All Your Red Bleeds Gold
“You know they just want to eat, Saffron.”
Sunset winced at the exhaustion in Coriander’s voice and scrubbed at the frying pan with her sponge a little harder. She didn’t need to turn around to see him and Saffron in her mind’s eye—him with his coat half on and his body half out the kitchen door, about to head to his night shift; and her with her back to the wall beside the doorframe, her hands buried in her apron pockets and her gaze pointedly perpendicular to his pleading eyes.
Not again.
The water in the sink had turned lukewarm; Sunset’s fingers were starting to prune. She squeezed the sponge in her fist until it bled soap. Her feet ached. Her elbow kept bumping the shrinking pile of dishes to her right.
The church kitchen was still too small, like always.
“I know, father.”
Saffron didn’t sound at all like she was sorry. Like always.
“You know things aren’t the same here as they are back home. We’ve talked about this.”
The frying pan clanked when Sunset flipped it onto the drying rack. Cutlery rattled underneath it like a prisoner’s chains.
“I know.”
A prisoner? Sunset resisted the urge to sneer. How much more on the nose could she get? But by the time she’d finished rolling her internal eyes the urge had passed, and a familiar guilt soon came galloping in its wake.
I’m lucky to have only gotten community service for what I did.
“A soup kitchen’s job is to send people home with stomachs fuller than when they arrived.” Coriander may have been tired, but his words were as firm as ever. “And we can’t do that if they don’t want to eat what we put out.”
“And you?”
Saffron’s voice wasn’t angry—it never was, and was so unlike the angry words Sunset was used to and used to expect she’d face if she messed up. Her voice carried anger without sounding angry. And without curse words or threats of violence or stolen crowns and broken schools, her anger sounded good. Justified.
Righteous, even.
Coriander exhaled a noise halfway between a sigh and a cough. “Saffron—“
“Did you even try it, father?”
“Of course I did.” He answered before her last word had left her mouth. “And of course it was delicious. It always is.” His voice softened from firm to something gentler; something tortured. “I’d have you serve it every evening if I could.” A pause. “But…”
“But people don’t want that.” Saffron finished his sentence in the same flat tones Sunset had heard every Wednesday evening since the Fall Formal: People don’t want this. People don’t want that. People won’t ever want that.
They both fell silent for a moment. Slowly, Sunset slid a plate beneath the water and wished that washing dishes weren’t so loud.
Time passed, and the mountain of dishes soon eroded back to none. When it did, Sunset shut off the faucet for the final time and ventured, “At least it looks like somebody went for the rice.”
(There wasn’t much left for them to do that evening. Coriander had put away the tables and chairs before he’d left—which Sunset was very thankful for—but without him the silence between her and Saffron had surpassed awkward in an instant, and she couldn’t stand it.
Silence was meant to be broken, see, and Sunset figured it was time she took a swing at it. There weren’t any downsides to trying: if she hit, she’d get to talk again. And if she missed, it wasn’t like Saffron was a stranger to Sunset putting her metaphorical foot in her mouth.)
Thankfully, she saw a smile when she turned around. “You could use a towel, you know,” Saffron pointed out.
“I could,” Sunset agreed. She finished wiping her hands on the sides of her jeans out of principle. “How many days of leftovers d’you have this time?”
The corner of Saffron’s lip curled to let an amused snort slip free. “Six,” she grumbled, and tore a sheet of aluminum foil from the roll with an exaggerated huff. “The next time I see you will be the next time I get to eat something other than dal tadka.”
Sunset didn’t recognize the name of the dish, but nodded along anyway as if she did. “My condolences.”
“Thank you. I will surely need them.”
“And you’re sure you don’t want to pitch it?”
“I would not want to teach wastefulness to such an impressionable youth.”
They both had to stifle a laugh at that. Sunset Shimmer, impressionable? When humans fly, maybe. Then Saffron tore off another sheet of foil, and the sound drew Sunset’s gaze down to the table between them where the last of the leftovers sat.
When humans fly, or… whenever we give out more ‘dal tadka’ than sloppy joes.
They’d started the night with a dozen trays. Eight of them sat sparkling by the sink. Exactly eight; Sunset had counted each one of them as she’d washed—six for the sloppy joe filling, and two for the buns she’d spent half the evening shuttling from the toaster oven to the main hall and back to refill. The remaining four trays sat in a row on the table. Two held all but a spoonful of the basmati rice they’d set out at the start of the evening.
The other two were filled with untouched dal tadka.
Saffron tore off a third sheet. “Oh, don’t worry too much about it, Sunset,” she said, her voice light. “It has always been like this. From before you started here, and I suspect still after you finish as well.” She tore the fourth and final sheet of foil away and closed the cardboard lid overtop of the roll. “I am quite familiar with leftovers at this point.”
Right. Sunset shifted her weight uncomfortably between her aching feet. She was just an outsider. Less so than when she’d started, sure, but her six-and-counting Wednesday nights of community service were nothing compared to the years Saffron had already served.
The first tray disappeared beneath foil like a corpse beneath a sheet—a grave of still-warm lentils and tempered spices.
“Aren’t you tired?” Sunset blurted out.
Saffron raised her eyebrows. “Of course.” She folded the edges of the foil down to flatten the top. “We have worked hard. I would be quite surprised if you were not.”
“No, I didn’t mean— Not right now; in general.” She glanced away from Saffron and back to the table. “Tired of doing this, I mean.”
Tired of cooking; tired of coming in early to prepare trays of food no one ever took; tired of buying extra ingredients with her own money and tired of hearing her father’s hollow reprimands in response to each tiring attempt.
Tired of packing leftovers. Tired of eating the same unwanted food for a week or longer.
Tired of nothing changing.
“Hm,” Saffron hummed beneath her breath. She took a moment to smooth the remaining sheets of foil atop the table, running her palm from corner-to-corner on each in turn. “I wouldn’t say I’m tired, no,” she said carefully. “Perhaps physically, at times. But not of the task.”
An odd feeling twisted its way into Sunset’s guts at that. “Then why do you keep trying?” she pressed. “Why do you want to cook this stuff so badly?”
“Hm,” Saffron repeated, though that time with the brighter lilt of recognition within her tone.
The two of them were quiet for a moment. Then—
“I suppose,” she finally answered, “that I just miss home that much.”
The knot in Sunset’s stomach turned to knives. Her heartbeat knocked staccato at her throat—but she swallowed it down, and tried her best to focus on the rest of Saffron’s explanation; on her voice. So, instead of interrupting, she tugged the ties of her apron free to ‘no matter how similar things may feel’ and pulled the apron over her head to ‘what I miss most here in Canterlot’ and folded it into a wrinkled, water-stained square to ‘is the food I had at home’.
She placed her handiwork beside Saffron’s trays like the world’s sorriest excuse for a napkin and sat herself down at the table like Equestria’s sorriest excuse for a mare.
“Because as much as I enjoy providing the less fortunate with meals more substantial than canned soups,” Saffron continued, “I am perhaps indulging my own selfishness inside this kitchen more than I properly should.” She nodded her chin toward her leftovers and smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “There is nothing selfless about cooking food that no one likes, after all.”
“But you like it,” Sunset argued. “And I don’t think doing something for yourself automatically makes you selfish.”
“When I misuse the goodwill and charity of others, it does.”
“Misuse?”
“It’s a bit silly, though, is it not?” Aluminum crinkled between Saffron’s fingers as she laid the other tray of dal tadka to rest. “This selfish desperation to know that I haven’t lost my connection to my home.”
Sunset felt her stomach squeeze. There it was again: that word; that feeling of other-ness and un-belonging.
Home.
Thirty-one moons away didn’t stop it from cutting as deep as the day she’d left.
“Does that make sense?”
No. Maybe. I don’t know.
“…Yeah,” Sunset lied, and nodded in a way she hoped came off as empathetic. “I kinda get it.” And, before she could stop herself, she tacked on a near-inaudible, “I really miss my home too.”
(It wasn’t like she and Saffron were close. How could they have been, when they’d only just met six-and-counting Wednesday nights ago? But the way that Saffron treated her; the way she saw her and saw through her and saw her as an equal in a way that most adults never did—it felt like something and someone familiar.)
Saffron slowed her leftover-packing to a stop and quirked her head. “Oh? You are also…?”
“Not from here? Yeah.” In a way.
“I could not tell.” Her statement almost sounded like a compliment. “Would you mind me asking when?”
Thirty-one moons, Sunset thought at the same time her mouth said, “Two and a half years ago.”
She didn’t know why it was so easy to answer. Before, she’d have happily pulled out the tried-and-true none of your business for anyone who’d pried into her private life.
What’s different now?
“Ah, that’s not too long ago,” Saffron said with a small smile. “Myself, I have been here in Canterlot longer than I’ve been home.”
“Oh. That’s…” Sunset hesitated. She knew Saffron was older than her, sure, but she was nowhere near familiar enough with humans to guess by how much.
Thankfully, though, Saffron noticed her dilemma—was it rude to guess too high or too low?—and finished, “We moved here about twenty-three years ago.” Her eyes then softened to something slightly sad. “I was eight. The opportunity fell to our table, and though my father wanted to refuse it, my mother insisted that he and I…” Her voice trailed off. “Ah. Forgive me. I do not want to bore you with the details.”
“Eh,” Sunset said, and shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to appear more nonchalant than she actually felt. “You’d know if I was bored. Trust me.”
Saffron sighed a heavy breath. “Thank you.” Her shoulders sagged briefly, then straightened. “Truly.”
They were adrift upon an uncomfortable sea, then, with uncertainty both on and overboard. Whether it was better to ask for more details, or change the subject, or simply just wait it out, Sunset wasn’t sure—the only thing she knew for certain was that if she ever wanted an easy out, it only took a few well-placed holes to sink a ship.
Silence again stretched thin throughout the kitchen. Then, having finally decided where she wanted to steer the conversation, Saffron asked with gentle words, “Did your family move here with you as well?”
Family.
Another word. Another knife to the gut.
“No. Just me.”
“Your parents were willing to send you here all on your own?”
“I—” Sunset exhaled sharply between her teeth. “Yeah. All on my own.”
(Saffron didn’t know what she’d done, of course—she couldn’t know, and wouldn’t ever know more than the half-truths necessary for community service’s paperwork.)
“My… mom and I didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms.”
(Though, half-truths looked a lot better with a few lies to fill the gaps.)
“I see,” Saffron said slowly. An unspoken question echoed beneath her short response—Do you want to talk about it?—not as an offer to listen, but as a way out.
A lifeboat, maybe.
“It’s fine,” Sunset replied. “That’s for me to deal with. Like…” The edge of her words pressed against the ropes holding the last lifeboat to the ship until they frayed. “…I’m not gonna get all upset if you wanted to talk about your mom, or something.”
“You are sure?”
“You’re the one who wanted to bore me with details, right?”
“Only if you insist,” Saffron chuckled, and with the silent sound of snapping ropes their lifeboat fell away beneath the waves. “Though truly, it is not that complicated of a tale; my grandparents just could not make such a move at their age.” Her lips pursed. “Of course, my father thought that made the decision for us—either we all go, or none of us go—but my mother put her foot down, and, well…”
Sunset caught the end of her sentence and ventured, “She offered to stay behind?”
“She called my father a cowardly husband and an even more wretched father for daring to suggest we turn down the offer,” Saffron corrected, the corners of her eyes crinkling fondly. “Then she told him she would be staying behind.”
“Ah.”
“And… I cannot thank her enough for making such a choice.”
Homesickness came in all sorts of shapes and sounds, but on Saffron it looked and sounded startlingly familiar—a defeated glance down to four trays on a table; an uncharacteristic tiredness sticking to her voice; the self-proclaimed selfishness of cooking food no one wanted—
“Is she the one who taught you how to cook?” Sunset asked quietly.
Stillness.
Then, a nod.
So the reason she keeps doing this—
“I have not seen her since I left,” Saffron explained with a calmness that did not match her words. “In person, at least. Video calls make things easier, but it is not the same, and never enough.”
An image popped into Sunset’s head at that—one of Saffron in the kitchen, with her cellphone propped up between two cookbooks so the camera could watch her as she worked. Even in her imagination she could so clearly picture the unbearable distance between a cellphone and the person on the other end.
“So, when I see her again”—and she so confidently used when, not if—“I want to cook for her, and prove to her that she is a part of my life I will never forget.” Her gaze lifted away from the table; away from foil graves. “That is why I cannot lose this last connection to my home.”
Saffron spoke with a clear determination that Sunset wished she had. How nice would it have been to leave home with the hope of returning? How awful would it be to miss a mother for twenty-three years?
(How horrible would someone who’d willingly abandoned their mother’s teachings be?)
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see mine again,” Sunset mumbled. “My mom, I mean.”
“I am sure that someday you will—”
“It’s not that I’m worried I won’t get the chance,” she added quickly, “but that when she learns what I’ve done with my time here, and when she remembers how easy it was for me to leave, she’s the one who’s not going to want to see me.”
Saffron frowned, her lips a thin and worried line across her face. “Sunset…”
“And I… I actually did lose my”—magic her heart wanted to say, but couldn’t—“connection to home. Something that my mom taught me, too. And I recently got the chance to... ‘remember’ it.”
Fiery hair and leathery wings and pitch black scleras and a body neither human nor unicorn—
And crowns and claws and fangs and fear and light and pain and—
“It wasn’t the same at all.”
How badly she’d wanted to go back before that point. How long she’d spent plotting out the details of her return. Perhaps if she’d just stayed that night for good, instead of sneaking through crystal hallways in a failed attempt to swap that coincidentally-shaped tiara, she might have been able to remember an untainted picture of home.
But now? After what her once-beloved magic had done to her?
Sunset cast her gaze downward to where her hands laid limp and aimless, and interlaced her fingers to stop them from trembling. “I think if I went back now,” she managed, “she’d be even more disappointed in me than the day I left.”
No, not just disappointed; worse. She was the shell of the prodigious student she’d once been, doomed to crawl back through the mirror a prodigal daughter—and no home would ever welcome such a daughter with open arms.
Words alone couldn’t convey her feelings, but the silence she couldn’t stand spoke the unsaid part out loud:
When you don’t belong anywhere anymore, where is home?
That silence lingered longer than was comfortable. Saffron let it flourish freely for a moment, then gently uprooted it with the low thunk of a cupboard and the clink of a plate pulled from its ceramic stack.
“Here,” she said matter-of-factly.
And the silence broke.
Sunset lifted her head in time to catch a glimpse of the silverware drawer rolling shut, and then suddenly aluminum crinkled and the lid of a coffin rolled back and the untouched dal tadka wasn’t quite so untouched and the spoon left a red-orange smear when it scooped out the second serving of rice that evening—
A plate bumped against her still-clasped hands like the answer to an unspoken prayer.
“It should still be warm,” Saffron added.
Sunset blinked. Then her brain caught up to her eyes. “I really can’t,” she protested weakly. “I’m supposed to be helping, not… mooching off of you guys for a free meal, or something.”
“You would be helping me with these leftovers.”
“But—”
“No buts. Just listen to me for a moment, alright?” She nudged the plate forward again. Reluctantly, Sunset uncoupled her fingers and picked up the spoon, if only to stop Saffron from beating a dent into the back of her hand. “I do not know why you have left your home, Sunset—and I do not need to know.”
The border of dal tadka slowly bled into basmati. Sunset placed the tip of her spoon at the center of the boundary and imagined what it’d be like to squish the portal’s statue flat.
“Because I know that home is not just a place, or a cuisine, or a culture, but also people. The people who you live for and who you love,” Saffron said, her voice gentle. “It is the people who love you, and the people who find their home within you in return.”
Sunset blinked again. Suddenly, her spoon felt heavier than a crown. “Maybe,” she mumbled.
Saffron ignored her remark and continued, “If your heart has lost its home, then the people you love will also have lost their home when they lost you. And,” she said with softer words, “while I do not know everything about you or your situation...”
She tapped a finger against the edge of the plate. This time, Sunset allowed herself to scoop an even mix of rice and dal tadka from the centre.
“…I do know that if I were your mother, I would be waiting to welcome you home.”
A lump pressed against the back of Sunset’s throat at that—a different sort of unpleasant pressure than the knot in her gut, but not one that felt entirely negative. Rather, it was more like the sour taste of bile after a successful workout, or the productive exhaustion of a Wednesday evening spent scrubbing dishes in a too-small kitchen’s sink: a well-deserved awfulness, and the price of being better.
…Though, that price did make it hard to respond to Saffron without sounding a bit pathetic. So instead of risking words, Sunset dipped her head in a choked-up nod and lifted the spoon to her mouth to take the first bite of her impromptu meal.
It took a moment for the flavours to register. At first the only thought Sunset could think was yeah, it’s definitely still warm, but then—
Oh.
The dal tadka tasted rich; heavy on the tongue and thick with the flavours of ginger and onions and lentils and oil and a half-dozen spices her amateur tastebuds couldn’t hope to name. It would have been tempting to call the texture of it soup-like if not for the extra body the rice provided—stew-like, maybe. Or gravy-like. But probably not a curry. Saffron had never called it that, and Sunset didn’t think she knew enough about curries to decide what was or wasn’t one in that regard.
“Good?” Saffron asked.
She swallowed slowly. It was like nothing she’d ever tasted before, and no home she’d ever known.
Her eyes watered.
For some reason, she didn’t think it was the food.
“...Yeah,” Sunset managed. She dipped her spoon back into her plate for another bite. “It’s good.”
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Very nice story
11910666
thanks for reading!
Really impressed at how laden with this fic is with a palpable sense of homesickness and yearning. But still hopeful! Also, I'm pretty sure this is the first fic I've seen with an EQG version of Saffron, which is fun.
11910681
glad you liked it! and yes, i was surprised to see she had so few fics, she's got such an interesting design to me (both of her character and her appearance ^^)
THIS IS AMAZING!! Your stories always have this really solid emotional core in them and this one is no exception!! Brilliant writing that let's me feel exactly what Sunset does in the moment. The idea of Sunset feeling like she's lost her connection to home works so well in parallel with Saffron's efforts to maintain her connections. I rushed to read this as soon as I saw it was here and now I'm rushing to add it to my favorites, where it belongs!!
so freaking good, your metaphors and timing are so apat with longing and yearning and laiden with guilt so bittersweet, its a story i wont be forgetting in a long time
11910718
wahhh thank you so much! im so happy you liked it, this was a tricky one for me to write, so im glad to hear it managed to land well for you ^^
11910719
thank u sm for the lovely comment! im honoured to receive such high praise haha, ur too kind ^^
Wow this was amazing!
Much like a bite of dal tadka, you've provided a scene filled with richness and flavor quite beyond what size should allow. Bravo.
11910783
tysm!
11910789
thank u so much for reading eileen! glad u enjoyed the story :D
Gorgeous
Outstanding scene. Sunset's stomach may not have needed this meal, but her heart certainly did. Plus, I'm always a sucker for characters we only ever saw on one side of the portal showing up on the other, and being inspired by color scheme was a very cool way to arrive at this pairing. Brilliant work in capturing both Sunset's inner turmoil at this stage of her life and Saffron's melancholy and longing seen from without. I do hope Sunset stays in touch after her community service is done. She could use a cool aunt.
Thank you for this and best of luck in the judging.
This story is very enjoyable, but I just had one question. Besides being a metaphor for homesickness, and being used as the main source of "Conflict." For this story, why wasn't Saffron's food taken? Personally, if I had to resort to going to food kitchens to get by, especially free food, I couldn't imagine not claiming it for myself.
So what was the problem with the food? The narration never seemed to delve into that part of the issue. Unless it is a cultural difference, I can't imagine someone desperate and needy turning their nose away from free, aromatic, extra food.
The Canterlot locals don't know what they are missing.
A delicious story, with powerful emotions and so much said with so little, by Saffron and Sunset both.
11910850
thanks blue!
11910947
tysm fome!! inspo always seems to grab me from the strangest of places haha, im glad that you enjoyed the story ^^
11910952
indian dals notoriously look “weird”, at least thats what ive found from my own experience w people who arent as familiar w asian food. which is silly, since theyre no more weird-looking than sloppy joes! and, remember that they are still offering a western meal; saffron is making extra food out of her own stubbornness, so people are just gravitating to whats familiar since they dont want to take a meal but then not like it. hope that clears things up ^^
11910957
thanks for reading! im happy you enjoyed the story :D
Congrats on this story on being on featured as this much a sweet & wonderful read with Saffron & Sunset bonding over about missing their respective families & home.
11910980
thank u so much! glad you stopped by to check it out :D
11911020
Welcome!
I know what my next recipe I'm making is :3
Really nice story, I liked the vibe of it. Bit sad, reminiscent, homey.
11910974
Ah, ok. So it is a cultural thing. Still, you'd think needy people would be a bit less picky about what their food looks like, especially when it's not only extra food that you can grab whenever you like, but is also being given out completely for free. It seems so strange... Maybe they just aren't desperate enough, who knows?
I was so happy to be alerted of a new story from you and this one didn't disappoint. EXCELLENT work, as always. I'm actually not that familiar with Saffron since I haven't reached S6 of mlp yet lol, but it didn't feel like I lost anything from not watching her episode yet, you did a great job giving me a strong sense of her personality and I loved the parallels you drew between her and Sunset's homesickness.
Your Sunset was wonderful, as always. Having her very view of magic-something sacred to her- violated by her attempt to use the crown did to her is an angle I haven't really seen before, and an incredibly heartbreaking one.
Again, loved this fic, you continue to not miss.
11911151
fr tho, i think i managed to make half my prereaders order indian food after reading hahaha
thanks sm for the comment!
In that one moment, Sunset Shimmer got her first real taste of home in over thirty moons.
11911250
aaaa tysm for the kind words!! maybe one day ill have to throw a "miss" fic out there, just to prevent the expectations from building ever higher dkfjsdkfjd nah i joke, nd im glad that even tho u hadnt seen saffrons ep u were still able to enjoy the story! shes a rlly fun chara, im sad that we only got to see her for a single ep
11911277
yep, something like that :>
11911196
It's extremely common for people to be (at least somewhat) picky about food donations, actually. They are, after all, still human and like any other human have their own likes, dislikes, cultural expectations and frameworks for understanding food, desire for variety versus uniformity, and so on and so forth. Additionally, in those situations it's often one of the few things they actually have any agency over--they can certainly choose what they eat, even if they go hungry for a while.
For that reason a lot of programs to feed hungry people--humanitarian rations, food pantries, soup kitchens, everything--try to provide food that is appropriate for the community being served. Of course in a lot of cases (perhaps most cases where this has to be thought about in the U.S.) this means non-American foods, depending on what groups are relevant in a particular community (you're likely to see a lot more Hmong food in Minnesota than in Hawai'i, but conversely you'll see a lot more Pacific Islander food in Hawai'i than Minnesota), but if the community being served is Americans who are familiar with and want American food, well, that's just what it is.
A slowly paced soothing little moment that strikes me in the heart, especially being away from my parents and family here in Japan. Something about the sharing of pain and nurturing empathy through the simple pleasures of life really strikes a chord with me. Thank you for sharing, and best of luck with the contest.
11911333
thank you very much for reading! and, im glad that this story could resonate with you; it's a bit of a relief to hear that other people have felt the same way too ;v;
Unwanted food meet unwanted former student.
Really nice story. I wouldn't have thought to connect the events of "Spice Up Your Life" with Sunset, but this worked quite well. I don't think I've seen Sunset's situation being compared to that of an immigrant often either. You portrayed the mutual homesickness effectively.
Gotta praise the cover art too.
As someone who used to (be forced to) volunteer there, Saffron's food would have gotten a better reception at a Hindu temple, but there may not be enough of a diaspora in Canterlot, and there are plenty of Christian Indians in any case. I also assume she tried different dishes over time but none worked so she ended up sticking to one.
Beautifull work.
11911196
In addition to echoing all of Workable Goblin’s points, I’ll add this: when your whole life is utterly uncertain—to the extent you don’t know where you will be sleeping tonight, when you will get your next meal, or even whether you will survive the next day—you are desperate for anything that is familiar and comfortable. In that regard food is about as fundamental as it gets; after all, “comfort food” is a stock phrase for a reason.
Lovely little interlude, with spot-on characterizations of everyone involved, that shines a warm light on implications of Sunset’s backstory unexplored by the franchise as well as the differences and similarities between the counterpart families of Saffron and Cumen.
And your artwork for it is wonderful as always.
11911841
tysm for reading sigma! and yeah, i kinda just drew on personal experiences here, w cultural food not being received well in a christian environment ^^ easier to write from life after all!
11911850
glad u enjoyed the story!
11911859
thanks you so much for reading, and for leaving such a lovely comment ^^ im glad you liked the story (and the art)!
Amazing story, you can really feel the homesickness and bittersweet longing from both Sunset and Saffron throughout it all.
However, while the primary connection to Home for Sunset was her magic, there's another connection to Equestria hanging over the conversation like a mundane but equally sharp blade. Food/Cuisine, ironically enough.
Growing up in a palace, it is unlikely that Sunset was taught to cook before crossing the portal. But even if she was, it wouldn't help her. What a pony can digest and what a human can digest are completely different. So even if Sunset were to cook a beloved dish from Equestria, she wouldn't be able to eat it without getting sick. It adds to the thematic depth of the story that this conversation on maintaining connections to distant but still important homes is centered around an avenue denied to one of the participants.
11911940
thats an interesting connection there too! actually, i think indian cuisine is often very vegetarian friendly, so maybe she and saffron would have another point to bond over too with respect to sharing their cuisines ^^
thanks for reading!
This fic has been an unexpected, but welcome shock. Namely because I'm currently dealing with some homesickness myself recently. This was incredibly poignant and a true delight.
Goodness... now I think I need to go cry. A good cry, to be sure.
11912060
ahhh tysm for reading! i am glad this story can make an impact, and i hope that this homesickness will lessen for you in time ;v;
You always do this, evelili. All your stories have this rich, deep emotional core that manages to hit me where it hurts. (And this is coming from someone who has only ever known one home and has lived there her entire life.)
Stories about Sunset’s early days of redemption always hits the spot for me. Pairing her with Saffron was so unexcepted and yet, the more you delved into it, the more sense it made. As someone with Indian ancestry who grew up with basmati rice and daal, I appreciate the research that went into the food.
This is the second of your stories to enter my Heartstrings shelf and, hopefully, the second of many to come. Beautiful work, evelili, and best of luck in the contest!
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thank you so much for reading! and yeah, i was a little surprised at how few stories saffron had on here, i swore she was a more popular character, or that someone else would have made the red-yellow connection to sunset’s hair xd. im glad that the food was represented p authentically as well! ive grown up with a p good exposure to indian food, + my dads culture having similar food, so it was smth really important for me to research and get accurate (esp as someone who is a horrible cook hahaha)
tysm again for reading, and for the comment!
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You’re most welcome. Keep on rocking!
this was such a delight to read—its human-ness is ever present and strikes you in ways you dont expect it to, even if you don't necessarily empathize with either of their situations, you still find yourself trying to. beautiful!
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thank you so much! “human-ness” i think really hits on what i want to express with what i write, i really like how u describe it ^^