Infrared
Sunset's first impression was an old memory recovering from a stint as a nightmare. The carpet was still scorched in places, the marble blackened, the stained-glass windows replaced by plain ones. The entire back wall was just gone, replaced by sheets of wood. Celestia's throne room had certainly seen better days.
But it wasn't Celestia sitting on the reading chair that had taken her throne's place. And it wasn't Sunset speaking to the princess. Not exactly.
"Wait," said the memory of the local Sunset, "the princesses went to a retirement community?"
And the question was so bizarre, so fundamentally wrong, that the Sunset watching forgot she was spectating and completely fell into her counterpart's mind.
"No, no," Princess Twilight said in her hastily supplied backup throne. "I thought that at first too, but. that's Silver Stable. Silver Shoals is this nice kelp-farming village in Bittish Columbia. Perfectly nice place as long as you don't drop any cucumbers in the bay." She gave a nervous laugh as she took in Sunset's confused look. "Long story. There was a bunyip."
"It's not that. It's just... Celestia. Retiring." Sunset shook her head. "No matter how many times I hear it, I can't make myself believe it."
"I know exactly how you feel. And I'm the one who took her place!" Twilight slumped in her chair. "I don't think anypony would try to conquer Equestria if they realized they'd actually have to run it afterwards."
Sunset waited. The expected rump covering never came. Finally, just to break the silence, she said, "Yeah, that's rough. You know, I still have a notebook full of possible policy changes I wrote up before the Fall Formal if you're interested."
Twilight gave a beatific smile she'd definitely picked up from their mentor. "As far as I'm concerned, with Starlight looking after the school, you're the eighth member of the Council of Friendship. Feel free to bring it next time you're free. As long as they aren't too..." The mask slipped as she cleared her throat. "You know, evil."
Sunset smirked. "I'm pretty sure this makes me a royal vizier. Doesn't that mean I'm supposed to be evil?"
"Don't get me started," Twilight groaned. "Suddenly all the ponies who had years to get to know me, even after the wings, are crawling out of the woodwork to make nice with the 'new princess.'" For somepony born without wings, she put an impressive amount of scorn into the feather quotes. "I'm not even the newest princess anymore! Flurry's almost two years old!"
Sunset made herself nod. "Must be rough."
"And it's so frustrating. They all think I'll rubber-stamp any proposal they give me if they force the word 'friendship' into the first paragraph. I'm starting to get sick of the word." Twilight brought her hooves to her chest. "Me! The princess of the thing!"
"When's the last time you slept?" Sunset said as she approached the "throne." "You're sounding a lot like the other you after a weekend-long all-nighter."
"Sleep isn't the problem. Luna's still looking after the dreamscape, thank goodness. The problem," Twilight all but snarled, "is that apparently, after all I've done, some ponies hadn't ever heard of me until now. Clearly that means I was foaled yesterday."
Sunset patted her on the withers, royal etiquette be banished. "Don't worry. Give it a moon, tops. Everypony will know full well you're Princess Twilight Sparkle, and you've been around the block a few times."
"Thanks, Sunset. Really. I—" Twilight cut herself off as her horn started flashing. "Oh! Hold that thought." She moved to one of the western windows, lit her horn, and began moving the sun below the horizon.
Her. Not Celestia. Twilight.
"Happy to help," Sunset said over the internal screaming.
"Happy to help. Happy to help!?"
Sunset had wandered away from the throne room at some point. After a few minutes, she'd realized her hooves were guiding her to one of her favorite venting spots, the section of the Archives full of the most advanced and obscure magics, where almost nopony else might have intruded upon her dropping her old facade.
Or the one she'd had to put on today.
"Gets the world handed to her in a feedbag and she's just..." Sunset fluttered her eyelashes and, in her best worst mockery of Twilight's voice, cooed, "'Oh, look at me, I'm Miss Perfect Sparkle. Boo hoo hoo, ruling the country is so hard, and nopony could ever understand. I can move the sun and moon without batting an eye, but I'm surrounded by ponies who haven't heard of me. Waa waa waa.' Stuck-up... little..."
Sunset's rant and pacing both slowed to a halt when she realized she wasn't alone. An old unicorn stallion stared at her from the entrance, one eyebrow raised. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on behind the beard, but she couldn't think of any expressions she'd actually want to see there. The glass-enclosed flowerpot balanced on his back did not help. If anything, the way it pointed at her made it feel like the flower was judging her even more than its steed. "Um..." Sunset swallowed against the lump in her throat. "How long have you been standing there?"
The stallion moved into the central annex. "I came in somewhere around 'Miss Perfect Sparkle.'"
"I, uh..."
"Sunset Shimmer, I presume?" he said as he set the flower down at the foot of the central hourglass.
Sunset briefly considered denying it, but her old instincts told her there was little point in trying to deceive him. "You have me at a disadvantage, sir."
"Truly?" He looked up at the bust atop that hourglass. The one of the wing's namesake.
The one that looked exactly like him.
"Star Swirl!" Sunset found herself split. Did she bow? Genuflect? Box his ears? She settled on stammering out, "I, you, Twi... oh my gosh, I-I'm sorry, I'll go apologize to Twilight right away. I just—"
He held up a forehoof, silencing her. "Relax, Miss Shimmer. An apology will not help either of you right now. I understand your resentment."
"Y-you do?"
That got a single, jingling nod. "Indeed. You remind me of a young Luna."
It wasn't hard to follow his line of thought from there. "And Twilight is Celestia."
"Precisely. She flourishes, you languish, and so your resentment begins to outweigh your sisterly love. I know you are not sisters in blood, but you were both mentored by Celestia, and that manner of sisterhood can be just as binding. Until it is not." Sorrow crept into his gaze, and the restrained but burning energy surrounding him retreated. For the first time since Sunset had spotted him, Star Swirl seemed old. "I see a bit of Stygian in you as well, the stallion I so terribly failed."
"Twilight told me about him. I'm not going to court any dark forces for power if that's what you're worried about. Been there, done that, took a rainbow to the face." Sunset rolled her eyes. "And then I had to clean up the messes you left in that world..." She trailed off as she realized just who she was mouthing off to. "That is to say—"
Star Swirl shook his head. "Do not twist your words away from that harsh truth, Miss Shimmer. You more than anypony have earned the right to chastise me for my sloppiness. Stygian and Clover both warned me I had grown too reliant on banishing my problems. Over time, the spell became so rote I didn't even realize I was sending so much to the same world. It is because you have done so much to truly solve those problems I merely delayed that I trust you will not fall again.
"No, I sought you out for a different reason. With a new alicorn on the throne and no appeal in the forces of darkness, doubtless you feel like there is nowhere for one as ambitious as you to go. I fear you will simply lie down and accept irrelevance and futility. Far too many times have I seen a promising pupil give up hope because she felt she could not compare to her contemporaries, when with enough effort she could have been remembered for generations while they were all lost to history."
Sunset gave a lopsided grin. "That's a really convoluted way of saying 'Hang in there.'"
"But the message is no less important. You have already had a lasting impact on two worlds and the legacy of a foolish old stallion."
"Not always a good impact," Sunset said, gaze falling to the floor.
A stomp made her dart her head back up to see Star Swirl scowl. "As Meadowbrook once told me, show me a pony who has made no mistakes, and I shall show you a newborn." His expression softened to a smile mostly found in his eyes. "I sincerely hope that you continue to leave your mark on history, even with Princess Twilight on the throne."
Sunset returned the smile as best she could. "I appreciate that. Really." She rubbed a foreleg with the other fetlock. "Don't suppose you have any suggestions?"
"Well, as it happens..." Star Swirl's eyes moved to the flower under glass.
"Wait, seriously?"
"I have several other errands to attend to while at the castle, but after..." Star Swirl's expression soured as he said, "recent events, I find myself without anypony I can trust enough to tend to this wishblossom while I do them."
Sunset gasped and took in the flower. Each of the eight heliotrope petals glowed with its own inner light, the paler outer edges almost florescent. "W-wishblossom?"
"The one I left in Princess Twilight's care ended up exhausted by youthful folly. But who better to treat my work with the respect it deserves than one who has seen it misused time and again?"
Sunset gave Star Swirl a sidelong glance. "I literally crushed one of your greatest creations under my heel."
He snorted. "The Time Twirler. A fool's errand, that one. Nearly drove me mad before I was rid of it."
"Same. Hence, you know, the crushing."
"It only bolsters my confidence in you, Sunset." Star Swirl patted her on the withers and turned to leave. "I'll be back shortly."
Sunset watched him go, then turned back to the wishblossom. After a few moments, she said, "This was all just a setup to get me to plantsit for him, wasn't it?"
The wishblossom did not respond. Yet Sunset couldn't help but sense a sort of... eagerness to it. An attentiveness like Fluttershy staying quiet and letting other people talk themselves out.
"Well... It's just..." Sunset shook her head. "No. No, one of the greatest wizards in Equestrian history trusted me with this and I will not betray that trust."
The flower just stared at her, as much as something without eyes could. Come to think of it, it had been pointed at her since Star Swirl had come in the room. Was that normal? She'd gotten a few sunflowers to shift back when she helped Princess Celestia garden. Maybe it was something like that. She thought about finding a book on exotic flora to double-check.
But her hooves didn't seem inclined to leave the flower. Well, sure, she was supposed to guard it. From all zero other ponies in the Star Swirl Wing.
It was quiet. Libraries were supposed to be quiet, of course, but this silence was like a yawning chasm waiting to be filled. An abhorrent, unnatural vacuum. Enough to—
"Okay, fine." Sunset glared down at the flower. "But I'm just going to talk. And I'm not going to say you-know-what. I did do a little research about you before I fled the palace, in case you could've given me what I wanted back then. You want to be used. Something about your reproductive process and the germ of ideas.
"And that's the thing. I was trying to do this for years. Years!" Sunset felt herself start pacing again and went along with it. Like the words she was finally getting out, it felt good. "And even after I put aside world conquest, whenever I think of Princess Twilight, I can't help but think 'It could have been me.' If I had just sat down, shut up, and actually listened to what Celestia had been trying to tell me, it could be me in that throne room. And Twilight knows that. She knows my history with the prin..." Sunset shuddered as she added, "the former princess. She was there when we reconciled. But she complained about living my dream to my face, and it's..." She cut herself off, unwilling to go too far.
It lasted for all of a few seconds. "She got to be an alicorn, a princess, a ruler. At the Friendship Games, I thought I might have caught up, but..." Sunset bit her lip. Her hooves stamped in place like she had to use the little fillies' room. "I just wish I could be the one to get supreme power like that."
Sunset gasped and clapped her hooves over her mouth. "No! I mean, don't! Don't do it! I didn't mean it!"
The flower didn't react, and the strange allure vanished, a tug on her mind she only knew was there after it had gone.
Sunset let out a long sigh, her guts twisting. She couldn't tell if she was relieved or disappointed. "I guess even magic can't grant some wishes." She found a vaguely interesting looking book and stared at it for a while, occasionally remembering to turn a page.
The memory grew hazy from there, enough that the Sunset watching remembered that she was separate from the one who'd lived it. Star Swirl returned, giving Sunset praise that she grinned and bore even as the guilt stabbed at her. Sunset wandered through a Canterlot that had forgotten her and boarded a train full of strangers, then passed through a Ponyville that was just as ready to embrace a new era. Once through the portal, she moved through a different Canterlot in the same daze, one that had hardly ever known her in the first place, barely registering the people passing her by.
The hours blended together into a gray blur until they refocused on Sunset lying on her bed, crossing out line after line on the same scratch paper the other Sunset had used as a psychometric focus. "In a moment of weakness..." Furious scratching reduced that to one of the completely illegible lines. "It wasn't weakness, Shimmer, it was honesty. It's what you want but can't admit without a magic flower tugging on your tongue."
She sighed and went back to drafting. "If you could... Allow me to... Tell Celestia..." She scoffed at that. "What? Tell her what, Shimmer?"
With a groan, she wrote out one last line, then scratched it out so hard she almost tore the paper. She shoved the paper into the journal and slammed the book into the shelf. And then, falling back on her bed, geode glimmering unseen on her nightstand, she said what she'd last written.
"I just wish it could have been me."
And so Sunset turned out the Yuletide lights, shut her eyes... and began to glow.
Repetitive buzzing jolted Sunset out of her daze. For a few confused moments, she wondered why her local self had set an alarm for 11:28 in the morning. Then she realized it was the new journal. She flipped to the most recent message, forcing herself to focus through her mental fuzz.
Dear Sunset,
I'm not going to make any accusations one way or another, but Star Swirl would very much like to know what happened to six of his new wishblossom's petals. You should probably get to Ponyville as soon as possible. We'll both be waiting there.
Your friend,
Twilight Sparkle
The village in "P.P.O.V." is actually called Seaward Shoals in that episode, but the point about the retirement community in "The Point of No Return" stands. Celestia and Luna did not go to an old folks' home.
As for Star Swirl leaving the recovering villain (as with any addiction, there's no such a thing as a recovered villain) with a force of unfathomable power, remember:
And I like the idea of wish-granting items wanting to use their power. That much potential is going to be unstable, and when the only way to release it is through a sincere request, well...
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I like that you have Luna still fulfilling her dream-realm tasks. It didn't make much sense to me for Luna to want to give up her role in the Equestrian government so soon after returning from her banishment, unless she never really wanted it anyway.
"Sup Twiggles. Look, I'm not you Sunset, but she done fucked up. Do you have any way to undo planar exchanges? I have a universe to keep existing."
You do realize this includes The Most Holy Bacon Horse, don't you?
So, there's 2 petals left. WOW. Even that wish only took 6 of them.
Use a wish to fix a wish?
If it's part of their reproductive process, where's the new sprout?
But, if she just wanted to ascend, there's also the Demon Sunset Ashlands route, or something.
Presuming it's just a basic swap instead of a triangle swap or something, is easier though.
...
Interesting look on how Celestia's mentoring styles worked. With Sunset, she got someone who really focused on that "Being the Newest Princess" thing, but with Twilight, she got someone to be the hero she actually wanted / needed, but can't deal with the results of it...
Oof. I really feel for Sunset here. Both of them. I wonder if this universe's Sunset is finding out whether she ought to be careful what she wishes for...
So, Starswirl hears Sunset Shimmer ranting and raving in a rather livid tone about the fact that Twilight Sparkle was now ruling princess of Equestria, and decides: "Yes, this mare is a wonderful choice to watch a wish-granting flower. I see nothing possibly going wrong with this in any way."
I thought he was supposed to be brilliant.
Can't even say it feels out of character, either.
Fragging photosynthetic djinn-in-a-box, why would Starswirl carry something like that around unsecured? The thing needs a sound-dampening spell on it at the very least, and ideally something to restrict psychic influences as well.
10053059
No kidding. Personally I'd opt for extermination of the blossoms. Having a portable wish spell that literally anyone can use for damn near anything is a recipe for disaster.
10053104
Well the things could be fantastically useful under controlled circumstances, it'd likely make an excellent panacea for instance. You just need someone with an extremely deliberate mind to give the wishes. Perhaps someone with a law Mark? Anyone who writes boilerplate for a living ought to be able to write a suitable wish.
What I find worrying is that even after the wish not being granted, her explicitly taking it back, and leaving? A later wish still triggers it.
And wow, six petal wish. Leaving only two. On the principle that undoing something is usually at least as hard as doing it in the first place, there’s not enough juice left in the flower to fix this.
Starswirl. Man, he’s worse than Starlight. Those two should NEVER be allowed to encourage each other.
I do really feel for Sunset. Easy to feel left behind, even if she doesn’t know how she’s a goddess in another dimension. I hope they can fix things for her.
Still, given the flower was clearly having a mental influence on her? This, as with most problems in Sunset’s life, is mostly Starswirl’s fault. I think at this point he’s officially her Nemesis, and very well crafted for the purpose. You can’t beat someone by befriending them when they already *are* your friend. Just like Twilight can’t really fight one of her best friend’s kids.
It occurs to me. Wishing items wanting to be used and unstable potential. No wonder Discord is constantly doing sight gags.
10053114
The issue isn't that they wouldn't be useful. The ability to simply wish for something and have it happen is RIDICULOUSLY useful.
The issue is, imagine a universe where somehow Cozy Glow gets ahold of one of those things. Or a pre-redemption Glimmer. Or a Sunset. As long as the flowers exist, and knowledge of them exists, there will always be ponies/people that want to use them. And all it takes is one wrong person getting ahold of one to cause absolute disaster. (Which seems like a part of the premise of this story?)
Okay, either Starswirl is exceptionally dense, or he knew exactly what he was doing when he left the girl suffering from a personal crisis alone with a wish granting artifact, which just so happens to compel people around it to unthinkingly make wishes, for just long enough for her to make a wish, but maybe didn't anticipate just how much power Sunset's wish would require.
Wonder how long until we get to see how the other Sunset is doing? I suppose there are worse alternate versions of herself to swap places with if the flower wanted to give her a taste of power and responsibility and perhaps a little perspective, but this will still probably be pretty rough as she tries to figure out what exactly is going on without blowing up that universe.
Out of curiosity, would this happen to be the same Sunset/Shimmy who will eventually make contact with the Merodi? Or is this a different version of her, or from a different multiverse altogether?
Ignore all the neighsayers, it's a teachable moment. And if a universe is at stake, well, a pony's mind can contain a vast number of universes
Congratulations, Star Swirl, you done f
ed up.
10053280
To be the teeniest bit fair, I don't think a universe where Sunset is literally Goddess Of All was even remotely part of Starswirl's line of thought.
And now things are heating up! I'm sure Sunset will be illuminated next.
10053048
Like a lot of other wizards, Starswirl used Wisdom as a dump stat.
10053230
Considering that Shimmy Sunset talked about knowing a multiversal civilization and about awareness, pretty sure this is SotS Shimmy.
10053013
Even if she were willing or able to transfer the duty, the only volunteer to take it up was Rainbow Dash. Yeah, not happening.
10053018
I do, and so does she. It's one of the big reasons why she fights so hard against believing her own hype.
10053027
The exhausted blossom produced a few seeds a couple days after the Bloofy Incident. They're are the only reasons Star Swirl didn't banish the Crusaders somewhere unpleasant. Well, the seeds and what their sisters would do to him.
Celestia learned from the mistakes she made with each student... which just meant she made new mistakes as the years went on.
Fortunately, Twilight can count on her friends while she and the nation adjust.
10053048 10053280 10053483 10054271
Star Swirl has a perfectly reasonable explanation for his actions. Well, he thinks it's perfectly reasonable. You will have to wait until. the next chapter to hear it.
This guy gets it.
10053059 10053104
I have to assume wishblossoms are mind-bogglingly rare, given how no villains ever employed any. (With the possible exception of Cozy Glow. That might actually explain a lot.) Still, the fact that Star Swirl found two inside of a decade may well be unprecedented. Of course, with that rarity comes a lack of regulation, simply because nopony's heard of them to establish any containment guidelines...
10053128
Think of it as a combination of loading time and Sunset building up a static charge hours before she touched a doorknob.
And yeah, Star Swirl is the cause of many of Sunset's problems, and the solution to precisely none of them. We'll see if that streak continues.
That is equal parts intriguing and horrifying. Discord does have similar energy to Robin Williams's Genie...
10053230
I can confirm that we'll get the first hint of how the other Sunset's doing in the next chapter. As for Merodi matters (And I'll tag in 10054281 on this one,) the current answer to "Is this Shimmy or a different Oversaturated Sunset?" is currently "Yes." There's nothing keeping her from becoming the face of Earth Shimmer, but there's nothing guaranteeing that she will be either. GMBlackjack and I are playing this carefully to avoid doing unpleasant things to the other's continuity.
10053257
I was wondering how you'd react to this Star Swirl. Glad to see he meets with your approval.
10054519
My personal assumption is that Starswirl is engaged in arcane and quite possibly illegal experimentation involving poison joke and other such magical flora, because he's a millennia-old wizard with no consideration for consequences. So nopony knows about wishblossoms because he just created them.
10054519
So, eventually we'll have Sunset engaging in a bit of the old ultraviolet?
10054519
... dammit, Star Swirl. You deserve everything a justifiably enraged unicorn is about to throw your way, verbal and physical alike.
10054533
It could also be that the flowers have limitations, and villain wishes tend to exceed those limitations. Or perhaps the flowers have a sense of morality. After all, they must be capable of comprehending a wish in order to be able to fulfil it.
Or they could just be prettier looking monkey paws, and villains know well enough to stay away from things that 'creatively interpret' wishes.
10054529
He is a very good Star Swirl
10054569
The villains who use them produce episodes surprisingly similar to The Mean Six.
You know, that tangentially reminds me of something from The Wise Man's Fear. There's an evil prophetic entity bound in a tree, it's sense of the future and skill with the butterfly effect being so acute that even talking to it is considered about the most dangerous thing you could possibly do. Unfortunately for everyone, flowers grow all around it that will cure literally anything...
10054533
I like that idea. Wishblossom is the Owlbear of the plant world. And some Poison Joke in the mix would explain a whole lot about why the wishes always come out ironic.
10054529
Glad to oblige
Somehow it never occurred to me that the Oversaturated World could spin off it's own alternates, or that there could be variants of it. The Multiverse is a weird place.
I'm going to need to read League of Sweetie Belles now aren't I.
10053114
I feel like, though I don't think it's generally pointed out, the sorts of entities and forces that grant wishes* often get weaker as you heap restrictions on the execution. A magical wish granting flower has just the sort of wild-magic flavor to it to behave that way in any case.
I can't help but recall the last episode of Adventure Time when a character has a calamity before them, and a wish-granting relic ready at hand. They try to word it intelligently, but each attempt fails and doom gets nearer, until they sigh and make the open ended, sure-to-bring-consequences wish for 'anything' that results in the end they were ultimately trying to achieve.
On the other hand, there is some amusement to be derived from the notion of a magic aware society with rules and regulations on the application of wish based magic. "And all mystical self-fulfilled entreaties are to be submitted to the Office of Arcane Affairs in triplicate no less than four months prior to invocation in order to be properly evaluated and vetted. In the event of approval, you will receive form 37N-ER, known as a 'wish permit'."
*Excepting genies of course. Those and stories including them tend to focus on phrasing and (mis)interpretation thereof.
10057121
I've seen it done in a variety of ways, one of my favorites was a direct increase in cost or incurred obligation scaling with specificity. Say you're being chased by a horde of zombies or summat. Saying "I wish I had a way out of this" gets you an option, one that relies mainly on your own ability but will work. In return you experience some moderate exertion or receive a minor task to accomplish, likely something integral to what you're already doing to get away from the zombies.
On the other hand, saying "I wish to turn into an eagle and fly away" gets you a much more exorbitant magical debt, because you're forcing your own ideas on fate. Therefore you're likely stuck as an eagle until you manage to accomplish whatever feat.
I love the blend of human and equine expression in that single line of dialog.
And yeah, I figured Star Swirl had done something careless. I mean really, is there a reason why he couldn't stick the wishblossom in a soundproof vault while he tended to whatever crisis he needed to?
10054533
That would certainly explain why Twilight didn't seem to know anything about them in "Growing Up is Hard to Do." I like the idea, though it's a bit late to incorporate it into this story. And poison joke was definitely one of the component species.
10054548
It'll be real horrorshow.
10054687
GMBlackjack's even more of a multiverse nut than I am. Immediately after the League visits picks up the central protagonist, they visit the Oversaturated World, and they come back a couple times after that. And when they're not there, they go to all kinds of different pony stories. It's great fun... usually.
10057121
Wish permits are absolutely going to be a thing in the Sparkle Regime. Celestia putting that filly in control of a bureaucracy may be the greatest danger Equestria's ever faced...
10059069
Glad someone noticed. It was originally handing Twilight the world on a platter, but then I realized I could have fun with it. Also, I feel there aren't nearly enough feedbags in ponyfic.
He has his reasons. They're not necessarily good reasons, but he has them.
10059069
I could believe that wishblossom withers and dies if kept away from any being which at least has unverbalized wishes. At least during its most fertile period. It would explain why you don't see the plant sprouted and thriving in the wild.
Oh. Ohhhhhh! I get it now.
This is gonna be one of those fics that makes me wish they'd brought in anyone who gave a damn to write in the last few seasons. :(
10054548
10059636
Bloody Ultraviolet Vampire movie ref! Haha!
----
Came here to wonder if the Wishblossom nudged Starswirl to place it with Sunset.
This is like my 4th reread so I know his explanation, but still...
----
Hmm... I wonder if seedlings are based on who the germinating wisher was, somehow. If it was a different specimen, would the wish be different? ... Genetic reshuffling based on seed wisher, ala Asari??
Or the main variation is how strong a connection they can sustain?? This one crossed dimensions over days...
Can't argue there.
Damn!
How very kind of him.
Glad they agree on something.
Well, that can't be good!