Mirror Redemption

Applejack's brother drove. He kept silent the whole way. I was glad for that. Applejack, however, didn't.

"She was perfectly fine a week ago," she muttered under her breath.

I shrank down in the back seat, simmering. When I was in kindergarten, a little boy hit me and I hit him back, hard. Hard enough that he started crying and said he couldn't breathe. No matter how I protested, we both got sent home for the day. I flashed back to the ride home in my mother's car, when my stomach had broiled in much the same way. It wasn't my fault that he'd chosen to pick on me. It wasn't my fault that I was smart enough to aim for the throat. Yet I was punished in exactly the same way, talked about like I was the bully, like I'd orchestrated this from the beginning. Like it was my fault.

Making that comparison was much easier than staying in the present. Anger still roared in me, threatening to burst out like lances of steam from an overtaxed boiler. Sunset had stolen everything from me. My school, my family, my love, my life. She'd made me poison. She'd made me into her. The fact that she'd tried to escape from me just incensed me further. Nothing she'd done to herself could be enough. She had to pay.

"Kindest, happiest girl you ever did know," Applejack continued. "Prancin' about without a care in the world. Everythin' in the past forgiven, forgotten."

"Applejack, that's enough," Princess said. I glanced at her. She had given up the front seat to sit beside me in the back. She'd taken to watching me, though for what I couldn't say.

The farm girl crossed her arms. "Enough of what?" she said testily. "Statin' facts?"

"Of being antagonistic. No one's at fault here."

We both disagreed, but Applejack was far more expressive about it. She twisted around in her seat and glared, sinking her fingers into the leather. "Sunset could'a died because of what she said!" she snarled.

"And Twilight had her own reasons for saying it," Princess countered. "We were all mad at her too, once. It doesn't mean we wanted her to die."

Applejack shot a filthy look towards me, as though challenging this sentiment. I couldn't look her in the eye. She still retreated, muttering to herself even more quietly. Princess turned to me again, seeing me shrunken even more into myself. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"I don't know." It wasn't much of an answer, but it was the only honest one.

"You're not wearing your crest," Princess observed.

"So?" I grunted.

Although a non-native to this world, she'd been here long enough to sound scandalized. "In public?"

"I had an accident," I said. "Colgate's letting me borrow her clothes." I didn't feel like explaining further. I smoothed down the grey shirt. Even though it wasn't my colour, the look was starting to grow on me.

"I see." Of course, she was too smart to think that was the whole story. She fidgeted a while before speaking again. "Oh, I should probably warn you, I may have sort of kind of accidentally patched things up with your mom."

I whirled on her. "You what?"

"I didn't mean for it to happen!" she said. "I went to your house to look for you, and she saw me from your window. I didn't know you'd snuck out. She ran out to me, and I hadn't seen her in years, and a few things slipped out..."

"She started bawlin' like her ma'd come back from the dead," Applejack added. I detected a note of bitterness there.

"That... may have happened," Princess confirmed, blushing. "I didn't know how to answer her questions, so I told her I still needed some space. She won't bother you or anything. But if you ever need to talk, she's there for you."

I looked away angrily. She reached out and put her hand on mine, and to my annoyance, the soothing feeling of her touch penetrated through me even then. "She loves you," she whispered. "We all love you. It just gets hard to show it sometimes."

I quivered. A big part of me wanted to grab on to her, to pull her close, to never let her go. But I kept myself distant and stared down at nothing. "We're here," Princess said.

I looked up, confused. We were just outside of Princess' apartment building. "Weren't we going to the hospital?" I said.

"Sunset was released this morning. We promised to check in on her regularly."

She dragged me out of the back seat. I continued to stare blankly. "And she lives here?" I said.

"Of course. She was the one who helped me find my own place."

Applejack's brother drove away as we left; there went my line of escape. The doorman stared at us bug-eyed as we walked in. I marched sullenly, just following my double's lead. We went up to the second floor. Rainbow Dash was sitting in a chair outside Sunset's apartment, bouncing a ball against the door opposite, some unfinished math homework collected beside her. "Hey, Twilights," she said without much enthusiasm as we approached.

Princess stopped. "How is she?"

"She's... okay, I guess. She doesn't get out of bed much. I don't really know what to think." She turned to me, again not looking quite at me. "Hey, I'm sorry about what I said to you yesterday," she said. "I didn't know what Sunset did to you. That must have been really rough." She caught a pained look from Princess. "I mean, you still shouldn't have said those things to her. But I get why you did. I'd still be mad too."

I looked up at her guiltily, then quickly looked away. There went another chip in my armour of self-hatred. "Thanks," I mumbled.

We went in. Sunset's apartment was identical in layout to Princess', but a lot more sparse. A mix of books, instruments and sports equipment decorated her main room, all in different colours with no consistent theme. A television was turned on its side in the corner. It looked spotlessly arranged; I guessed Rarity had swept through here recently. "Go on," Princess whispered, nudging me towards the bedroom. "Talk to her."

I took a leaden step forward. She was brave, letting the animal off its leash like that. I didn't understand why she hadn't clued in yet that I was rotten to the core. The door to the bedroom loomed up in front of me; while the copy of it one floor up had seemed so inviting, this one might as well have been the portal into Tartarus. "Princess?" I said.

"Yes?"

"What do you think is going to happen when I go in there?"

We looked at each other. We'd never looked more unlike. "I meant everything I said about her," I told her. "I'm not taking a word of it back. I'm not going to forgive her. I'm not going to be her friend. She destroyed me, and I'm not going to let her guilt me into letting that go just because she feels bad about it. I can't."

I could feel the betrayal as I said it. There was disappointment in her face; faint, and probably bordering on a dim hope, but there. "Twilight, she-" she started.

"No. No. Not you too. Do not make this about her." I stormed up to her and thrust my finger at her. "I've had people jumping down my throat all day about what I need to do. I need to open up, I need to apologize, I need to make things right, and I get that, I do, but with her is where I draw the line. I feel bad enough about this already, and I don't need you of all people trying to make me feel worse for being angry, not when she started this."

She stared at me, something unreadable flickering below the surface. "Just..." She trailed off.

"Just what? Just give her a chance? Just let it go? Just use the 'magic of friendship'?" I couldn't help sarcasm from dripping into my voice. "This won't resolve anything. This is going to end in screaming."

Instead of an answer, Princess hugged me, pressing her forehead against mine. "Just," she whispered, letting me fill in the blank a dozen different ways. Then she turned me around and gave me a gentle push towards the door.

The room was dim. The curtains were drawn but a bedside lamp had been left on, illuminating a thin lump curled up under thinner covers. Sunset's love of photography hadn't faded; her shelves and desk here were covered in framed pictures of herself and her six friends, all nauseatingly cheerful. Like the rest of the apartment, despite the clutter it felt strangely bare, like a half-finished wallpaper of a life instead of a place that felt truly lived in. I saw a wave of fiery red hair shift across the bed, and the door swung closed. And then there was nothing in the world standing in between me... and her.

I heard her voice, acidly familiar, like needles being driven into my ears, yet unlike how I'd ever heard it before. "Hi, Twilight."

I leaped across the room at her, throwing the covers off, hands closing around her throat-

"Hi, Sunset," I said flatly.

We both waited. I felt like it was only the thinnest of strings that was holding me back, keeping my humanity in check. "I had a speech," Sunset said, still refusing to emerge. "I've been writing it for a long time. I kept planning this moment out in my head, just in case I ever saw you again. I even had nightmares about it. I didn't think... it would be like this."

I snorted. "So what? You wanted me to forgive you?"

"...I hoped you would."

I clenched my fists and screamed. "You should have thought of that while you were cyberfucking my brother, you fucking b-"

"I won't," I answered, keeping my voice level. "I hate you."

Seeing her curl up tighter under the covers was one of the most satisfying things I'd ever witnessed. "I'm sorry," she squeaked out.

I turned away to avoid spitting in her direction. Instead I walked along the wall, looking at her collection of photographs. While I'd been cowering in my room, afraid of any kind of social contact, she'd been going to parties and concerts and having fun with her friends for all these years. With my friends. My nose wrinkled as I saw a shot of them on the beach, with her and Princess wearing bikinis. Sunset would have had a field day if she'd ever gotten me in one of those. "You stole my life from me," I said, letting fury drip into my voice in small, measured amounts. "You stole everything from me. Ever since that night I've lived in complete terror of you. I don't even know what's happened to my brother. Why would I forgive you?"

"Because you're Twilight Sparkle."

That made me pause. I slowly turned towards her, for the first time in my life actually exuding menace, demanding an explanation. A bright eye peeking at me disappeared under the covers. "Twilight forgives everyone," Sunset said, audibly quivering. "She's the living incarnation of friendship. Nothing holds her back from doing the right thing. All she has to do is open her mouth, and everyone forgets why they were fighting. She's... you're everything I want to be. No one else in all the world would forgive me. I thought you would."

I stormed across the room and leaned over her, putting my fists down on the mattress. "Well I'm not her," I growled, slowly rising into a yell. "You made me not her. And now you call me in here, expecting me to just let everything go? How heartless are you?"

I kicked the covers off of her, planted my foot in her smug, triumphant face, ground down hard-

"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"You're sorry." I snorted. "You've spent the past two years letting other people wait on you hand and foot because you were 'sorry' for possibly destroying a world. You never gave up your old ways. Why should I believe you?"

"It's the truth!" She started to throw back the covers, then thought better of it when she made eye contact and retreated again. I caught only a second of her face, pale and bloodless. "After my world's Twilight went mirror-crazy, I did everything I could to help her. I worked on repairing it longer than she did. I apologized every day. I took shifts keeping her alive. After she started dating Flash, she had to order me to stop worrying about her. It was more than a year before anyone trusted me at all. I know you weren't there to see it, but they made me pay."

"You think that matters to me?" It actually did help, but that wasn't the point. "You know where I live. At any time you could have found me and apologized. But you didn't. You let me stew in it. And as far as I can tell, you didn't tell anyone about what you did to me. You apologized when it was convenient for you and tried to sweep me under the rug. And that didn't just hurt me. You kept Princess from seeing her family again." I drew closer. "Why?"

"Because I was scared."

I smashed the lamp over her head-

"Of what? Of your new friends finding out that you're a parasite? Of actually having to answer for the things you've done?"

"No. Of you."

This... was new. I was actually rendered momentarily speechless, unable to process this seemingly impossible thought. "You... were afraid... of me?" I echoed.

"Yes." She sniffled. Real original. "I know I hurt you. I know you're not the same as Princess Twilight. After what I did to you... after all the people I turned against you... I was afraid that you were planning to do something even worse to me. You could have taken away everything, and I wouldn't be able to stop you. I wouldn't want to."

Revenge. Now there was a novel suggestion. "Maybe I should," I spat, pretending the idea hadn't occurred to me just now. "Your friends should hate you. It's not like you don't deserve it. You've never gotten what you deserve."

"I know." She folded up into herself. The flames flickered within me; something seemed wrong. As scared as she was acting, my actual words didn't seem to have affected her. She sounded almost... relieved. "If it helps," she added, "after I broke the mirror portal, Twilight's friends beat the crap out of me."

"I thought they used the magic of friendship."

"They did that too. But only after I had two black eyes."

This earned a flicker of a smile from me. I wished I could have seen that. Her posture shifted in response. "Twilight, if I could turn back time, I would," she said. "I would have taken responsibility. I would have seen what was in front of me the whole time. I never would have tried to hurt you." She started to creep her hand out again, sliding it towards mine. "I'm sorry, Twilight. It's all my fault. I understand if you don't forgive me. I'm used to it. I just hope... someday... we can be friends again."

Her hand touched mine. It was cold and thin, too different from her old warmth for me to react to it. The covers peeled back and I saw her face, gaunt and tear-streaked, looking up at me. She had an expression of hopeful desperation, something so alien to her that I almost couldn't place it at all. Curled up as she was, it was easier to imagine that she had once been a pony. Now she was trapped in this sickly, alien body, lost and afraid in a dimension that hated her. For a moment, I almost pitied her. But in those same, identical eyes, all I could see was Shimmer's leer.

I swatted her hand away and straightened up. "You're wrong," I said. "We were never friends."

An almost inaudible gasp sucked all sound from the room. Her features shivered. "Twilight..."

"You disgust me." I backed away from her. "That line might work on Princess, but not me. You should be in prison. You should be in Tartarus. You're like a changeling, you worm your way into innocent people's lives and steal and destroy everything you touch. Everything you've ever said to me was a lie."

She repeatedly recoiled. A sound burst from her lips like something inside her had shattered, and she collapsed. Inwardly, I smirked. Everything before then had just been retreads of old conversations, things dozens of people had drilled into her already; now I was hitting a fresh nerve. "I wish I could turn back time, too," I said. "I wish I'd never met you. You should never have come to this world. Whatever happens to you now, you deserve it. And I want you to remember that." I leaned in for one last snarl. "You deserve this."

I spun away. I took my time trudging out, relishing the sound of Sunset's heart breaking. I couldn't help but inwardly self-criticize, of course; it's just who I am. This would probably land me in hot water with Princess. Well what did she expect? I sighed silently, rolling my eyes. She had this coming. It's not like I'm trying to win favors with her anyway. Still, I hesitated when I put my hand on the doorknob. The sound of sobbing was resonating something in me, something totally unrelated to revenge. It was almost... familiar.

"I'm sorry about your brother," Sunset whispered.

I turned around and launched myself at her, dragged her out from under the sheets and threw her against the wall, caught her arm as she raised it in self-defense. "Don't talk about my brother, you murdering bitch!" I screamed-

Something was wrong.

I blinked awake. I had one hand on Sunset's throat, pressing her against the wall behind her bed. She could breathe - I wasn't that strong - but her eyes were closing. My other hand held her right wrist. She felt... wrong. Painfully wrong.

My eyes dragged across her. Now that I held her in the light, I could see that she'd gone to bed fully-dressed, in a threadbare sweater and jeans. They were both plain, no patterns, no stencils, not even a placeholder heart pattern. She wasn't wearing her crest. She was thin, even thinner than me, and so lightweight that I was holding her up with ease. There were dark bags under her eyes, and splotches of caked-in makeup that had probably been there since the party, glinting underneath fresh teardrops. But my eyes fell to her arm. Underneath my thumb was a long, mottled scar, running all the way down the length of her wrist and criss-crossed with two others just like it. These weren't pity cuts, not disgusting bids for sympathy. These had cut deep. They were not all the same age.

I looked back to her face; I didn't even want to speculate about what was happening to mine. She stayed limp in my grasp, tilting her head back, like an animal bracing for the kill. That was when I finally understood that I could kill her.

I dropped her and shuffled backwards across the bed. She fell unresistingly forward, landing in a crumpled heap in front of me. I felt myself pale. Last night, I'd been the same. Alone in a small room, pushing everyone out, thoughts of knives and poisons running through my head. If Twinkleshine hadn't come to get me...

It's not fair.

For the first time, I saw Sunset as everyone else saw her. There was no trace of Shimmer in her, none of the gleeful fury that she'd unleashed upon me. But there was no mask there either, no false smiles, no sarcastic closeness that had only seemed so obviously fake in retrospect. There wasn't much of anything at all. Anything I could have taken from her, any chance at revenge, had already been lashed out of her by years of knowing that her homeworld may be dead because of her. There was just a glimmer of something that I'd once half-glimpsed in a dark place, a single, unwanted candle in an abyss. And with just a word from me, with a breath, I could snuff it out.

It's not fair!

Whether I accepted it or not, my words would have an effect on Sunset. After all, her words had altered the course of my life. And I understood then that if I left her now, even though it would be her hand that did what came next, I would be the one who pushed her to it. After all that I'd accused her of, I knew what that would make me.

I shivered. "It's not fair," I whispered, adding it to the screams of fury inside my head. My hands twitched into claws. I'd come here looking for something to destroy, anything to unload the agony of the past few years on. But there was nothing.

Just.

Just what? I echoed back at Princess. You know what she did to me! What am I supposed to do?

Just.

I eyed Sunset. She was stirring, breaking out of her bracing for a blow that wasn't going to come. "You haven't slept," I observed.

She opened her eyes, but kept them low. "Just a few hours," she said. "They gave me stuff in the hospital. It helped."

I watched her a moment longer, resenting myself. "Come here," I said.

I moved her like a doll, straightening her bent limbs and laying her out on her side, tucking the covers up to her chin. I gave a last glance to the door; still closed. Then I slipped under the covers with her, facing away from her. I wiggled up next to her, pressing myself against her with my hair in her face. "Twilight?" she mumbled.

"Shut up. I haven't slept either."

Her breathing grew warm against the back of my neck. With a tentativeness that seemed strangely familiar, she snaked her arms around me, then held me tightly in a hug that seemed like it would crush me. I heard the sticky blink of dehydrated eyes trying to produce tears. I let her draw her own conclusions. "Thank you," she breathed.

Her shivering was going away quickly. Her heartbeat, having risen to a flutter, was already regulating. I closed my eyes and imagined it was years ago, when nothing was unspeakable, when the most I had to worry about was my best friend being too affectionate in the night. I sighed, reached out, and turned out the bedside light.

When I finally emerged from Sunset's room three hours later, Princess was waiting to embrace me. "Twilight, I'm so proud of you!" she squealed as she wrapped her arms around me.

"Don't be. I feel gross." This was true on multiple levels. If there was one thing that hadn't changed since I was fourteen, it was that Sunset still felt like a furnace when she was asleep. I was going to need a change of clothes for the second time in one day. Sunset was still gently snoring behind me; I checked on her one last time before closing the door. "How much did you hear?" I asked.

"None of it. I kept my distance," Princess answered. She beamed at me. "But what I didn't hear was hours of screaming. Are things okay between you two now?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe." I stalked away. "I'm still mad at her. I don't know if I'm ever going to not be mad at her. And I want her to know that. But... I also want her to be around to know that."

"I understand." She seemed like she did. I wouldn't have trusted anyone else to.

I invited myself into the kitchen and checked the fridge. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Sunset stocked grape juice, but, having once caught her drinking orange juice straight from the carton at my house, I gave it a pass and moved over to the sink instead. It was tempting to douse myself then and there to get Sunset's feel and smell off of me. I wondered if Princess would let me use her shower. Princess followed me, keeping a cautious eye on me. "Do you think you're going to be okay?" she asked.

"Well, let me see." I rolled my eyes up sarcastically. "So far today I've been starved, poisoned, dropped off a building, preached at, yelled at, forced to listen to my friend pretend to have sex with a robot, and just took a nap with the girl who ruined both our lives. Unless there's some universal law in effect that I haven't been informed of, probability dictates that this day can't get any worse."

I was only half joking, but Princess smiled regardless. I drank and put the glass in the sink. The water did nothing to settle my stomach. It was like the physical opposite of the first time I'd slept with Flash; begrudgingly accepting of what I'd done, but entirely clear about my body's repulsion from it. Fortunately, I'd had more than enough of expelling things from my body for one day. In that moment I resented Princess again; it boggled the mind that she could seem so comfortable in Sunset's presence. "Why did you do it?" I asked, staring down into the sink.

She knew me well enough to know what I meant. "Why did I forgive her?"

"Yes. No... forget why. How?" I looked up at her pleadingly. "She took everything from you. Even more than she took from me. You could have had her imprisoned or even banished and no one would have blinked. If I'd been in your place, I would have hurt her. I wouldn't have been able to stop myself. I would have killed her." I clutched desperately at the counter, leaning forward. She stood uncomfortably in front of me, pristine and beautiful in her crest, everything I wasn't. "I hate her so much," I said. "I hate her, and it poisoned me. But you don't. You did what no one else in the whole world would. You became her friend. How?" I was almost crying. "How did you let go of your hate, when I can't? How did you forgive her?"

Princess gulped. She opened her mouth and got half a syllable through a response before she caught herself. Her eyes darted back and forth, as though making sure we were alone in the room. She took a step forward, put her hand into mine, and then spoke.

"I didn't."

I couldn't respond to that. I waited until she was composed enough to continue. "When it happened, I was angrier than I've ever been," she said. "I could feel unfamiliar power flowing in me. My home was gone. Nothing mattered any more. I could have banished her, I could have done it so easily. I knew that she deserved it. But I also knew, even deeper, that what she needed was a friend." She gulped. "So I lied. When everyone else was ready to kill her, I was the one who stood in their way. I told her that I forgave her. I promised I would be her friend. I didn't do it because I wanted to. I did it because I knew that I was the only one who would. But I didn't mean any of it. I just went through the motions."

She stared at the floor, and I finally got to see close up what intense guilt looked like on my face. It didn't take a genius to guess that she'd never told this to anyone before. "Why?" I breathed.

"Because I'm a princess. Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship. And it's the duty of a princess to always do the right thing, even if she doesn't want to." She sighed. "For the first year, I faked it. We all faked it a little. Whenever Sunset was afraid, I reminded her that she was my friend, and each time I meant it just a little bit more. After a long, long time, it became the truth. These days we're practically sisters. But it didn't happen overnight." She looked worriedly to Sunset's room. "I never told her," she said, confirming what I already knew. "She was my friend a long time before I was hers. Sometimes I still resent myself for it. I love Sunset, but I wish that when I forgave her, it had been my choice."

"But you did it." I grasped her arms. "If someone really wants to hurt someone else, they never let rules stop them. You did. It doesn't matter why you did it; what matters is that you did. That's incredible. You're incredible."

"I'm not." She trembled in my grasp. "I'm a fake. I put on a happy face for everyone, but I don't mean it. I'm a wreck. I miss my home, I miss my body, I miss... I miss my real friends. Sometimes I hate everyone I see, because they remind me of the ponies I'll never see again. But I can't ever show it, because all the magic I have depends on knowing that my friends believe in me." She choked, even now holding something in. It started to dawn on me why Applejack had been so harsh with me; she was accustomed to this Twilight who never let her feelings get in the way. "It should have been you, that night two years ago. You don't have to be afraid of who you are. You've just proved that you would have forgiven her too, princess or not. At least when you did it, it actually meant something."

"You think I would have done better than you?" I put my hand to her cheek to steady her. "You've been doing what I've wished I could do for years. You have friends, and adventures, and a life. You mean the world to Sunset, and to everyone. Even if you're messed up inside, you've never let it stop you, and you never will. You shouldn't be afraid. You're perfect."

"You think I'm perfect?" She looked into my eyes, tearing up. "Twilight... don't you understand how much I want to be you?"

We stared at each other, and everything else seemed to melt away. Our bodies moved without thinking. We pulled each other close, neither one of us taking the lead, embracing each other in perfect synchrony. Our cheeks pressed together as we intertwined. The feel of her skin against my skin produced a longing in me, a kind of desperate hunger; it was as though all her thoughts and memories, my thoughts and memories, were right there, torn from me, only a thin dimensional mirror keeping us apart. I wanted to bare myself to her, to consume her, or be consumed, to become inside what was, in a way, already mine. We shifted, and now it was our foreheads that touched, the source of power for us both in different ways. I imagined that I could feel her brain thrumming inside her head, as mine did inside of mine, all the time, and wondered if her horn had once felt the same way. Our eyes half-opened, then closed. It felt as though there were no barriers between us. We were one mind, one body, one soul.

Our lips pressed together-

We sprung apart, looking away and covering our mouths. "That was weird," Princess immediately said.

"Yeah," I hurriedly agreed. "That was weird."

We stood awkwardly, both turning bright red. I sneaked a glance at her face and saw her sneaking one at mine, and we both immediately looked away, staring at our shoes, at the sink, anywhere but at each other. Our hearts were beating rapidly, and probably in unison. My lips quivered, unconsciously tasting the air. The tips of my fingers bent around nothing. "Do you..." I started, but caught the rest of it in my throat, realizing I had no idea how to finish.

Princess made small, breathy noises. She ground her foot back and forth against the floor, turning her leg inward. "My phone's upstairs," she said.

"And?"

"And Flash Sentry can be here in fifteen minutes."

I nodded desperately, already plotting my route. "Can he meet us in the shower?" I blurted.

"Us?"

"I mea... Me. I mean me. I need to shower." I kept my eyes intensely focused downward. "But... but you're his girlfriend. You should probably be there too. To wait for him."

She nodded vacantly, picking at the hem of her skirt. "That... that would be most efficient. Right." Her gaze flicked up to my middle, then rapidly away. "I'll tell him to be here in ten," she said as she fidgeted.

We stood there just a second longer, independently visualizing the fastest route upstairs, our paths around one another, the point at which we would split when we arrived at her apartment, pre-planning our immediate future thoughts about the placements of our hands and mouths, and running optimization algorithms to determine which order of actions would get us the fastest out of our respective clothes. And then, without prompting, we ran.