Mirror Redemption

I was woken up by a knocking at my window.

I wasn't doing too well. My mom had relented and left a lunch and dinner outside my door for me, so I'd spent the entire day inside my room. Sometimes I'd picked things up and tried to read or get some work done, but my focus would always drift away from it. I went to sleep fully dressed and with zero self-maintenance. I guess as long as I was feeling like a wreck, I wanted to look the part as well.

I woke up slowly, my state confusing me. Everything was just a little bit wrong. The knocking turned to a pitter-patter, then into a steady rhythm of taps, which had morphed into the chorus of a pop song by the time I'd staggered upright and opened the curtains. I stared for a second and then cracked the window open. "Twinkleshine?"

Even though I could clearly see her, Twinkleshine kept up her knocking until she'd finished the chorus of her song. "Twilight!" she then exclaimed, beaming at me. She was hanging from a rope just inches from my window, seemingly suspended by her knees, and was wearing a thick leather jacket overtop of her usual frilly clothes. Behind her, the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. She waved cheerily, beckoning me to open the window further.

I complied, more out of confusion than anything. "Is that a grappling hook?"

"Good, you're dressed. Come on!" She beckoned to me. "We're going for a ride."

Despite everything, I still wasn't prepared to deal with this. Life just kept finding new and surprising ways to stun me. "Wha- Why?" I blurted out.

Twinkleshine gave me the sternest look I'd ever seen from her. "Because you need this."

There was no resisting that tone. I took a last look around my room, wondering if I could rationally protest any of this, and then put a foot on the windowsill. When I stretched my arm out and hesitated, she grabbed onto me and yanked me the rest of the way out, then held me tightly as she slid down the rope with a squeal. On the ground, she left our escape route where it was and pulled me along behind her to her motorcycle at the end of the driveway. "Where are we going?" I asked, wincing as my bare feet staggered over the asphalt.

"Shh. Just go with it." She dunked a large helmet over my head and threw a leather jacket across my shoulders. "Safety first," she said with a wink, then eased on her own helmet, which was decorated front and back with some kind of pink bird motif.

Before I knew what was happening, I'd been vaulted over the back of the bike and found myself with my arms around Twinkleshine's waist. "Is this safe?" I asked nervously. "I've never been on one of these be-"

"Mmm mm mmm-mmm," Twinkleshine replied, her voice muffled. I don't know why; her visor wasn't even down. She looked back, flicked down mine, and with a sound like an explosion, we were off.

The ride was something that I tried to edit out of my memory. We screeched around with a roar that was sure to get us noise complaints, weaving rather than turning around corners. I closed my eyes and held on for dear life. In reality we were probably doing the speed limit, but the way Twinkleshine drove made it feel like we were actually airborne, being flung back and forth in a hurricane. The machine underneath me screeched madly, a wild animal barely under her control. By the time we finally coasted to a halt I was almost paralyzed, arms and legs locked in a rock-hard, terrified embrace.

Twinkleshine pulled our helmets off and hung them from her handlebars. When I didn't immediately let go of her she simply stood up and vaulted off, me still clinging to her back. She held my legs and piggybacked me up another driveway; I caught sight of Lyra's letterbox as we passed it. "Why are we here?" I tried again, even though asking questions lately seemed futile.

"Getting backup," she whispered back. "You're one tough cookie."

Instead of going to the door, Twinkleshine skipped to the corner of the house and simply scaled it, digging her fingers into the brickwork. I grabbed at her shoulders and held on as she ascended like a squirrel, practically leaping the ten feet up to the roof outside Lyra's window. She looked back at me when she reached the top, as though waiting for a reaction, and then shrugged me off onto the tiles. "Wow, you didn't call me crazy or anything," she said. "I guess I was right."

"Right? What do you mean, right?" I tried to assume a sitting position on the sloped surface. "Seriously Twinkleshine, what's going on?"

She looked away from me uncertainly. "I just had a... feeling," she explained hesitantly. "It's a thing I do. I call it my Twinkle Sense. When someone needs my help, I just... know, somehow. I can feel it in my skeleton, right down to the little twitchy bones in my ears. And if I don't do everything I can to help, I get shivery and twitchy and can't sleep until it goes away."

That was ridiculous. It sounded to me like perfectly ordinary paranoia. But I had a magical pony clone from another dimension, so I wasn't really in a position to judge. "Sounds more like a curse," I said, swallowing the arguments that I would have put forth a week ago. "And... I'm fine. Really. You don't have to do this for me."

She ignored me and crawled forward. "I told Lyra to always leave her window open a crack," she whispered, "just in case..."

As she fell silent, I started to hear other noises, faint but distinguishable. It sounded like Lyra was awake as well. As Twinkleshine edged her fingers triumphantly under the window, my ears strained to catch what was inside. It sounded like a voice, and... rustling? "Are... are we sure this is a good time?" I whispered.

"It's always a good time for friends," Twinkleshine whispered back. As she pulled the window up, I heard Lyra's voice, more distinctly now.

"One shall stand, one shall fall!"

And then another voice:

"Why throw away your life so recklessly?"

"That's a question you should ask yourself, Megatr-aah! Do that again, do that again!"

There was a drawn-out moan, followed by a giggle. I froze on the roof. A faint nausea growled in my stomach. Twinkleshine froze too, her face turning as pink as her hair; unlike me, she could see inside through a crack in the curtains. "Maybe this isn't a good time," she said quietly, starting to pull the window closed again.

There was a loud, repetitive scraping, like cardboard rubbing against cardboard. "No more, Optimus Prime! Grant me mercy, I beg of you!"

"You, who are without mercy, now plead for it? I thought you were made of sterner stuff!"

My jaw dropped. "Wait... Bon Bon?" I covered my mouth as 'Megatron''s laugh was abruptly muffled and Lyra let out another moan. "It can't be!"

Twinkleshine blinked at me. "Huh?"

"I just... I thought... Lyra and Lemon Hearts have been making eyes at each other since..." I saw Twinkleshine's increasingly blank stare and gave up. "Never mind. Let's go."

We tried to arrange ourselves as quietly as possible, unable to escape the continuing voices from within. "I would have waited an eternity for this. It's over, Prime."

"Ah! Do not g-grieve... Soon, I-I shall be one with the m-matrix..."

"Is someone at the window?"

"AUTOBOTS! TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUUUUUUUUUT!"

Lyra's cry and the subsequent twitching rustlings and squeaking of bedsprings lasted fully ten seconds before Bon Bon spoke again. "Lyra sweetie, I think there's someone at the window."

"Oh shit."

The window opened again and a head emerged, obscured by what looked like most of a cardboard box, cut up and coloured silver. We were lucky. She didn't see Twinkleshine's fingers clinging to the edge of the gutter, or the top of my head as I clung to her, both of us precariously hanging from the edge of the roof. "Must have been a bird," our pursuer said, though she sounded unconvinced.

"Whatever." I heard Lyra stand. "Recharged and ready for another round, Megatron?"

"Now now, sweetie. It's my turn." Bon Bon tittered, then took on a deep, sultry tone that I never would have expected to hear from her. "Call me Ms. Shortcake."

The window shut.

I shivered; all sorts of mental images were squirming across my brain, and I hadn't even seen anything. I was suddenly glad that I hadn't eaten anything yet today. "You can let us down now," I whispered to Twinkleshine, trying to keep my voice level.

"Um..." She barely moved. "My arms are kinda tired."

"Well I'm- slipping!" I was. My skinny arms weren't made for these kinds of gymnastics; I was slowly sliding down Twinkleshine's back. I looked down and regretted it; one story seemed like an awfully long way. "Can't you do something?"

"Hang on. I'll try to reach the pipe."

She started shimmying along the edge, her swinging causing me to slip further. The gutter started to creak. I was surprised it was holding us at all. Her shoulders were locked nearly vertically; my fingers were pinched against her neck. I slid inch by inch down her back, my facefull of leather coming dangerously close to becoming a facefull of the back of her jeans, which was the absolute last thing I wanted right then. My fingers gave way and I squeezed tight with my elbows, scrabbling for a pocket on the front of her jacket... and instead caught a big, flowing handful of something else.

She didn't stop. I felt a jiggle. There was an audible silence. "Twinkleshine?"

"Yeah?"

"Why aren't you wearing a bra?"

"My puppies get claustrophobic."

A long pause.

"Do you like it?"

One story wasn't that far to fall after all.

The second ride took longer, but was somehow less harrowing. Maybe it was because we moved onto longer, wider streets, or maybe I'd gotten used to adapting to absurd things quickly. Or maybe I was just preoccupied with the position of my hands on Twinkleshine's sides. I still didn't open my eyes.

It took me a moment to figure out where we were when we stopped. We were on the weird hill at the edge of town with a road that ended abruptly at a sheer cliff; the place had become infamous after a string of near-accidents a few years back. A lot of questions had been raised about building codes and the place had been pretty much abandoned. Twinkleshine parked directly behind the "No Vehicles Beyond This Point" sign and helped me off. At her direction, we started to climb to the summit. I couldn't pretend to know where this was going. "Are you okay?" she asked.

I wasn't sure how deep her question was meant to penetrate, so I took a stab at one of the top layers. "I'm just... shocked," I answered, keeping my gaze low. "I didn't know Lyra and Bon Bon were... like that. I mean, I guessed, but... and Bon Bon too... I just don't know how I'm going to be able to look them in the eyes any more."

Without looking, I could already feel Twinkleshine's lips forming a question, preparing to tear me down. "And I don't hate them," I burst out, forestalling the expected argument. "I'm not like that, okay? I know there's nothing wrong with girls liking girls. Love comes in all kinds of forms and it's not my place to judge it. It's just... it's not me, okay? I don't want to have to see it, or walk in on it, or, or deal with it. I want them to just be my friends. You know?"

"Wait, wait." Twinkleshine grabbed me, gasping happily. "They're in love?"

"Well... yeah? I mean, they were..." I faltered.

"Oh. Is that all? I thought they were just having fun." She let go of me and ambled off, leaving me speechless.

We reached the crest of the hill. Here the road dropped sharply downhill, ending at a comically flimsy fence. Beyond that, the whole town stretched out before us. "We're in time!" Twinkleshine yelled as she ran the last few steps, clapping her hands. "We can watch the sunrise!"

I looked to the east. The sun had been clearly visible for a while now. "I think it's a little late for that," I said.

"No, silly. Stand over here!" She took a few steps to the side and motioned me over. "This is the best spot."

I followed. A shadow fell and I saw what she meant; from this angle, the town's only high-rise building stuck up like a nail, directly between us and the low-hanging sun. I squinted into the halo that surrounded it. "That's... nice?" I tried.

"No, look. Listen." She held on to me and pointed my head towards it. "From any other place you would be able to see the sun, right? The big, beautiful sun. Down there, up here, everywhere in between, everyone else is looking at the sun and smiling and thinking about how pretty it is. Everyone but us. We're the only ones in a dark place right now."

I squirmed. "That's not technically-"

"Shh." She covered my mouth. "And why are we in a dark place? Because of that building. And if we use our brains, we know that that's a really big building. It's so big, it's the only thing around that can block out the sun. But look at how big it really is." She closed one eye and held out two fingers, pinching the apartment block between them. "And look at how big everything else is." She straightened up and spread her arm wide. From here we could see all the way to the far-off mountains, the distant city, even the dry plains to the south. "No matter how big something is, it's never as big as everything else. And everything else is covered in the sun. And someday, that building will be empty and it will crumble away and turn into nothing at all, and the sun will still be shining. The sun will never stop shining.

"A lot of people would say to just ignore the dark things. They'll tell you to move them, or to move somewhere else. But you and me know that's silly. No matter what we do, we know we can't just make that building not be there any more, and we know that this is the perfect spot to stand in. So I say that sometimes, you need a big, scary thing to cast a shadow over you. Because if that building had never been built, and there was nothing blocking our view..." The sun finally crested the building, sweeping away the shadow and throwing the first true wave of morning warmth that I'd felt all day over us. Twinkleshine beamed. "...Then we'd never have been able to watch the sunrise together."

We stood there for about a minute more. Twinkleshine took her hand from my mouth and rested her head on my shoulder, smiling. "Twinkleshine?" I eventually said.

"Yeah?"

"That metaphor was really tortured."

I moved away from her. "Look, I... I know I'm in a bad place right now, okay?" I said. "And I know that things can get better. I know that. But..." I struggled to put my position into her words. "What if I'm the one who's casting a shadow on other people? What if I'm the thing they need to disappear?"

She didn't even blink. "Then maybe you'll be the reason they get to see a sunrise."

I ground my teeth in frustration. Briefly I wondered if I could somehow fit my poison metaphor from earlier into this, but I quickly gave up. "Look, thanks but no thanks," I said, taking another step back. "I can see what you're doing, and I appreciate it, but it's not going to work. I've done things I can't take back. I've hurt people. And I can't just solve those things by waiting for everything to get better. I have to make things right." I waited for her to respond, but she just stared. "Was that it? Was that all you brought me here to say?"

"No, Twilight." She reached solemnly into her jacket pocket. "I came here to give you... this." With a flourish, she whipped out a clear plastic bag. My expectations of a revelation immediately died in confusion; it contained a pair of chocolate muffins. "I thought you might want some breakfast," she said.

She had me there. Considering how little I'd eaten yesterday, I was hungry. "Um... thank you," I said, taking one.

"Anything for a friend, Twilight." Despite all that I'd said, she smiled.

We sat down by the side of the road and watched the sun rise higher. The muffin was crumbly and tasted like spice; knowing Twinkleshine, there probably wasn't a word for what flavor it was. "Don't you have church?" I asked, wondering what time it was. "I thought your family was religious."

"Well... kind of. My mom and daddy are. I went a different way." She reached inside her shirt and produced a goat-headed pendant, misshapen and painted garishly in all kinds of colours. "Discord for life."

"...Oh." My gut instinct was to recoil from the sight of the pendant, and despite my best efforts I found myself leaning away. I glanced back and forth between it and Twinkleshine, who thankfully wasn't looking at me. The idea that her long, pretty face and something so twisted could go together was bordering on disturbing. "I always thought Discordians were... you know, evil." I gave her a cautious glance. "No offense."

"No, you're thinking of Tirek's Children. They get mixed up a lot. It's the horns." She finished the last bite of her muffin and wiped her mouth. "Discordians aren't anything. It's what makes us us. It means no rules, not no values. It's just no two of us believe in the same things. We do whatever we want and don't try to act like anyone, not even each other. And if I want to drive around in the night and help people, no one can ever say that's wrong."

A tug of nervousness took over. "But what if you wanted to drive around in the night and hurt people?" I protested. "You wouldn't have any rules saying that's wrong."

"If someone really wants to hurt someone else, they never let rules get in the way anyway. It's why everything's so wrong in the world." She looked into the distance. "I think love should be the same."

The ensuing moment of quiet reflection might have been profound if it hadn't been broken by a gurgle. "Oog." Twinkleshine bent over, clutching at her stomach. "That's bad."

"What?" I hesitated before touching her, then berated myself for it and put my hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Gurgles."

Then I felt it too. Something rumbled and popped inside my stomach, and a biting haze started to spread through the rest of my body. Lines of acid spread in all directions, focused on a central rumbling and broiling, slowly tightening like an angry fist. The world swam in front of my eyes. I looked down at the last bite of muffin in my hand; it seemed to crawl across my skin. "Did you..."

"I take it all back." Twinkleshine belched, then whimpered. "This was a bad idea." She clutched her stomach and rolled onto the ground. I tried to stand and fell onto my back, wrapping my knees against my chest in agony. A line of furious, biting froth seemed to well up my throat. We looked at each other-

I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say the sun was much higher in the sky when I finally crawled back out of the bushes, feeling disgusting in every way. My clothes were covered in dirt and stained down the front. I tried to forget as many details as possible and weaved over to Twinkleshine. She was in an even worse state than I was, curled up on her side with pale liquid clinging to her cheek. "I think I'm okay now," I choked out, even though my head was still pounding. "What was that?"

"Dunno," Twinkleshine mumbled. "I put a bunch of stuff in it. Didn't think it would be that bad..."

I hadn't wanted to believe it before. "You did that on purpose?" I gasped. "You poisoned me!"

"Yeah." She twitched into a grin. "And it really hurt, didn't it?"

I just gaped at her. She rolled towards me, still clinging to herself. "It's like turning inside-out, huh?" she continued. "Not an easy way to go. Takes a long time. Imagine what it would be like with something that would actually kill you."

A different kind of nausea replaced the old. I staggered backwards and fell on my butt. "H-how do... how could you possibly know about that?"

"Twinkle Sense. I'm the best." She coughed. "And maybe Colgate has a friend who works at the hospital and gave her a really weird phone call last night."

So she knew. I would deal with that as it came. "So you took me up here to... what? Teach me a lesson?"

"To keep you safe."

I waited for more, but Twinkleshine just moaned. I stared at her as she rolled over again, belching up unnameable fluids. "If you were just trying to help me, why did you poison yourself too?" I asked. "Why not poison just one muffin?"

"C'mon, Twilight." She grinned up at me. "That would be mean."

"That was mean."

"I'm sorry."

"And also stupid and dangerous."

"Double sorry."

"And you're an idiot."

"I'm an idiot."

Colgate sighed deeply. Twinkleshine was bundled up in her bed, while I was on the chair next to her dresser, finishing my ninth glass of water. When half an hour had gone by and Twinkleshine was still in no state to drive, I'd used her phone to call Colgate, who'd picked us up. She'd made us a proper breakfast and tried to clean us up as much as possible, with only repeated reassurances from Twinkleshine keeping her from driving us straight to the hospital. She stood in the middle of the room, fuming, while we tried to recover around her.

"Is it still... affecting me?" I asked, holding out my steadying fingers. "Am I going to be like this all day?"

"I'm going to say... probably not." Colgate pinched the bridge of her nose. "But stay away from sniffer dogs for a while. And you'll probably fail certain drug tests for the next two weeks. I could tell you exactly what, if little miss sunshine here would just open up about what she put in that vomit cocktail she gave you."

"'was only tying to help," Twinkleshine mumbled.

"Your 'help' could have gotten you both killed!" Colgate screeched at her. "If you weren't our friend, I could be calling the police on you right this second. And on top of that, all you've done is let Twilight know exactly how much suffering she put her friend through."

I blanched. I hadn't even thought of that. "Sunset's..." Not my friend, I almost finished, but stopped when Colgate gave me a dark look. It was then that I sensed her anger wasn't purely directed at Twinkleshine. "Are you mad at me?" I asked in a small voice.

"I'm not mad at..." She stopped herself and tried again. "You know what? I am kind of mad at you. First you steal someone's boyfriend, then you use your words to put her friend in the hospital. Clearly you and Sunset Shimmer have some kind of history, and I don't know the whole story, so I'm not going to take sides. But what you did is unacceptable, and I hope you understand that." She whirled on Twinkleshine as well. "Both of you."

"Leave her alone," Twinkleshine grumbled.

"It's okay." I stared at the floor. "It's okay if you hate me."

"I don't hate you," Colgate groaned. "I just... expected better from you."

She marched out to the middle of the room and made a show of letting go of things, putting a hand to her chest and then swinging it out as she exhaled. "Now let's try to find you two some clean clothes, okay?" she said.

"We're playing dressup!" Twinkleshine jumped to her feet, instantly cured. "Me first! Me first!"

Colgate ignored her, already digging through her closet. "I have some plain skirts that should fit you," she said, addressing me. "I could probably stencil something onto one of those real quick. And I'm pretty sure this shirt's your size. Try these on." She handed me a grey skirt and top and then turned back to Twinkleshine, her eyes sharply narrowing. "No."

"Pleeeeeeease?" Twinkleshine whined, already dressed in a blue, fluffy sweater.

"No. That has my crest on it. You can't wear that."

"But it's so fluffy!" Twinkleshine tried to cover up the hourglass crest on the front and then simply swaddled herself in it.

"Take it off!" Colgate lunged at her, resulting in a bounding chase in circles around the room. "Take it off! Take it off!" Colgate snarled.

"Wooooooooo!" Twinkleshine cheered, dancing and shaking as she ran.

I left the room before things could get any weirder and crept into the bathroom. There I changed out of my vomit-stained clothes and into the ones Colgate had provided. They hung a little loose on me, but it was a near fit. I stalled my return by brushing my hair again, and it was only when I looked in the mirror that I realized how tired I looked. I was like a ghost, frail and practically floating. The clothes didn't help. I looked down at myself and realized that for the first time in years, I wasn't wearing my crest. This felt... strangely okay.

As I left there was a fierce knocking from downstairs, and I heard the door open. "Hello?" I heard the twang of Colgate's dad.

"Am I here?" my own voice floated up at me.

I gasped and flattened myself against the wall. "Well," Colgate's dad rumbled musically, "I suppose you are now..."

"No! I mean, is there another me here?"

Hearing the noise, Colgate stalked out of her room, blue sweater in hand, and peered over the stairs. She turned back to me with a pale expression. "Twilight?" she said. "Who is that?"

"Twilight!" Princess ran upstairs, panting for breath. "I've been looking for you all morning! Where have you been?"

"It's... a long story." I slowly unglued myself from the wall. Princess didn't look angry. In fact, there was even a hint of a smile on her face.

Colgate looked back and forth between us. "Twilight, what's going on?" she said. "Who is this?"

"Is that another Twilight?" Twinkleshine called from her room. "I want to see! Colgate, untie me so I can see!"

"It's... a long story," Princess said, with the exact same intonation I'd just used. She turned to me. "Twilight, we're going to see Sunset."

A roar of protest was silenced by her look. "Now?" I squeaked.

"Right now."