Mirror Redemption

Sunset was throwing off my counting.

I lay flat on my back in bed, my posture perfect, hair brushed, teeth cleaned, covers pulled up to just below my neck, keeping my breathing steady. This was my preferred sleeping position, which I'd been perfecting ever since I was a little girl, and it had never failed to make me drop off exactly in time for my recommended eight hours. But Sunset was throwing me off. She was curled up in a sleeping bag next to my bed, just her hair visible through the top of it, and every few minutes she would rustle around inside it and sigh. Behind my eyes, a sheep jumping over a fence stumbled on the landing and fell over with a panicked bleat, jolting me from nearly-asleep to awake again. I blinked into the darkness, listening to my best friend roll over uncomfortably yet again, and worried.

This was my first ever slumber party, and I'd wanted so badly for it to be perfect. I'd bought a book just for the occasion, full of tips and games and rules and promises, and I'd tried my best to follow it to the letter. Sunset had laughed when I'd brought it out - she laughed at me a lot - but she'd played along, offering her own suggestions whenever I got nervous, and within an hour we were having so much fun I'd forgotten about the script entirely. We played board games and ate snacks and told each other secrets and took lots of pictures, and time flew by so fast that I even missed my recommended study break. Now it was close to midnight and we were both in bed, exhausted, the products of a slumber party well spent.

But now Sunset couldn't sleep. And so neither could I.

I shifted without meaning to, which only threw me off further. I'd changed in the bathroom, another alteration to my slowly-forming schedule, and had kept my underwear on under my silk peejays. This hadn't been planned at all, but when it came to it, being without my underwear in the same room as Sunset had just felt... wrong, somehow. She was already dressed when I got back, and the thought that she might have been naked in my room threw me for a second. She was wearing an old sweater and what looked like sweat pants, both the wrong size for her and well-faded. Her sleeping bag, too, was stretched and scratchy and looked like it had seen a lot of use. Given how nice her clothes were at school, it always surprised me when this other side of her showed itself. Not for the first time, I wondered what her home life was actually like.

Downstairs, the clock chimed twelve, the soft, mechanical jingle filling the whole house. I wasn't sure I'd ever actually heard it before. Sunset swore to herself and moved around in her bag some more, then abruptly stood up. I thought that she was just going to the bathroom until I heard the sheets lift. Then suddenly she was in bed beside me, her arms snaking around me, squeezing me against her. "Sunset?" I mumbled.

"Shuttup, you're warm."

I tried to hold my breath. The book hadn't said anything about sharing beds. I had no idea what the protocol was in this situation, but I was pretty sure it wasn't this. Still, Sunset was older, so I had to assume she knew what she was doing. Up close, her thin sweater was musty and scratchy, like horse hair; I had no idea how she could stand to sleep in it. Her warm breath was on my cheek. Her leg crossed over mine, and I reddened as I started to realize just how close together we were. Moving ever so slightly, I became acutely aware of her breasts pressing against me. She'd developed early, and there were definite bulbs of softness that I could feel rubbing against my own flat chest as I struggled to get comfortable. I was definitely sure that wasn't in the book. "Sunset?" I whispered before my mind could wander anywhere further south.

"What?"

"This isn't... lesbian, right?"

Her breathing stopped. "What?"

She sounded confused. I wondered if I'd said something wrong. "I mean..." I squirmed. She was so warm. "You're not going to kiss me in the night or anything, right?"

She paused for a while, as though thinking. "I dunno," she mumbled sleepily. "You are pretty cute..."

My turn to freeze. An indistinct knot in my stomach tightened and I stiffened, letting out a faint, involuntary squeal until Sunset's laughter shook me out of it. "Stop being such a baby," she said. "No, I'm not a lesbian. You've got something against girls liking girls?"

I relaxed. "It's... gross," I answered, scrambling to sound informed about a topic that I'd only recently become aware of. "And... and it doesn't make any biological sense. Being attracted to someone who you're incapable of reproducing with is just a bizarre mutation that should have been-"

"Twilight, shut up." She put her hand behind my head and pushed my face against her neck, smothering me. "There's nothing wrong with girls liking girls, okay? Let it go."

I was too tired to argue, and didn't really want to, anyway. We lay there about a minute more before she spoke again. "My brother and I used to sleep like this, back when we were kids," she said. "We took turns sneaking into each other's rooms. It was the only way we could get to sleep most nights. He always slept facing away from me, though, or we'd poke each other's eyes out. I always woke up in the morning with his mane in my face."

I struggled to pull some of those images together. "Mane?"

"...Yeah. That's what I called it. He had long hair." She clung to me a little tighter. "The first week at the foster home, I couldn't sleep at all. When the RA caught me trying to sneak into another girl's bed, she threatened to throw me out. I've never had a good night's sleep since that night, Twilight. Never."

There was something unfamiliar in her tone, something that I'd never heard before, and for a moment I was struck by the idea that I'd caught a glimpse of something that I wasn't supposed to see. If there was meant to be a riddle in her words, however, my past-its-bedtime brain couldn't puzzle it out. "I'd never share a bed with my brother," I announced instead. "That would be weird."

She snorted, and her hands flexed across my back, and just like that she was back to herself again. "Shame," she said. "I know I wouldn't mind sharing a bed with him."

"Hey!"

"All right, all right. Hands off." She nuzzled me. "But only because you're my best friend."

I held in a gasp. "I'm your best friend?"

"Best and only, Twilight. And don't you ever forget it."

Sunset spent all of Saturday in the hospital. I spent it staring at the wall.

My memories of the night before were... hazy. I definitely remembered the party, and a few still images of Shimmer's leering face, and then after that everything went red. I still felt twisted up inside, thinking about what she said to me. I'd never hated so much before. Then came the embankment. And the briars. Oh, the briars. That was where we finally lost her, a witch cackling away into the night.

Applejack drove me home in silence. We pulled up around eleven, and she hugged me and gave me a long, searching look before leaving me on the front porch. I was inside by the time I realized I hadn't thanked her. My mom had stayed up waiting for me; her words were a blur, but I heard her tone oscillate through surprise and anger and pleading. I brushed her off with an emphatically blank expression and stumbled my way up to collapse in the shower.

I didn't feel anything. I was good at not feeling anything. It was one of the only good things about me. I examined myself and my situation with calm, professional, objective detachment. Physically, I was fine. Exhaustion had dulled my senses, making it easier to pluck the last thorns from my legs. I was scratched, bruised and muddied, but I would recover. The same could not be said of my dress. A rock that had scraped the skin off my knee had shredded holes through the lower half, and the rest was stained and pockmarked beyond what cleaning could fix. I wasn't looking forward to returning it to Rarity. That made four of my new friends now who'd tried to do something nice for me, only for me to ruin it and throw it back in their faces. If I kept up like this, maybe I could get all six of them to hate me before the week was up.

So Sunset was dating my brother. No... Shimmer. Same deal. The idea that there were two of those monsters loose in this world gave me shivers. An identical copy with all the same secrets, all the same envy, and all the same will to hurt and destroy. I couldn't bear to imagine what she'd done to Shining Armour in her clutches. I could only pray that whatever she'd done to him, whatever she'd transformed him into, it was no worse than the way she'd mutilated me.

My lungs hurt from screaming. I found blood under my nails. I sank down to my knees, wishing that the steaming water would wash away something it couldn't possibly reach. I'd been like a rabid animal. Just a dumb beast, bent on hurting others. This wasn't how Princess would have solved this. She would have stood by her friends, gotten to the bottom of things, taught everyone a lesson about love, and earned a reunion with her long-lost brother. She would have taught Shimmer a lesson, one that would actually stick, and maybe even become her friend. She would have been the embodiment of her crest and destiny and made the world a better place for everyone. She would have gotten it right. I just made everything worse. As usual.

I shuddered and retched. I could feel my crest, etched deep down in what a person of lesser intellect would call my soul, and I wanted to cut it out. Those brilliant spikes and stars cut into me, shining without flaw, oblivious to the fact that what it had chosen to attach itself to was a festering heart of bile and disease. I choked and spat, vainly hoping that I could turn myself inside out and rip that sparkling, hopeful destiny out of me. I wasn't a creature of friendship. I was a creature of hate, and I didn't ever want to hurt anyone again by pretending otherwise.

This state lasted longer than I'm comfortable admitting. The water was turning cold when I finally picked myself up, splashing the evidence of my outburst from my face. I blew past my mother a second time in a towel and collapsed on my bed, letting my old schedule embrace me. I never should have left it. I would become invisible again. No more losing friends, no more stealing boyfriends, no more letting my brother's abuser laugh in my face. All I wanted was to disappear. Everything would be better if I just...

...disappeared.

In half-conscious twitches my hand found its way down between my legs, because at this point, why not. It was the only part of my body that anyone had any use for. I squirmed as I felt how easily I got wet, how greedily I stuffed my fingers inside myself, letting little shells of pleasure coat me as I used my memories of my two nights with Flash to block out everything else. I was exactly the kind of slut that Princess' friends had accused me of being. I considered continuing to let Flash use me like a toy, at least until Princess was comfortable in her body, but I knew that wouldn't work out. I'd already known that I couldn't risk him associating his negative feelings toward me with her. Still, that image was the one that my stupid, horny little mind ended up fixating on: of Flash furiously pounding into me, his hands on my neck, using me like I was nothing, like I was worthless, like I deserved to be treated-

I was near climax when I heard a knock. I clapped a hand over my mouth and threw my towel across myself, managing to close my legs just as the door cracked open. "Twilight?" my mom whispered, sticking her head in and then freezing. We stared at each other awkwardly, me flushed and half-covered, wearing a look of part guilt and part fury that I was sure, in retrospect, that all parents recognized. "There's someone on the phone for you," she finished, holding the device out and covering her eyes.

I fumbled around on the bed, clumsily wrapping the towel around myself, and stood. I lurched forward and grabbed the phone with my right hand, an admission of what I'd been doing even if that hadn't already been clear, and slammed the door with my shoulder. I grouchily put the phone to my head. "Hello?"

"Twilight?"

It wasn't surprising that my mom hadn't recognized my double's voice; even I barely understood her at first. She was breathing heavily and sniffling, like I did when I was holding in something much bigger. There was what sounded like traffic behind her. "Princess?" Angrily, I wondered why she couldn't have saved me some embarrassment by calling my cell, until I remembered it was probably still turned off under a pile of clothes in the bathroom. Stupid. I rushed to the far side of the room, away from listening ears, and knelt in the corner. "What's wrong?"

"Sunset," she forced out. "She..."

I spent Saturday staring at the wall.

Poison.

I'd never considered poison before.

I moved in a daze. Dress. Feed Spike. Eat the toast and eggs that's put in front of me. Walk Spike. Stare at the wall.

Poison.

I idly stroked Spike, who'd curled up in my lap after his walk, sensing he was needed. I felt sorry for him, having to put up with an owner like me. I wondered how he'd cope if I was gone. The "if" was slowly ripening to a nebulous "when", even if I couldn't put exact thoughts to it, not yet.

When Princess had called, Sunset's condition was still unstable. She hadn't gone into detail, which was probably for the best. If I'd known exactly what she'd taken, or how much, then I would have had something to research. I would have tried to calculate how high a fatal dose would be, how much of the drug was still in her system, the success rate of various procedures, the probabilities of death, of organ damage, of waking up and being completely fine, and how long I would have to wait until we would know anything for sure. Knowing no details opened up so many more possibilities to explore, letting me plummet willingly into a functionally infinite ocean of speculation. But even if I'd known the prognosis down to the slimmest detail, all I would have been left with was a printout of probability fields and countdowns, like I was certain that Princess was staring at right now, praying to whatever pony version of McCarthy she believed in that her friend would fall on the right side of the line. A clinical study of us both may have been the world's only chance of knowing for certain which approach was truly worse.

A doorbell skimmed over my thoughts, and a minute later my mother's voice cut through them. "Twilight?" She knocked on my open door, for once without a phone in hand. "There's one of your... friends? At the door for you?"

I ignored the several unstated questions and marched downstairs. Waiting outside was Rainbow Dash, standing several feet away with her back to me. I tried to judge her posture before saying anything. Her hands were clenched. "Rainbow...?"

In a blur of motion she spun around and practically tackled me, locking her arms tight around me. She kept her head next to mine; I still couldn't see her face. "I hate you," she growled. "I hate you so much."

For a number of reasons, I felt like I would faint. "Is Sunset..."

"She pulled through. This time. No thanks to you. If the real Twilight hadn't ordered me to be nice to you..." Her hands flexed across my back, and I understood. She wanted them around my neck.

I don't know what I felt. Relief? Disappointment? Envy? It was all too close and too soon, touching nerves that I thought I'd soldered shut. "I'm sorry," I said. It seemed the thing to say.

"I don't care," Rainbow spat. "Sunset didn't deserve this. None of us liked her at first, but we got over it. She's earned her friendship. She's saved the world more times than any of us. Her and Twilight have been through worse things than you can ever imagine, and you had no right to throw the old her in her face like that. No. Right."

I didn't object. I wondered if she knew.

She pushed me away. "S-stay away from her," she said. I finally caught a glimpse of her face, just a glimpse, pointed away from me. She'd been crying, and recently. I imagined she would hate for me to know that. "Just leave us alone," she said with another shove. "Don't hurt her more than you already have."

"I won't." I turned away so she wouldn't have to hide from me. "I'll leave."

"This isn't over." She backed away, skipping on one foot, preparing to break into a run. "If she dies, you killed her."

I went back inside, letting her flee. What did she mean, if she dies? my inner self chirped. She said she was already out of danger...

This time.

I closed the door, the clunk landing in unison with a new weight in my stomach. I stumbled forward, not really seeing. "Twilight?" Suddenly, my mother was around me again, darting in and out like a gnat. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?"

I stopped dead and leveled my gaze at her. She didn't take the hint. "I'm fine," I stated flatly. "Everything's fine."

"It's not fine." She barred my way as I tried to push past her and folded her arms. "Your father and I are worried about you. For the past week you've been coming home at all hours, avoiding us, looking scared out of your mind, and now turning up looking like you've been dragged through a ravine. On your birthday, no less. Whatever has been happening, it isn't healthy." She raised her hands in desperation. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think. We tried calling that Pinkie Pie girl, but she just gave us some nonsense answer about ponies. I just want you to know that if you're being bullied again, or if you've gotten into any kind of trouble, you don't have to hide it. We're here for you."

It was almost impressive how wrong she was. I almost wanted to scream at her; couldn't she understand that on top of everything else that had happened to me lately, the last thing I wanted to do was deal with her as well? Instead I steadied myself, and wasn't fully conscious of the words I spoke until they'd already coldly passed my lips. "Why didn't you tell me Shining Armour was in Manehattan?"

She gaped, fish-out-of-water style. I felt my eyes narrowing into a glare. "We... Your father and I were worried about you," she started. "Shining Armour asked us not to tell you he was leaving, so we didn't. We didn't tell you anything after that because we couldn't. He hasn't called or written in years. We're worried sick about him, the same as you."

"But you knew." I felt something wretched rising up inside me. This wasn't the bubble that I had expected would burst today, but it would do. "You knew he was alive. You knew where I could find him. Why didn't you tell me?"

She fidgeted. "Sweetheart, we were just worried about your mental health," she said. "Ever since-"

"Worried! Worried!" I flailed at her. "All you ever do is worry at me! When has this worrying ever helped me?"

She put on her own forceful look. "Your greatest fear was changing schools," she said. "Why would I put you in a situation that might make you uproot your life for some silly quest to hunt him down?"

"That-!" ...Was actually something I would have considered. Shoot. Well played.

"But it doesn't have to be that way any more," she relented. "If having secrets kept from you was causing so much distress, then surely you can understand how your father and I feel about you. You've grown so distant, Twilight, and it frightens us." She edged closer. "We don't want our own daughter to be a stranger. Whatever's troubling you, I promise, no matter how strange it may seem, we'll understand."

Curse the source of my superior intellect. She smiled warmly, and I almost cracked, just long enough for a flood of images to swarm across my mind: the lying, the boyfriend-stealing, the selfishness, the threesome, the pain, the hate, the fight, the poisoning that was my fault. Her daughter the monster. "No!" I shouted, shoving my way past her up the stairs and flying into my room. "Get out!" I shouted at Spike, who'd curled up on the bed. He startled awake and whined at me. "Out!" I picked him up and practically threw him out, slamming the door as he turned around and stared up at me with literal puppy-dog eyes. I breathed heavily and let the room's silence suffocate me again, burying me in lost time.

Safe. Safe by hurting people who'd only ever loved me and wanted to help. Stupid.

I fell against the door and slid down it, covering my face. Felt myself grow numb. Felt coldness replace my limbs, replace my breath. Felt my organs shutting down. Felt my brain unwrite itself, line by line, deleting me from the world. Felt it all as hard as I could until I could feel nothing else. And then nothing at all.

I'm the poisoner.

I'm the poison.