Our World is Suffused With Sound

by Cynewulf

Rating: teen
Tags: Sad, Equestria Girls, Slice of Life, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 6197

Sunset Shimmer graduates. Again.

You can't go home again. That's what they say--and Sunset Shimmer happens to agree. You can't go home again. You really, really can't.

Coverart: bakki

Published 2016-03-26 09:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-26 09:20:01 UTC

In Dreams

Sunset Shimmer sat typing at the computer. Somewhere in the darkness, her phone lay on soft sheets piping soothing music into the room. It lingered, fought the patter of rain on her windows to a draw, and ultimately faded.

All told, it was a peaceful night, storms or not.

She sighed and read over the paragraph again. Coherent? Yes. Good, even? Absolutely. But it wasn't really what she wanted. She copied the section and then started again fresh.

Except nothing came.

It was hard, in quiet moments, not to think of other assignments and other times. Harder still was blotting out the feeling--dimmer every day--of her magic gripping a quill as she scrawled diagrams into the margins of her reports, hoping to impress her teacher. Thaumic equations had flowed from her like floodwaters through broken levies.

And much like floodwaters, her fierce ambition had erased everything she had built, hadn't it?

Sunset sighed. She pushed back from the desk and stood. There was a reason she'd taken up smoking briefly in the human world. It would have helped. So would some fresh air.

All around her, the darkness retreated without her body to shield it from the warm computer’s glow. Sunset yawned, stretched, found some pants, and then bumbled through the apartment without turning any lights on. She liked the dark, really.

The slight patter of rain on her window was deceptive. As soon as she opened the door, the storm invaded her quiet apartment. The rain pounded on the little awning over her little apartment’s doorway, on the sidewalk, on the street. On everything, and there was Sunset Shimmer tiny before it. She sat on the steps, an inch or so from where the rain began. On either side of the long building, she saw no other souls, and no one sat under their own little shelters on the building opposite. Just her and the rain. She wished for a cigarette again. There was something magical about the curling smoke and the rain coming down in sheets and her breath hot on her own hand. But she’d stopped that. No more. It was really Twilight--this world’s Twilight--that had been the final straw. Smoking was rare in Equestria, too rare to have much of a stigma attached, but here there was a lot of baggage and the thought of this world’s Twilight noticing the lingering stale tobacco smell had been a little too uncomfortable, somehow.

At least the rain was nice.

They had a set appointment, now. Once a month, regardless of circumstance, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer met at Joe’s for, well, joe. Coffee, that most sacred of things. Twilight had insisted on it, after she had succeeded in stabilizing the portal between worlds that now sat in the bowels of her new castle. Idly, Sunset wondered what it looked like. The portal and the castle both.

Sometimes they met more than once a month, but only once had Twilight gone a month without a visit in the last year. Sunset had been rather sad about that, but it was hard to blame her--harder still when Twilight had returned and regaled her with tales of misadventure.

But this month had been a quiet one, for both of them. Sunset was at school, finishing up. Twilight had begun to hold court in earnest out of Ponyville, overseeing a long term royal mandate in the central province. Overseeing economic development in the heartlands around Ponyville, mostly, investing in local businesses and building better roads.

Two very different worlds, but the same sense of mundanity.

“So, only a few more months and then you’re done,” Twilight said, taking a sip from her latte. She had been rather against what she called “fancy coffee” when first they had come to human world’s version of Pony Joe’s, but Sunset had spent much of her Junior year winning her over to the espresso side of the cup. The added boost was what did it. Twilight was always in need of a pick-me-up, with how hard she worked.

“Yeah,” Sunset answered. She played with the edges of a napkin. “Just a little bit more.”

“Did you… um.” Twilight took another sip. It was her favorite tactic of avoidance. “Did you graduate from CSGS before you and Celestia…?”

Sunset blinked at her, not comprehending. And then she looked down at herself, and understood.

Twilight’s confusion at her sudden laughter only drove her to laugh more, until she was holding up a hand. “S-sorry. Gosh, give me a second. I was really confused there.” Sunset chuckled and then took a breath. “No, I just realized I never told you. Twilight, how old are you?”

“Twenty,” Twilight said. “Why?”

“I’m twenty-two, Twi.”

Twilight blinked at her. “But… but you’re in…?”

Sunset snickered. “The mirror made you a teenager again. I guess you never thought about it because you were so fish out of water the first time and distracted the second. I guess it also didn’t really change your age that much, either. But it made your human form younger. Same for me. You were stuck at the same age as the Twilight in this world, and we aren’t born in synch.”

Twilight blinked. “I always assumed we were the same age,” she mumbled.

“Heh, well, it’s not that big a gap,” Sunset said and waved the idea away. “But I’m surprised you never thought about why you never really saw me around, with both of us being Celestia’s students.”

“Oh, that.” Twilight shrugged. “Well, I mean, I wasn’t really taking personal lessons from the Princess until later, and then I knew there were a few others she gave private lessons but I didn’t know them. By the time I was moving into the castle it was just me.”

“I was long gone. I mean, graduated-gone, not real gone,” Sunset said. “Graduated early, actually. I was still Celestia’s ‘apprentice’, I guess, learning by correspondence and in person as I was doing field work.”

“What in?” Twilight asked.

“Thaumaturgic anomaly,” she said. “Weird stuff. Basically, anything--”

“Left behind by disaster,” Twilight finished.

“Eh.” Sunset blew softly on her own latte. “I mean, you’re right, but not only then. Any significantly high level… enchantment,” she said, pausing only to sip.

Coffee was important. It had always been, but she hadn’t really enjoyed it before. She had guzzled it down with greed and blindness in her misspent youth, needing only the blessed, holy caffeine to sustain her. Part of growing up was realizing how silly it had been to rush by such delights. The other part of growing up was that you had a bigger chance of working early in the morning and so you just couldn’t stay up past two in the morning quite as easily anymore. Coffee or not, you had to sleep.

“Sort of like archaeology, I guess,” Twilight said. “I can see that. I did something similar for a few months…”

Sunset raised her eyebrows at Twilight’s sudden pause and then raised them higher at her sigh.

“Hm?”

“Just… thinking. It’s been boring, yeah, but it’s been kinda sad. I’ve had something on my mind recently and I’m worried about it.”

Sunset frowned. “That’s no good.” She leaned in. “Spill, Sparks.”

Twilight tried to look indignant, but she snorted. “That is a stupid name.”

“It’s a great name.”

Twilight sighed and looked away. Some of Sunset’s eagerness faded, but she didn’t back down. But her expectation of some minor problem she could swoop in and solve? Out the window.

So she waited, as patiently as she could, which was extremely patiently. She had waited a long time for her chance to return from this world once before. Months and months spent learning to live in a strange new land, all the while constructing plan after plan until at last she had settled her mind’s eye on Twilight Sparkle.

The student who did not fail. She sipped her latte, because it was actually less bitter than that thought. But it also had more heat--Sunset no longer felt the same burning jealousy when she thought of Twilight’s connection to Celestia. She felt a little bit, still, about the whole ascension thing. That was a sore spot.

Only a little.

“Well, I’ve graduated,” she began

Sunset glanced back up from her blessed, beautiful caffeine. Absurdly, she remembered the way a pony’s ears shifted to focus on a target. “Yeah.”

“The Princess was really proud of me, and I was… I was really happy,” Twilight said. She sighed. “But it was kind of lonely, you know? It was like being a tree and someone came by and lopped off all the biggest branches. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it. My friends were celebrating and I was celebrating, and then I was just so busy with the Castle of the Two Sister and then…” She shook her head. “But now that I have room to think… more and more I feel like I lost something that day.”

“And that was?”

Twilight bit her lip. Sunset reached across the table and touched her hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed how pleasantly warm it was. Human hands in general she had gotten over her revulsion of easily. There was something comforting about them.

“This is going to sound so ridiculously pretentious that I’m worried what you’ll think of me, bluntly. No, that’s wrong. I feel like it’s pretentious, even though I know… Ugh. I felt like in all of the chaos I lost my friend, Celestia. Not the Princess. The teacher, the one who introduced me to tea and sent me home with little priceless gifts, but also the pony who I grew up talking to about everything from alchemy to how to deal with my anxiety. But now…”

Sunset stiffened slightly, but experience as a human helped her school her features. Ponies had such a difficult time not wearing their emotions on their faces like signs, but humans could hide heartache well.

“But now?” She prompted, her voice soft.

“I haven’t had a letter from the Princess that wasn’t business or official in months,” Twilight said. “She’s mentioned how proud she is, or how she thinks I’m doing a good job so far easing into being a Princess. But it’s always at the end, right before the sentence saying hello to Spike, and two before the one wishing my friends and Ponyville well.”

Sunset remembered letters. She remembered lots of letters. How they grew shorter and shorter, always touching solely on the things Sunset was studying or the research on Celestia’s side. She was of two minds about it. At the time, even, she had felt conflicted. One one hoof, abandonment. Celestia wasn’t interested or warm or proud of her anymore. She was far away and not worth the attention of somepony truly important. She, too, had felt a great and lasting loss. She too had struggled.

A younger Sunset had become more firmly entrenched. A wiser and older Sunset saw a wider field of view and read those old words without being deaf to the emotion behind them.

Celestia was brave. She had faced down a thousand horrors and lowered herself unto the debasements of mundane ponies. Wonderful in every way… and yet the Princess had scars. She feared driving her loved ones away, and Sunset wasn’t sure she blamed the poor alicorn. So she walked on eggshells, lightly as she could, avoiding the raw feelings that might either instantly bridge the gap between her and her precious ones or sunder it forever. Oh, she would eventually say something. She had learned something from Luna. It was just…

It was just that even long-lived and ageless alicorns sometimes underestimated just how much seething resentment a little pony body could hold.

Sunset thought. And thought. She knew she had been quiet for a moment because Twilight spoke again.

“Sunset? Sunny? Hey, I’m sorry… I didn’t think bringing her up would… I mean--”

Sunset shook her head. “Nah, nah, you’re fine. I was just thinking.”

“O-oh. About what?”

“Letters.”

“Ah.”

“Send her one,” she said. “Send the Princess a letter, Twilight. Not about business or how to do court stuff or economic policy or any of that. Ask her how she’s been. Talk about regular pony things. Tell her you’ve been feeling this way.”

“I can barely explain it to myself,” Twilight whined. It would have been almost endearing in another circumstance, but Sunset’s mood was a bit… strange.

“Then try. Twi, you can’t just… not say things.” Sunset flicked her eyes away from her friend towards something, anything else. “If you were really friends, then you have to try and fight for that friendship. You have to bridge that gap.” Celestia won’t, she didn’t add with bitterness that was as much directed at herself as her former mentor. “I know she wants to hear from you, Twilight. Even I know the Princess is crazy about you.”

“Heh… yeah.” Twilight flushed. “It’s just… I’ve always been worried about seeming like I felt like I deserved it all, and I know I don’t. I know I’m so lucky to have what I do, and I don’t want it to change me.”

Sunset took a deep breath, held it, and smiled. “It won’t,” she said.

Late night again. Music floating through the dark room.

She was working on that stupid paper, because of course she was. Whatever interest she had had in it was long gone, replaced by sullen resentment. It was in the way. This was the last stupid hoop to jump through and then…

And then. She kept going.

Red Schism’s living conditions further drive the point home, she wrote. He sleeps on a couch, with his own dirty clothes as a blanket, eating seldomly and paying rent even more seldomly. In fact, we are shown him interacting with other human beings very rarely before the murder of the pawnbroker.

Well, it wasn’t exactly art. She was starting to just want it done. She would fret over perfection when there was something on the screen to actually fret over. Besides, the sound of keys clacking was oddly therapuetic. It focused the mind and kept it tightly guarded from… everything.

His isolation from the world he has previously known--out of school, out of work, and seperated by both choice and geography from his family

Her phone buzzed angrily against the desk and she blinked down at it. She answered.

“SHIMMMERRRRRRRR!” Screamed the phone. Directly into her ear.

She held it at arm’s length, wincing. “Damn,” she said, voice tight. “Seriously?”

Someone was babbling on the other line. She guessed Pinkie or Dash, but it was probably Pinkie. Both, despite having actually grown up in a world with cellphones, were bad at phone conversations. It never ceased to confuse, really.

Sunset brought the phone back to her ear.

“--so like… are you there?”

“Yes,” she said. “Hello, Pinkie. Try not to yell in my ear next time, please.”

“Right, right. Anywho, do you wanna come?”

Sunset blinked. “To what? Where? And why?”

“Duh. Party. Lyra’s. Lyrabon, you know, one half of--”

“I know who Lyra is, Pinkie,” Sunset said with a smirk. “I kinda have schoolwork…”

“Bah, schoolwork.” Pinkie’s eyeroll was almost audible. Sunset could imagine it and suppressed a chuckle.

“Hey, it’s important!” She paused. “I mean, not that I’m always a recluse or anything. It’s just… paper,” she finished, lamely.

“Ughhh that’s what SciTwi said.”

“Sci… Seriously, Pinkie?” She frowned into the phone. “That’s rude, you know? She’s her own person.”

“But it’s funny! And she doesn’t mind!”

“Well, I’ll have to give you the same answer as her, Pinks, sorry but--”

“Same answer? Awesome!” She singsonged. “Want me to pick you up or are you gonna ride up in that motorcycle? Cause like if you’re gonna go with the bike try not to be too cool, cuase Lyra won’t invite me to anymore parties if you make her girlfriend swoon and like wait a minute do you ev--”

“I’m going to guess you’re dragging Twilight along, then,” Sunset said.

“Yup!”

She sighed, and looked at the screen. She saved. “I’ll be there. Someone has to keep that poor girl alive.”

Twilight had wanted to meet her before their appointed time, and Sunset didn’t mind. Coffee was always good, and Twilight’s company was always good, so what was there to lose?

“SciTwi? Really?” Twilight asked, and rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, ‘bout my reaction.” Sunset sighed and leaned back on the chair. They were outside today, and the weather was nice. Spring was giving way to the first hints of summer, and she found herself eager for warmer days and sunshine. She’d always loved summer. Summer was Celestia’s favorite time, and so it had become her favorite as well. She watched the people stroll by on the sidewalk and the cars smoothly skim the blacktops, and the clouds that lazed in a clean, blue sky and remembered tea on a balcony overlooking the statute garden. Above all, she noticed sound.

She was listening more and more these days. It was what she heard more than what she saw that truly separated one world from another. Humans smiled and waved and spoke like ponies did. The sky was the same, mostly. But feet fell on concrete different from hooves, and the purr or roar of combustion engines was still a little alien.

“Still with me, filly?” Twilight asked, at which Sunset startled slightly.

“Yeah,” she said, and sighed. “Sorry. Spaced out.”

“It’s alright. You looked like you had something on your mind.”

“I have,” Sunset replied, softly. “Just things. But…” She put on a wide grin. “What’s more interesting is you: did you do what I said, huh?”

“Yes, actually. It’s why I wanted to thank you in person,” Twilight replied.

Her smile was eager, sincere. Unguarded. Sunset liked it. Both Twilights had it, despite their differences. It warmed her heart regardless of the source, much as she suspected either Pinkie might cheer her up.

“Well, go on.”

Twilight’s goofy grin continued unabated. “I was being silly, really. Celestia apologized for not sending me more personal letters, and I was reading some she did send as being a lot more formal then they were. It was weird, really. I see her say ‘I’m proud of you’ or ‘You’ve done a great job with this’ or what have you, and it sometimes doesn’t register that she’s talking to me and not grading me. And that was my fault.”

Now it was Twilight who looked off into the distance as if seeing another world. A new smile graced her face. It was strange, even enigmatic, as if it were a ribbon on some secret. Sunset watched it intently as she sipped at her latte.

“But afterwards, it made me think about something else.” Twilight now turned her eyes away from heaven and back towards Earth. Specifically, towards Sunset Shimmer, who suddenly felt rather like a bug pinned upon a card.

She tried to come up with some witty retort, but she was a bit too smart for that. A smart pony, Celestia had once told her, was one who thought three moves ahead. See the board as it is, her teacher had admonished with that classic, beautiful, mysterious smile. See it how it is and how it may yet be, and how it must be. She had taken that lesson to heart, or tried to. And so she knew where this was going.

“What’s that?” She said regardless, because she wasn’t sure what else to say.

Twilight pursed her lips. To Sunset, the girl across the table--the mare across the table, to be honest--looked for all the world a perfect blend of plotting general and studious graduate.

“Well, I was thinking about you, honestly.”

Sunset sighed, or rather she began to sigh and then decided for something less honest. “Me? I’m flattered, Twilight, but would you really want your first love affair to be with a wanted fugitive?”

Twilight blinked at her for a moment, uncomprehending, and then flushed. “Ugh, that’s not what I meant! Also, you aren’t.”

“Aren’t?”

“A fugitive. Remember?”

“Ah.”

It was true. Royal pardon, delivered by Twilight herself months ago, along with a letter she hadn’t read. The letter which, in fact, she still sometimes took out of its sacred resting place in her desk, where she would sit at hold it, imagining what it might say, listening for the sound her fingers made as they rubbed against the stiff old Equestrian paper.

“I was being serious, you know,” Twilight said with a little fake pout about her, which normally would have made the former fugitive laugh. It didn’t, but it did make her feel a little less… whatever she was feeling.

“Go on, go on,” Sunset murmured. She needn’t have, of course, as she knew where this would go.

It would start with drawing parallels between them, perhaps. Or maybe she would attack over less trod ground: don’t you feel… isolated?

“Do you miss Equestria?”

Close. “That’s an interesting question,” Sunset said. When Twilight responded with a raised eyebrow, she continued. “Do I miss Equestria? What you really mean, I think, is do I miss being a pony.” She lowered her voice. “Magic, mostly.”

“I suppose,” Twilight said. “But no, I really meant… the ponies in Equestria.”

“Most of my school friends think I’m dead,” Sunset said simply, to which Twilight (predictably) reacted with horror.

“Sunset, that’s awful!”

“So is birth,” she groused, but then softened. “It was for the best. I timed my disappearance to make it look like something happened on one of my expeditions. I just walked offsite and never went back. My parents… who knows? I wasn’t really thinking straight at the time. I was in a bad place.”

A bad place, as if that made any of it less insane.

“Oh… oh my gosh…” Twilight set her cup down. “Sunset, you…”

“I know. Trust me, I know.” She looked back to the street. A car passed. “Honestly, Twilight? I don’t know how I feel about it. I could go home now, legally, and not have to worry. But…” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Another night.

The alienation of Red Schism from the world around him and the world he left behind

She erased it.

Music filled the room, but she mostly ignored it. Or tried to. The music was different here, just like most of the other sounds. For one, electrical instruments were newer in Equestria. Two… ponies were a bit less aggressive in general, and it showed in their music. Three?

She kept typing. No more delays. No more mooning over things that might not even be true.

Sunset had the vaguest memory of thinking to herself so long ago that humans heard differently, but did they? How would she know?

Hands. Hands were different. But how? What were hooves like? Could she know for sure? Could she trust her memories to be sound guides when memory was so frequently wrong?

She kept furiously writing. Even if she didn’t remember what magic felt like, did it really matter? No, no it didn’t. Because who said she would need to remember? Magic wasn’t something she needed. She had hands. Hands that could type and were typing and look at what they could do! She didn’t need magic. She didn’t need it she didn’t--

What saved her desk from being kicked was that kicking things hurt more now that she had toes and so instead both her computer and desk were spared from violence as Sunset Shimmer saved, stood up, and fumbled for her keys.

Fuck it. The gas station had menthols.

She was back outside. Overhead, the stars were clouded over and the moon was half-hidden. The wind picked up, and whistled through the grass. Someone’s windchime played.

Sunset ignored all of it as she stalked towards her motorcycle.

It was her pride and joy, and perhaps it felt a bit like galloping again. On the open road, there was nothing between her and the wild winds. Cars were fine, but they always felt constricting, small. She had run on four legs once, and felt the wind in her mane, and so no car could satisfy her.

Or at least, until she lost the feeling of galloping too.

The gas station wasn’t far. The woman at the counter stared at her with dull, uninterested eyes like she always had. Her ID was still incredibly fake, just like everything legal she had, all of it paid for from the surprisingly large windfall that a royal stipend and more-or-less embezzled royal magical reseatch funds paid in literal gold had brought. She got Marlboros because she always did. She left in a hurry.

The air was thick but her mind wasn’t on the signs of rain. It was that look on Twilight’s face. It was her questions.

“Sunset… you can come back. You don’t have to. But you can. Maybe you should, even if you don’t stay.”

Rain again. Spring showers. They started right after she’d pulled her bike in under the carport or whatever the hell it was called, with a suddenness that left her soaked until she was running. If her neighbors had cared to see, they might have seen Sunset Shimmer barreling through the apartment complex trying to shield herself from the rain with her jacket and slipping on the concrete.

She caught herself with an outstretched hand and a curse. Her palm was hot, no doubt scratched to hell, contrasting with the rest of her cold, wet form. She sprinted the rest of the way and stopped at her door, panting.

And then she laid her head on the door and just… waited.

The rain continued on. The world was suffused with sound. Thousands of little drops, just like--

Her father grinning with amusement at her wonder. Shield spells took work, but one day she would learn them, he assured her. And they were useful when it was storming, as she saw. The rain pattered against the unwavering golden glow of his magic. She grinned. One day she would know how to do things like that. She would--

Pull out a cigarette and then find that she had no lighter.

There was one in her desk. Next to the letter from Celestia which she could not touch anymore. She yanked it out, slammed the desk shut, and stomped back out into the rain--

Thinking about how she had hid under her covers, terrified of the lightning--

And lit a cigarette.

She sat on the steps, shielded once again, not quite a part of what was around her. Not quite a part of the storming because it was loud enough without it.

“Sunset, you can always come home.” A pause. “I… Celestia mentioned you, when we spoke. She seemed sad. Did you read her letter?”

No.

“Your parents… I’m sure if you…”

They would.

“And I know the girls aren’t the same ones you know, but you can be friends with both. And me… I’m always around. And you could visit. There are ponies in Equestria who still care about you, you know. I know I do.”

She knew.

Menthol is nice because it is smooth. It is like fire that cools. It takes your mind off things like… everything. Just everything. In its own way, a cigarette is an entire world. It’s magical. You just stare at its tiny little fire and every exhalation becomes incense and alchemy and your worries lie low, suffocated for a moment. But then it’s gone and you either fumble for another one or you go back inside and you finish your paper and graduate and live your life in a world you don’t belong in where the alternative is one where every step will be like broken glass.

So Sunset fumbled for another one and tried to light it, but the wind fought her. She cupped her hands around it, and the fire licked her thumb, but she didn’t cry out. She just inhaled, and the tip of her little escape caught.

Perfect.

She dreamed about Equestria sometimes.

She was always moving, in those dreams. Walking through Canterlot, or down some dusty trail to the next ruin. Walking in the gardens with Celestia. Walking to the park with her parents as a little filly. Walking, always walking, always moving.

And vividly, she would recall upon waking up the sensation of walking with four legs instead of two. She would stumble out of bed, and try to do it again, and find she couldn’t. It wasn’t the same. It was always wrong somehow.

She dreamed about magic, too.

Spells and thaumaturgic circles, analyses of the world and the song which moved it. She had studied the very fabric of existence and learned to tweak it to more closely suit her purposes. The hum of powerful magics at work as she captured some wild artifact from its resting place, shielding her companions from its rough aura. The light in Celestia’s eyes which no doubt reflected her own joy as she mastered illusion magic and drew her first thaumic matrix to perfection. Her mother’s pride as she read over her daughter’s paper on pinpoint teleportation techniques. Except it wasn’t any of those things. It was all muddled together. It was one great blur she could only grasp at and call magic and know was there but the feeling slipped away.

She kept forgetting.

Her phone buzzed in her jacket pocket. When she dug for it, she saw at last her bloody hand and sighed, gingerly trying to wipe the blood off on her jeans. Perfect. Now it was… whatever. It didn’t matter.

Just a text from Twilight. This world’s Twilight. She wanted to know if Sunset wanted to study for the physics final. Sure. Why the hell not? Well apart from constantly hearing over and over Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, whispering in her ear that she shouldn’t just burn the bridge because she was scared. That she couldn’t be scared forever.

She sent a one word response and then winced. Right. Saying “sure” to Pinkie or Dash was one thing. Twilight always got a little paranoid about--

But she seemed alright. So Sunset let it go. She let a lot of things go.

She called Twilight before she knew what was happening, and then the phone was ringing and she panicked.

“H-hello?”

Sunset worked her mouth. She took a confused, strangled little drag.

“I… Hi,” she said, settling on that.

“Hi,” Twilight said. “You sound… off.”

“Yeah.”

“Sunset, are you alright? It’s okay if you’re busy or not feeling well, I’m sure I can--”

“No, no you’re fine. I’ll be free tomorrow,” said Sunset hurriedly.

“I… I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“It’s fine.”

“But you aren’t,” Twilight said. “I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t know. I just know that you sound really, really off… is something wrong?”

“Everything is wrong and has been a long time.”

“I… I’m coming over.”

“Please don’t. This was stupid. I’m sorry. Just… just forget.”

“Sorry,” Twilight said, sounding decidedly not sorry. “I have great memory. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

Sunset stared blankly at her cigarette, which had betrayed her. Wasn’t it supposed to make her less twitchy? And now she smelled like smoke. Perfect. “I… The rain,” she said, her voice sounding weak.

“Okay, yeah, I am a little nervous about that,” Twilight said. “But I’d rather drive in some rain then you be alone right now, whatever is going on. Just… wait for me, okay?”

“Sure,” Sunset said, because she was working on autopilot.

And then she waited, because she wasn’t done smoking yet and she refused to let her apartment smell like smoke. When shock set in, you tried to keep the small, reasonable parts of life going.

The rain kept falling. The wind picked up, and those damn chimes with their stupid song rattling pricked her ears but elsewise it was just Sunset, the storm which dwarfed her, and the menthols which weren’t helping as much as she had hoped. They never did. They were stupid. She was stupid.

She saw Twilight arrive not by sign of her car but by the slightly bobbing umbrella. She did not rise to meet her friend but rather sat, feeling altogether small.

When she was close enough to lock eyes with, Sunset did not lock eyes with her. She threw her butt into the grass to be pelted by rain.

Twilight stopped just short of her doorway. “I thought you quit.”

“I did,” Sunset said. “I figured you didn’t know. I know I didn’t tell you.”

“I asked around when I noticed the smell on your jacket,” Twilight said. “Rarity told me that you’d quit. She also told me that you’d been, and I quote, ‘sullen’ at school.”

“I am sullen. It’s a part of my character, at this point.”

“Right. Well… Well, I’m here. And I won’t nag you about it,” she added, stepping under the shelter of the awning. “At least not right now. I have a feeling it wouldn’t help much. May I sit?”

“Be my guest.”

They sat on the steps and listened. The sudden rain had become a storm now. They heard thunder crack somewhere overhead.

“What’s this about?” Twilight asked. “I’m not really sure how to… you know. Do this whole heart to heart… thing. But you sounded so miserable and I couldn’t--”

“You’re doing a decent job so far. You actually drove all the way here.”

“I had to,” Twilight said.

“No. You really didn’t, and that’s why it’s good,” Sunset said and smiled at her for a moment. “No matter what universe, Twilight Sparkle can be counted on for aid and succor, I guess.”

“Er… thanks, I think.”

“I have a letter in my desk,” Sunset blurted.

“Uh… who is it from?”

“Celestia.”

“The principle?”

“The Princess.”

Twilight shifted next to her. “I… um. I guess that’s like a pony thing? She’s a princess. Got it. Right. So… what did it say?”

“I don’t know. I can’t read it.”

“You can’t read it?” Twilight Sparkle adjusted her glasses. “Like, as in you forgot how to read Pony-language? I suppose without adequate opportunities to do so…”

“No. No, I mean like… like I can’t bring myself to.”

“Why not?”

“Because she was my teacher and my mentor and the pony I loved most in the world and I betrayed her. I broke her heart and yelled at her and then I kind of sort of faked my death, stole royal funds, and then escaped to a new world?”

“I…”

“And because I know she’ll forgive me and it’s going to hurt,” Sunset whined. “It’s going to hurt a lot. And I’ll have to keep doing… what I’ve done here. I’ll be rebuilding everything. Forever. I’m never going to be on the inside, not having to either figure out a world I don’t know, or work my way into some circle that I’ve hurt somehow. I can’t go home.”

Twilight stared, openmouthed. “Sunset, I... “

“I can’t remember what it’s like to be a pony. A unicorn. I can’t remember what my own magic felt like. I barely remember what walking felt like. I can’t… I can’t remember what having hooves was like or what getting my mane done was like or if things sounded or tasted the same. I keep dreaming about it, but then I wake up… I wake up and I don’t know how much is me making it all up and how much is real and…”

Twilight’s arms snaked around her. Her head burrowed underneath Sunset’s chin. Sunset thought she heard something along the lines of “It’s okay, it’s okay” but she couldn’t be sure because the rain got even heavier and because fairly soon she was crying into Twilight’s hair.

They spent a few moments like that, locked together.

“You have to read it,” Twilight said at last. “I think you should. I’m sorry. I’ve never looked at you and thought those things. You’re just… Sunset Shimmer. You’re my friend. You were nice to me even after all that stuff happened with the magic and the evil and…”

“I know.”

“I can… I don’t know. I can be here when you do,” Twilight said, uncertainly. “If you want.”

Sunset rose, shakily. She already wanted another menthol but she chucked the pack into the rain and instantly regretted it. Why not? She regretted everything, really.

“Come on,” she said, and pulled Twilight inside. Because she had fucked up enough tonight, and so why not do it? Why not read the letter?

You couldn’t go home again, that’s why. But you couldn’t do a lot of things and she had tried to do them anyway. Twilight was here, she was here, and the letter was here and…

And suddenly she just wanted to go home. Wherever that was.

Author's Note

this story is a mess

so is life

unlike this story, life has kitties who sit on you when you are doing things