In the aftermath of (Dainn's version of) the Anon-a-miss incident, Sunset Shimmer forges her way without the five girls who were supposed to look after her.
So much has happened, and most people are still focused on the debacle. They aren't asking "What now?" or "What next?" but it's not mistakes, tragedies, and trauma that define people, it's what comes after them.
Before winter break, three little sisters framed Sunset Shimmer for spreading everyone's secrets across the internet under the name Anon-a-Miss. Sunset didn't figure out who was behind the account in time. The sirens were incorrectly suspected. Rainbow Dash felt a betrayer went unpunished. Gilda served up misdirected vengeance and called it justice.
When Sunset was left to die, two people she thought wanted nothing to do with her, Snips and Snails, were the ones to help her. Then the truth came out, punishment was doled out, and injuries slowly healed.
That's all come and gone.
Winter break will soon be over and the only certainty is that whatever comes next will be nothing like it would have been if the Anon-a-Miss incident hadn't taken place.
At the end of Dainn's version of the Anon-a-Miss story, adapted from the execrable Equestria Girls Holiday Special, Dainn gave permission anyone who wanted to do "spin-offs, alternate endings, or whatever" provided credit was given.
This takes as canon Dainn's story all the way through the last chapter proper but not the epilogue. I wanted to include the epilogue but a detail I'd forgotten means that it doesn't fit my timeline, so I'm going to have to rewrite it to fit with my story. It'll flow better this way anyway.
It should be possible to read this on its own, but you're a Hell of a lot less likely to feel like you've jumped in the deep end before learning how to swim if you go and read all 13 regular chapters of Dainn's story, and if you're doing that you might as well read Dainn's epilogue chapter as well even though it's not canon for this. So, you know, go and read that story.
Sunset groaned and rolled until her legs fell off the bed. Once she was laying belly down and had her feet on the floor, she pushed herself upright, then she stumbled out of the room.
“It was supposed to be one night,” she said as she made her way to the kitchen. She kept her left hand on the wall for balance and support. “You let me stay here one night, the guilty are punished the next day, I go home.”
“That was before I saw what you looked like,” Luna said.
Sunset collapsed into the chair across the table from Luna. “Nothing you can see is even bothering me right now.”
Sunset didn't even look at what was on the plate in front of her, she closed her eyes, planted her elbows on the table, and held her head in her hands. The world was suffering.
“Ok, so I probably should have guessed that you had a concussion when you told me thirty people beat you up,” Luna said. “I honestly didn't think of it.”
“When do I start sleeping again?”
Actually Sunset was sleeping a lot. Several times a night and sometimes a time or two during the day. The problem was that she wasn't sleeping well or long.
Sunset heard Luna sigh.
“Brain injuries are extremely hard to predict,” Luna said. “We've had students bounce back in three days--”
“It's been more than three days.”
“--and others took months.”
Sunset gave a flat, “Yay.”
“I haven't done any kind of study of the matter using the student body as test subjects,” Luna said, “but recovery times have definitely gone down, in aggregate, since doctors started recommending 'brain rest'.”
“Brain rest being the thing that means I can't look at anything with screens,” Sunset said. “Have I mentioned that computers and TV rank highly among the things that make the lack of magic in this world bearable?”
“Several times,” Luna said. “This is the seventeenth time you've mentioned TV, alone or in combination, and the twenty-third time you've mentioned computers, under the same conditions.”
Sunset opened her eyes. She was still resting her head in her hands, so her view was straight down at her plate of breakfast. Fake bacon and eggs. The bacon-like thing gave her a distraction and she took it. She might have mentioned computers twenty-three times, but she'd never told Luna about pig farming.
“In Equestria no one would even think of eating pigs. We use them to till the soil; it's why they're usually found on farms.”
“I'm not sure if anyone does that here,” Luna said, “but I do know that people rent out sheep and goats to be organic lawn mowers.”
“Yeah, caprinae are good at that. Not just grass either,” Sunset said. “Take an overgrown field, put a fence around it, drop off some sheep or goats, and pretty soon the brush will be cleared away. Then you bring in the pigs. Once they've done their part, you've got land that's ready to farm.”
“You know a lot about farming?”
“No, I just know a little about a lot.
“Even though I was studying magic, my teacher made sure my general education was very broad,” Sunset said. She smiled looking back on it. She finally took her head out of her hands and looked up at Luna. “I resented her for that. I was only interested in magic, because I only wanted to become more powerful. My physical strength was average at best, so magic was the path to power. Everything else was a distraction.
“Now . . . almost everything I know about my motherland comes from her insisting that I know at least a little bit about everything.”
“Not from living there?”
“Before I met her I knew some of the streets of one city, I knew how people ignored you when you weren't wanted, I knew fear and hunger and loneliness. After she took me in I knew the inside of one castle. She tried to get me to make friends, but I didn't think that was even a real thing.”
“You didn't think friendship was real?”
“My whole life had been defined by the strong doing whatever they wanted to the weak. People who operated in groups were stronger than they had been as individuals. I thought 'friendship' the name people gave to such alliances when the members didn't want to admit that they were so weak they needed a gang to support them.”
“That's terrible.”
Sunset nodded. “I was pretty terrible.”
“I wasn't talking about you,” Luna said. “I was talking about the situation that could lead to a child believing such a thing.”
Sunset shrugged. She didn't see herself as a victim of her circumstances. Others had faced the same and not become monsters. Besides, it was just how things worked.
“It's like that in this world too,” Sunset said.
“It's terrible here too,” Luna said.
There was a silence that Sunset used to finally start eating.
“Do you know why we let new students into the school with no questions asked and no paperwork?”
Sunset shook her head. She hadn't even known they did that until Twilight showed up and was treated as an ordinary student in spite of obviously not belonging. If she'd known the school acted that way at the start, she could have saved herself a lot of trouble by not forging the necessary documents to enroll officially.
“Free lunches,” Luna said.
That threw Sunset a bit and she just looked at Luna, unsure of what to say. Plus she was chewing.
“As long as they aren't harming our students,” Luna said, “anyone who is the right age can walk through our doors, stay where it's warm and dry, and get one absolutely free meal every school day.”
Sunset had food in her mouth again, but she also had something to say, so she swallowed in a hurry. That proved a mistake as it hurt a bit, but at least she could speak.
“That sounds monumentally unwise,” Sunset said.
“The school-board would have our heads if they knew,” Luna said, “but I think the secret's safe with you.”
Sunset was pretty sure Luna wasn't doing it on purpose, and that somehow made the fact Luna just admitted to trusting Sunset with a secret without hesitation feel even better. There was a twinge of sadness about others who had been quick to think no secret was safe with her, but mostly there was satisfaction that at least someone trusted her.
Of course none of that had to do with the topic of the administration of a school choosing to allow random kids who weren't actually students to come in and roam free. On that topic Sunset said:
“Even so, how can you be sure it won't explode in your face?”
“We don't know it won't,” Luna said. “So far, though, the problems we've faced with the student body have been from students who are actually legally enrolled.”
Sunset nodded, “The Dazzlings and I forged the paperwork needed to make our enrollments legit.”
“True,” Luna said, “but I wasn't thinking about magic.”
“For the first three years and change I didn't use magic,” Sunset said.
“I'm not going to lie and pretend you weren't that bad,” Luna said, “and a lot of people would disagree with how Celestia and I feel now, but I think you were worth it.
“I wish we'd been able to do something about you, but you were too good at keeping anything from pointing at you directly. You only acted in person around people who would never give us your name, and what you did electronically always pointed to someone else.”
“Thank so much for that trip down memory lane.”
“Your deadpan snarking needs work, maybe we can get you in a remedial class,” Luna said.
It made Sunset smile even though she didn't want to reward such a corny line.
“There was, however, going to be a 'but',” Luna said.
“You're a butt!”
Luna laughed. “I'm sorry we can't watch that movie together right now.” Luna glanced at something, “And for that matter I can't be here for much longer right now.”
“That why you woke me up today?” Sunset asked.
“I wanted to make sure you ate,” Luna said, “but before I go let me finish that thought.
“We might not have been able to act against you –because for any given thing we usually had about a dozen suspects and we knew that they weren't all guilty– but that didn't mean we couldn't do anything. We worked to help your victims. Yes, that includes the ones who could have told us who you were but flat out refused.
“I think you did a lot less lasting harm than you believe.”
“That's mildly comforting,” Sunset said.
“I have to go now, the school-board called an emergency meeting.”
“You're still refusing to deal with the parents?” Sunset asked.
“Celestia and I have office hours. If someone wants to yell at us about how babysitting duty is too harsh of a punishment for attempted murder, they can wait until we're in the office.”
“Aren't you technically on call--” over winter break, Sunset had been planning on saying.
“If they care so much then they should be willing to show up on a school day,” Luna said. Then she switched to serious mode and said, “Now I really have to go.”
Sunset's boredom was interrupted by her magical journal glowing and vibrating. That meant inter-dimensional text messaging. Inter-dimensional text messaging that included no screens.
Sunset took a look.
I'm going to make the amulets, the message from Twilight said.
That was very good news. The sirens might have tried to take over the world, they might be unrepentant, and they might be parasites that could only survive on the suffering of others, but they didn't deserve to die a slow painful death via magical starvation.
Sunset hadn't actually promised to get them the magical amulets they'd need to sustain themselves, she'd only said she'd talk to Twilight, but she had never planned on leaving it at merely trying. It was a huge weight off of her to know she wouldn't have to think up a way to convince Twilight to help.
Thus, this was very good news.
It took Sunset a while to actually respond –damned concussion– but she finally wrote, That's good, back at Twilight.
You didn't write me anything while I was thinking it over, Twilight wrote. Are you ok?
I have a concussion, Sunset wrote, it's hard to think sometimes.
Cue freakout in three, two, one . . .
A concussion‽ You said you were just scratched up!
Of course Twilight would write out an interobang. If Sunset wanted to keep up she'd have to break out the asterism. That was for later, though.
At the time the symptoms hadn't set in, Sunset wrote. They operate on a delay for some reason.
That's because Never mind. You should have told me when you found out, Twilight wrote.
Why? Sunset asked. It's not like I got injured again, and I'm healing now.
BecauseThat's not I strongly disagree with your decision not to tell me, Twilight wrote, but right now just get some rest.
I will, Sunset wrote.
Goodbye for now, Twilight wrote.
Sunset marked the end of the conversation with an asterism.
⁂
Sunset didn't open her eyes when she heard the door open, or when she heard it close again. In fact she pushed herself deeper into the couch.
She did ask, “How was the school-board?” though.
“As expected,” Luna said. “A few of them are up in arms about how we're handling the situation, but they're not going to act against Celestia and me because they they really don't want to draw attention to the fact that so many of our students were involved in such a serious crime.”
“But this could be a teachable moment,” Sunset said, further burying herself in they couch. “Never has there been a more perfect reason to make students sit through assemblies about the negative impact of crowd psychology, scapegoating, extrajudicial punishment by an informal groups, escalation of commitment, and the desire for quick action over accurate information.
“You could do a whole series. Every day a new sensitivity slash 'don't commit murder' assembly.”
“Are you finished?” Luna asked.
“Maybe,” Sunset said. “I'm not really sure.”
“Is there some reason you prefer pushing the cushions out of place then lying between them and the rest of the couch to actually lying on top of the couch cushions?” Luna asked.
Sunset wasn't sure, her head seemed to feel better when she actively pressed it against the couch, but that that pushed her into the couch, and pushed the cushions out of place, was a side effect, right? Or was it part of why her head felt better?
This would require some serious thought.
Sunset woke up and it was very dark. She wasn't sleepy. She was weary. She was tired. But she wasn't sleepy. She wanted to growl at the gods of all things neurological . . . and possibly wage a medium sized war on them. She could try to rest but not sleep, but that would leave her painfully bored.
She couldn't watch a movie because she'd had her two hours of screen time for the day and, as much as she hated the whole brain rest thing, she had to admit that it worked. Things did get worse when she used things with screens and better when she stayed away.
She couldn't read a book because the LED lights in the house were too bright and the only other lights were CFLs Luna hadn't gotten around to replacing yet. Florescent lighting was as bad as screens.
She tried to think of something else to do, but found herself with few options. If she wanted to heal quickly --and she desperately wanted that because every waking moment involved suffering, and the best she could hope for was distraction, not relief-- there wasn't much she could do after dusk's twilight faded.
She got out of bed and hoped that Luna was still awake.
She found Luna just outside the back door, in the snow, looking through a telescope.
“Are you the goddess of the night here too?” Sunset asked.
Luna jolted a bit in response to to Sunset's voice so Sunset said:
“Sorry.”
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” Luna said. “I'm just not used to having company.”
“Looking at something interesting?”
“The Andromeda Galaxy,” Luna said. “Despite how far away it is, it would look six times larger than the moon in a world where the sky was actually dark enough to see the whole thing. As is we can only see the core with the naked eye, and that just looks like a fuzzy star.
“Since the moon isn't out right now, the sky's a bit darker. Unfortunately there's nowhere you can go that's free from human light pollution. Not unless you take a boat far enough into the ocean to have the horizon block out light from the continent.”
Sunset thought about that for a bit.
“The light pollution thing doesn't surprise me,” she said; “after all of the time I've spent here, the universe still surprises me.”
Luna was definitely confused when she asked, “What about the universe surprises you?”
“Everything,” Sunset said. “That it exists.”
And Luna's confusion obviously wasn't cleared up based on the way she repeated, “That it exists?”
Sunset was going to explain, and then realized it wouldn't make sense. She thought up another way to explain it and got as far as opening her mouth before stopping, deciding that wasn't going to make sense either, and dismissing it with a, “No.”
She ran through a few more possible approaches in her head before reaching the conclusion, “I'm going to have to explain Equestrian cosmology from scratch for anything from there to make sense to you.”
“Ok,” Luna said in a way that Sunset recognized as inviting her to say more.
“This could take a while.”
“I'm not busy,” Luna said.
“Equestria is . . .” Sunset realized she had to stop right there. “Ok, the planet, if you want to call it that, doesn't have a name. The ponies of Equestria call the whole world Equestria because the ponies of Equestria think everything is about them. They use the term 'everypony' to mean 'everyone' or 'everybody' without ever considering that the language is exclusionary to zebras, donkeys, dragons, griffins, changelings . . . and everyone else who isn't a pony.
“But, I was talking about the universe, not social things.
“The nameless world that Equestria is a part of can be represented quite well as the surface of a sphere and you will find globes there, but for our purposes tonight it's actually easier to think of it as flat.”
“A flat surface in spherically curved space?” Luna asked.
“It's significantly more complicated than that,” Sunset said. “The complications aren't what matter when discussing the goings on in space though. What matters is that if you shine a light on the outside of a sphere the light can only directly hit half of it at time.” Sunset held out her right hand in a fist. “If the sun is shining on this part,” she covered the left half of her fist with her left hand, “it necessarily follows that it can't be shining on this part,” she covered the other half of her fist.
“It doesn't work like that on the other side of the mirror. So it's easier to think of the world as the top of a flat surface, say my palm.” Sunset said while opening her right hand and flipping it to palm up.
"When the sun is above the surface plane,” Sunset used her left hand to illustrate the sun, “it shines on the whole world, or my whole palm as the case may be.” She moved her left hand below her right, “when it's below the plane it shines on none of it –just the back of my hand, which we don't care about at the moment.”
“So your point is that if the sun is up it's up for the whole world and if it's down it's down for the whole world?” Luna asked.
Sunset nodded. “The sun, the moon, the stars, meteors, whatever,” she said. “The entire world sees the same sky.
“And when I talked about the sun being in different places, that wasn't some sort of metaphor. The sun and moon do move around the world there,” Sunset said. “They bring day and night respectively. Unlike here the moon is never up in the daytime.” As soon as she said it Sunset realized it wasn't true. “Well, one time it was. That was after I left Equestria so I didn't see it for myself but apparently about half of the sky was night, about half of the sky was day, and the thin area between the two 'about half's was twilight.”
“So the day runs on magic,” Luna said, “like half of the other things in that world.”
“Right,” Sunset said. “Anyway, it's very much not just the sun and moon that revolve around the world. Everything is centered on the world.
“We have a lot of the same terms, but they don't mean the same things. Stars are not other suns. The galaxy isn't a huge thing that makes the world seem tiny in comparison, the word 'universe' is pretty much interchangeable with 'galaxy', and while planet refers both to the world and to the things in the sky that sometimes have moons orbiting them, the two things aren't even close to alike.
“The sun and the moon go around the world for a value of around that doesn't work if you're thinking of the world as a sphere, farther away is a partial shell that contains the stars and planets. They really are as about as small as they appear in comparison to the sun and moon because they aren't much farther from the world than the sun and the moon themselves.
“The sun and moon there are of equal size and at an equal distance from the world, by the way.”
“That's all very different,” Luna said, “though it doesn't explain why you said the existence of the universe surprises you.”
“There's the world, there's the sun and moon, there's a shell of stars and planets, and that's all there is. The universe just stops. That's the galaxy, one world with a shell of stars around it. That's everything.
“The idea that there could be other suns –other worlds, not tiny ones but ones comparable to the world people live on, around some of them– and not just one or two but an entire galaxy of them, is mind blowing. That there's more than one galaxy here, that space seems to go on forever and be filled with stuff, that there could be other people on worlds beyond this one, it's just so . . . amazing.”
“You should have told me you were interested in astronomy,” Luna said. “I have so much I can show you.”
“Until this fall I wouldn't have cared,” Sunset said. “It was a distraction. I didn't have time for wonder, I wanted power.”
“But you care now,” Luna said, clearly doing her best at being encouraging and even succeeding a bit. “Until you're back on computers we'll want to stick to books, but there are some incredible books out there with photographs that you wouldn't believe.
“Obviously the view through my telescope can't compare to the pictures professionals take, and it's also the case that those photographs are often enhanced by converting infrared or ultraviolet details into colors we can actually see, but I've always felt there was something special about seeing with my own eyes,” Luna said.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Wanna look?” Luna asked.
Sunset was vaguely aware that 'wanna' was the most informal thing she'd ever heard from Luna, but she was more interested in actually seeing a galaxy.
When she looked through the telescope the view was truly amazing.
Sunset was very much not sure how this would go. Part of her knew that there was no reason to be nervous. A big part. The largest part even. That didn't stop the small part with a dissenting opinion from making her uneasy.
She came bearing gifts at least. That might help. It hadn't actually been something she'd been planning on until Celestia and Luna surprised her with Christmas presents.
The phone had been expected, they'd said that they'd get her one, but Celestia got her a new jacket and Luna got her a couple of books. It had been entirely unnecessary and not in any way attributable any kind of obligation.
It had felt good.
So she'd decided to get Twilight a gift or two.
Really this should go great. And Twilight was the one who stuck by her regardless.
Still, every reason she had to think Twilight was her friend applied equally to the humans who most definitely were not her friends.
It was one thing to support her when the only source of news was Sunset's own account and the only problem was that Sunset was a victim. It was another thing to do it face to face when Sunset had asked Twilight to give evil people with designs of world domination their powers back.
Sunset tried to drive the thoughts from her head.
Twilight had been there for her.
It would have been easy for Twilight to cast Sunset aside. All she had was Sunset's word, and historically that had very little value. If anything Twilight had more reason to doubt than anyone else since she'd never had a chance to look Sunset in the eyes or see the effect the whole thing was having on her.
She'd stayed true. She agreed to make the amulets for the sirens in spite of her doubts. She was delivering them today, and once Sunset handed them off this whole mess would be over.
Everything would be fine.
Doubts rose up, and Sunset beat them back, twice more before Twilight burst through the portal.
This time Twilight had stayed standing after coming through the portal, even if the way she was standing didn't look altogether comfortable. Still, it was improvement. That reminded Sunset for Twilight's suggestion that they have more frequent in-person contact, which was definitely something to put in the “Don't Panic” column. That idea was probably because Sunset was low on friends at the moment, and it made the concept of acclimating to trips through the portal seem much less far fetched than it once had.
Twilight was wearing a backpack. Sunset was familiar with the portal interpreting saddlebags that way. It was good if you didn't know how far you'd travel, but it was annoying if you were planning to get things out of it. Sunset was wearing a messenger bag today, for ease of access.
“Good to see you,” Sunset said.
“You too,” Twilight said. “What's on your face?”
That . . . seemed like a profoundly stupid question.
“Sunglasses,” Sunset said. “I'm kind of sensitive to light right now.”
“I meant under the sunglasses.”
And that made no sense. Truly this conversation was off to a great start.
“Nothing,” Sunset said. There simply wasn't anything for Twilight to see, unless she was talking about–
“Sunset,” Twilight said, definitely suspicious, “take off the sunglasses.”
Sunset closed her eyes so that the light wouldn't hurt, and took off her sunglasses.
Cue freakout in three, two, one . . .
“You said you were just scratched up!”
“And I have concussion,” Sunset said. “Please try not to be loud.”
Sunset put the sunglasses back on and opened her eyes. Twilight sputtered:
“You– your face– Part of your face is green.”
Sunset sighed, said, “Apparently when blood isn't exposed to air it–” and then she decided not to bother. “Human biology is just weird, alright?”
“But you look–”
“They call bruises 'black and blues' but apparently they come in all colors in this world,” Sunset said. “Couple that with the fact that blood-flow to the head is powerful, really to the point of excess, and you get what you see.”
“You're sure you're alright?” Twilight asked for the eleventy-first time.
“I'm getting enough of this from Luna–” Twilight's 'Wait, what!?' look indicated that clarification was needed. “Human Luna. She's making me stay with her until I fully recover. Concussions take forever to recover from.”
“You could come to Equestria to be healed with magic,” Twilight said.
“Maybe,” Sunset said, “or maybe the same property of the portal that strips us of magic when we come here would convert the concussion to a magical ailment if I took it there.”
“I hadn't thought of that,” Twilight admitted.
“It probably wouldn't happen,” Sunset said, “but I really don't want to risk making it worse than it already is. Even if the risk is minimal.”
Sunset decided that she really should invite Twilight to a game of poker once her brain stopped hating her. The girl was so very easy to read. Sunset watched as it took Twilight a moment to realize the 'Sunset's injuries' part of the conversation was over and a moment longer to find remember what she'd been planning on doing before she got the idea to pester Sunset about those the injuries.
“Right,” Twilight said. She took off her backpack, rifled through it a bit, and finally produced three crystal amulets. They were shaped like the sirens' original ones, but the fact they were clear instead of red left them looking very different.
Sunset took the amulets and stowed them in her own bag. She'd ask about the color later, if it even proved necessary –Twilight would doubtless tell her whether she was asked or not– because at the moment she was more interested in a question she'd been holding off on asking ever since Twilight had announced she'd make the amulets.
Before she got to that, she needed to say:
“Thank you for making them.”
“I didn't do it for you,” Twilight said, stetting down the backpack. “I didn't even do it for them; not really.”
That gave Sunset the perfect opportunity to ask the question she was actually interested in. “So what finally convinced you to make them?”
Sunset had wanted to ask since Twilight announced that she'd make them. Well, more since she laid in bed trying, and failing, to sleep, the night after. The problem was that she had been worried that Twilight might change her mind if given reason to think the matter through again. Only now, with the amulets in Sunset's possession, was it definitely safe to ask.
“You were right and I was wrong,” Twilight said.
Maybe it was because of the concussion, maybe it wasn't, but regardless of the ultimate reason, those words stopped Sunset's brain.
When she managed to reboot, the best she could manage was, “Come again?”
“You wrote that I gave you a chance you didn't deserve,” Twilight said. “I thought about what things would be like if people only got what they deserved.
“It's not how we operate. My friends in Equestria and I give out second chances all the time. Sometimes third, fourth, and fifth chances. We do it with no evidence it will work out in the end. But what if we did have some sort of complex algorithms to run that would truly determine if someone were worthy of another chance before offering it?”
Sunset's brain was back at its current normal –which was hazy, weary, and pained– and that was enough for her to be processing Twilight again.
Right now what she was getting was that Twilight was on a roll and and she'd have to wait for the opportune moment if she wanted stop the ramble rather than cause it to explode into a flurry of tangents that would grow to consume all of the remaining daylight hours.
“I started to imagine an Equestria where ponies, and others, only ever got what they deserved,” Twilight continued. “I started thinking about all the ways the world would be different, my life would be different, and I would be different.
“I never deserved my friends,” she said, “I spent my life ignoring and avoiding other ponies and when I met my Ponyville friends I was a jerk to every one of them. I thought they were aggravating distractions. I also thought they were all crazy. If I got what I deserved I'd still be alone except for Spike, maybe worse than that since Spike, at least, deserved better than me.
“Princess Luna, if someone had somehow managed to defeat her in a world where my friends and I didn't unlock the Elements of Harmony, probably would have been banished back to the moon if she'd gotten what she deserved. You'd be a pariah or in jail. Discord would be stone. Even–”
“Ok, I get it,” Sunset said, hoping she hadn't missed her window. “All of history and civilization as we know it rests upon giving individuals chances without deservingness being a necessary prerequisite.”
Twilight nodded.
“In the end I was forced to conclude that deservingness had nothing to do anything,” Twilight said in a more sedate pace, “because if everyone only gets what they deserve, the world would be a dark and dreary place where ponies like you and me would never find happiness
“I think it's more about the kind of ponies we want to be,” she said, “and the kind of world we want to live in. I don't want to be the pony who dooms people to death by starvation simply because I don't like them, I don't want to live in a world where you were left crying in that crater instead of given an opportunity for redemption.
“That's a wonderful speech about universal moral truths, Twilight,” Sunset said. “But you don't live in this world anyway.”
Twilight gave a joyful smile, then said, “So you really are feeling better.”
“Truly all psychological assessments should be based on how one responds to friendship speeches.”
“Playful sarcasm suits you,” Twilight said, “but that wasn't a friendship speech. Giving someone a second chance doesn't automatically mean becoming friends with them.”
“Believe me,” Sunset said, “I know.” She was actually worried about what would happen with her former friends. She wasn't going to let some grudge rule her life from now on, she was probably going to forgive them given sufficient time. But would they think that meant she wanted to be friends with them again?
That would be Hell.
She expended way too much energy imagining a thousand different scenarios, none of them good.
When Sunset realized she'd retreated into her own thoughts leaving Twilight in silence, she thought she'd need to apologize, but instead Twilight didn't even seem to have noticed. Instead Twilight looked to be busy with thoughts of her own.
A few moments later, Twilight looked away and spoke:
“Also, the reason I didn't want to help the Sirens was petty to begin with. They hurt me, so I didn't want to help them.”
Twilight had said it like she was confessing to some heinous crime instead of acknowledging that her initial reaction to an unexpected situation was less than perfect.
“Twilight,” Sunset said, doing her best to be encouraging, “around here they call that being human. Adapt for species as necessary, but the core idea remains solid.
“You had a bad thought. It doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you a bad pony. Celestia does it too, you know.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Sunset said. “What matters is that you recognized your mistake and fixed it.”
For a while things were quiet. Less awkward than the last silence.
“Ok, so,” Twilight said, her energy and speed increasing with each new word, “I didn't make the amulets for you, but there are things that I did get for you, I know it's a little late for Hearth Warming and all but I was busy working on the amulets and–”
Sunset was afraid that if she didn't make Twilight stop, the girl might explode.
“I got you gifts too,” she said.
That successfully stopped Twilight mid-run-on.
“First we have this,” Sunset said, handing Twilight a book from her bag.
Twilight accepted it and flipped through it. It was an illustrated guide to the human body. Nothing terribly in depth, but a huge amount of information as far as laypeople went.
“I thought you might be interested in learning more about a sapient species entirely alien to Equestria. The fact that you have friends equipped with such bodies is just a bonus,” Sunset said. “After you've digested that, you'll probably know more about human biology than I've learned in years of living here.”
“This looks really interesting,” Twilight said. “Not something I would have expected.”
“I got the idea after Luna thought it would be hilarious to give me a book on horse biology,” Sunset said. Luna's other book, which was full of amazing photographs of astronomical objects, was much more thoughtful.
Twilight had looked up from the book and asked, “Horse?” in mild surprise.
Sunset pointed to the statue behind Twilight.
“They really do look like that,” she said as Twilight turned to look.
“You're kidding.”
“Nope. They look more or less like that and they're huge,” Sunset said. “I met one and it was this tall,” Sunset held her hand five feet off the ground, “at the withers.”
“At the withers?” Twilight repeated in what might be shock. Sunset nodded, Twilight continued: “That's unbe– wait, you met one‽”
“They're just animals,” Sunset said, “and animals in this world aren't nearly as smart as the ones in Equestria, but it doesn't make it any less incredible to meet them.
“Humans keep them for their power and speed. They can be used to pull things, as pack animals, and as personal transportation. The one I met was for the last. Riding horses like that one are sort of a medium size, the largest horse was a draft horse that was more than seven feet tall at the withers.”
“You're sure that was at the withers and not, say, the forehead?”
“This world is populated with giants, Twilight.”
“Given your enthusiasm,” Twilight said, “I think Luna picked the right book for you.”
“If you say so,” Sunset said. It wasn't wrong, but given that it was given as a joke, Sunset didn't really want to admit that the horse book was actually pretty interesting. Still, it suggested more directions for conversation.
“Horses make things confusing,” she said, “especially since horses below a certain height are known as 'ponies'. I tell someone I was a pony in Equestria and there's all of this baggage that's assumed to apply to me unless I'm specifically able to predict the person will think it and head it off.”
“I can see how that would be frustrating.”
“And saying unicorn just confuses things further.”
“Why” Twilight asked.
“I don't think this world ever had unicorns, but it does have stories of them,” Sunset said, “and the stories are clear about several things. For example: they've got cloven hooves.”
“What!?”
“As near as I can tell they're supposed to be more closely related to deer than ponies, deer as tall as horses no less.”
“But . . .”
“Also, the correct plural of 'Pegasus' is 'Pegasuses',”
“That's absurd.”
“It's a function of the history of the word in this world," Sunset said. "It's originally a proper name, and there was only one of him, so it didn't have a plural. It came to describe all winged horses by synecdoche, at which point it was given a plural, but by that time it had hopped languages twice.”
“You're making that up.”
“Now I know what to get you for next Hearth Warming,” Sunset said: “a dictionary.”
“Hey!” Twilight said. About two seconds later she said, “Actually, that sounds fascinating.”
Sunset gave a smile and said, “For now I have something completely different to occupy your mind.” She pulled the second gift from her bag. She was told that a human of a given age would recognize it as a 'Game Boy', though it wasn't actually one. “This might fizzle when you take it to Equestria, but even if it does I expect you to have months of fun reverse engineering it.”
Twilight accepted the gift and asked, “What is it?”
“The exterior is from a hand held computer gaming system that's about eighteen years old, but it's been gutted and replaced with more modern technology. Celestia commissioned one as a Christmas – Christmas is basically Hearth Warming with a different mythology. Anyway, Celestia commissioned one as a Christmas gift for Luna. Something about nostalgia without the algia.
“The moment I saw it I knew that, regardless of whether the actual games interested you, you'd love the challenge of figuring out how it worked and seeing if you could reproduce the technology in Equestria. Maybe even discover a way to make the technology work in tandem with magic.
“So I paid for the construction of a second one.”
Twilight looked over it eagerly for moment and then asked, “How do I turn it on?” somewhat sheepishly.
Sunset found the right button a few moments later.
Twilight punched various buttons for a while before turning the machine off and rummaging through her bag for her gifts.
“So, after you told me about your difficulties with ancient Equestrian history,” Twilight said, “I had a general idea of what I wanted to get you.”
Sunset had explained the story of Hearth Warming to Celestia and Luna, but not before going off on a lengthy tangent of how much she didn't know. Were the Sirens before or after the Windigos? When exactly had Celestia and Luna taken control of the Sun and Moon, how did the timing of Sombra relate to Luna's conversion to Nightmare Moon? Where did the apprenticeship of Clover the Clever fit into the storied career of Starswirl the Bearded? When was Tirek?
How many intervals of 'a thousand years' were literal as compared to shorthand for 'a really, really, really long time'?
Why did it seem that ponies learned history only by having ancient evils pop up and try to take over?
So, naturally, she'd written to Twilight about it afterward.
She'd even commented that it was odd that Equestria's history was so poorly understood given that the nation had been run by an immortal who was there at the time and could easily be asked, and now was run by two of them.
Sunset also noted that she'd never cared to asked herself, but that didn't make it seem any less odd that no one had ever done so.
Twilight's gift was a book, presumably a history book. Sunset took and read the title aloud:
“The Pony's History of Equestria,” was to be be expected, but for “New Revised Edition” she added special emphasis.
“After the most recent ancient threat that everyone had conveniently forgotten about in spite of it being critically important to understanding the early years of Equestria,” Twilight said, “the original Revised Edition was made obsolete. By this time next year they'll doubtless need to make a New New Revised Edition.”
“Probably,” Sunset said.
“I ended up getting you this more or less by accident,” Twilight said while she handed over a flimsy box and a small beat up book. “Definitely read the book first.”
Sunset put the history book in her bag and looked at the smaller beat up book Twilight was now offering her. It took about a second and a half to realize something:
“This written in the zebra script.”
“Yes it is,” Twilight said. “I was telling a friend of mine about how I was thinking of getting you something to get you up to date on the recently remembered long forgotten history of Equestria, I think I mentioned Sombra and the Tree of Harmony, and she insisted that what I needed to give you was this deck of divination cards.
“One of your friends is a zebra?”
“Her name is Zecora.”
“Ponyville isn't exactly known as an international port–”
“Of course not; it's landlocked.”
“–and it doesn't sit on any major trade routes I know of,” Sunset said. “So . . . shaman?”
Twilight nodded, “She lives in the Everfree Forest.”
Sunset digested that a moment and then acknowledged it by saying: “That kind of magic is worth going a long way from home to research.”
Sunset looked back to the book and skimmed for a bit. The tree of harmony was there, a lot about three pony tribes just before they united, King Sombra . . . it made sense why someone would recommend this as a way to learn history. The descriptions were short, just giving context for the pictures on the cards and the meanings of those cards, but there was definitely history preserved here that hadn't shown up in any of the books Princess Celestia had forced her to read.
“This looks interesting,” Sunset said. “Thank you, Twilight. And thank your friend for me.”
“I'll pass that along,” Twilight said, “Though I do recommend taking it with a grain of salt. Some of the information defies belief and even Zecora has no idea where the cards or the guide originated.”
“It's not a zebra thing?”
“Obviously this version was made by one or more zebras, the writing in the guide and on the cards is as close to proof of that as we're likely to come, but I don't think the deck originated with zebras. There's all of one zebra in the deck, and the description of that card reads to me like it was written by an outsider. I think at some point a zebra adopted the cards and the stories from an outside source and then wrote their own guide in their own script,” Twilight said. “In other news, I'm out of gifts.”