunset!?”
Velvet Glove. But no time, and Sunset takes the second door on the left, crashing in, stumbling to the bed, falling onto warmth, she’s warm, she’s breathing. But she won’t wake up no matter how hard Sunset shakes her, and an empty medicine bottle clatters onto the floor. The lily on the windowsill droops over, all limp and dry.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Velvet Glove shouts.
Sunset wraps Derpy’s arm around herself, pulls her upright and drags her to the door. “Call the hospital! Tell them I’m on my way!”
But Velvet Glove doesn’t start dialing. “Why don’t I call the ambulance—?”
“Then we’d have to wait for them, and I can get her there faster,” Sunset barks, her clenched fist shaking, her voice shaking, her body shaking. “Now!”
Down the stairs, in the dark, no lights from Prim’s room or office. She must be out of town tonight. In the floodlit yard, Sunset shoves her helmet on Derpy’s head and tries to get her in the seat, but she keeps flopping over, and she can’t reach the handlebars around her like that, but Derpy can’t hold on from the back either, and—
“She took a bunch of sleeping pills, she’ll be there in a few minutes!” Velvet Glove whimpers into the phone as she runs out barefoot.
Sunset has to slump Derpy over the bike, across her lap. It’s the only way.
“I’ll get the car!” Velvet Glove yells, but Sunset already has her motorcycle started and revved up.
“Too slow!”
And she rockets out of the yard, through the neighbor’s gate again. Two hands on the handlebars, no, she keeps reaching down with the other to feel Derpy’s neck, feel the pulse that’s still there. She can’t balance well like this, and she has to slow down way too much to take the corner, but it’s a straight shot now through empty streets, and her engine screams into the night, the front wheel rising off the ground.
She runs a red light, and another, and as she races through downtown, the buildings get closer together—she can’t see down the side streets very far. But barely any cars out anyway, green light, green light, red, and—
Shit, she hits the brakes, swerves around the car that shoots out into the intersection, back on the throttle, surging forward. Six, maybe seven blocks to go, and can she see the sign up ahead?
Neon and moonlight gleam off everything, and the streetlights dot the distance as if she’s flying through a tunnel. Her world is constant, steady: the hum of her engine, the pace of the streetlamps, the heartbeat twitching against her fingers, the wind blasting the tears from her eyes. She could live in this moment forever. If it means having Derpy with her, she’ll tear herself out of time.
Hyacinths, lilies, butterflies, saw music, test tubes, unruly eyes, sitting on a bench in a courtyard. Sunset can play guitar along with her and sing, and they’ll work in a laboratory together and make all sorts of wonderful things. She’ll take Derpy on a trip to Equestria, and she can finally fly. They’ll run, oh how they’ll run! Just for the fun of it, but Derpy will never feel like she misses a time when she could have run faster, because even now, Derpy is flying faster than she ever has, and Sunset will always keep her warmth clutched to her.
Tires screech, and a siren starts up. A quick glance in her mirror—police. Dammit, they’ll just have to wait. She blows through another red light, and all the ones ahead of her tick green like a wave washing over them. Did the cops do that?
Two blocks left, she’d better start slowing down or she’ll shoot right past it, and as she blazes into the next intersection, a glare catches her eye, off the window of the building on the corner. She gapes at it, and she can hear the police car slam on its brakes behind her. The pickup truck clips her back tire.
Immediately she wrenches the handlebars under control, her hand no longer on that warmth, that steady beat, but her bike fishtails madly, and then it just folds out of sight from under her.
She’s floating.
She’s floating on the wind, flying, soaring with the girl who has wings in another world and may as well in this one, too, for all she does to make Sunset’s heart feel buoyed up on the air, then reality comes flooding back, and she balls herself around Derpy’s body to take the punishment, grits her teeth.
The pavement roars past, her shoulder explodes with fire, and she tumbles endlessly, all the while clinging to the one thing in life that means the most to her. But she won’t let go, she won’t. Her vision flares white as her knee cracks against something—a knot gathers in her chest when her leg flails like it shouldn’t, but thankfully it quickly goes numb, so she holds on, she holds on and never lets go. Then they skip over the curb and crash against a pole, and finally they lie still.
It hurts. It hurts, and yet… it doesn’t. Sunset can’t move her legs, or her head, or her arms, except her fingers. A little. Something’s heavy on her chest, and she can’t breathe, but what small breath she can take is hyacinth-scented. So she wiggles her fingers, and they’ve stayed against Derpy’s neck, under the edge of the helmet. It hasn’t lost its warmth or its pulse. But it’s hard to tell, and her fingers are going numb now, too. No, don’t cut her off from feeling that! Her only connection—she tries to swallow, and she cracks her eyelids open for some way to sense her, know she’s there. She didn’t notice earlier. Derpy has on the outfit she loves. The shirt’s torn and bloodied.
At least Derpy is moving, up, down, slightly. She’s breathing. Or is that only from Sunset breathing? She can’t feel her fingers anymore, can’t feel the pulse, only the smell of hyacinths.
Lights flash, and voices echo, but the words don’t make sense, just white noise. A hand touches her neck. She knows how triage works, treat Derpy first, please treat Derpy first. But they roll Derpy off her, and they wouldn’t do that if…
She still can’t breathe. It wasn’t Derpy weighing her down. Her girlfriend has never done that, has only made her soar.
And like a tide edging in, Sunset just wants to sleep. So tired. She breathes out.
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Is this a two part?
9831713
Nope. This is it.
OH YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! You leaving it off as some cliff hanger where there no clear ending?!
9831861
It's not intended to be a cliffhanger. It's heavily implied what happened to both of them.
9831877
Yeah it crystal clear. they died or Didn't die!
9831881
Well yeah, those would be the two possibilities, but I don't think it's very ambiguous which, especially for Derpy. But if you need it spelled out, they both died.
Ouch, that ending. I have to say, I wasn't completely sure at first which one of them had died. I think it works better if it's both of them, though, so no complaints there.
That switch from past to present tense was gorgeous
I love how succinctly it captured the sudden shift in mood. Everything past then was pretty much one thrill after another.
9831921
Well it a a ultra sad tragic ending I give you that, wish you do one more chapter love to see how Prim handles losing her daughter and causing Sunset's death.
9831981
I think that's definitely an avenue that could be explored, though I don't have any plans to. By the way, did you edit your comment? The one I got through email notification was different. To both though, yes, Prim has to take responsibility for her share of this, but she didn't want it to happen. I'm sure you've met people like her in real life, who have trouble acknowledging and expressing affection, so they come across as hostile when they don't mean to be. And as also happens too often in real life, she's just tragically misinformed about what Derpy's going through so that she doesn't respond to it how she should have.
I know it sounds like waffling, but as I said in the author's note, I see this more as a cautionary tale of what could have happened, not what actually did. I'm just not someone who likes downer endings much, but the contest provisions seemed to be begging for it, particularly a couple of oroboro's responses to them:
can the relationship end due to death? yes
can it be Sunset's death? you monster, but yes
then my mind immediately goes to having both die.
9831939
I once tried a tense shift long ago, and I got yelled at for it. To a degree, some readers are just immediately going to assume it's an editing mistake, and that's probably why my first attempt didn't go over so well: I just flipped to present after a scene break. Here, I at least transitioned it a little more gradually in hopes readers would notice and catch on. The best way to put something in that might be seen as a mistake is to pretty explicitly acknowledge that the author knows it's there, after all. Glad it worked for you,
And I will definitely be checking out your entry. I love your takes on Sunset and Adagio and—hey, wait, you didn't ship those? Heh. Now Rarity does seem like another character right up your alley, sly and intelligent like your Sunset and Adagio are.
9832412
I... would say the gradualness helped, because it seems like it would, but rereading it now, the first switch to present actually happens earlier than I thought it did. The first time I read it, I only noticed the change when I got to a full paragraph of present tense. But I think the consistency of it helped, too, since it's really hard for me to picture a generally competent writer switching tenses for more than a word or maybe a sentence at a time.
Thanks for your interest in my entry! I hope you'll let me know what you thought of it if you read it
Nothing can compare to the raw existential agony that came with posting a story with not a single fluffy, lovable siren in sight
But no, I did not. I thought about it, but my entry for last year--which I really, really like--had Sunset and Adagio breaking up, and I just wasn't sure I could think of a better premise, not when this year's prompt would force me to split them up again. Rarity is definitely my favorite of the mane cast, yeah--in no small part because she can manage some of the same larger-than-life theatrics that make writing Adagio such a joy.
9832402
Denial is still denial, and it the end when she needed to step up for her daughter she failed.
My family dealt with depression before, we didn't assume everything be fine, we worked hard at helping our love one, it was a hard road, and painful and left scars but we faced it.
9832546
It's different when you know what you're supposed to do, though. Prim doesn't, not until Sunset tells her.
9831939
Dang, it really was seamless. I didn't even notice, I was completely with Sunset the whole time, emotionally.
Wow. This feels like an ultimate challenge for me. Can you kill both Derpy and Sunset and still get FoME to like the story?
And the answer, as it turns out, is yes. Devastating portrayal of depression getting its claws in deep, and the kind of unthinking, rapid action that has caused so much wonder and grief for Sunset over the years. Brilliantly done, you monster. Best of luck in the judging, and thank you for explicitly saying how this is merely one potential future of many for these two.
9837630
Two of my favorite characters, too. What kind of terrible person would do this to them?
I've been debating whether or not to comment on this story for a few days, now, but I've come to the conclusion that I owe it to myself and to the author to share my thoughts. I'm going to preface this by admitting that I have... first-hand experience with the subject matter, let's say, so perhaps being objective is off the table.
I really disliked this fic. For a number of reasons.
On a general scale it felt very... almost bland? to me. It felt very much like an archetypal "suicide drama", the kind you see in the new column with some frequency. I feel like the entirety of the plot is given away purely in the tags. I didn't find the characterizations of the main characters particularly engaging; the end result of the plot felt inevitable. Ditzy in particular feels like a construct whose only real flaw is her depression and her own perceived self-worth, rather than a real person struggling with the affliction. But perhaps that is only because of the story's narrator being Sunset. Likewise, Sunset didn't really feel like Sunset to me, either.
The depiction of depression in the story, while accurate symptom-wise, felt similarly shallow. Again, I may be too close to this, and again this is perhaps not so bad given the POV character is an outside observer, but in this the idea of depression that comes across is... not very nuanced, and very rushed. It takes a long time to erode someone's will to live; here, it feels like Ditzy goes from feeling normal to wanting to kill herself in a week or so (this may not be the actual time frame, but with the rapid pacing of the story this is what it feels like). Ditzy also doesn't act depressed, really, before shutting herself in her room? She acts moreso openly insecure, which can be part of it, but... I don't know. It feels like there's a lot of finer details to this condition and the way people suffering from it act which are simply not present here. The opening text was good, though. Again, I understand that this is depression as seen from an outside observer through Sunset, but frankly it just doesn't feel right by my own experience.
In terms of actual writing, the prose itself felt kind of clunky, overall, and the two main metaphors presented in the story both seemed to fail to find their way home. The lily comes full circle, but is generally somewhat forgettable, and the wings completely fail to have any sort of payoff, which is strange for how prominent they are (and, perhaps, how easily they could have been pulled into the ending, given their other common symbolic use).
Speaking of the ending... I think that may have been what I disliked the most. Not because the two main characters died, but moreso because it seems tacked on for the sole sake of making the audience sad. What purpose does killing off Sunset serve, here? The only thematic throughline that is presented in the fic that it could be relevant to (that I saw, at least) is the idea of neglect: that the people in Ditzy's life haven't been doing enough for her. But if that's the case, then why is Sunset, the only character to actually do anything, killed off at the end? The story is marked tragedy, but what flaw of Sunset's is it supposed to be that led to her own tragic conclusion? Reckless driving? What purpose does any of this serve?
Ultimately, I was just... really disappointed. I've been impressed by your work in the past, Pascoite (the whole reason I read this was that I saw it was by you, and I saw the surprisingly low rating, and I wanted to know what had happened), but this just left me feeling empty. Maybe it just missed the mark for me. Maybe I just missed the point. I don't know.
In any case, sorry for clogging up your comment section with my overly-long ramblings, and best of luck.
9854681
I don't have a lot to say in response, but there are a few things that I feel are off the mark. One, that you were surprised to see a low rating on the story. That's mostly symptomatic of the tags. Seriously, go look up the contest folder for this and see how surprisingly low the vote ratios are for even the really good authors there. Aragon? Aquaman? Is there any chance his entry deserves to barely crack a 3:1 ratio? The fact that the contest required a relationship to end just set up most of the stories to be downvote bait, and we all went into it knowing that. Any marked with the tragedy or death tags fared particularly poorly, and numerous authors who like to write those genres will tell you it's just the price of admission they have to suffer through. ROBCakeran53 was just discussing that with me not long ago. And frankly, there are other reasons people give knee-jerk downvotes. I usually get at least 2 just because I'm the author and a couple more just for making the feature box. Under the circumstances, I don't find the voting alarmingly low on this.
I will say that I don't think it's fair to ding a story for being spoiled by the tags. It's not my fault I have to tag it with those, as I would have much rather kept those as surprises. If the synopsis gives it away, then that's on me. There are a lot of people who wish trigger tags could be spoilered, and then only people who get triggered badly enough to want to see the full tag set would ruin the surprise for themselves. There's no way to evaluate how you would have seen the story differently without them giving away the ending.
The wing metaphor was incorporated throughout the story, even into the final scene. They weren't explicitly mentioned, but Sunset does keep referring to the feeling of flight and soaring.
I think it's a dangerous thing to apply too much of a personal experience to this and expect it to match up. Different people experience depression in very different ways, and odds are it's not going to mirror your own. As a reader, I wouldn't require it to, unless it goes against pretty universally factual things.
On the other hand, personal experience can be a dangerous thing to write from. It really depends. This is pretty close to my own experiences with depression, so by definition, I don't think anyone can call it inaccurate, but here comes the other edge of the sword: it can be hard to convey the depth of an experience when so much of the personal investment is tied up in having been through it rather than having a more external view. I see this a lot in stories where an author has written something inspired by the death of a pet, for instance. It's hard to become invested in it because it takes knowing and caring about that pet as a given instead of building it up.
I don't know what you mean by clunky writing, since the only thing you mentioned was the two main metaphors, and I've already talked about that. I was hoping you'd elaborate on that somewhere, as it's a pretty broad thing to say when you're only backing it up with one specific point.
As to overall quality... eh, it's not one of my better stories. I had a couple of things I wanted to try with it, mostly to see if I could pull off the tense change. I don't like it that much myself, but I won't go into why, since that would require digging back to the prequel. I liked the idea, but I lost interest in it halfway through. I still felt obligated to finish it, so it wouldn't feel like wasted effort. While I'd never half-ass completing it, which would be very disrespectful to readers, it's still hard to give something that oomph when your heart's not in it.
9855164
19 (now 20) upvotes is low for a popular, well-known author with 1000+ followers, I meant. Regardless, it's simply what made me click.
I'm not dinging it for spoilers, I'm dinging it because the plot is predictable enough that it can be immediately gleaned from the tags.
I recognize that the wing metaphor is carried throughout the fic, but I can't point to any point where it actually pays off in any dramatic fashion.
I understand that our experiences with depression may not be analogous. However, my issue with the depiction here is not with accuracy, but with depth. By what your comment has said it seems as though you kept the portrayal of Ditzy's experience with depression largely surface-level in order to try and make it relatable; I feel that you have accomplished the exact opposite. It's the little things about how people react to and act under the condition that make it (and the character it is affecting) feel real and nuanced. The fact that by what you've written I would have assumed you did not have any experience with the subject matter is telling, perhaps (and my condolences for that experience, by the way). But then I did preface the comment by saying that being objective was likely off the table with this subject.
However...
Everything you've said about the supposed dangers of putting too much of yourself and your own experience into your work I vehemently disagree with. I am of the belief that it is by channeling our own experiences and emotions as authors that we make our fiction better reflect our reality. The issue with the scenario you cite is not the usage of personal experience, it is a lack of understanding of the craft; using the death of a pet for inspiration is in no way exclusive to knowing how to build up an emotional attachment. If this story that is meant to be about intense, personal emotions is the end result of such a philosophy, then I now understand why I couldn't enjoy it.
Now you need to write the other sequel. :B
9858781
There are infinitely many.
9859680
Romance with infinite Sunsets?
9855235
That's not a particularly low upvote count for a story these days, especially one with unpopular tags. Look at my last 5 stories: 21, 30, 27, 47, 59. I have to go back 6 stories to find one with over 100. I'll refer you again to Aquaman's entry in the same event. He has over 1000 followers. 14:4 voting on a story with suicide, death, and tragedy tags is not that surprising these days, even for him.
The only tags you can glean the story from are the ones I'd rather not have to put on it. If all it said was [Romance][Drama], you really would have pegged that as the outcome? There's obviously no way to say for sure now, but that's hard to believe.
Thematic links don't have to pay off in a dramatic fashion. I don't know why you think they do. Sometimes they're just atmospheric.
The last bit is not as black and white. The issue I see with personal death-of-a-pet stories isn't that the author has no idea how to write it effectively. I mean, that does happen, but not at any higher a rate than for stories in general. The thing is that the author feels it so sharply that they assume it's being communicated to a reader as well as it is to the author, and even good authors fall into that trap, sometimes because they're deliberately trying to tone it down and not be so over the top about it. That's why I usually recommend getting someone else to read it and see what they get out of it. Alas, I personally felt it was against the spirit of the competition to do so in this case, but that was my risk to take.
When I was reading this, I wasn't sure what to think.
Partly it was the characterization and feeling like I was walking partway into a story (enough to a bit disorienting, but certainly manageable), but it was also just odd at times. Some of that is because I never quite bought into their relationship as being genuine, it lacked a certain depth which kept it feeling like a high school romance (which is admittedly appropriate, but lacking).
What really caught my attention and had me desperate to read more was the final part of Sunset getting those last texts (which was so sad and felt so real as they got worse and worse, that part hit harder than I'd have expected) and then of her grabbing Derpy and riding off to the hospital on a motorbike.
You did a great job there, because from the get-go I knew this was probably going to end poorly, it was just a really dumb idea only an overly emotional and headstrong teenager would make, but as you took us on that journey with Sunset, I was waiting with baited breath to see what happened. And then one thing happened after another and she was getting close--the lights were green, the hospital was just there, and it was *so close!*
But of course we have that ending. Damn.
I know you have it in your comments that they both die, but it's just ambiguous enough that I can imagine Derpy might survive if given immediate treatment (and being limp might have actually helped, from what I've heard). Otherwise it's just so needlessly tragic and pointless, it's just such a downer of an ending with no redeeming factors, no silver lining, and damn that's hard.
Still, I enjoyed this, I actually thought the depiction of depression was good (speaking as someone who hasn't experienced it). It was understated, with enough hints that this wasn't just out of nowhere, and Derpy did a good job hiding it. That's the scariest thing, to me.
Have an upvote, and good luck!
9860389
Now that I know who you are, it's always funny seeing where you pop up!