Flower Wreath [7/17/20]
Sunset sprinted down the path of ash. A field of red spider lilies lay to either side, stretching as far as she could see. The crunch of her boots in the ash and char was the only sound in this void, aside from her ragged explosive breaths.
She found herself in a clearing, a courtyard of sorts ringed by the fields of spider lilies. Straight ahead was the Wondercolts statue she stared at every morning, had placed her palm against every day until it finally had admitted her. She clenched her teeth as she doubled over to catch her breath in the oppressive stillness. Beyond the statue lay the equally familiar shape of Canterlot High, here a burned-out husk looming forebodingly in the middle distance. This was the statue of her long nightmares, towering over her and casting down a judgmental stare that pinned her dead where she stood.
And beyond these, there was nothing. No paths, not even an endless sea of white. Just empty space.
“This is it, Sunset Shimmer. There is nothing more left here for you. Or, the beginning of everything else. It’s up to you.”
Sunset snapped to attention. The statue was moving, stepping down from its pedestal. She backed up half a step as the granite flaked away and revealed a coat of amethyst. Wings spread wide, and the familiar click-clack of hooves echoed as the apparition moved down to her level. In the fever-dream logic of this place, the Canterlot Wondercolt had transformed into her replacement. Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“Everything here is spun from my memories, my fears and wishful thinking. So let me guess, you're supposed to be my shoulder angel or spirit guide or whatever.”
She walked past her, laying a hand against the shimmering surface of the portal. Her reflection wasn't the red-haired girl she'd seen that morning, an alicorn triumphant, or even a unicorn at her prime. What stared back at her was the twisted, wretched thing she had become; flame given solid form. She glanced down and noticed the smaller mare approaching in the reflection. She, at least, was exactly as hatefully radiant as she was in life. Princess Twilight took a deep breath, her unblinking eyes centered on the chest of Sunset’s reflection.
“Your heart is dark, Sunset Shimmer, the light nearly extinguished. Luna was mad with jealousy and drunk with power. Discord… is. The others I have known have had some reason behind them, yet you chose to be like this. You are fire given flesh, Sunset Shimmer, and you have burned everything you have ever touched. Your actions harmed many throughout your life, and your actions almost caused the end of two worlds, and you still think only of your own hurt?”
Sunset suddenly turned, looming over the pony with fists balled at her sides, nails cutting into her palms. Her lips peeled back from razored fangs as she practically snarled.
“You have no right to judge me. Try being replaced by the only mother you've known. Try growing up trapped in the body of a monkey and forgetting your real home. You don't know anything about me, Princess.”
The wretched thing before her canted its head, eyes wide and unblinking with the smallest smile on its face. Like someone who had just heard a mildly amusing joke. By degrees she began to notice differences between this pony and the one that had stolen her life. Princess Twilight didn't sparkle like this, nor did she have eyes like deep wells rimmed with lavender.
“I have seen your heart, Sunset Shimmer. I know you as well as you know yourself. I know you have built these defenses to protect yourself from harm. I know you wish to be happy and live in harmony.”
“You're not Twilight.”
The pony before her shook its head. “I am the avatar of the Tree of Harmony. I have watched you time and again reject Harmony and turn your back on friendship.”
The image in the mirror shifted. A forlorn pink alicorn cowering in fear, and then sobbing herself to sleep. Her fellow students at Celestia’s School, many of whom might have become her friend and cared for her if she’d ever seen past her own skill. The anger in Celestia’s voice at being disobeyed for the last time- and the raw anguished scream when the portal closed behind Sunset forever. Celestia staring at the mirror with haunted eyes. Celestia with their special book open on her desk, quill posed to form the words she wished she had the strength to write. Crystal Clear, his career in shambles and life destroyed. The tearful agony of Dew Drop as Sunset shouted in her face, that she never wanted to be her friend. A pang of guilt nearly worn smooth with repetition as she watched her hands close on Applejack’s throat and dark waters close over her.
Every mistake she’d ever made. Every hurt she’d caused, no matter how small, tore at her like razors caught in a whirlwind. A girl fading away into the background.
She sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands, shoulders shaking with powerful sobs. When she spoke, it was with a hollow, broken voice.
“Harmony isn’t in my nature. Everything good and pure I touch, I destroy. The Element didn’t change me… it just made the outside match the inside.”
She stiffened at soft hooves touching her sides, and downy feathers wreathing her shattered frame. She looked up, into the eyes of Harmony.
“Friendship is the right of all sapient beings, Sunset Shimmer.” Those amethyst eyes closed slowly. “My heart aches for you. Because I know you, that you can be better, I shall give you a test in place of the punishment. A penance. You shall live with it, until you truly accept friendship with no thought of self-gain. When you can learn to love others above yourself, you shall be set free.”
Wings flared, and the small pony took flight, her soft expression hardening. This was the visage that had cursed Sombra, had banished Nightmare Moon, had encased Discord in unbreakable stone. “You must speak the truth. You will be at the mercy of others, and aid any who ask. You will feel every ounce of hurt you cause cut you deep.”
Her forelegs folded across her barrel as she seemed to fill the empty sky, looming over Sunset even as she rose to her feet. The sky closed over with boiling clouds, and a wind sprang up to spin flurries of ash around her boots. Sunset’s voice boomed into the silence of the echoing dark.
“And what if I refuse?”
“Withered flowers must be cut, Sunset Shimmer, lest the rot take the branch. If you refuse, or if you fall to taint a second time, you will die. If you accept, the darkness will be burned from your heart and you will have a new chance at life.”
“This is my oath, my geas, my doom upon you, Sunset Shimmer. For the sake of those who would be your friends, for the sake of Harmony, for the sake of yourself, you must see the light of friendship.”
Sunset closed her eyes. She planted her feet and held her arms out, like someone before a firing squad accepting their fate. The wind picked up, tousling her hair and snapping her jacket, scouring the ash away like a blizzard in reverse to reveal smooth flagstone beneath her soles.
Harmony instantly beamed, resting hooves on Sunset’s shoulders, which seemed broader than she'd remembered. A chain of brilliant gold light formed around her neck, and a small black stone settled against her collarbone. “This is your heart, Sunset Shimmer. Guard it well, and see that the last spark of goodness within it does not burn out. The Equestrian magic has wracked your body, torn and harrowed and forever changed you. I could not repair the damage. I am sorry. I'm sure you'll heal quickly.”
“What the hell is that supposed t-” Sunset found herself overbalancing on the heels of her boots. Harmony had given her an almighty shove. She felt the impact against the mirror, heard the tension-wire plink of cracking ice.
And then Sunset fell through the ice, into the freezing dark.
Princess Twilight Sparkle threw her arms up and cringed, attempting to shield herself from the pillar of sunfire that descended upon her and her new friends. She shrieked in terror, expecting to feel the bite of magic. A millisecond of excruciating agony and then nothingness, her short life cut shorter.
The expected never came to pass. Gradually she stood, and watched as a soap-bubble of energy wreathed them, devouring Sunset’s final attack. Her boots scuffed across the flagstones of the courtyard as the beam snuffed out. She pointed to the sky, eyes narrowed defiantly.
The Sunset-Demon stared down at her incredulously. A wind stirred, leaves cycloning around Twilight's legs as she took a deep breath.
“The magic contained in my Element was able to unite with those that helped create it!”
“Honesty! Kindness! Laughter! Generosity! Loyalty!”
She did not speak English. She spat the words as an incantation in the sing-song tongue of Ponish. The wind rose to a gale, lines of etheric power lancing from the portal behind her and spearing the human girls she called friends.
As she Named each, they rose and were transformed as the magic seeped into them. Twilight felt their magic link with their Equestrian counterparts, all of them together with herself. Eleven hearts beat as one, to one purpose: casting down the darkness.
She too rose, wings flaring from her shoulders as she took the hands of the nearest.
“Together with the crown, they create a power beyond anything you could imagine, but it is a power you don't have the ability to control! The crown may be upon your head, Sunset Shimmer, but you cannot wield it, because you do not possess the most powerful magic of all!”
She squeezed the hands of Rarity and Applejack in her own, closing her eyes as the space between them gathered light and glowed brightly, shifting to the glittering darklight of Harmony.
A world away, five ponies nervously waiting near the portal jerked to alertness. All of them had caught the scent of lavender shampoo, of worn paper and ink. They felt the familiar stirring of Harmony in their hearts.
The magic stretched out. Cadance twitched as if slapped, at the scent of a singular rose that still held pride of place in her bedroom. The Princess Mask cracked and Celestia’s breath caught at the sensation of a filly she had once wished to call Daughter nestling beneath her wing.
The note of magic humming in the air took on a new note. A silent entreaty. The Crystal Heart spun in its mounting. The Elements reached across time and space for every pony that had, could, or would bear them.
Twilight's hand slowly lowered, until her finger pointed directly at Sunset Shimmer’s blackened heart. An answering beam to the earlier blast speared her through, driving her to the ground. Under the sheer weight of the magic, she was forced to her knees.
“The magic, of friendship!”
The beam snapped out, widened. A thread of rainbow coruscated around the fringe.
The demon shrieked in anguish, fury, terror. Twilight was strong, sure of her power, in her prime. At this moment where time stood still, she was right where she belonged.
The mindless fury of the demon echoed in her ears. The part of her that felt, that thrummed with the magic of Harmony, expertly channeled and directed, heard Sunset Shimmer screaming in terror and agony.
Something snapped, and the world went white.
In that breathless second, the world shuddered.
For one second, they knew Sunset Shimmer.
The world knew her. Biggest Meanie. A bully. A monster.
They felt the pain of being Sunset Shimmer. The pain that drove her.
In that space where individuality melted, they felt it. Hatred and anger boiled away to pity. They listened to the words drifting across the boundaries between them.
Please. Bring my glimmering sunshine home.
They understood, in a place beyond understanding. The power was unleashed, wrapping around the True Name that burned in Sunset’s breast.
The ice cracked, purple fingers laced around burnished gold
And the
world
Turned.
Sunset awoke to pain. Every inch of her skin was raw, and her clothes stuck to her lacerated skin where the wings and tail had struck out. Frantically, she pushed with her toes and felt for the edge of the crater she found herself laying in.
Sorrow and agony wracked her. She heard the crunch of shoes on stone pulverized to gravel, and her eyes focused on the form over her.
Princess Twilight Sparkle, resplendent in a shimmering gown. Her angelic face and small, sad smile framed by wings, her hand outstretched.
Her voice started stern, but gradually softened.
“You will never rule in Equestria. Any power you may have had in this world is gone. Tonight, you've shown everyone who you really are. You've shown them what is in your heart.”
Sunset pressed her hands to her face, slumping over and burrowing into her shredded jacket. Tears flowed at the sting of remorse, over the pain her body felt. She reached deep within herself, finding the words to express her grief. So like the ones she'd spoken time after time to Celestia.
“I-I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know there was another way.”
The last came out as a dull murmur; the final words of the condemned before a firing squad, the war criminal intoning ‘I merely followed orders’. She'd known there was another way. She had just been too blind and stupid to see it, to grasp it. It had never felt like her way, hers to hold.
Sunset flinched as slender fingers wrapped around her own. She looked up, into an expression devoid of accusation.
“The magic of friendship doesn't just exist in Equestria. It's everywhere. You can seek it out, or you can forever be alone. The choice is yours.”
She closed her eyes. Accusation would have been expected. She could handle anger. She was over her emotional limit and only wanted to go home. She felt deep inside herself, for the warm glow that had sparked deep within her withered heart.
“But... But all I've ever done since being here is drive everyone apart. I don't know the first thing about friendship.”
Twilight leaned back and helped her haul herself over the lip of the crater, onto her feet. She distantly noticed that where she once stood eye-level with the Princess, she was now somewhere above her. Her tattered jacket showed her forearms, her shirt exposed her stomach, her skirt exposed more thigh than she normally would have. Her clothing felt uncomfortably tight, even though it had fit earlier that day.
The Princess waved a hand towards the group of girls clustered together near them. The ones she'd hurt the most. She made eye contact for just a moment with Applejack, and saw the reaching out she'd seen so many times. She just had to grasp it this time.
“I bet they can teach you.”
A hush had fallen over the crowd milling in the blown-open front entrance of the school. Soft clicking heels approached, the pair glancing into the warm smile of Principal Celestia. The common thread between them, a mentor who strode the line between friend and mother.
Twilight knelt, and Celestia settled the Element of Magic upon her brow.
“I believe this belongs to you. A true princess in any world leads not by forcing others to bow before her, but by inspiring others to stand with her. We have all seen that you are capable of just that. I hope you see it too, Princess Twilight.”
Sunset folded her arms and stared at the pointed toes of her boots. Every word felt like a dagger straight into her heart, a nine-tail lash across her soul. She took a deep breath and forced herself not to burst into tears again.
Twilight Sparkle floated in cyberspace. Fingers raced across her keyboard as she lay flat on her bed, eyes flicking across data projected across her ceiling. Around her, instruments hummed and chattered. If asked (as every evening her brother did as she mounted the stairs) she would have said she was involved in “Research”. She had to complete her preliminary work before returning to Crystal Prep, after all.
A distracted hand rose and flicked off to one side, changing the track pumping through headphones clamped over her ears. Something was happening out in the matrix, and the flow demanded something higher-paced and with more crunch to it than the soporific liquid dub she'd been listening to.
Soundwaves slammed her eardrums, and she closed her eyes for just a moment, before opening them again. Bugs she'd scattered like a handful of wheat seeds were chirruping to their mistress. She smiled and reached to scratch the ears of the pomeranian nestled against her hip.
“This is huge, Spike.”
A name pinged. She could have pulled up the dossier in her hard disk whose contents encompassed gigabytes, but she could quote it from memory. The name of the girl who had changed her life forever.
Twilight Sparkle could prize apart the universe and label its guts for easy explanation to others. The one thing she could not explain was Sunset Shimmer.
Once upon a time, she had a friend with that name. One day, everyone forgot she existed, and all trace of her disappeared. Then a routine trawl through databanks had churned out the name of a girl she'd once admitted had never been a real person.
After moving away from the nothing that had never happened, all the way across the country to Canter County, to Everton, entirely unmotivated by this single anomaly in her structured and ordered universe another breakthrough had occurred. An independent research project had uncovered a type of radiation that didn’t conform to her expectations. Design plans for devices that could detect and measure it.
Spike barked as a machine whirred to life, her antennas detecting something big, a huge amount of Tau radiation that spiked for such a short period of time that the graphing machine had snapped. She sighed and glanced across the screens splashing information across her eyes. She flicked a wrist to pull up the offending window. An IRC chatroom she monitored on occasion, full of the sorts of nutcases that expounded on healing crystals, aliens, N-rays, Planet X and the like. Still, their observations were sometimes astute, and the paranoiacs were good at noticing the sorts of things Twilight wanted to know about.
[7:30]Moon_Dances: “gas leak explosion”, apparently peeled off the front of CHS
[7:31]Moon_Dances: fed type lady made nice sounds about it, seems fishy
[7:31]Moon_Dances: big crater, just the entrance is gone, nothing else is wrong
[7:31]Moon_Dances: only a single injury as well. Really tall girl, red hair. She’s in the right hand background getting loaded into an ambulance while this lady is talking
There was a brief moment of silence as everyone went to look, and then… a cascade of “Doesn’t look like anything to me.”
[7:32]Star_Struck: Eu4ia, you go to CHS right? Do you know anything about it?
[7:34]Eu4ia: Sry SS. Turn on the news, I cn’t talk abt it, muggles present
Interesting. She used a gesture to open another panel, accessing a news site. She watched a lithe woman with grey-green skin smile at the camera. Between the shades at night and the impeccable suit, definitely some type of federal agent.
“If you’ll all just look… right here.”
Twilight cursed and threw her glasses aside, pressing her palms into her eyes following a bright flash of sickly green light and… What was she doing again? It couldn’t have been important if she forgot so easily…