Epilogue: Friendship Carved in Crystal
The sun had already been up for some time when Twilight finally stirred. She wasn't much for sleeping bags, but it had done the job surprisingly well for the night. She knew her parents wouldn't have approved of her sharing a bed with her upcoming prom date, any more than they would have approved of her doing so with Timber—and she remembered from Camp Everfree and beyond that Sunset wasn't exactly the most peaceful sleeper anyway. It wasn't the most practical of arrangements, after she'd impulsively invited her friends to spend the night even though none of them had sleeping bags with them (thank goodness only two accepted the offer); she supposed she could have asked Sunset to bunk with Rarity in Shining Armor's old room, or tried sleeping on the couch herself, but something about this setup, lying underneath her planetary mobile with her crush-turned-potential girlfriend by her side (well, sorta) had felt right somehow.
Sunset was asleep, snoring loudly; Twilight sat up, put on her glasses and looked over at her, giggling at the sight. She crept out of the room through the still-cracked doorway, where she was greeted enthusiastically by Spike, who'd spent the night in her parents' room. She bent down to say hi. He was in what she liked to call "full puppy mode", where he was acting more like his old pre-magic dog self; today that manifested in a face-licking for the ages.
"Spike!" Twilight laughed, speaking in a hushed-but-excited tone. "I hope you brought me a towel!"
"Heh," Spike chuckled. "I mean I figured you were gonna take a bath soon anyway so..."
"Yeah, but not now, I have people over!"
"Oh, darling, you're awake!" Rarity called from the end of the hall. "Thank goodness, I've been up for nearly an hour!"
"Rarity!" Twilight wiped her face with her sleeve and darted back to the kitchen, where Rarity was seated at the table by the sliding-glass door. "I'm surprised to see you up so early."
"Yes, well, it does take some time to craft the perfect #JustWokeUp-chic look, after all. Well, that, and it wasn't my best night's sleep, either," Rarity said, motioning to the coffee mug she'd already emptied.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Twilight responded. "I never understood how Shining Armor ever slept at all on that thing; any time I sat down on it, it just... I don't get it."
"No no, the bed was fine, dear. It's just that, well, Sunset and I were awake after hours last night."
"Oh," Twilight said, knowingly. "Did she... have another..."
"I'm afraid so. I'm happy to report that I think we made some real headway, though."
Twilight nodded. "I won't pry." After a moment, though, she did have to ask one thing. "You don't think it might be related to prom this time, right?"
"Oh, no, darling," Rarity replied cheerily. "I can assure you nothing like that came up. I'm so happy the two of you are going together..."
Twilight blushed as she took a seat by Rarity. "I still can't believe I worked up the nerve to ask her. And now we've already talked about having a real date after graduation! I mean I've known I wanted this ever since Timber basically spelled it out for me... I still feel bad about that."
Rarity smiled and put a hand on Twilight's shoulder. "I can only imagine how... less than fun it must be to have your boyfriend realize you're not into boys before you do. But you two are still friends, right?"
Twilight perked up. "Oh, certainly! Just the other day he was telling me about how his first year living on campus has been and giving me some tips for the fall semes—"
"Hey everyone," said a familiar voice from behind them. Twilight whirled around to see Sunset, bleary-eyed and visibly tired as she ambled into the room, carrying Spike.
"Sunset!" Twilight dashed over and gave Sunset a bear hug as Spike squirmed between them, eventually wriggling his way out and scampering off.
"Morning, Twilight," Sunset said, a warm smile spreading across her face.
After they'd spent some time chatting, with Twilight's parents briefly saying hello before leaving to run some early errands, Rarity and Sunset were left alone in the kitchen with mostly eaten bowls of cereal after Twilight went to take a shower. Rarity was hesitant to broach the subject of the previous night.
"How'd you sleep?" Rarity asked.
"Do I really look that bad?" Sunset answered with another question.
"Not horrendous to the untrained eye, I'd say, but you definitely don't look well rested."
Sunset laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, uh... I don't know how long it took you to fall asleep after we went back to bed, but my mind was definitely still racing for a little while. It was probably at least forty-five minutes before I was calm enough for sleep. I just..." She sighed before continuing.
"I appreciate everything you told me last night. Really, truly. And I want to put everything you suggested into practice. But with... her... I just think it might be too late for simply 'offering a kindness'. Our last government class and our last yearbook meeting are Monday. After that... we won't be sitting anywhere near each other at graduation, so there's no other situation where we'll have to be together, and I don't think I'm ready to invite her anywhere to chat, if she'd even feel comfortable going."
Rarity nodded. "I see. So... you think you're not going to try to talk to her."
"Just the opposite, actually," Sunset replied. "I'm going to ask her to stay after yearbook on Monday and... we're gonna talk about it."
Rarity gasped. "Sunset, that's very brave of you. And possibly rather dangerous. Perhaps it could frighten her? It might seem too much like a confrontation."
Sunset nodded. "I'll try my best to make it not feel like that, but I know that's a risk. At the same time, though... I have to try. I can't keep letting this fester under the surface when it's clearly hurting me."
Rarity thought for a moment. "Perhaps I should come with you? Try to moderate things?"
Sunset shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, but you're one of my best friends, and someone she hurt. Even if you try to play neutral, it would probably look like we were ganging up on her, and then it would definitely feel like a confrontation."
"That's fair," Rarity noted. "I just wish this wasn't something you had to do on your own. After everything that happened, you of all people shouldn't have to be isolated."
Sunset started to give what looked like an appreciative smile, but it died halfway into its formation. Instead, she started to tremble, and her eyes welled up. She tried to say something but it was choked, a hideous gasping noise, and in a matter of milliseconds Sunset had crumbled into a blubbering mess of hiccuping sobs.
"Sunset!" Rarity cried, rushing from her seat and wrapping her arms tightly around her. "W-what's wrong? What can I do?"
"I just..." Sunset gagged, another wave of overwhelming tears cutting her off. "I... I... I... I don't know, I..." She buried her face into Rarity's shoulder once again, the crying even more intense than it had been during the night. "I'm just now... realizing how little I've let myself feel anything about what happened... about everything I almost lost..."
"Whatever do you mean?"
Sunset pulled her head back. Her eyes were horrifically bloodshot; Rarity fought back a gasp at the sight as Sunset kept speaking.
"I was just so happy to have you back, and I didn't want to see any of you upset... I felt so horrible any time you and the others tried to apologize for how you acted, because it wasn't your fault... I couldn't bear to see any of you feeling guilty when you were all victims too. I couldn't. And I wanted to be strong and show W-Wallflower forgiveness and friendship... so I just bottled it up and wouldn't let myself think about it. I couldn't dwell on it, or you would all see me in pain and keep blaming yourselves..."
A fresh wave of sobs overtook her, and now Rarity's eyes were welling up too. "I..." She tried to find something comforting to say, but the words weren't there.
"I thought I was being selfless," Sunset continued after a moment. "I thought I was being protective... but all I've been doing is making myself feel worse. For nothing—you made it clear last night it didn't even spare your feelings. I thought I could handle bad dreams, but now I might be stuck with them forever if I don't make things right... living out those three days every night..."
Sunset's tear ducts seemed to be running dry, but now there was plenty of liquid streaming down Rarity's face; she was conscious of the streaks it must have been leaving in her early-morning makeup routine, though it hardly mattered at the moment. She shuddered as the memories flooded her brain.
Doesn't anyone remember that I've changed?
The only joke is whatever this is you're playing on us, acting all nice like you're our friend.
We've been through so much together... please!
Don't hurry back, darling...
She shifted back to reality as Sunset looked her directly in the eyes.
"I love you," Sunset said, with as much conviction as could be conveyed in her current state. "I love all of you so much. I don't know who I'd be without your friendship... and I never want to find out. And if I'd lost you forever that day... it's too horrible to even think about."
At that sentence, Rarity snapped to attention. She brushed the haunting thoughts aside. The spirit of generosity within her finally knew exactly what to do.
"No, Sunset, no," she said sternly, wiping away the tears on her face and summoning her resolve. "I don't know how things would have played out if we'd lost our memories for good, except for one thing—we would have found each other again. Maybe it would have taken time, possibly a long time. But our friendship would have prevailed. You said it yourself last night—even with no memory of anything we'd been through together, we summoned the magic of friendship as one. We would have found a way back together. Because no matter who we were to each other once, you are my friend, Sunset Shimmer. And sooner or later, even I would have recognized you for the good person you are once again."
Rarity mustered a smile past all the pain she'd been absorbing and feeling, and, focusing with deep intent, stepped back and conjured a diamond shield for Sunset to see. Emblazoned in the center of the diamond was Sunset's cutie mark. Sunset's jaw dropped at the sight.
"We may feel like we could have done better, Sunset. We may let our mistakes and guilt get the better of us sometimes. I absolutely did that last night. But the geodes chose us for a reason. Our friendship is carved in crystal. And nothing will take it from us. Not truly, not forever."
Rarity let the diamond dissipate. Sunset bolted over to her and gave her the biggest hug of her life.
"I'm so sorry I didn't trust you enough to tell you how I was feeling. To have bottled it up like this... Thank you, Rarity, for everything. Thank you. Thank you."
Rarity sniffled and wiped away the last lingering tears as she returned Sunset's embrace. "I love you too, Sunset. We all do. I know this won't fix everything, but I truly hope it helps."
For a happy minute, at least, everything was right with the world.
Then Twilight obliviously strode back into the kitchen. "Alright, I'm all done! Whoever wants to go next can—wait, what's happening here?"
Sunset and Rarity kept the hug going, in spite of the interruption. "Just taking time to appreciate our friendship, dear," Rarity cooed.
"I'm not gonna have to ask you to prom too, am I?"
"No, darling," Rarity replied. "I'm afraid the dress I designed for myself would clash far too much with the ones I made for the two of you."
All three of them laughed as Twilight walked over and joined the hug.
I initially conceived this chapter as a prologue for a sequel story, but, once I started fleshing out the scene, I decided it would fit better as an epilogue here, providing some connective tissue to both the sequel, which is a direct continuation of this story, and to "Sunset and Twilight's Winter Holidate", which takes place six months later.
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Where did you find the cover art?
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Rainbow Rocks screenshot.
I’m considering commissioning new art for this alongside the sequel, but I haven’t firmly decided yet.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this story is beautiful.
What I love about this story is how deep you’re exploring the concept. In the previous chapters, you talked about hate and forgiveness. In this chapter, you talked about fear and guilt. What happened to Sunset Shimmer during Forgotten Friendship was truly, utterly terrifying. Imagine yourself in her boots: your entire life evaporated to ash overnight. Your best friends, the very reason you are who you are, not remembering you. Not just that, but looking at and talking to you with hate, contempt and scorn. In the span of three days, your relationships gone, your life gone. I’m surprised Sunset hasn’t broken down in the actual special.
But you, dear author, nailed all those emotions perfectly. Kudos to you!
Awaiting the sequel with excitement.
Something that really does get glossed over far to readily in the series is how Forgotten Friendship would have affected Sunset, especially considering her past (and Anon-a-Miss if we consider that as part of the continuity). Thank you for giving that trauma some appropriate light.
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I've always found Sunset's plight in Forgotten Friendship to be very much existential horror, to the point where a lot of it is physically uncomfortable for me to watch (especially Sunset's initial rejection at the beach, with Shoichet's acting really selling the heartbreak when Sunset's begging Twilight to remember her), and I always felt the repercussions deserved a stronger exploration than what we got at the end. (Especially these days, when we recently had two major movies -- The Matrix Resurrections and Spider-Man: No Way Home -- that I thought did a really good job visualizing what it really means to have your identity stripped from you via memory; that's partially what inspired me to revisit the topic and go further.) And for me it was really important to capture the rest of the Rainbooms' horror (through Rarity) upon realizing how they'd unwittingly hurt their friend, beyond Sci-Twi's simple "We're so sorry." But at the same time, the 100 million fics about A-A-M have made "Sunset is mad at her friends" such a tired story angle, and in my opinion that'd be seriously inappropriate here since the Rainbooms were effectively brainwashed and Sunset would recognize that. So since Sunset ends the special trying be a friend to Wallflower, she basically has no one to express her frustrations and pain to without risking making them feel guilty. And bottling that kind of hurt inside is not going to end well.
I'm so glad to see this fic resonating with people the way it has been.
(When writing this new chapter, I actually used music from a relevant scene in the latter of the two movies I mentioned above as inspiration.)
I have a feeling that Rarity has her eye on someone else anyway.
I do have to wonder if a certain speed demon is going to ask her veterinarian crush to the prom.
When you said you were taking a break to work on another story, I was expecting it to be a story that wasn't FiM/EQG related. Still, I'm not complaining. This should be a good one. Looking forward to it!
I enjoyed this. People don't always realize how much something hurt or hurt someone else until it's over and you are left with your thoughts.
This fic has been reviewed! So excited to be worthy of recognition!
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Heh, I was just coming over here to post that I'd reviewed this! But I still need to give you the upvote, so here it is. :)
This was a fantastic story!
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Thanks so much! I hope you’ll check out the sequel if you’re interested!
Excellent stuff. I’ve never seen this particular approach to the Memory Stone incident before, but the girls’ reaction to it feels perfectly true to them. On to the follow-up stories!
Very nice exploration of some themes neglected by canon and fanfic alike. Is everyone worthy of forgiveness? Are we obligated to forgive those who apologize? Is forgiveness insufficient, must we extend the wing of friendship? It's easy to say "yes" to all of the above, as EqG (and FiM to a lesser extent) does. It's much harder to live that out. EqG is self-aware enough to lampshade the issue -- "Yeah, we're pretty forgiving" -- but the foes-turned-friends always feel surreal and warranting the attention of a well-qualified therapist or two.
My main critique is that Twilight is just sorta "there". Except for a bit in the epilogue, there's not much to the Sciset B-plot. That could be solved by either giving Twilight a more active role (she's asleep for most of the story), or by cutting the character altogether. Honestly, Rarity and Sunset have so much romantic chemistry here -- especially in the epilogue -- that the Sciset seems... temporary
On the other hoof, it's all worth it for disaster lesbian Twilight.
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Thanks for the comment! The issue with Twilight boils down to the fact that this story (chapters 1-3, at least) was originally written as a scene in a larger story that never came to fruition (which was for the best). Hence why I tried to give her a bit more presence in Chapter 4.
If I'd been smart enough to write this as a singular story from the beginning, it would probably have just been the two of them and maybe I would've gone full Rariset with it but who knows really.
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Rariset is the most underappreciated EqG ship.
Same here.
None of us do.
Mhm.
Another happy ending.
hehe makes me think of "Look Before You Sleep"
how did she say a hashtag???
damn it was so obvious that even Timber had to see it
oof yeah, that is a lot of unprocessed trauma! as makes sense for everything that had happened to Sunset. i can definitely see why she would bottle things up, even from her friends, all the way up to now.
is this uh, is this a platonic friend thing?
i didn't hear a rejection...
a great exploration of the consequences that a surface reading of the canon would completely gloss over! definitely made me appreciate more what Sunset must have gone through after Forgotten Friendship. and of course i loved the SciSetRity vibes, intentional or not
A nice, interesting little dialogue between two characters who are put together shockingly infrequently. For a first story, this is really impressive!
Most of the first chapter feels like your classic SadSunny horse remorse goodness. But here:
Here’s where you really piqued my interest. There are loads of (very good!) stories about Wallflower and Sunset reconciling, and even more where Wallflower still harbours resentment towards Sunset. But I think this is one of the first I’ve seen that has Sunset be the one harbouring resentment towards Wallflower, and you make it work, tying it neatly into Sunset’s characteristic hot-headedness.
You’ve got a real knack for conversational flow, particularly with how you write Rarity. Just as well – a story that’s this dialogue-heavy can easily come across as monotonous or wearisome, but the way you slip little pauses and tangents into their speech so naturally, well, it feels like an actual conversation. Rarity’s little interjection as Sunset smirks is a perfect example of this. For such a minor detail, it just felt so right.
And did you… did you tie Rarity’s and Sunset’s friendship together using Sunset’s change in outfit between the films? That’s actually a stroke of genius.
Okay, that was a great little callback, you got a genuine laugh out of me there!
Overall, well, your description put it perfectly. A lovely bit of hurt/comfort and friendshipping, which has an impressive flow to it. The little bit of cheesiness at the end feels earned (and wouldn’t feel out-of-place in one of the films, honestly), while the upcoming confrontation you allude to has me seriously interested in the sequel. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it!
The epilogue is definitely worth as an "addition", so to speak, of the night talk. The "feeding" up the emotions and not letting herself feel anything…
I had kind of a problem with Wallflower, or more specifically how she was so easily forgiven at the end of the special, and this fic points out what kind of… trauma, I would say, was inflicted on Sunset.
A worthy fic to read through
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https://youtu.be/EnAe3LdDFs0