The other side of the looking glass
Other Sunset
The autumn breeze feels good whooshing through my fingers, waving my hands out of dad’s sunroof. Sure he grumbled about it but I told him it wasn’t that cold out. The Moon is rising and it looks gorgeous tonight, framed at three ends by bright evening stars. The air has crispness, almost a kind of magic to it. It’s like I can sense the possibilities in the air.
I reflect on the events of this week and of the last few weeks overall. High school takes a little adjusting. There were certainly a lot of new people to meet but I’ve really made my mark. I’ll be running the social scene soon just like in middle school. Sunset Shimmer, you are ambitious to a fault but with brains, looks, and drive there’s nothing beyond my reach. I suspect with a little more schmoozing (and leverage) Flash and I have the Fall Formal crowns hands down. Everything is going my way.
Dad lets me off in front of school.
“See you in a few hours, darling.”
“Later, dad!”
I stand in the courtyard for a bit and look up at the wings of Canterlot High rising up around me, welcoming me. I’m going to love ruling this place. I’m already bucking for leadership of several clubs, getting along great with the principal. I’m practically her personal protégé. It’s going to be a lot of work getting to where I want to be but it’s going to be a lot of fun! But for now there’s a Fall Formal to win and a gymnasium to decorate.
I’m busy composing my coronation speech when the first unexpected event of the evening occurs. It’s something terrible. It’s a sharp searing pain to the back of my head followed by loss of consciousness. You know, in that brief moment of shock and panic I feel furious. Who would have the temerity to attack ME?
Then things are black for a while.
“Ah, you’re awake; and not dead. That big huge head of yours is stronger than I thought.”
My head is in fact radiating pain, it feels like it might split open. When I dare to open my eyes I find that I’m lying in a wheelbarrow of all things, hidden behind some hedges at the far end of the courtyard. There’s a girl in the shadows nearby with a shovel casually resting on her shoulder. All I can see of her is a little moonlight falling across hateful green eyes.
“Wha? Why?”
“I Ask The Questions Around Here, Sunset Shimmer. You want to get another whack?” She menaces the shovel in my direction. When I don’t answer she sticks it into the ground and… she’s going through my purse! Soon my I.D. card is being shoved in my face. “Does this thing have your address on it? Eh?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Who is this?”
“That’s a picture of my boyfriend, Flash.” What kind of robber or bully is this? Why does she sound exactly like me?
“Hmm. Your mother’s name doesn’t happen to be Starlight Shimmer, is it?”
I glare at her and purse my lips.
“You’d best be answering me!” She drops the purse in favor of the shovel.
“Yeah! Yeah. Don’t hurt me anymore, please!”
“Hmgh. Figured as much. This is too easy.” She steps closer and… it’s me! She is me. She grins at me like some kind of crazed maniac. Then she looks up at the sky.
“Do you keep a diary?” She towers over me. It’s a good tactic for interrogation, I would know. “Answer me!” She flicks me on the chin and my aching head hits the cool metal behind me.
“Oww! Yes! I do.”
“Where is it?” she snarls.
“My closet, behind some magazines.”
“Sunset Shimmer, this is your lucky night. If we hurry I won’t even have to kill you.”
“Kill me? Who the hell are you? Why do you look like me?”
My doppelgänger grabs the handles of the wheelbarrow and starts taking me away. “You’ll find out soon enough. I’m sending you to my home. I’ll be using yours for a while, thank you for being so generous.”
“Wait, No!” I try to sit up.
She punches me, hard, right where she beaned me with the shovel a bit ago. It hurts!
“I’d expect me to put up a fight but you’re outclassed, missy. Just hold tight. I’m not a murderer but I’ve given up too much to have any qualms about hurting you. Now SIT TIGHT.” She emphasized the last two words with hard yanks on my hair. “Do we understand each other, ape?”
I don’t know how to answer. I just shiver. I’m no stranger to bullying. I’m a pro at it. But this girl seems dangerous. Is this how people see me?
She takes me to the statue in the middle of the courtyard and stops to check the sky again.
“We’ve got just moments to spare. Okay. Get up. I said get up!”
“Stop that! Don’t hurt me anymore.”
Evil twin sighs. “You have… you just have no idea what you’re dealing with. Is everyp- everyone here this thick? I can’t have you ruining my plans. Now stand here, you stupid ugly hinny.”
I do what she says. I’m scared, she seems genuinely dangerous.
“Okay. You may feel a dizzying sensation.” Her sly self-important expression turns to a snarl. She violently lashes out, thrusting her palm to my poor battered head. I lose my balance an fall. I’m worried that she’s slamming my skull into the statue’s plinth but Oh My God I’m Falling! There is a terrible feeling of vertigo, an explosion of color, an elongating feeling. I don’t know how to describe it and I’m good with words. Twisting and twisting. It’s a sickening experience.
I didn’t tell my dad I loved him when he dropped me off.
Once my world stops spinning I find myself on a cold stone floor. My head is throbbing. The next thing I notice is that I’m naked. I try to get up but my legs don’t cooperate. I try to stand and it’s like my knees are all wrong so I flop back onto the floor with this “thock” sound. I try to feel around. Oh god my fingers. What’s wrong with my hands? They’ve been replaced with smooth round things. How long have I been sobbing? I didn’t even realize. My mouth feels weird. What’s wrong with my face?
“Hark! Who goes there?” A large door on the other side of whatever room I’m in opens up and light shines though. A horse walks through! What is going on? The light is shining out of his head.
“Who? Oh, Miss Shimmer. What are you doing here?” THE HORSE JUST SPOKE AND HE KNOWS MY NAME? It shines the light on me and I see my arms, my body is covered in hair. And it’s not my body! I’m screaming. “Miss Shimmer, are you injured? Alert the infirmary! I need a doctor!”
This is beyond what I can take. I skitter across the floor away from the talking horse thing and hit some kind of statue.
“Be calm, Sunset. We’ll get you help.”
“How can you talk?! Horses Cannot Talk!”
“Miss Shimmer?”
“Get away! What’s happened to me?!”
Some other stuff happened, I guess. I’ve been kind of out of it for a while. Must have been when I realized the talky horse had a horn and when I insisted unicorns aren’t real he pointed out that I was, in fact, a unicorn and he was right. I had a freakin’ horn on my forehead. Conversation degraded at that point. Now there’s another talking horse and he has a stethoscope on his ass for some reason.
“Please drink this, Miss Shimmer. It will help calm you.”
“How do you horses know my name?” I can’t help but sink back into uncontrollable crying at this point. So much for the Princess of Canterlot High. “I want my mom and dad. Please, change me back.”
“You need your rest, miss. Drink this and we’ll get you to the infirmary.”
“I can’t hold this without hands!”
They just look at each other like I’m the crazy one, rather than the two talking unicorns.
I won’t sugar-coat it, the drink helped but I was hysterical or numb with shock for the rest of the night. When the sun rose in the morning I could clearly see the hospital room around me but horrifyingly it was still staffed by talking horses. Another one pays me a visit. I can tell it’s a girl because it is smaller and rounder than the others. Get this, this one actually wears glasses.
“Good morning, Sunset Shimmer. Princess Celestia sent me so you can account for your actions the last three days.”
“Princess Celestia? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I most certainly am not. Where have you been?”
“How do you know me?”
She looks confused. “I’m Celestia’s scribe. You are her student.” She seems to think we’re besties. I’m not having it. I’m done feeling crazy and I’m getting cranky.
“This can’t be some kind of joke. Why am I a horse? How can you talk? Someone tell me what is going on!”
Unicorn lady looks confused. “This really isn’t helping your cause.”
“Arrgh! I’ve been going to school the last three days. Why are you asking me these things? None of this can be real. I’m a person! A human being.” I’ve been trying to gesture but I see my disgusting hoof thingys and it sets me off crying again. “Help me, please.”
She gives me this look. This adult look. This Department of Education jaded look and I realize she reminds me of someone. The frumpy 60s ponytail. The glasses. She looks like Mrs. Scrivener, the school secretary. But horse. This just freaks me out more so I bury my weird nose in the pillows.
Secretary horse goes away after a while so I try to work out what I’m going to do but the thoughts just rush and compound on each other. Where should I even go?
Then the most amazing creature comes to see me. This must be the Celestia every horse has been talking about. The colors of her hair, coat, and eyes match. It seems a little like her somehow. But this horse has this presence to her like furiously powerful, but gentle, and infinitely sad at the same time. She’s nearly twice as big as all the other horses. Big swan wings nearly tough the celling and she has a big long horn. I’ve seen some with wings and some with horns (a few without either) but none with both. And jewelry on an animal? She’s, what’s that vocabulary word from last month? Luminous.
She comes right up to my bedside and I’m just like transfixed. “Sunset, we left on rather bad terms. Where have you been these last few days and what have you been doing?”
I feel the edges of my mouth twitching. “Just been going to Canterlot High and home to my parent’s house like any other day.”
“Quill and the others tell me you are disoriented.” I just- I just shake my head. Not a “no” but more like I dunno how to even answer that. “If you would let me I would help you.” Big white mythical horse is asking nicely. How? She waits for an answer for a polite time then says something I miss because I’m looking at her horn (horn!) light up yellowish and somehow don’t flinch when she touches it to my head.
When I’m reading and it gets to a “and my life went flashing before my eyes” I’m usually like whatever. That’s so tired. I bet that never happens but it does because that’s what happens now. And this talking horse Celestia, fairytale version of my principal, takes her big long head away and looks at me with those big, magenta eyes. She gets this look that reminds me of my mother sometimes and that makes me sad all over again.
“You aren’t lying. You aren’t the Sunset Shimmer we know. Poor child.”
“What’s happened to me?”
“I am afraid you are a victim of my poor judge of character. Somepony like you lived here as my student. She forced you here, didn’t she?”
“Get me back.”
“I’m afraid that is not possible, at least not for a while.” She turns to Miss Scrivener. “Quill, release some funds from the treasury.” She turns back to me. “We are going to make sure you have a place to stay so you can get acclimatized.”
“My liege, do you think that is wise? Do we know if she is anything like Miss Shimmer?”
“Quill, do not talk about somepony when you are in their presence, it is rude.”
“Yes, my princess.”
“Sunset, this must be very strange for you.” I’m trembling. “For what it is worth I am very sorry for your confusion and hurt.” I have to lie down again and pretend I’m not here. Too much strangeness for one day.
One of the orderlies is nice enough to take me outside for a bit everyday though I suspect it’s an excuse for a smoke break. I don’t understand how he can even hold much less light the things but if that was the weirdest thing for me to deal with I’d be a lucky girl. I’ve improved after my concussion; I think they’re just keeping me around until they know what to do with me. This place is pretty amazing. It’s like the Emerald City but all alabaster and marble and gold onion domes. They tell me the city is built on the side of a cliff if you can believe that. Why does everything have to be so damn weird?
There’s pegasus (pegasuses, pegasi?) flying all around and sometimes airships. I like the fresh air but I can’t stay out here for too long before I get a panic attack.
“I’d like to go back inside.”
“Y’alright, miss?”
“I don’t belong here.”
I study my reflection intently, as if expecting something other than a regular mirror. I can see the tip of Celestia’s large sparkly tail undulating in the corner of the mirror. I examine the frame.
“So the portal opens every thirty moons?”
“That’s our best guess. I suspect if affects time as well space so that is just an estimate. It opens when the stars are in the right positions. I’m- I’m not the family expert on the night sky.”
“How often do you use it?”
“Occasionally an adventurous or eccentric student will cross to study your world. I’ve tried my best to relegate anthropology to the realm of myth. The consequences for its abuse are too dire.”
“Have you been to my world yourself?”
“Oh no, if I were absent for a single sunrise it would be noticed and I can’t risk becoming stranded.”
I turn to her. “Has that happened?” I don’t think I could take spending the rest of my life here.
“Sometimes, and I worry that leads to problems. The two universes exist in balance. I think our Sunset knew that, explaining her cruel actions bringing you here.”
“Do humans ever come through?”
“Your portal is in a public place so they do stumble through on occasion. We do our best to gently clear their memory and send them back.”
“So in two and a half years I can go back!”
Celestia looks uncomfortable. “Once I can ensure your safety. Clearly our Sunset Shimmer meant to take over your life wholesale based on her questioning. I have no right to put you into danger.”
“You have no right to keep me here, either!”
“These are questions for another day. Until then I shall find a home for you and continue your schooling. I shall have to tell our Sunset’s parents about her disappearance. One day you may wish to meet them, when it would be less painful for all involved.”
She was right. No matter how similar they may be to my own parents it would be heartbreaking to see them without proper time to morn and adjust. I looked back at myself. I am a mythical creature that I still feel has no right existing.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I had another dream about home last night. I was riding in a car. I shall probably keep having them a few times a week. I doubt the memories of certain technology and entertainment, even foods will fade. I try to see these dreams as gifts and not sink into depression and homesickness.
I don’t know if I will ever be truly gifted at magic. Maybe it is an ability developed in the unicorn brain at birth and I will always be a bit stunted. Leadership classes come far easier. I don’t see how so many ponies fear public speaking since I really get a charge out of using my communication skills in front of an audience. I am keeping up with your friendship lessons, of course. That doesn’t come naturally either. I have to resist becoming frustrated with other ponies when they do not do what I want and I either have to convince nicely, compromise, or abandon the topic. It makes me think of your Sunset and how we were the same. It hurts to write that just now but it is true. Our universes were mirrors of each other and I was and still am just like her and capable of the same horrible impulses. I often wonder how I would have turned out if I remained in my world. What sort of a woman would I have grown up to be? As much as I miss home and resent being here against my will I admit that I have become a better person, a better pony because of it.
And I have you to thank for that. Thank you for your kindness and patience with me, for putting trust in me despite how you were mistreated by my double. When I am tempted to abuse my position at the Academy I remember that trust and it keeps me from straying. I will not let you down. I will not squander the opportunities given to me. Your friendship and that of my classmates have kept me from going crazy these past few months. I didn’t really know what friendship meant until I came to Equestria, and I think I am happier because of it.
Please do enjoy the sweets. They were a bit of an experiment but I found them edible.
As always, Your Faithful Student,
Sunset Shimmer
Author's Note
I never thought I'd be writing a Human in Equestria story, and I never though I'd be writing an Equestria Girls story. However, when I started writing fan fiction it was to reslove plot issues that bothered me, usually with elaborate head cannons. The first two invoved Princess Celestia because really, she's the bees knees.
When I watched Equestria Girls there was one little throwaway Pinkie Pie line that bothered me, about how she had seen another Twilight "[living] in the city" who also had a dog named Spike. I felt really sorry for this Other Twilight, who would never be a princess, or have five great friends, or even be the trusted student of "Principal" Celestia. What was this lonly bookworm like?
Then it took a podcast review of the movie to point out the big plot hole. The movie set up the logic behind Other Twilight; if A is true than B must be as well. What happened to the EQG universe's version of Sunset Shimmer? Clearly Equestria Sunset had established herself at Canterlot High for a number of years, she wouldn't leave herself open to the danger of being found out as an imposter.
I hope you enjoyed my story, I'm open to criticism and corrections.
