Chapters Sunset Shimmer sits up in her bed. It almost feels like a normal day. Almost.
She stretches forward, drags a hoof over her bedhead and decides not to think today. The thin sheets curling around her legs can't keep her eyes busy so... She glances around her room for anything to catch her attention.
Anything to keep her from thinking.
It's an average-size for those living in the dorms of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Average-size as far she knows. Maybe, she could have had a better room if it wasn't for-
Ah! There is supposed to be no thinking today.
There's a mahogany desk in one of the corners. That desk over there, carved with her initials and childish stickers, is actually hers. The bed isn't. The sheets aren't. The room's not. The desk is ... She bought that desk with her own money. Actually, the scholarship's money paid for most of it- but it's hers.
And she can't take it with her. Come on, she has to mope about something else! It's a dumb desk, anyway.
Four large bookshelves take up the rest of the space that the bed and trunk don't. And there's still enough room for a throw rug on the wooden floor. It's a nice bedroom/study/her room alone. The next resident will take good care of it, right? Her large window- A large window by the bed lets in mid-day light. Or not. She's long since lost her clock. Threw it out in a fury a week ago. Doesn't want to think why.
If it's really noon, she's gone and missed her morning classes. What a real shame! Sunset slowly looks out her window, staring down at the courtyard. Students, unlike herself, are sitting in groups and eating packed lunches.
It's noon, alright. A good time to be traveling.
Sunlight warms her back as she presses her face into the tan curtains. And some lunatic screams into the fabric before tearing it down. It wasn't her. She needs to practice thinking that. Her lies to herself should be a bit more convincing!
What she's planning on doing is a smart idea! A great idea!
The pole holding up the curtain hardly clatters when it drops on the bed. That was petty with a capital P but who cares what she does! It's better to leave all of this behind! Far better to do so than to have it taken from her!
She doesn't live here anymore.
There is no point in living here anymore.
Again, her eyes is drawn to her seven year old desk. Has it really been that long? She remembers being so desperate when she was younger. So anxious to prove herself and not rely on the school's help for anything outside of general education. And with the money she saved and the part-time jobs she got around the dorms, she got that stupid, heavy desk. All by herself.
It was torture dragging that husk of a wooden death trap up the main stairway and through her door. On both her back and horn. Oh why, did she have to pick that one? She never had any visitors to show it off to. And really, if she still didn't have the heart to try and sell it, it might as well stay here.
She'll come back for it. Back to the school and this room, eventually . And if she says it enough times, it has to come true...
Sunset falls back into the bed. Kicks the sheets off and lays on her side. Right by the door, her packed bag waits with her train ticket perching right on the handle.
It's a small bag. There's nothing important in it.
Just a few books, school supplies, some clothes and snack food. She really didn't need a bag. She could get new stuff. Eventually . But somehow, seeing that bag and that ticket, makes everything more real.
She'll come back eventually but that won't be for a very long time.
Sunset growls, everything wrong starts to eat at her. Why was she leaving in the first place? Well, you see the reason why is- Don't think about it. Don't think about it at all! She snaps, bashing her head repeatedly into the wall. Trying hard to bottle up the swears waiting to be born into the world.
A intellectual mare did not swear or think badly of any pony. A intellectual mare welcomes competition and admits defeat gracefully.
But she curses anyway, “Rutting Twinkle.” And it feels so good.
“I dislike the rut out of you, cunt. Fuck you for getting a higher score on Professor Whittle’s third semester exam. Fuck you for making me number two in the grade ranking for the last three years. Fuck you for not staying in your actual grade and amazing all of the salt-rotters there. Fuck you for getting the award for highest test scores ever.”
Why can't she stop her mouth? The words won't stop pouring out.
“It doesn’t even matter if I get the highest score of this year because you’re the fucker who got the damn test changed to different standards. If I ever catch your plot in public, I will verbally whip you alive.”
Something in her wants to scream her last sentence outside, inside and maybe even out her drafty window. Here's a new fact for all the kids downstairs!
“Even if the Princess is in the room, I will torch every bridge I have to make you cry,” she pledges with no remorse. None. Already visioning a mare snapping right back after her and the whole mess turning into a brawl. “What a horrible way to leave my mark at school,” she sobs, voice withering to a whisper.
Twinkle… Spark or whatever… The mare of the hour who had legendary magic reserves. Was Canterlot-born, oo-ooh. Well-bred with a strong support system of having been born in a respectable noble house. So rich. So special. Flawless test scores and brilliant technical spell work highly noted by the Princess herself.
Please, the Princess is ridiculously nice to everybody. At least, to their faces.
Was it wrong for her to hate and envy, Twinkle? Was it unreasonable?
It's not personal.
She's never met the mare but she hates the result of her actions. The backlash of Twinkle, rocking the boat. If it was not obvious, stupid Twinkle already has everything she needs to have a good life! She doesn't even need to leave the house or mansion or castle she has waiting for her at home. But nooo, she needs to win all the awards.
Sunset groans, flopping back down into the bed. It makes a goofy squeak and she giggles away her pain. She smashes her head into her pillow. Inhales the smells of perfume, hair and spit until she coughs. The urge to chew on something makes her pull back.
Her stiff pillow has a torn stitch and she digs her teeth into it. Yanking and chewing like the uncultured hick she is, according to all of those loud mouths at school. 'You're not from Canterlot, no one sounds like that from around here, a-dur-dur! They let anyone in these days, a-dur-dur! What's your talent, being worthless, a-dur-dur? Backwater parasite, where's your mommy and daddy? They sold you for FLORA didn't they? So they could rot their brains and lose their teeth, a-dur-dur!'
So she had a filthy habit and?
Really?
Is that going to be the punchline? The thing that invalidates her as a pony? Hah, no. If she had a bit for all of the times someone tries to tell her to feel bad about this or that , she'd be richer than the Princess right about now! All of the nobodies would kill to see her caught in the act and now, they were never going to.
That is something to be happy about she'd like to think.
No more papers to turn in. No projects to make. No more Twinkle driving up her blood pressure. Life is going to get a lot more easier. And she's leaving on her terms. That's power . That's courage . Could Twinkle do this? Nope. Of course, Twinkle would never have to but whatever.
It's funny how ponies could forget that she was the Princess's student before Twinkle. Forget how they are being taught at the same time! It just slips the mind that's she's still the Princess's student and they can't make idle threats against her scholarship status! But that's how it is. They forget and well, it's simple to move penniless students to other institutions.
And she isn't going to waste her time continuing these stupid thoughts!
Sunset leaps off the bed. Gets firmly on her hooves, takes a deep breath and breaks down crying.
She'll try again in a hour.
---000---
Sunset stands at her still closed door, ignoring the door knob. It's taking her longer than expected... But she wants to wait until she feels ready. Until her knees stop trembling and breath evens out. Until... it stops being so real and final?
“It won't ever stop feeling scary, will it?” she says to herself. “Am I really going to wait until I'm pushed out by those nobodies. Those salt-rotters that I'll have to brown-nose for the rest of my academic career!”
Her hoof gravitates to the door knob.
Someone, stronger, braver, fiercer turns it. It was her.
And then, just like that, she's gone.
From A Letter She Never Sent
Dear Princess Celestia, my mentor and teacher, this is a letter that you will never read.
By the time you might have read this, assuming you found it hidden in a rune carved into my desk, I'm sure you would have forgotten all about me. There is no way that you would’ve have found this letter. You have your duties distracting you from hurrying to seek the reason behind my disappearance and I imagine you already knew something was off. After all, though it must of been strange of me to have left the school's dorms, packed and ready but oh so quiet.
I never told you of my plans of leaving but I never really told you anything, did I?
Had you remembered me and came to my room, the rune would be there on the desk but unactivated, empty. How would it stand out with all of the little things I've engraved into the desk? How would you know that this rune was different from all of the math problems, symbols and marks on the wood? You wouldn't. Even if the rune caught your attention, there was nothing to receive.
The letter was not written then. I have not sent it until now.
Princess, what do you think of me? A coward? A fool?
Don't smile like you always do.
Don't patronize me like you always do.
Don't watch in silence and make that little, pained smile like you always do.
Why did I leave the school? Why not, is my worthless rebuttal. Why not... The things that you could have said to me to stay are the same excuses I told myself when I was still there.
I left so I could keep my dignity. I left so I could keep my pride.
That doesn't make sense, I know but that's all I have. Pride and dignity was all I came with when I arrived at this school. It's only fair that I be allowed to take them with me. I've run off with them mostly because I couldn't take my dorm room with me.
These things I've left behind: My desk that was the first thing I bought with my own money. My trunk full of books that I've received from dear teachers over the years. My bookshelves lined with textbooks, papers and projects and of course, the most dearest thing of all, You.
I swore to myself that I would come back, eventually. I would return to reclaim everything with a greater and singular will than what I had before. Princess, you might have now made that pained smile and thoughts of my fellow student, Twinkle Spark, who is under your teachings as well, has filled your head.
Perhaps, you think of me as childish in my leaving. That I snapped under the pressure and this is my spiteful way of lashing out. I hurt my attendance, my grades, my teachers' faith in me, my scholarship and of course, you who picked me amongst all others more favorable.
But I have not snapped. Instead, I've left and I wonder what did you think of me while we were together as student and mentor. What on earth did you pick me for? I do not have the magical capabilities of Twinkle, the finesse of manipulation of Moon Dancer, the originality of spells of Lantern.
I am decent which fine and dandy but surrounded by those ponies, enhanced by your light and attention, I have become mediocre. Or maybe, I've always been mediocre.
I want to blame you but I can't.
I want to blame them but I can't.
I can only blame myself and so I've left.
This is the first of many letters and I'll write you of my days spent roaming the land. But really, this is the last report that you will receive from me as I've written this letter last. Despite what I've written in the others, what I say here is final.
Princess, I once thought it important to return to your school and prove myself to everyone and to you. For me to be such a sham of a student, I wondered how it made you look. I felt so guilty and ashamed but I could never talk to you about it. I imagined that you already knew and in your silence, your inaction that I was to learn another lesson.
I know better now. You didn't know and my silence must have made me inapproachable. Our relationship could have been better but I was young and you... were also silent. And this letter that you will never read, I want to proudly tell you that I am on way to Canterlot. I have come to collect my things and meet with you.
Eventually has come and yesterday has been slain.
Sincerely,
A Wayword Mage, Sunset Shimmer
The capital city of Evening Tide carries a vacant, naked terror to the tourists on the train. They gasp and coo at all of the residents with their wallets and pity. Sunset isn't excluded from this wave of emotional disbelief, shame and hate wafting up from the sight of the city from her window. As if the city is alive and spiteful, it takes note of their passage on the tracks and shakes the the train with mysterious quakes. They are tolerated, not welcomed.
The stewards smile away as they tell the passengers to remain calm. Sunset can't ignore what she sees. What she feels that doesn't make any sense. But it's true and it's terrifying. The city's awake. The city knows who they are, mere children under it's gaze and who they belong to. Evening Tide is crying and Sunset somehow manages to look away when a steward makes her way over.
The city's tears, this vicious creature's tears are not of sadness but of hate. Somehow, the Princess' sun hasn't touched this place and water, whether salt or fresh cradles everything. And that everything was once something more. Sunset can't imagine it, what this place might have looked like in its heyday, but the city does. The city remembers for all of them.
There's no harmony here. None of those virtues that the Princess has exalted from sea to sea. This land belongs to Equestria, but it is not Equestrian. The city has made itself clear on what it thinks of them. What it thinks of the Princess and how far her rule would be allowed to be felt. And here, it's not. Is this why the Princess has let her go? So that she could return to her homeland and know of this place, no matter how hazy her earliest memories were?
The train slows and comes to a sloshing halt as it reaches the train station. Sunset sits up and gets onto her hooves with a dull, familiar ache. Four months of traveling east as east was willing to go on a train line will do that to you.
With a flick of her horn, she pulls her traveling case from under her seat and walks off into the rain. Doesn't get far dry, her hair deciding to prove it's desperation for a proper wash by collapsing and blinding her for the next hurried steps forward. Whipping her hair from her eyes, she takes shelter under a food stand selling dried and smoked seaweed.
Though the thought of wasting a few more crucial bits to snack on anything passes her mind, she waves the server away and turns back to the rain. It is mostly for the sentiment that she pulls out her train ticket, worn and yellowed, from her carry-on bag. She has spent four worthless months on a single train going on and on and this was as far as her flighty behavior could bring her?
Shouldn't someone have come after her now? Tracked her down to give her a strong lecture and that she should feel the consequences of her actions? Nothing should be this easy and free. What is she suppose to learn in such a place?
This place, old and constantly drowning from the waves and rains, seems proud. The ponies she sees are full of joy as they tilt their heads high in the heavy downpour and trot in the rotting muck. If this place sank under the waves, she doubts that they would even notice. Sickening.
Sunset looks down at her train-ticket and holds her breath for a single second of despair and failure. She's missed school. Her grades surely have dropped. The Princess has completely replaced her with Twinkle. Her scholarship status must be in question by the board of teachers. And even if she wanted to rush home to complete the rest of the year while she still had her scholarship, it would take another four months.
She paid for a round-ticket to Canterlot for her eventually return but it seems like she just wasted her money. Eventually. What a riot. She's gone and committed social suicide! What the heck did she run away from? Dignity can't her a roof of her head. She'd needed them and now she's gone and lost that.
Sunset sticks her head outside into the cold rain and pretends not to be crying along with the city. Pretends not to break under the weight of her stupidity and remorse. Her breath is still held in her lungs. Her body quivers. She exhales and the city keeps on crying without her.
“Sunlight? Is that you?”
“That depends on who that you is supposed to be.” Sunset mutters as a pony, tall and nimble, gallops up toward her, their long tail curiously links around a umbrella shielding them from the rain. “And you are?”
“You don't remember me, do you?” His voice is surprisingly deep but somehow, he feels fragile to her. A old memory bubbles up her stomach and she crushes it down. “I guess I shouldn't expect any better since you stop sending us lot letters, seven-ish years ago. I never stopped writing you. Got any of my letters?”
“I beg your pardon but you must have me confused with someone else.” She must be confused. She doesn't know this stallion. “I haven't received any letters from Evening Tide. And this is my first visit-”
“Home, yeah.” The stallion butts in.
“Don't do that, Brine. I swear you're so rude and-” Sunset blinks as her mind considers her words. “Your name is Brine and we know each other.” Someone's found her alright. Not the right pony. But...
“WhaleWish Orphanage with a capital O, not a lowercase one. I'm bringing that up because I do some freelance jobs for them now that I've grown up and live on my own...” Yeah, that really jogs her memory all right. They met at an orphanage. Fun memories that.
And she's missing most of what Brine's been saying by trying not to have flashbacks.
“We were good mates until your aunt came and picked you up.” Ummh, she doesn't want to remember that either. “Which let me ask you, do you think you are too good to talk with us, now? We shared letters when you were with your aunt. We shared letters when you were in the orphanage in Canterlot. We shared letters when you got into that fancy school. But suddenly you stopped responding out of the blue.”
“It wasn't like that. I got caught up with trying to catch up with my peers. They had training and if I wanted to-”
“Pfft, like I care.”
“Then why you'd ask!”
“I find it best to get these things up and out of the dark. Unpleasant feelings need to be sorted out quickly for the sake of our friendship.”
“Friendship! I am not interested-”
“Of course, you're interested. You're going to be spending your home-coming staying with me. I hope you didn't try to make any reservations around here. The hotels are quick to forget you name on their books. You are so lucky that I got a new apartment too. Three whole bedrooms. Two baths. Nice plumbing and it's right over a little restaurant. What are making that face for?”
“Are you serious, we just met... We just met again for the first time in eight years. You don't know me. You don't have to do this.”
“I know. I would like to. And even if you don't want to stay with me, let's go to my place anyway. It is-” Brine looks to the food stand's clock siting on the counter. “Time for elevenses.”
“Elevenses? Is that another name for brunch?”
“No! Not at all. It's not even past lunch-time yet. You make me sick with your ignorance. I don't remember you at all.”
“That's what I've been saying.”
“Well, you've said too much. Come on, then.” Brine's tail curves and moves past his hold on his umbrella and wraps around her traveling case's handle. “Another name for brunch... You're funny.”
The only reason she follows is because Brine has stolen her bag. That's it. His almost familiar face is a comfort in this dreary backdrop of dilapidated buildings of stone and iron. With the sky draping gray blankets along the distant horizon, she knows that this storm, the city's cries will continue long into the night. And she doesn't exactly have hotel money so maybe she should take up Brine's offer?
Better than train station benches. Now, that is something she could write books on. The quality of benches and the best way for them to be built and stationed in train stations. That would put her back in everyone's good side... 'You have saved the back ache crisis of commuters everywhere!' Hahaha, that was a good laugh.
The roads they practically swim in go up and around like a mound of disorientated snakes. There's no rhythm to their steps as they pass the same place twice.
Or what looks like the same place twice. Or twice, the people same because Brine's been awkwardly looking over his shoulder. Not at her but at random residents; ponies, griffons, dragons and goats who stop whatever they were doing to stare at him. Some of the bolder ones follow, shouting at him and asking for him to stop.
Sunset wonders if she should ask what is going on. What if brick-head Brine got himself into some criminal activity? She could be walking around with some gangster's minion. But then she remembers like one does when they say a known but rude secret in public. Brine wasn't supposed to live this long. He's a walking superstition and his story is supposed to play out the same as the others. Some how, someway, the water will reclaim him and the Lady shall take him to her watery court. Or something. The old story doesn't go that way but she'll recall the right words soon enough.
“How are you doing that?” Sunset asks as her eyes takes in Brine's well-groomed and thick tail. His tail is bright and green like the color of sea foam and stands out against his dark coat.
She checks to see if his cutie mark will give her a clue. Perhaps the tail-maneuvering is a special talent? His cutie mark is a crown and scepter surrounded by swirls. How vague and usual like most cutie marks are? Well, she was hoping to see a cutie mark related to the circus or something. Juggling pins or a burning hoop.
Her cutie mark is no better. Two suns meeting and leaving each other. She's lied to others and said it was a inverse sun and that her power would always increase. Her weakness would become her strength, her fears turn into courage. It was a childish lie. It was a silly hope. And now, it is definitely something that couldn't come true.
With little help from his cutie mark and her thoughts, Sunset waits for Brine's answer.
“That... Do you mean keep up my sunny-disposition? Sometimes, I think my name should have been Sunset and yours Brine. I'm a delight to be around and well you-”
“I meant your tail.”
“Oh that. Hmm, it's nothing special. I got trained by the matron after she adopted me but I think she was just training me to be her little paper boy. Even now, she finds a excuse to drop out a box-load of papers to be sorted and signed at my job. I'd like to tell her that it's annoying but somehow, I'll walk away with more work.” Brine prattles on as if he's secretly pleased to be annoyed at extra work.
Sunset could understand the feeling of loving secret extra credit. But really, couldn't Brine stick to the point? He hasn't changed a bit. Brine was a dopey, tall and all knobby knees child that always needed her to watch over him and after all this time, all that's changed his height and way of walking.
Maybe he's less of a whiny dope and more of a air-head. And he's gained fine, firm legs. Sunset blinks. Where did that thought come from?
“You still haven't answered the question. How are you holding the umbrella and pulling along my bag?”
Brine is silent and then- “I have no clue what you're trying to ask me. Didn't I answer it? The matron trained me. It's how I do my job which is seventy percent paperwork and thirty percent making sure a lot folk gets theirs done. Wait, I'm wrong. It's a hundred and thirty percent paperwork! Get it? It's a little scribe humor. Wanna hear a proper joke? ”
“Your tail!” Sunset snaps. “Oh my god, I'm asking about your tail! I couldn't do that with my tail holding all those heavy things. Moving parts of the tail without it breaking apart. Is it some kind of shampoo?”
Brine makes a crooked, clever smile that brings back more memories of a distant youth. Brine's always been tall but so easy to push into the water. He's like a sheet of paper just asking to be stepped on. “It's the water, Equestrian. It's the water.”
Out of all the ponies Sunset has met, Brine should be afraid of the water the most.
“Are you judging me for not being whatever the heck you call yourself? You. Do you know who I am? I am-” Sunset sucks in all of her breath and deflates. “I'm nobody.”
Brine bumps into her and snorts.“Don't say that. You're an Equestrian. That's worse than nobody.”
Equestrian this, Equestrian that. Who cares about Princess Celestia? She's not seen in this land but Brine better be aware that this is her land.
“Oh, shut up. You're Equestrian too. All of this place is Equestria.” Princess Celestia has made it so. Her rule. Her law. Brine, what on earth could he know better than her. She's studied under the Princess, meditated on her words even if they confuse her.
How dare he mock the country the Princess has made great!
“No, it's not and they know it. You know it too, from the moment you stepped on this land. This place has been cursed and Equestia has no business getting into it. It may be Equestia on papers and maps...”
He pauses, lingering on the silence. Turns to stare into her eyes and the rain slows to a drizzle. The city's quiet, it's hate lowers into a mild mumble as if waiting to hear Brine's proclamation. His words, it's as if she knows what he's going to say. Sees that fevered look she feels in the bottom of her being.
“Eventually, it won't be.”
“Eventually,” she echoes, her lungs feeling faint. Those words are lies. For her. For him. To her. To him. Did Brine have his own Princess Celestia? His own Twinkle? “Where do you hear such things? Aren't you just propping yourself up?”
Isn't she just propping herself up?
“Well, I'm living proof of eventually and guess what, you are too.” He says with that crooked smile of his. “After all, what else did you come here for?”
'My eventually is in Canterlot.' she doesn't say. 'And I would like you to come with me on that day I return. We can only find eventually or the sublime or the meaning by searching for it. It doesn't come for us. We aren't anything special.
You've proved that you aren't special.
You're still here.
You're still in Evening Tide which is a worse place than Canterlot. They have pride here because they have nothing else. This place is a wet grave and by your words, you aren't dead to this place. You shouldn't stay here.'
Instead, she says, “I have come here because of dignity, because of stupidity and I've found it's lovechild! You should hear yourself. So dramatic. You've haven't changed at all, Bewitched Brine.”
Brine glances away, that smile creeps back into it's cave and he starts walking away. “You're terrible, Sunlight. Bringing up that old name to stop me. You know I'm right. But if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. Just don't call me Bewitched Brine. That name still gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“I'll think about it.”
“Sunlight!”