Sunset Shimmer exhaled her frustrations in one long, deep breath.
The day had been going smoothly. All appointments had been kept, nothing serious had needed to be addressed, and she was working on a full seven hours. So why did she feel melancholy? Was she hoping for something awful to occur? No, it was not as morbid as that. Sunset was mainly bored.
Sunset still thought about Equestria, even though she had not been back in years. She had—permanently, she hoped—closed the door on her old life. She had turned her back on that far-too-ambitious unicorn and embraced herself as a human, a human with a career and eventually a family. Yet lately this land of magic and monsters had come to her in her dreams. It wanted her to return. It needed her, she irrationally believed.
A knock on the door startled Sunset out of her thoughts.
“Um, Dr. Shimmer….,” came the timid voice of a nurse.
Sunset pretended to be shuffling papers on her desk as the door opened. She did not want to be asked that ever-present question--”Is everything alright, Dr. Shimmer?”--again.
“A girl just came in…,” began the nurse.
Sunset looked up sharply. She glanced at the clock above the door, frowning in puzzlement. Her skill for keeping her schedule in order would have made Twilight Sparkle swoon. The human Twilight at least. Sunset hadn't seen either Twilight in a long time, but she still occasionally contacted human Twilight via e-mail.
“Does she have an appointment?” Sunset demanded.
The nurse shook her head.
“No, she doesn’t,” the nurse answered. “But I think you should see her. Her friends insist she’s seriously injured.”
Sunset looked at the clock again. The clinic was set to close in about two hours and there were no more appointments for the day. And if this girl really was “seriously injured”, Sunset knew it was her duty to at least take a look. She turned to the nurse with a smile and nodded.
The nurse hastily left the room.
Sunset went into professional-mode instantly, her own thoughts forgotten. Years of being a successful doctor had given her the ability to shift seamlessly into the mindset of a well-versed professional.
The nurse returned a minute later. She held the door open for three girls, one of whom was limping.
Sunset turned around in her chair with a friendly smile on her face. With her hair tied up in a tight bun and a pair of glasses perched on the edge of her nose, she could have easily fit the role of a kindly old grandmother in a childrens’ story. However, the smile froze on Sunset’s face at the sight of her latest patient.
Even if everything else had somehow faded from Sunset’s memory, she would never forget the faces. They had not aged. Unlike Sunset, who had taken the full brunt of aging and then some, the girls seemed to be frozen in an eternal and enviable state of youth. But Sunset would have recognized them even if their faces had been lined with wrinkles, even if their eyes had been sunken and their hair brittle and gray. They were the three divining rods that centered Sunset on that one event in her life.
It took a minute for Sunset to see past their identities. When she did, she noticed that Sonata Dusk and Aria Blaze were supporting Adagio, each girl firmly grasping an arm. Adagio’s hair was drooping like a wilted flower. Her face was pale and there was the suggestion of a bruise on her left cheek. The once intimidating figure looked as if she’d spent the last several years of her life in an alleyway fighting with raccoons for her one meal a day.
And did she? Sunset wondered, surprised by the idea.
Neither she nor her friends had made any effort to discover where the Dazzlings had ended up. The phrase “No magic, no threat” had seemed an appropriate excuse to simply ignore their existence. As the Dazzlings hadn’t surfaced at all since they fled the school, Sunset hadn’t concerned herself with them. She realized with a pang of guilt that she hadn’t even wondered if they were alive.
The nurse quietly left, closing the door behind her. Sunset was alone with the three girls who’d once been her enemies.
Sonata wasted no time breaking the silence. Her usually oblivious face was streaked with faded tears. Her hair was a mess and her clothes were stained as if she’d fallen in the dirt several times.
“Please help us!” Sonata croaked. “Adagio is...I think she’s dying!”
The word “dying” awakened years of medical training within Sunset. Briefly forgetting the past, Sunset immediately left her chair. She strode rapidly across the room and seized Adagio in a strong grip. She gently pulled Adagio away from the two girls and led her to the examination table.
Adagio lay down on the table without protest. Her eyes flickered to Sunset with obvious recognition, but she didn’t speak. She lay an arm across her stomach, a pair of dazed eyes focused on the ceiling.
Sunset strode over to a nearby cabinet and began pulling out various medical tools.
“What happened to her?” Sunset asked, her back to the girls.
Sonata didn’t seem able to answer, but Aria spoke immediately. Out of all three of the girls, she was the least worse for wear. The clothes she wore were too small for her, but they were free of stains and seemed to have been bought recently.
“We don’t know,” Aria admitted. “She just called us out of the blue and told us to get our asses over to her house. When we got there, she was lying on the floor holding her leg. She told us to take her to the doctor because Boss took the car.”
Sunset nodded, although she only understood half of the information. She pulled a fresh pair of rubber gloves over her hands. Then Sunset walked hastily back to the examination table. She automatically turned her attention to Adagio’s right leg.
Adagio was wearing a pair of bell-bottom jeans. A dark stain was seeping through the faded material. Sunset carefully lifted the pant leg to reveal a white bandage. Closer inspection revealed the “bandage” to be made from the sleeve of a very old T-shirt. The T-shirt sleeve was soaked through with blood. Sunset slowly peeled it away to reveal a sizable gash just above the knee.
Adagio did not flinch as the wound was unveiled. She continued to stare at the ceiling with her arm across her stomach, her expression almost one of contemplation.
“This looks as if it was done with a knife,” Sunset observed, more to herself than to the girls.
Despite Sonata’s proclamation about Adagio “dying”, Sunset thought it was a relatively minor injury compared to a few others she’d observed. A quick examination revealed it to be nothing extremely serious. Sunset tossed away the dirty T-shirt sleeve and set about washing and disinfecting the wound.
“Whose “Boss”?” Sunset asked as she worked.
Sonata was watching attentively. She appeared nervous. But Aria was leaning casually against Sunset’s desk. Aria's concern was apparently spent.
“That’s what we call Adagio’s boyfriend,” Aria explained. “That’s what he makes us call him anyway. He gets real mad if people don’t call him by his “real name”.”
Aria chuckled, although she didn’t look or sound amused.
Sunset wasn’t one for asking invasive questions. She knew her patients normally resented her prying even slightly into their private matters. Fortunately, it was rare she received someone with a broken arm or such that hadn’t been caused by reckless athletics or stupidity. But Aria’s explanation practically forced the query out of Sunset.
“Do you think…”Boss”….did this to her?” Sunset asked.
Aria shrugged her shoulders. The idea had obviously occurred to her, but it didn’t cause her any surprise or alarm.
“Could have been Boss,” Aria agreed. “Could have also been Twinkly. That’s the woman she was with before. Might have been Boo-Boo or Ham. I doubt it was Small, though.”
Sunset accepted the names without comment. She was trying to focus all of her attention on disinfecting Adagio’s wound, but her mind kept running through the implications. Sunset remembered all the time she'd had. Enough free time to possibly find out exactly what had happened to the Dazzlings after their failure. Sunset didn’t want to feel sympathy for three creatures who had conspired to take over the world, yet looking at Adagio and hearing Aria speak ignited a deep sense of pity in her chest.
“Small’s the only one who ever treated her right,” continued Aria absentmindedly. “Stupid, isn’t it? There he was, some halfway-towards-wealthy guy with all the trimmings, yet he treated Adagio like she was a queen. Too bad the house of cards fell down and he became a deadbeat. Adagio should have stuck with him.”
There was a certain question perched on the edge of Sunset’s tongue. That question was the sum of a thousand thoughts that had invaded her brain at the sight of the Dazzlings. But Sunset couldn’t bring herself to ask it. She wanted to know more, yet at the same time she wanted to know nothing at all.
“You three aren’t living together?” Sunset asked instead.
Aria laughed. Again there was no trace of amusement. Out of all three of them, she looked the most tired. Sunset had seen enough of the world to feel sorry for her.
“We split about seven years ago,” Aria explained. “I couldn’t stand hanging around these two losers. All Adagio did was whine about how unfair it was that she lost everything. She hated the fact we had to work around the clock at a fast food joint to afford our shitty apartment. So we each took a percentage of our savings and went our separate ways. Never strayed far from each other, though.”
The shift in conversation attracted Sonata’s attention. She turned her gaze away from Adagio’s wound and smiled at Sunset.
“I work at a department store!” Sonata announced proudly. “It’s the funnest job ever!”
Aria rolled her eyes.
“You said that about the fast food joint,” Aria pointed out. “Don’t you want to have a real job?”
Sunset finished disinfecting the wound. She strode over to another cabinet and pulled out a roll of fresh bandages.
“It is so a real job!” Sonata objected, pouting. “They give me little green pieces of paper and everything!”
Aria took a deep breath. She clearly was out of practice when it came to dealing with Sonata. She’d been mercifully spared from it for the past few months.
“You mean money?” Aria scoffed.
Sunset pretended to be busy with Adagio’s wound, but she was listening attentively. At least none of them were living in a gutter with barely any food, especially judging by Aria’s appearance. But a glance at Adagio’s injury returned Sunset to a state of regret. For one of the few times since she'd become a doctor, she felt helpless.
Aria and Sonata launched into another one of their infamous disagreements. Seeing the two of them trading insults akin to toddlers furthered Sunset’s pity. They might have technically been far older than her, but in some ways they may as well have been children.
“Idiots….”
Adagio’s voice almost made Sunset jump. Fortunately she did not, otherwise a different problem would have arisen. Her hands twitched a little, but she continued carefully dressing the wound.
“Try not to move,” Sunset advised.
Adagio ignored Sunset’s advice. She turned her head to look at her two arguing comrades, her lips turning upward into a bitter smile.
“Are they really idiots?” Adagio mused aloud. “They’re doing better than me, aren’t they?”
Sunset remained quiet. She sensed the question was rhetorical.
“I miss Small,” Adagio confessed with a sigh. “You know, he said he loved me. He looked right into my eyes and said he’d give me the world if he could. And you know what I did? I said it back...but I didn’t really mean it.”
The situation felt unreal to Sunset. All those years ago, the Sirens had been a threat. A force of nothing more than animosity and malevolence. Sunset had driven the Sirens into the dirt and been raised on a pedestal in return. And not once had she regretted it, not once had she spared a thought for the Sirens themselves. As she dressed Adagio’s wound with the care of a mother, Sunset realized those memories made her feel sick.
“It’s a gift,” Adagio continued. “I’ve learned to say anything as long as it helps. The human world isn’t a place for a creature like me. I deserve better….or at least I believe I do. I’m not sure anymore.”
Adagio gestured to the wound. The sight of blood and gore, even on herself, did not alarm her.
“I hate Boss,” Adagio said dourly. “I hate his stupid face and his asshole friends and his knife. He waves that thing around like it scares me. But you know what? I’m not scared of him. I’m scared of ending up like...them.”
Adagio didn’t gesture to Aria and Sonata, but she didn’t have to. However, the bitterness in her voice didn’t seem to be directed towards her comrades. She did not hate them for their choices, at least not at the moment. The bitterness was aimed inwards, towards that little part of Adagio that just wouldn’t surrender.
“Sunset, why did you become a doctor?” Adagio asked suddenly.
Sunset was startled by the question. She’d expected Adagio to go through a long tangent about her life. A direct question—using her name no less—caught her off guard.
“I...I wanted to help people,” Sunset answered truthfully.
It was Sunset’s standard answer. The answer could have been rehearsed, judging by the way she delivered it as if on cue. Her friends had been the first ones to ask that question. They'd always believed Sunset would want to devote her life to horses.
Adagio laughed.
“Bullshit!” Adagio responded candidly. “You wanted to make amends, didn’t you?”
Sunset opened her mouth to protest, but found she could not. No one had ever had reason to call out her explanation as nonsense. However, although it was mostly true, Sunset could not claim she believed it was one hundred percent her reasoning. At her core, Sunset’s only real desire in life had been to prove she could be the hero, rather than the villain.
“I knew we’d meet again,” Adagio commented, grinning. “We’re the same.”
Sunset bristled in instant defense.
“We are not the same!” Sunset protested. “I’ve been making an honest career for myself while you’ve just been...been...”
Sunset’s cheeks reddened. She didn’t want to say it out loud. Fortunately, Adagio casually took that responsibility from her.
“I’ve been sleeping with people to get by?” Adagio finished with a smirk. “I’ll freely admit that, sweetheart. But in my defense, it’s the only thing I know how to do.”
Aria and Sonata finally ceased their childish bickering. Aria retreated to a corner of the room, her arms crossed. Sonata stuck out her tongue at Aria as one final rebuttal.
Adagio watched her two comrades thoughtfully.
“You’d never believe I love those two, would you?” Adagio commented. “I used to just say that to calm them down. But now...I think I really love them. They’re...my family.”
The legitimate warmth in her voice startled Sunset. She looked into Adagio’s eyes for the first time. Sunset saw many emotions flash across them as Adagio observed her. Chief among them was envy. Envy directed towards the woman who’d landed on her feet, who’d had a dream, who’d belonged. That ball of regret in Sunset's stomach was expanding with every second.
“I’m sorry,” Adagio uttered suddenly.
Sunset almost thought she herself had spoken. For those were the exact words she’d been about to utter. What she meant by them she didn’t know. Sunset only knew that, as she stared into Adagio’s eyes, all she wanted to do was drop to her knees and apologize until her voice gave out.
“I forgive you,” Sunset uttered instead.
Sunset was being completely sincere. She realized the Adagio who had almost led the Sirens to a fatal victory had passed long ago. Sunset felt another pang of guilt in her chest. She wished she could make amends in an even better way.
The dressing of the wound finally came to a close. Cleaned and dressed, the wound did not look quite as serious. However, Adagio winced as she sat up on the examination table. She attempted to assume a look of serenity, but her expression fell short of covering up her discomfort.
“You should be fine,” Sunset informed Adagio confidently. “You’ll need to keep the wound clean for about a week or two. You should change the bandages several times a day.”
Sonata and Aria helped Adagio off of the examination table. The pair hastily forgot their earlier squabble as they supported Adagio.
“Thank you,” Adagio said with a smile.
Sunset dropped into her desk chair, her professional manner returning at full force.
“You won’t be charged for any of this,” Sunset informed Adagio. “But can you come back in about a week so I can check your progress? And would you mind staying with a friend for the time being? I’d like to make sure you’re taken care of.”
Adagio glanced from Sonata to Aria.
“Aria, would you mind…?” Adagio began reluctantly.
Aria’s cheeks reddened. She turned her head away to hide her flustered expression.
“I’ll...I’ll have to call work,” Aria replied. “I’m not the best martial arts teacher at the place, but they depend on me to keep things in order.”
The Dazzlings left, Sonata sobbing and assuring Adagio she would be fine. Aria casually kicked the door shut behind her as they departed.
Alone at last, Sunset grinned to herself. Aria’s words danced in her mind akin to a premonition. “Martial arts teacher” she had stated, quite deliberately in Sunset’s opinion. She was assuring Sunset that if anyone came looking for trouble, she’d probably be capable of handling it.
I could have said no, Sunset thought. I could have turned them away.
But patterns were patterns for a reason. Patterns of that nature existed because the people within them were too stubborn, too grounded in the past to notice the poison they were drinking with every cycle. Sunset had drunk her fair share of poison. As a doctor, Sunset thought it was just good ethics to try to prevent others from drinking their own.
For the first time in years, Sunset wanted to write a letter to Twilight Sparkle. She wanted to re-explore the world she’d cut herself off from. However, what Sunset desired more than either of those things was to continue her life as it was.
There were thousands of people like the Dazzlings out there. People complacently drinking their poison until they ended up in a doctor’s office.
Some of them were going to need more than a couple of bandages.
Author's Note
I couldn't finish this in time for Sunset Shimmer Day, but here it is anyway.
