Act 1, Chapter 3: Bravery
It was about a week and a half after meeting Sunset Shimmer that Twilight Sparkle had first been on the back of her motorcycle. She’d needed a ride home across town after missing the bus, not wanting to walk all the way back in a mini-heatwave. Sunset, who’d been staying late for yearbook club leadership elections, was happy to take her, but Twilight had found herself quaking in fear upon realizing exactly how she’d be making the trip home.
To Sunset’s credit, she’d let Twilight wear her helmet, given her lots of assurances, and taken her on a few slow laps around the parking lot to help her get used to the feeling. Unfortunately, it proved supremely ineffective at making the ride a pleasant experience, with Twilight having her arms wrapped so tightly around Sunset that, in retrospect, it was a marvel her new friend had been able to breathe, let alone pay attention to the road. Her eyes had been sealed tight as she’d tried desperately hard not to envision her fiery death, and while also dearly hoping the creature that had just begun to surface in her dreams wasn’t taking notes for future nightmares. (Ultimately, there were indeed a few, not that she had any inclination to tell Sunset about them.)
Still, once it was over and Twilight was safely deposited back home, the ride became simply another thing she’d endured and emerged out the other end from in one piece. And it had been, well, nice, in an odd way, getting to hold someone like that without any kind of question or interruption, to be so close to her friend… she hadn’t really bothered to examine why that was at the time, being more focused on the process of collecting data about her new friendship experiences and holding off on analyzing or drawing conclusions from it. But while she was far from itching to hop back on the motorcycle, the next time the opportunity came up, she didn’t refuse.
This ride marked her fourth, and the first she’d known about in advance. This time, she’d even had her own helmet.
Of course, she still didn’t quite understand the excitement Sunset got out of this mode of transportation. But now, riding with her arms closed around her girlfriend for the first time since their relationship status had changed, she could at least see where that raw data from earlier heavily supported her current working hypothesis of I really really really like hugging Sunset and knowing that she’s there for me.
There’d been a pall hanging over the ride, though, Twilight noted as she followed Sunset through the door into her apartment. Namely, the fact that they hadn’t said anything substantial since stepping out the door of her brother’s home, with the noise of the motorcycle engine making it all the easier to keep it that way.
Sunset may have been the one who was newly christened as Empathy by a set of magic rocks, and Twilight may not have been the best at picking up on vibes, despite her self-taught skill at reading expressions. Yet, as she watched Sunset switch on the string of lights that softly illuminated the large living space, she had enough sense to know that the moment of truth was fast approaching, and Sunset didn’t want it to arrive.
I should’ve told you before… Twi, I should’ve told you a lot–
What did those words really mean, though? Okay, so Sunset apparently had a sibling – a pony sibling – but that was okay, right? It was jarring to hear that, sure, but not exactly earth-shattering compared to every other thing she’d learned about, well, every other thing in the weeks that had gone by since the Friendship Games. It wasn’t the strangest thing in the world for a friend to not talk about their siblings, anyway. Case in point, it wasn’t until Twilight encountered Rainbow Dash laughing uproariously at a tall surfer dude in the main hallway, apparently over a failed exercise in flirtation, that Fluttershy had, with even more visible discomfort than usual, admitted said surfer dude was her older brother.
Was this mystery sibling something they needed to talk about? Almost certainly; she was very lacking in any information about Sunset’s family, or even much about where she came from beyond the alien nature of it. But what was so upsetting about that information that, when Sunset looked into her eyes at the dinner table, they seemed as though the stars had gone out?
Not eager to push the question herself, though, Twilight walked past Sunset, who had stopped to lean her elbow against a pillar supporting the bedroom loft above, and stepped over into the main living area. Looking back, she saw that Sunset hadn’t moved, her head rested in her right hand as she stared in the direction of nothing in particular.
“Sunset?”
No response.
“Sunset, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked, her tone sharpened. “This isn’t… I mean, this is weird, and I know… I know you feel like you should’ve…” The words faltered. “I-I’m not mad, Sunset. Please, just…”
The sentence collapsed fully into a sigh as Sunset finally looked over at her. “You can sit down, Twi. I’ll be there in a moment.”
With her arguing reserves immediately depleted, Twilight simply nodded and obliged, dropping down onto the cushions. She turned and moved her legs to the side of the armless settee, watching as Sunset pulled away from the pillar and ambled slowly to the left, stopping in front of the window.
The light outside was fading fast, and Twilight knew there was little of special interest to watch outside from the second floor. But Sunset’s head was tilted downward, forehead almost slumped against the glass. Her arms were resting at her sides, and Twilight couldn’t make out much of her shadowed face, hair hanging in front of her cheek.
“I was just thinking,” Sunset mumbled, just loud enough that Twilight didn’t have to ask her to speak up but wished she would anyway, “about that movie we saw the other day. The one Rainbow invited us all to go to.”
Twilight blinked. “The Turbulence Protocol?” What did a big flashy spy thriller have to do with all this?
“Yeah, that one. Not really about the plot, or anything. I guess it had one. But more just… what it’s like, I guess, to feel brave.”
What?
Twilight knew from experience that Sunset was smart, thoughtful, and wise beyond her years. She had also found that Sunset also had a serious habit of saying things so baffling and nonsensical that it made her brain feel like it was short-circuiting.
“That…” Twilight stammered. “That doesn’t… you’re the bravest person I kn–”
“I know how dumb that sounds,” Sunset interrupted. “I know that. But everything we’ve done, that I’ve done, just doesn’t–didn’t ever feel that way to me. Like I was making any kind of big choice, or sacrifice, or anything conscious, really. Not since maybe the Battle of the Bands, if even that. Everything else – the Games, Camp Everfree – it felt more like panic. Just these gut reactions that were all just automatic in me.”
Even in the dimness, Twilight could see Sunset’s fists clench.
“And maybe that’s a good thing. Or not even maybe, I know it’s a good thing that I can just be like that, without having to stop, without being overwhelmed. But it doesn’t feel brave to me; not really. I know it’s silly to put it in terms of some big action movie, but… bravery isn’t just doing something heroic in the moment.” Her hands relaxed. “It’s when there’s an actual choice in front of you, whether you actually take that mission or not. It’s when you have time to think about it, genuinely consider everything, and could get away with not doing it – and do it anyway.”
Her head slowly turned to meet Twilight’s eyes.
“And tonight I realized just how not-brave I’ve been, lately. That I’m still so scared. And it hurts, feeling like I can’t bring myself to do the things I know I should do until I have no choice but to do them.”
Twilight opened her mouth, but whatever thought she was trying to formulate fell apart long before reaching her vocal chords.
Across the room, Sunset’s gaze fell to the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of this before.”
There was a calm part of Twilight that wanted to tell Sunset it was okay, that she understood, that she could take her time. There was another, much more honest, part of Twilight that was sorely tempted to shout you still haven’t told me anything, I don’t understand what you’re saying at all, everything you’re saying about yourself right now is wrong and I don’t know how you could possibly believe that garbage. And since Sunset was thinking in bizarre movie cliches for some reason, that part was also making a convincing argument that maybe she’d respond if she got some sense shaken into her and told to snap out of it.
The internal war they were raging kept Twilight frozen in her seat.
“And it wasn’t even just you,” Sunset continued, stepping back from the window and looking up toward the sky. “There’s just so much I just didn’t want to talk about with any of our friends, didn’t want to say, because saying it would make it real and I couldn’t just keep pretending that… that everything made sense, that I’m where I should be, that I belong here–”
That last bit of word choice prompted a very quick mental cessation of hostilities and mutual resolution to the conflict.
And in Twilight's split second of understanding the words she was about to say before she said them, she'd expected the shock to be evident in her tone. She hadn’t quite realized just how much fire those words would be tinged with, however.
“Sunset, what are you saying? What do you mean, you don’t belong here? You’re talking about all this stuff like it makes any sense and it doesn't! It just… are you saying… are you…”
She also hadn’t fully planned on suddenly standing up. And as she trailed off, she found Sunset was now the one frozen, staring at her like a deer in headlights, bearing an expression conveying nothing but horror.
“No, Twi…” she stammered. “No, no, please, I didn’t–I didn’t mean–”
“Then tell me!” Twilight exclaimed, voice cracking. “Tell me what you mean, because I don’t know, I definitely don’t like the ideas I’m coming up with, and I don’t want to spend tonight guessing what’s making you feel like this!”
The last bits of her frustration exited her mouth with a slight amount of spittle, and she stood there, huffing, across from Sunset and her silent shock.
After a few moments, that shock leapt across the gap and hit Twilight full-on, in the form of her suddenly pressing a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, then repeated louder. “I’m really sorry, that wasn’t, um, I shouldn’t have–”
At the sound of a harsh sigh from Sunset, she quieted. She then watched as her girlfriend’s expression became downcast, slowly drifting away from eye contact.
“No, you’re right,” Sunset replied, voice weak. “You’re right, I’m still dodging the whole thing I brought you here to tell you, even after I messed up the whole dinner because of it. And it’s not fair, at all. It’s just… hard. I thought that, well, it’d be easier now because I was able to tell Rainbow, but it’s not. Not at all.”
Twilight tilted her head slightly. “You told Rainbow Dash?”
Sunset seized up again, volume quickly rising. “Just this afternoon! Right before I went over to dinner, it was, um, it was on my mind, and Rainbow said she’d listen, and, um, I was hoping that saying it to someone would help and it felt like it was too late to say anything to you, I was always gonna tell you right after–”
“Sunset!”
Silence reigned for a heavy few seconds.
“I’m not–” Twilight inhaled. “I’m not attacking you. I’m not trying to argue with you. I just…” Another breath. “However we got here, this is where we are. I just want you to tell me what you need to tell me. And if you can tell Rainbow, then you should be able to tell me, right?”
Sunset eventually nodded. “I can. I will. But it’s…”
“Hard. I get it.” Twilight lowered herself back down onto the settee. “Maybe just… start with something easier.”
Another nod. “Okay.”
And with that, Sunset finally started to walk toward her, a deliberateness in each step as she crossed over into the living area. Twilight shifted her body sideways, grateful her back was now against the cushion, watching as Sunset stepped between her and the TV set the couch was facing. As she did so, she glimpsed the blurred outline of herself in the inky reflection of the LCD monitor, and wondered if she looked as stressed as she’d sounded.
Two body widths away, Sunset sat down. Twilight scooted toward her enough to make it just one. Sunset didn’t resist.
Twilight leaned her head over and watched as Sunset’s mouth opened; after a moment of pregnant pause, words finally flowed from it. “Was there something specific you wanted to know?”
At that, Twilight rolled onto her side, facing Sunset, who was still staring towards the TV. Surprising herself, Twilight found she didn’t need to stop and consider what Sunset had asked, and simply spoke.
“Well,” she began, “when you said you don’t feel like you belong here–”
“I didn’t mean it like that, really, I–”
“Hey.” Twilight held up a finger, and the room went silent. “I’m not mad. I know I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like to just be in another body, another world, the way you are, all the time. I haven’t forgotten what you said that night at camp. I just thought that, uh, maybe I could ask about something… something you miss.”
Twilight, lowering her hand, detected a faint wince on Sunset’s face that immediately preceded her response. “W-what do you mean, exactly?”
“Well, like I said,” Twilight said with a slight shrug. “Something just, um, smaller. Doesn’t have to be emotional, or anything, just something in Equestria that, um, maybe you never considered being without before you came here.”
“Oh, ahh…” Sunset drifted away again, gazing towards the other side of the couch, and Twilight could imagine the sorting and sifting going on inside her brain. After a few seconds, she rolled over onto her side, matching Twilight’s position, looking at her. “That’s an interesting question, honestly. Especially because, for less than half an hour, I was back in Equestria, last fall. Just long enough to sneak around the hallway of a strange castle, discover a new princess and her Element of Harmony, come up with a harebrained scheme, and make a run for it, but it was long enough in my old body that I did think more, afterwards, about some of those real differences, even beyond the obvious ones.
“Like, if I’m being honest, I kinda really miss my tail.”
A response that was both not at all what Twilight had expected to hear, and yet, simultaneously, seemed to be exactly what she was looking for. “Uh huh?” she nodded, flashing a soft smile.
Sunset seemed to take the hint of encouragement. “It’s tough to really describe it to people, here. I mean, you’d probably think of, like, an animal. The way something like a dog wags its tail, and it’s super-meaningful in terms of body language. Or like Applejack’s horse swishing its tail. It’s not really like that, in Equestria. Tails are reactive, sure, but for the most part, I mean, we just talk, and stuff. And we can generally read faces pretty well. So it doesn’t really work the way humans would probably think, if that makes sense.”
Twilight nodded.
“But it was there, and then suddenly it wasn’t there, and it made everything about human bodies seem that much more wrong.” She turned towards Twilight. “It’s one of the only things about pony bodies, besides stuff that’s specific to certain tribes like unicorns, that doesn’t have any kind of equivalent on humans. Just this little stump of a tailbone that can’t move at all. I can’t feel it brushing against my legs, or sense it lift when I tense up, or feel it fanning me if it’s hot out. I mean, there’s some things that are kinda nice about not having to worry about it too, like laying it in the wrong place or knocking something over with it. But even now, it can still be a little surreal to just, well, not have it. It’s a thing that I really did kinda take for granted.
“Like, imagine if one day you woke up and suddenly you didn’t have your two little fingers. Not that they were cut off or anything, you just suddenly had hands that were built without those fingers. You don’t really need those two fingers, they weren't opposable, and you still have eight others. You could get by without them. But you’ll definitely notice they’re gone, and it’ll stick out more than you think.”
Twilight looked down at her right palm, reflexively curling her fingers, then unfurling them one by one, little finger last. “Or waking up and having fingers at all.”
A slight vibration in the cushion informed her that Sunset had cringed considerably. “Yeah. I was, uh, trying to keep it smaller than that.”
“Sure,” Twilight said, glancing back up, only to find that Sunset was sitting up once more and leaning forward again, away from her. “It, um, must be nice having some magic again full-time, though.”
“It’d be nicer if it was your magic,” Sunset said as she turned her head towards her, without moving anything else. It was enough, though, that Twilight could observe that the orange geode wasn’t around Sunset's neck.
“Oh.” Twilight mumbled, suddenly conscious of the feeling of her own necklace. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Sunset replied. “It’s just that, um, telekinesis magic is basically the most everyday kind of magic for unicorns. It’s reflexive. Anything we need to move that’d be uncomfortable to do with a mouth, we generate a field and use that. It’s basically the first thing anypony is taught, magicwise. And when you could create the kinds of fields that I could growing up, you could do some pretty impressive stuff with them. Like, if this were Equestria, I could basically have the entire contents of this room perform a synchronized dance routine for you, and it’d be amazing.”
She smiled as Twilight giggled at the thought.
“I’m not gonna lie, though,” Sunset said, face returning to its resting somberness. “Losing that kind of everyday magic stung, to put it lightly. It took a lot out of me to get used to being without it. And for that brief moment when I was back in Equestria, I almost couldn’t even keep focus, because it was just so overwhelming to have it all back. My new magic is great in its own way, but it’s so, well, different from what I knew, and learning how to manage it is hard. Especially around you.”
Twilight felt her heart hitch in a way it hadn’t since that night at Camp Everfree. “Around me?”
Sunset scooted closer, leaving only around half a cushion space between them. “Yeah. Magic in Equestria does a lot of things, but in general, things like mind-reading, or stuff with memories… it’s not unheard of, but it’s certainly not everyday, and not something I ever really experimented with myself. There’s rumors of zebra potions and ancient artifacts, but as far as it goes for most ponies, reading others’ thoughts and feelings is uncharted magical territory.
“Plus, I mean, ponies are really expressive, in ways humans aren’t, at least not in comparison. You don’t see people, um, nuzzling each other’s bodies, for example. That’d look weird, right? But in Equestria, there are friends that just straight-up greet each other that way. And it’s a pretty standard thing to do to try to comfort somepony, or show affection. Humans really only ever touch each other with hands or lips. Ponies use their entire bodies. I mean, sleeping in a big pile together can be perfectly platonic in Equestria!”
Twilight felt a warmth inside her as she watched the joy of those recollections spread through Sunset. Finally, that wonderful light was starting to shine in her again.
And then it began dimming slowly as Sunset got herself back on track. “But the point is that empathy as a form of magic is completely new territory for me, and I want—I need to be responsible with it. It’s not fair of me as a partner if I can see what’s going on inside you anytime I touch you, and you can’t do the same. And it doesn’t help me with trying to understand my own feelings very well. So I’m gonna be careful about wearing my geode for a while, maybe finding a few times a day to test it out. But not on you, at least for now.”
Twilight nodded. “I understand. And I’ll try not to get too show-offy with my magic, if it makes you jealous.”
That got a surprising giggle from Sunset. “Are you kidding? I definitely want to see you get show-offy. I can’t promise everything I know will translate to how the geode works, but I’ll absolutely help you get the hang of it, if you want me to. I mean it wouldn’t be the first time that I… I, uh…” Her smile weakened, then collapsed, and she closed her eyes. “Taught someone how.”
Without hesitation, Twilight reached over and placed a hand on Sunset’s thigh. There was a brief shudder, before Sunset’s eyes opened and met Twilight’s own.
“I think that I… um…” She swallowed. “I think I’m ready to talk about my sister.”
Sunset fell silent, and Twilight withdrew her hand. “Take your time,” she said. “Be brave.”
“Okay.”
Another silence.
“How?”
A good question. Twilight pondered, trying to figure out how Sunset could explain it without getting lost in either fear or a tangent.
After a moment, she alighted on a solution.
“Don’t explain it to me as a friend or a girlfriend,” Twilight said. “Explain it to me like… like a teacher. Like you’re giving me a presentation. Sometimes it helps me.” She shrugged. “If I’d had longer to think about it, that’s probably how I’d have asked you out.”
“Heh.” Sunset smirked. “I’ll, uh, give it a try.” She stood up and walked over in front of the TV, turning to face Twilight as though the screen behind her was a whiteboard.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Twilight said. Sunset’s smile was flimsy, betraying her nerves; Twilight, leaning forward, returned it with a larger, stronger one in encouragement.
A deep breath got Sunset started. “Okay, so, remember what I told you after you met the other you?”
Twilight rested her chin on her knuckle as she thought. “You said that a lot of people here, probably everyone in Canterlot, has a double in Equestria that’s a pony, and the other me’s friends are that world’s version of our other friends. And the other world’s Principal Celestia is a super-powerful unicorn that’s the ruler of Equestria, and she used to be your teacher before you, um, had a falling out.”
“That’s mostly right,” Sunset replied, “though Princess Celestia is actually an alicorn, not a unicorn. She has all the powers of pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns all wrapped into one, just like the other you. And according to Princess Twilight, she’s not alone anymore. Princess Luna is also ruling with her.”
With some effort, Twilight managed not to ask why other-Luna hadn’t been there before. She vaguely recalled Sunset had said something about her while they were stargazing the other night and looking up at the moon, but it seemed less-than-relevant and Sunset needed to stay on track.
She couldn’t resist one comment, however. “Wait, so the other me and the other versions of the Principals are both alicorns? How many alicorns are there?”
That seemed to hit Sunset harder than intended. “Just, um, one more,” she replied. “But I’ll get to that.”
The evening had already proved Twilight wasn’t the best at inferring things, but upon hearing that, she had a sinking feeling she knew exactly where the fourth alicorn would enter the story.
“Anyway,” Sunset went on, “there’s an important detail I kinda deliberately left out, because it was too much to explain right then both for you and for me. And it’s part of what makes this hard. So I’m just gonna say it as a fact, like you said. Princess Celestia wasn’t simply my teacher. She was the closest thing I had to a mom.”
Oh.
Oh, that’s…
“Your mom?” Twilight asked, not loudly, but bluntly.
“Well, I say ‘closest thing I had to one’ for a reason. And not just because she wasn’t my birth mother; I never knew my biological parents, and I never tried to find out. She took me in as both her student and her ward when I was very young, not even in my teens. She never formally adopted me, but if I had asked, she probably would have. I never did, though, because I never truly accepted the Princess as my mother. She, um, uh…”
Sunset looked away from Twilight, staring blankly towards the other side of the room. Twilight could hear her start to gently inhale and exhale, a calming technique. She almost interrupted before Sunset started back up.
“There’s a lot of reasons for that, and I’m not proud of any of them, really. I mean, you know the gist of my whole, uh, delusions of grandeur thing that ended with me in this world, but that’s just part of it. But that’s gonna have to be its own conversation. I need to stick to the point tonight, and I’ve been keeping you in suspense long enough.
“The point is that I wasn’t the only one Princess Celestia took under her wing. A-about a year after I first began my studies at the Gifted School, she left on a sudden errand, and when she came back, she wasn’t alone. In more than one way. See, Princess Luna wasn’t there back then, and I’ve actually never met her. When I was growing up, Celestia was the only alicorn in known existence – until she wasn’t.”
Twilight’s suspicions had been validated. “Your sister.”
A nod. “The first new alicorn in the modern history of Equestria. Not born, ascended. She’d been a pegasus, and through a means nopony understood, an act of selflessness and virtue had transformed her. The Princess told me she had seen it all happen, magically, and had traveled to bring her back from a faraway village.”
Sunset began to pace slowly in front of the TV set, facing the walls, turning around as she reached either of the speakers on each side.
“It was odd at first, to say the least. Early on, I was cold to her. She was both an affirmation that what I wanted was possible, and that I would never be the first to achieve it. And she was younger than me, to make it worse. But the Princess asked me to be her instructor in unicorn magic, and… putting aside the fact that it would’ve been tough to say no, exactly, she did genuinely have my curiosity. I started to learn more about her through those sessions – it’s hard to teach magic without getting to know who you’re teaching it to, because of how much learning to use a field and spells involves learning to control your own self – but we grew close. After a while, I thought of her as a genuine friend, maybe the only one I ever had before this world, and as we both grew up more, I even started to consider her family, in a way I never did with the Princess.”
She stopped. Her gaze shifted towards Twilight, but her eyes were clearly fixated on something only she could see.
“Shimmy. She called me Shimmy. Nopony else ever got to call me that. I’d have hurt them if they did. Even now, I’d tell Pinkie no if she ever tried. But she got to.”
Twilight forced a slight grin, affirming the fond memory while bracing for the other shoe to drop. Sunset began to pace once more.
“But once we were through with the main course of lessons, we had less and less time together, and even though neither of us wanted to, we drifted. Celestia began to have more and more direct lessons with her; she saw a future for her in politics, in diplomacy. Meanwhile, I was left more and more on my own, and over time, I lost sight of who my sister was. Only what she was, and that even after everything, I still wasn’t any closer to becoming the same. All that isolation got to me, and eventually I snapped. I left, and I left my whole world behind. Including her. I didn’t even tell her goodbye.”
The pacing halted again, Sunset facing Twilight’s left. Twilight’s grin had disappeared long ago, and all she could offer was a soft, sympathetic voice. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
There was silence once more, notwithstanding the elephant in the room that was trumpeting in Twilight’s direction.
There had been something missing from Sunset’s words. Something obvious, something important. Something Sunset could never have merely forgotten. Something that, however much Twilight hated to force a point she knew would be painful, she knew would have to press and squeeze out that last bit of bravery out from her.
The tension in the air was overwhelming, thick, oppressive to an impossible degree.
Cutting it merely took a simple set of four words.
“What was her name?”
The sentence had been spoken in a consciously, deliberately calm affect, and yet they seemed to chill the entire room around her. Sunset, in particular, had gone from merely standing still to being frozen in place.
The sun had fully dipped below the horizon by this point, and where the tension was starting to deflate, the shadows were zipping in to take their place.
And yet through the darkness, in the still-warm summer night air, Twilight swore she could see a frosty exhalation from Sunset’s mouth.
“Twilight… remember what you said about, um, doubles, across the portal?”
Twilight remembered. Twilight considered. Twilight deliberated.
Twilight realized.
Twilight gasped.
“You… you were asking her about her siblings… you wanted to know if she…”
She could feel the heaviness in the nod that followed. “I should’ve told you sooner. I have no excuse. I wasn’t brave. I was weak. I was hiding.”
“Sunset–”
Her name being spoken did nothing to stop her from a jarring about-face, walking at a frantic stride back over to the window. She stood before it, her back turned, her face shielded from view as Twilight heard the faint sound of a sniffle. “I know how weird it is. To learn your girlfriend’s sister is a doppelgänger alicorn version of your brother’s fiancee. Great conversation material. But I used that weirdness as an excuse. A cheap, scummy excuse to not tell you, something that was nice and easy to rationalize, and didn’t make me think about the actual reason why I never, ever wanted to have this conversation even though it was gonna happen one way or another.”
The sigh that followed was harsh and ragged enough to leave a gash in the open air.
“Every time I see her, it’s like staring at a ghost. Whether at the Friendship Games or tonight. And it stings, so much more than discovering this world’s Celestia ever did. When I met our principal, I thought it was the universe mocking me. But when I met Dean Cadance, I knew I’d played the joke on myself.
“Because Cadance isn’t a ghost. My Cadance. The one I abandoned. She… she’s still out there, somewhere on the other side of that portal, and I haven’t tried to find her. I haven’t tried to find anyone. I can’t bring myself to look. Every time I chat with Princess Twilight, I never let myself ask about anypony I knew, because it’d just… it’d just make it real…”
She stepped back, and turned her head towards Twilight. “I don’t want to leave. At all. This place is my home. I’ve never felt more comfortable as myself than I have these last few months, and I can’t give it up. I can’t lose that; I won’t lose that. Not for all the magic in Equestria. But I don’t know… I don’t know how I could ever look at any of them – how I could ever look at Cadybug – and tell… and tell her…”
Cautiously, Twilight stood up from the settee, facing Sunset at eye level. “Sunset, she’s your family. Don’t you think–”
“No. I don’t,” Sunset cut in, body rotating to fully parallel Twilight’s. “Because there’s still one thing I haven’t told you yet. The reason I can’t bear to ask about how things have changed since I left. Because there was one thing Princess Twilight did tell me, just in casual conversation. Not about Cadance specifically, but everything in Equestria.”
Sunset curled her hands into fists, shutting her eyes and visibly clenching her teeth. Her face was raw, and there were beads of water visible on her face.
“I left Equestria a little over two-and-a-half years ago. And for most of that time, the portal between worlds was closed. And when it was closed… time moved differently, both here and there.
“Y-you might have noticed I didn’t bring up Princess Twilight when I was talking about the alicorns that existed when I was growing up. That’s because when I left, that Twilight Sparkle was still months away from even getting an entrance examination at the School for Gifted Unicorns. She hadn’t ascended. She didn’t even have a mark yet. She was a filly.”
The shockwaves of what Sunset said next began to pulse through the air before she even said it.
“It hasn’t been two-and-a-half years in Equestria since I left, Twilight. It’s been ten.”
And the beads multiplied, and morphed into full-blown streaks across her face as Sunset began to crumble, her knees buckling as she stumbled forward, catching herself before she could fall all the way. Her breathing intensified as the weight of the words that had been pressing on her for so long spilled out into the open air, her lungs unable to adjust to the sudden and violent change. And in that moment Twilight was there, holding her, maintaining that fragile balance and keeping her from toppling over, absorbing the pounding pulse of her heart and the rapid heaving of her chest.
She pulled Sunset in, and Sunset didn’t resist as her head was drawn closer to Twilight’s own. The damp right cheek became pressed to Twilight’s, a few more droplets sliding down onto the meeting of the faces. Twilight held her position as Sunset’s body shuddered against hers, wrapping her arms tighter around her girlfriend’s torso against the sound of choked sobs.
After another moment, she gently squished her face further into Sunset’s, and began to slide it, slowly, up further, towards the ear and cranium. Then she shifted it, equally slowly, back down.
As she began to rhythmically repeat the action, gradually incorporating arm movements up and down the backside, the agonized noises from her partner began to slow, steadily, and the feeling of heavy breathing against her began to cease in intensity.
“T-Twi-?”
“Have I been doing it right?”
A pause. “Doing what?”
Twilight stopped. “Nuzzling you. Is this how peop–how ponies nuzzle in Equestria?”
A longer pause.
“Sunset?”
“It… it’s… yeah, Twi. It feels… nice. I, um, well… keep going.”
“Okay then.”
Twilight pressed her cheek in once more, and felt the face beside hers pressing back. For a few minutes, at least, all would be well.
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Go visit your family Sunset. Bringing Twilight along will just make it that much more entertaining to Candance, lol.
Courage isn't having no fear. Courage is acting despite your fear.
By forcing some of the points that show has refused to address and explaining them as Sunset actively avoiding those topics, the focus is just completely reflected back to Sunset’s conflict with Equestria. I like it.
Damn, Sunset.
Ngl, this reminds me of a speech regarding destiny from one of my favorite tv shows on Netflix.
Half of what she said made no sense imo regarding tails.
Must be tough being an orphan.
Had a feeling it was Cadence. I have no clue why my mind thought it was an oc but shouldn't have listened to it.
Sure makes sense when you put the pieces together.
At least this is helping her. Somewhat.
Oof, that was so very real and I love it.
Dang, I never thought about how Sunset would have felt aboutCadance becoming an alicorn before.
Let me just add to that to my headcanon list...
Devastating stuff. It tends to be when the thoughts you've been running from eventually catch up to you. But they always do, and the tears are how the healing begins. Here's looking forward to seeing how that takes place, especially if and when Sunset and pony Cadence ever do meet again.
This was a great chapter/ Loved seeing Twi helping/comforting the poor conflicted sunny
Usually, I find it hard to leave a comment which feels as though it may echo what others have said...
In this case, however, I can't go without saying how pleased I was to see this detail, Princess Cadance having been Sunset Shimmer's adoptive sister.
There are other good reasons I can name for why Together From Canterlot To Canterlot should go into my favourites, including but not least the exploration of Sunset's lingering body dysphoria as a pony-turned-human, or her relationship with Sci-Twilight Sparkle - speaking here as someone who'll typically pair Sunset with Wallflower Blush.
But there's a hint of the personal as to why I'd think it'd be lovely for such details to enter late-stage pony-fanon, like Cadance and Sunset as sisters, or Cadance being from a little village called Florentina in pony-Italy. Clever explanation on how the latter might work in the EQG-verse, too, with the inference that if the EQG-Canterlot is basically in America, then there can be the equivalent of an Italian-American community.
And like a lot of readers, I do hope Sunset will get to reconcile with her family back in Equestria.