The Wondercolt statue had always been a significant landmark in their city, even to those who didn’t attend the school. A majestically rearing horse carved from marble standing atop a sturdy pedestal. Even when it had been covered in graffiti or a silly costume by their rival school, it still stood tall and proud. Looking up at it now though, all that was left were two cracked hooves atop its’ base.
Twilight Sparkle’s stomach churned at the sight. She’d barely made it out the front door of the school before it had caught her eye and stopped her in her tracks. I did that, she thought numbly. The images replayed in the back of her mind, and for just a moment, she was certain she felt something breathing hotly on the back of her neck. Something with wings and a horn, and a cruel laugh.
“Hey, Twilight.”
She jumped and let out a yelp of surprise. A warm laugh followed her reaction, and she turned to see Sunset Shimmer smiling apologetically at her. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Oh, hi Sunset. Don’t worry about it. My fault for zoning out like that.”
“What brings you to Canterlot High? I thought you didn’t start classes here until Monday.”
“No, you’re right, I don’t. I just came here because Principal Celestia needed me to help finalize some paperwork for my transfer. But then I sort of got distracted on my way out.”
“Oh, yeah? Distracted by what?”
“Um…” Twilight pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and glanced nervously back towards the statue, trying to think of how to explain.
Sunset followed her gaze, her eyes widening for a moment with apparent realization. “Oh.” She looked back to the girl in front of her with a sympathetic smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Twilight frowned, shifting her feet and staring at the ground before giving a hesitant nod. Sunset leaned against the building next to her, staring out at what was left of the statue and waiting patiently for Twilight to find the words to express what was on her mind.
“I keep thinking about everything that happened,” she said after a long silence. “I’m not really sure how to deal with it.”
“One day at a time,” her friend replied with a shrug.
Twilight smiled at that before she went on. “The way it felt to have all that power coursing through me… it was terrifying, but also… exhilarating. I could have hurt so many people, but in that moment, I didn’t care. What does that say about me?”
“It doesn’t say anything,” Sunset said earnestly. “That wasn’t you. Not really.”
“But it was a part of me, at least on some level, and now it feels like it will never go away. It feels like she’s right over my shoulder, that monster I turned into, watching everything I do and just waiting for me to make a mistake again, you know?”
“Oh yeah, I know better than anyone.”
Twilight looked up to find a crease in Sunset’s brows and a distant look in her eyes. She frowned at that, thinking for a moment before speaking up again. “When you saved me, you said you’d been there, that you’d made the same mistake. What did you mean?”
Sunset’s gaze narrowed almost imperceptibly. “I meant that I had made the exact same mistake. I tried to use magic I didn’t understand and it turned me into a literal monster.”
Twilight hadn‘t been expecting that answer. She studied the redhead’s face for a long moment, as if she was trying to find something there. “Does it ever stop?” she asked hesitantly.
“Does what stop?”
“The feeling that it’s watching you.”
There was an uneasy beat of silence before the girl responded. “It gets better. I don’t know that it will ever completely go away, but it’s there a lot less now.”
“This morning I looked in the mirror and I saw her instead of me.”
“That won’t last long.”
“And I keep having nightmares.”
“Those will last longer.” Sunset gave her a small smile. “Sleepovers help though. I never dream about it when I’m with the girls.”
Twilight looked bashfully to the ground. “I’ve never been to a sleepover.”
Sunset grinned. “I just went to my first one a few months ago. They’re great.”
They lapsed into a more comfortable silence for a bit. Twilight was the one to break it, in a very quiet voice. “What about the guilt?”
Sunset frowned. “You didn’t mean to do what you did. Stealing the magic was an accident, and other people pressured you to use it. So, for you at least, the guilt should go away with time. Just remind yourself that it wasn’t your fault.”
“For me? Does that mean the guilt hasn’t gone away for you?”
The intensity in Sunset’s distant stare caused Twilight’s heart to twist without fully understanding why. “I was not a good person, Twilight.”
The bespectacled girl gave a small smile that she hoped was reassuring. “You saved me.”
Sunset let out a single soft laugh. “I’m a better person now.” Her next words came out in a bitter whisper. “Everything I did, I did on purpose. I was a childish brat who thought I deserved better, and I hurt a lot of people to get what I thought I wanted. The monster I turned into was just an exaggeration of the monster I already was. It’s harder not to feel guilty when you know for a fact that what happened was your own fault.”
Twilight's brows knit together, as she found what she was hearing somewhat hard to believe. She had a difficult time reconciling in her mind the image Sunset was creating of herself with the image of the magical angel that had saved her only days prior.
“The important thing though,” Sunset continued in a much firmer tone. “Is that I’m not that person anymore. That was something I did, and there’s nothing I can do to change it, but it’s not something I will ever do again. It will always be a part of my past, but I refuse to let it define me. Because my past is not today, and neither is yours.”
Sunset turned to face Twilight, the intensity in her gaze just as strong as before, but for a different reason now. The strength reflected in the girl’s eyes almost scared her, and she wondered if she would ever be able to find that kind of strength in herself.
“We both became monsters once, but that’s not who we are now. We are good people, with good friends, and that’s what matters. As long as you remember that, the monster over your shoulder can’t hurt you.”
There was something about the way she spoke that made Twilight entirely certain she was right, and she found herself needing to swallow past a lump that was quickly forming in her throat. “Thank you,” she managed to choke out. “I think I needed to hear that.”
A comforting hand was placed on her shoulder. “I’m here any time you need to talk. Okay?”
Twilight nodded tightly.
Sunset smiled at the emotional display her friend was attempting to hide and pulled the girl into a hug. Twilight squeezed back much tighter than she meant to. Fortunately for Sunset though, she wasn’t very strong. When they pulled apart, the darker haired girl gave a watery smile of appreciation, pushing up her glasses to swipe at her tears.
“Hey, you want to go down to Sugar Cube Corner with me?” Sunset asked. “I think Pinkie just started her shift for the evening.”
Twilight laughed. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Sunset said as they made their way down the school steps. “You should expect a welcome party sometime very soon after you start here.”
“Welcome party?”
“Pinkie Pie will not let this sort of thing go uncelebrated. It’ll probably be right after classes on Monday in fact.”
Twilight contemplated this information, then shrugged. “As long as I don’t have to help her with the party cannons this time, I’m alright with it.”
The two girls laughed as they walked farther and farther from the school and it’s destroyed statue, the weight on their shoulders seeming a bit lighter in each other’s presence. When Twilight returned to the school on Monday, her gaze would not linger for long on the cracked hooves on their pedestal. Because her friends would be with her, and they would give her the strength to remember who she really was.
