Reconciliationsby SoufriereChaptersPrologueRainbow DashApplejackPinkie PieFluttershyEpilogueAlternate BONUS CHAPTER: Pinkamena Diane PiePrologue“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this,” Sunset Shimmer said as she sat on the edge of her bed. For the first time in what felt like ages, she was wearing street clothes instead of her pyjamas – which had been forcibly removed by Rarity for washing at the coin laundry down the block. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now,” Rarity replied as she turned back from inspecting the squalor that was Sunset’s bedroom. “After all, you’re the one who wanted to do it this way. And this really is the best week for it; the others are all busy at different times, so their ‘visiting hours’ with you won’t overlap.” “Yes, I know. It was my idea, but I’m still uncomfortable,” Sunset said quietly, tugging on one of her jacket’s sleeves. Rarity nodded in acknowledgement but levelled a stern look at her friend. “Uncomfortable it may be, but you cannot remain confined mostly to your room. You must face other people again. You won’t heal any more until you do. Also, even if I wanted to be your go-between forever, which I do not, I simply lack the time now.” Sunset sighed. “Yeah. You have exams and stuff.” “So do you… I think,” Rarity said, unsure, before putting it out of her mind for the moment and moving on. “I also have a job that I’ve been shirking for far too long, dear. Now, don’t get me wrong; you’re far more important to me than a paycheck, but I would like to keep earning it, for my own health, and so I’m no longer tempted to steal your scooter for transp— Will you quit messing with your jacket!” Sunset immediately placed her hands on her knees. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve worn street clothes. And Rachel’s still kind of new; I’m not used to her yet.” “Rachel is the one with the inner lining, yes? Odd even by your standards that you would wear such a warm jacket when the weather outside is far from frightful.” Sunset shrugged. “Sasha needed a break,” she explained. “I will never not be amused at the fact you name your jackets,” Rarity said with a smirk. “The thought of doing that never even occurred to me.” “That’s because you have more clothes than you know what to do with,” replied Sunset. “By the way, I also named my scooter. And my guitar. And my—” Rarity chuckled as she rolled her eyes. “Of course. Listen, I have to go to work now. The first one of our friends should be here in about an hour. “Which one?” Sunset asked. Rarity puzzled for a second, then shrugged. “I can’t remember. But it really doesn’t matter. All of them really do care about you and only want to help.” “Yeah, I guess so.” “However,” Rarity continued, “Don’t be discouraged if they’re unable to understand what you’ve been going through at first. Their hearts are in the right place. Also, do remember if you get overwhelmed, that breathing technique I taught you. Good luck. I have faith in you.” Sunset harumphed, “All right. Just get going. The last thing I need on my conscience is for you to be fired because of me.” Rarity took Sunset’s hand in both of her own for a few seconds, squeezing slightly. For a brief moment, their eyes met. Sunset saw the look on Rarity’s face – concerned, but also reassuring. As quickly as she noticed it, it was gone, replaced by the standard business smile Rarity wore most of the time. Rarity nodded once, then turned around and left the apartment without a word, waving goodbye on the way out, her multiple bracelets jangling as she did so. After the apartment door closed. Sunset sat in the silence for a moment before verbalizing to break the quiet. “Well… here we go. I can do this. They’re good kids. I can do this.” Rainbow DashSunset Shimmer sat on her navy blue sofa, Old Charley, in her apartment’s tiny living area, feet propped up on the giant wooden cable spool she stole from behind some business for use as a table, waiting for the knock on the door. As the only television she had was antenna and nothing even remotely decent was on, she decided to pass the time by engaging in some deep breathing exercises Rarity (prone to hyperventilating) had taught her, in preparation for this afternoon. The knock never came. Instead, Rainbow Dash burst into the apartment without so much as a warning, startling Sunset. The girl had clearly come straight from soccer practice, as sweat was still visible on her sky-blue skin, plus she was wearing her gym clothes and had her hair tied back in a ponytail. I seriously need to remember to lock that door, Sunset thought. Rainbow Dash plopped down on the couch next to Sunset, who did her best to hide her shock at Dash’s lack of decorum behind a friendly nod. For at least a minute, the two stared at each other in silence, the quiet broken only by the muffled sound of traffic outside the window on the far side of the room. Rainbow Dash’s own expression slowly shifted from confusion to annoyance before she finally spoke. “So… what?” Dash asked. “What?” Sunset replied, not getting it. “Rarity told me to come here. So I did. I even cut out of practice early. Now I’m here and you’re not saying anything.” “I’m sorry,” said Sunset, drooping her head. “Well, you should be,” snipped Rainbow Dash, not really looking at Sunset. “I may not be a working girl like Applejack or Rarity, but I still have things I gotta do. This is my only real free time this week and—” Then she noticed Sunset looking at her like a puppy that had been kicked in the face, mouth slightly open as her lower lip quivered. “Hey now,” Rainbow Dash said, trying to salvage the situation. “You don’t need to give me that face, okay?” Sunset nodded, trying to re-neutralize her expression. “Sorry. I’m… not usually this off.” “Yeah, seriously. What is up with you?” asked Dash, in her characteristic lack of tact. “I noticed a few days ago that I hadn’t seen you in, like, a long time, and Rarity said it was because you were ‘sick’. You don’t look sick, but you’re not acting like the Sunset I know.” “I’m not,” Sunset confirmed, morosely. “I mean, where’s the girl that ran CHS with an iron fist for three years, turned into a crazy monster, and blew up half the school?” “She’s dead… I hope,” said Sunset quietly, her voice breaking. “Uh-huh,” Rainbow Dash said breezily, not listening or really looking at Sunset. “I mean, I guess I can’t blame you for not wanting to show your face at school with all the stuff you did. You were kind of a… what’s wrong?” Sunset was hunched over, her hands grabbing either side of her head, fingers intertwined with her two-toned hair. Her breathing had become erratic as she allowed her composure to break, crying softly. A look of utter panic flashed across Rainbow Dash’s face as she looked around the room in vain hope of rescue. Finding none, she instead tried to recall her friends’ empathy lessons. If there was a time to use them, this was it. She leaned in to Sunset, her right arm draped on the back of the couch for stabilization. “Oh, crap. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Seriously.” Sunset turned to look at her with slightly-red eyes. “No. I-it’s fine,” she said, though her semi-fetal position and breaking tone made clear it was not. “It’s just how you are. I expected it to go like this.” “Huh?” Rainbow Dash huh’d. After a deep intake of breath, Sunset continued. “Dash, I know I didn’t do much to you during my reign of terror (ugh), but… I still did so many horrible things the last few years. You don’t need to remind me.” Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “But it just comes up naturally sometimes. That’s why I always say ‘no offense’, y’know?” Sunset sighed, shaking her head as she placed a hand on that spot in between her eyebrows. “I know. But it does hurt. I have to live with the guilt of what I’ve done for the rest of my life. Not just here, but everything I did back in Equestria too. I’m trying to show everyone that my past is not today; relitigating it isn’t exactly helpful.” “What?” Dash asked, clearly confused by the big word. Sunset spoke slowly as her brain worked double-time to craft a story her visitor could understand. “Imagine for a second that you… were playing… soccer as a kid…” “I did,” Dash interrupted. “That doesn’t shock me,” Sunset continued. “Anyway, in one of your peewee matches, it just rained the night before, so the field is wet. The coach still makes you all go out there. You have a good strike goal or whatever – sorry, I don’t sports – lined up. You run to kick the ball… and your cleats don’t do their job and you slip on the grass. You fall on your rear in front of dozens of people.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “Heh-heh. That sounds embarrassing. And… not too far off from what really happened. Were you at that game?” “I’m not finished,” said Sunset. “So you fall, but your foot is still straight out. Your teammate is standing right there and takes your foot to the face. She falls to the ground, hand over her mouth, blood seeping between her fingers. You broke her nose and knocked out some of her front teeth. They take her to the hospital in an ambulance.” “I don’t think I like where this story is going,” Dash said with a frown. “The next day, everyone at school knows what you did, or they think they do; you know how kids love to exaggerate. Anyway, you learn that you basically disfigured that girl – she’ll have to have false teeth and get a nose job when she’s older to fix your little accident. From then on, your classmates remind you every chance they get about how you messed up a girl forever. They laugh at you, give you a nickname like… face-rearranger. Even as you go into junior high and then high school, your classmates who knew you at the time tell everyone they can what you did. So no one you meet has the chance to get to know you on your own terms. No matter what you do, no one will ever let you forget. Ever,” Sunset concluded. “That’s… awful,” said Dash, shivering at the thought. “That’s my life. The difference of course is that most of what I did was on purpose, so I’ve been willing to accept punishment. But the point is the same, and so is the wish: to move on from the past without other people constantly weighing me down with its baggage,” explained Sunset. Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow, trying to think about what Sunset said. “So… you want people to stop telling you what a bad person you ar— uh, were?” Sunset wished she had a sheet of star-shaped stickers so she could mockingly affix one to Dash’s face. “No. I want you to stop doing that. Let me prove myself as a friend. I want to know I’ll have someone to turn to if I’m ever in this dark place again.” “I, uh, still don’t really get it,” Dash admitted, scratching her head, which was beginning to hurt from all the thinking. “Dash,” Sunset began, slowly and gently, “Not every ‘hurt’ or ‘sick’ is something you can see. A broken leg hurts, but it’s easy to fix. A broken mind is harder because you can’t see it, so it takes a lot longer to heal. I’ve learned that life will get to a point where you can’t go it alone. Twilight told me friends can be your rock. Rarity proved her right. But there’s no point in being friends with her if the rest of you hate me.” Rainbow Dash looked at Sunset as if she had spontaneously sprouted a second head. “We don’t hate you. I mean, I don’t hate you. Yeah, you were a big jerk to us, but that was then. Twilight said we should give you a chance. And any friend of hers deserves it. So I figure, why not? If you go crazy again I’ll just kick your butt!” Dash ended her spiel with a wink and a smile. Sunset sat on the couch, stunned into silence, until out of her came a sound she had not heard from herself in a long time – laughter. Not just a chuckle like with Rarity’s bad jokes. It was creaky and unsure, but unmistakable. Instinctively, she placed her fingers above the bridge of her nose. “Uh… you okay? Did I, like, break you or something?” Dash asked, her hands hovering over Sunset as if she were some sapient household appliance. Eventually, Sunset calmed down enough to respond. “No, no. Just… you. Ohh, I’d been dreading having to talk with you but… I think now I ‘get’ you a little better.” “Heh. Don’t know what there is to ‘get’. I’m awesome. That’s all anyone needs to know.” “You keep telling yourself that,” Sunset said. She was about to continue, but was interrupted by Rainbow Dash’s cell phone beeping. “Call?” Rainbow Dash looked at her phone. “No. Alarm. I gotta get going. It’s my turn to go buy stuff for eats with the team and I don’t wanna be late!” She hopped up and backed towards the door. “So… see you at school tomorrow?” Sunset shook her head. “No, not tomorrow. But soon. I promise.” “Cool,” Dash said as she turned to exit. “It’ll be awesome to have you back.” And with that, she was gone. Sunset closed the door. She turned to head for the kitchen to warm up some barely-edible leftovers, but doubled back to engage the deadbolt and security chain, shaking her head at her own silliness afterwards as she definitively made her way to her waiting food. ApplejackThe sun hung low in the sky as Sunset Shimmer stood at her stove attempting to create a fancy dish out of the few ingredients she had that could combine with instant noodles and vegetable broth without being disgusting. She sighed at the knowledge that Canterville is not an easy place to live if one is simultaneously a vegetarian and liquid-asset poor. Briefly she glanced down at the makeshift cloth bracelet covering the fading scars on her wrist. She had hoped to finish eating before her current former future possible friend showed up, but her cooking was interrupted two seconds before she could boil the noodles by a knock at her door. Based on the knocking-style – firm and slow – and the fact that the visitor bothered to knock at all, she figured there was only one person out of the four possibilities it could be. “It’s open!” Sunset called out. The door opened and, as expected, in walked Applejack, clearly just off of some sort of manual labour. Her clothes had random dirt patches on them, as did her hat. Her long blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail, but its frazzled state suggested it could do with some upkeep. Applejack looked at her feet for a second, then removed her boots and set them by the door. She then took off her hat, holding it out to hang it on the coat-rack. Finding no coat-rack or hook of any sort, she shrugged and plopped the hat back on her head. Sunset turned off the stove, a gas range whose installation was probably not up to code, and greeted her visitor: “Hello, Applejack.” Applejack stood, arms crossed, in front of Sunset’s couch – the only piece of furniture she owned besides her bed and the disused cable spool she found behind a dumpster that she repurposed as a table. “Howdy,” Applejack replied in her thick rural accent, uncharacteristically terse. Sunset could nearly feel the tension in the air as Applejack seemed miffed about something. Worried she might have offended her visitor somehow, she trod toward Applejack delicately, which only seemed to annoy the girl even more, as did inviting her to take a seat on the couch. She shut her eyes in a desperate attempt to gather up the courage to find the words to break the ice. After one more deep breath, Sunset decided to attempt an indirect approach. “What’s wrong?” asked Sunset. Applejack studied Sunset from head to toe, scratching her chin for a moment, then grabbed Sunset’s left arm and rolled up the sleeve, revealing fading scars on the underside of the wrist and forearm. Sunset’s eyes widened like a coyote five microseconds away from being hit by a bus. She attempted to pull away, but Applejack had much too strong a grip. “What is this?!” Applejack demanded. Sunset frowned, her head drooping; she refused to answer. Applejack asked again, but again Sunset averted her eyes and would not speak. Finally, Applejack grabbed Sunset’s cheeks and forced them to make eye contact. Sunset realized then that Applejack’s expression was softer than she expected. Concerned, almost sad. “You know what it is,” Sunset answered with a sigh. Applejack pursed her lips, unsure whether she should be angry or consoling or both or neither. “Why?” she asked. “I think you can guess,” Sunset said. “Um, how did you even know to look there?” “If you’re thinkin’ Rarity sold ya out, she didn’t,” Applejack reassured her. “As ta how I knew ta check your arm, well, ya ain’t the first person I’ve known who’s got issues. It ain’t hard ta connect the dots when a girl disappears for weeks right after the entire school made fun of ‘er and then we hear you’re ‘sick’, and Rarity was actin’ real cagey ‘bout the whole thing.” “Well, it’s not something I want to broadcast,” Sunset said forlornly. Applejack had kept her hands in position on either side of Sunset’s face, but her grip began to soften as did her expression and her voice. “Why’d ya think ya couldn’t talk to us?” she asked. Sunset blinked. “I… all the awful things I did to you over three years. I broke up your friendship with Rainbow Dash for a laugh. You all have every reason to hate me just as much as the rest of the school does. I assumed you were only being nice to me because Twilight told you to.” Applejack lowered her arms as she considered this, and nodded. “Cain’t lie. That is why we took ya in at first. But we got used to havin’ ya around – an’ not just fer help on homework – an’ realized Twi was right about ya; you’re a good gal deep down.” Sunset resisted the temptation to roll her eyes at the compliment she did not believe, but still managed a mumbled, “I don’t know.” “When ya disappeared,” Applejack continued, ignoring her, “we didn’t think much of it at first; there was a stomach bug goin’ ‘round school. After a couple days, we all got worried, but we were split over what to do. Pinkie wanted to go find ya immediately, of course. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy thought it’d be best to let ya be. I wasn’t sure what to think, and Rarity stayed quiet. But it didn’t matter since none of us knew where ya lived and yer phone wasn’t workin’.” “It hasn’t worked in months. I didn’t see the point of paying my bill if there was no one to talk to,” Sunset admitted with a shrug, causing Applejack to raise an eyebrow. “Sure,” Applejack said, not entirely on-board with Sunset’s reasoning. “Anyways, weren’t long after, we find out Rarity did some detective work on ‘er own an’ found ya… well, you know what happened next better’n I do; she wouldn’t tell us much. When she gave us the all-clear to come see ya, I figured it was about time. Not sure why she made us wait ‘til we couldn’t all come here together.” “That… was my idea,” said Sunset as quietly as possible. “I didn’t think I could handle all four of you at once. Also, I wanted to hear all of you out individually, since I hurt you each individually.” “Sugarplum, it ain’t a good idea to think that way,” Applejack said. “You know better’n anyone ya can’t change the past. Besides, I wasn’t really one of yer main targets, so I ain’t got no over-big grudge against ya.” “Well, that makes me feel a little better,” Sunset admitted with a sigh, preferring not to think about time travel spells for the moment. “You owned up to what ya did an’ apologized, an’ yer tryin’ ta be a better person. That’s all anyone can ask of ya,” Applejack concluded with that air of certainty she often used, as she placed her hand on Sunset’s shoulder. The left side of Sunset’s mouth twitched, clearly attempting to form a smile. Applejack realized it and shot a wide grin in return. “Atta girl. Now, I’m sorry ta cut it short but I gotta skedaddle on home an’ help put food on my family. You’re comin’ to class tomorrow, right? We’ll all be waitin’ for ya.” Sunset scratched her head as she shuffled her feet slightly. “It’s more likely now than it was this morning. That’s the best answer I can give. Just… don’t be too upset if I don’t show, okay?” “Fair enough,” admitted Applejack before tipping her hat, turning on her heels, and ambling out the door. A few minutes later, after Sunset remembered to lock the door, she lay down on her couch, kicking off her boots, staring across the bare ‘table’ to her television, an old secondhand model served only by an aerial which made the whole setup look like a throwback to decades earlier. She fumbled around the cushions for the remote. Not finding it, and not feeling like turning on the set manually, she stretched out with a relieved sigh as she stared at the black screen, then her white ceiling.. “That went okay,” she said to no one. Pinkie PieA hardly-cloudy-at-all afternoon, not that Sunset Shimmer would notice as her bedroom’s only window remained obstructed by a light-blocking curtain. Earlier that day, she had pulled the curtain back to gaze down at the urban streetscape a few storeys below for a few moments. As her vista provided little to no view of flora (edible or not), she closed the curtain again, shaking her head at her own silliness. She had a lamp or three that were more than capable of providing light – a warm light, not as harsh as the morning or midday sun. She sat on her bed, tuning her guitar, which she had named Mayfair, before mindlessly strumming out a few chords, when a knock on her front door startled her to the point she almost threw her beloved instrument to the floor. It was a rapid knock, perhaps slightly too loud, seeming to tap out some sort of rhythm to a song. Only one person I know knocks like that, Sunset thought as she hurriedly left her bedroom, tripping on a pile of unwashed clothes before reaching the living area. As Sunset moved as rapidly as possible to reach the front door, she called out to the visitor, “Just a sec—” The door flew open before Sunset could finish her sentence, revealing a young pink-skinned girl with big baby-blue eyes and long, curly, deep-pink hair (including a front-curl that seemed to defy all physics), whose entire motif could be summed up as “cheerful” – purple-trimmed white T-shirt emblazoned with a pink heart, covered by a blue overshirt open in the front; poofy lavender skirt with a balloon patch, cinched at the waist with a purple ribbon tied in a bow. As soon as the girl saw Sunset, she immediately beelined for her, nearly leaping and wrapping her in a massive bear-hug that would have knocked a lesser mortal off their feet. Sunset, for her part, endured the display with an unseen frown and eye-roll, momentarily shocked but not at all surprised. After about a minute, she carefully began extricating herself from her visitor. “Hello, Pinkie,” Sunset said, nearly devoid of emotion. “Thanks for coming but, uh, could you let go of me?” Like a suction cup suddenly becoming freed from its glass, Pinkie popped off and reconstituted herself about two feet back. Her smiling expression not wavering in the slightest. “I’m so so so glad to see you, Sunset!” Pinkie said, a few ticks on the volume knob louder than one would consider acceptable. “Uh-huh,” Sunset replied as she waited for the feeling in her extremities to return. Completely undaunted, Pinkie continued. “How are you feeling? Are you still sick? Not sick? Better? Worse?” “I, uh…?” “It’s been so long since you’ve been to school, a lot of us were wondering if you were ever coming back! Well, at least I was wondering that. Maybe everyone else was too, or maybe they weren’t. Well, Rarity sure was! After about a week she was just beside herself worried! So I said to both Raritys ‘We should go and check on her!’ But then I realized I didn’t know where you lived… and there was only one Rarity. She went to work and pulled up her store’s files to find your address because you bought a jacket there – did you give it a name? I would! – and she went to check on you… but of course you already know that since you were here!” Pinkie babbled. “Pinkie…” said Sunset, not yet sure how to stop Pinkie’s diatribe. “So anyway, she skipped school the next day! I don’t know if you knew that. But it made us worried she might’ve caught whatever it was you had. I almost reconsidered throwing you a Get Well party! BUT, she was back the next day and told us that you just needed time to get better. Everyone else said that was fine, but I didn’t!” “Pinkie,” Sunset attempted to interrupt, but failed. “I’ve dealt with sick people before! After all, that’s what I did when I volunteered at the kids’ ward in the hospital! The kids loved it, and the bosses liked me because they said I’m cheaper than hiring a clown, but the staff said I was too much and told me never to come back without… what was that pill? But that’s another story! I’m here for you!” “Pinkie!” interjected Sunset, louder this time, but still not loud enough. “So you can imagine how over-the-moon I was when Rarity told us at lunch the other day that we could finally come see you. Now of course I wanted us all to head over first thing after school, because really who wouldn’t be cheered up by seeing all her best friends? But our free times just didn’t match up, and that made me so sad! But Rarity said that you might not be able to ‘handle’ all of us at one time? Not really sure what she meant by that but… She might have had a point.” Pinkie said. “Huh?!” Sunset was shocked by Pinkie’s unexpected halt in speech. “Well, yeah!” Pinkie answered. “This apartment is super tiny! What is it, like three hundred square feet?” “Give or take,” said Sunset, though she had long since forgotten its exact dimensions. “Exactly! So it really might not be able to hold all six of us!” Pinkie motioned around the living room, somehow managing to twirl with her arms out without smacking against the wall. “That’s… you’re right my apartment’s small, but that’s not why I waited to see you individually.” Pinkie blinked in confusion. “So why? Oh! I know! You’ve been writing the great Canmerican novel and it’s got a massive conspiracy with men in black and you got so deep into it that you started to think they’re around every corner about to take you out for exposing their secrets!” “Uh, no,” Sunset said. “The only writing I do is for the Underground Weekly Daily, and I haven’t even done that in a month.” Pinkie scratched her chin, narrowing her eyes in concentration. “Then… Ooh! It’s because your existence has been co-opted by some hack writer who isn’t comfortable writing group scenes or your friends, and thought it would be easier to reintroduce you to us one at a time!” Sunset’s face contorted into utter confusion. “That’s not… What?!” Pinkie laughed. “Hey, it’s a better guess than the really silly one!” “And what’s that?” Sunset asked, afraid to find out. “That all the guilt you feel from years of being a super-meanie-face both here and in the horse-world, plus the constant abuse from everyone at CHS who don’t think your reformation is real, caused you to have a nervous breakdown and nearly kill yourself, and you’re ashamed of it and still think that the only reason the five of us even talk to you is because Twilight told us to, and no one could ever really like you for who you are because of what you were!” Sunset stared at Pinkie, completely dumbfounded that the hyperactive pink girl just laid out the reality of Sunset’s last month without realizing it. “Isn’t that just silly?” Pinkie asked, rhetorically, as to her it clearly was. “N-no, I don’t think it’s…” “Of course it is, Sunny! D’ya mind if I call you Sunny? It’s shorter than Sunset Shimmer, and a lot happier! Anyway, why wouldn’t people like you? You’re, like, the coolest person I know! …Actually, that would be Rainbow Dash. Sorry. But you’re the second coolest!” Pinkie insisted, gesticulating wildly. “Why would you say that?” Sunset wondered aloud. Now she was genuinely invested in figuring out where Pinkie’s thought process, such as it was, was going. “Well, duh!” Pinkie began. “You have to be super-duper strong to take on your past and prove you’re better by rebuilding yourself from the ground up and becoming someone anybody could be proud of! Also, you have the most amazing taste in tables!” she motioned to the wooden cylinder next to her. Sunset looked at the cylinder, confused. “It’s just a disused cable spool I stole from behind a dumpster, cleaned up, and brought up here.” “It’s so you!” Pinkie insisted. “Just like that awesome jacket. What’s its name?” “…Rachel,” Sunset said, blushing slightly. “The other is Sasha. The one that got wrecked when I… uh…” “Became a world-destroying zombie-controlling raging she-demon?” Pinkie finished helpfully. “Yes. That,” confirmed Sunset, less than enthused. “Its name was Heather. How… did you know I name my jackets?” “Easy!” Pinkie said. “It just seems like something you’d do! Like I said, I’d do it too if I didn’t have so many different outfits for entertaining! Different parties take different approaches, you know! So, when and where do you want your Welcome Back Party to be?” “I… what?” “Well, I mean, obviously you’re going to come back to school and meet up with all your friends again! After that, we’ll all go to the Sugarplum Corner Bakery and have a big party in your honour, to celebrate your return to the land of the living! I work there part-time so I can get us a nice discount!” Pinkie said. Sunset pondered this for a minute. “I really don’t want a pa—” Then realized it was pointless to resist the Pink head-on. “Look, can we wait to discuss this until after I’m back at school?” Pinkie stared at Sunset, suddenly serious, causing Sunset to back up two steps, worried that Pinkie would not take no for an answer. That girl did take parties very seriously, after all. Much to the relief of Sunset and probably everyone else in the building, Pinkie’s expression just as suddenly snapped back to her standard massive grin. “Okay! Actually, that’s better anyway, since we can talk and make sure everyone can be there!” “Uh, yeah,” Sunset said, noncommittal. “So… I guess you’d better get started on preparations or whatever.” Pinkie nodded. “Yep! I’ve got a lot to get done now! This is gonna be the best Welcome Back To The World Party ever! Bye!!” With all the subtlety of a pickup truck modified to have its exhaust pumped out via a massive pipe through the bed rather than through a muffler like a sane person’s ride, Pinkie took her leave. After the door slammed, Sunset locked the deadbolt and the security chain, collapsing on the couch with an unwinding sigh. After a minute, she perked up as she recalled the conversation. “What the hay did I just agree to?” FluttershySunset Shimmer reclined on her navy blue felt sofa, bought for next to nothing at a local thrift shop a few blocks from her apartment, lazily picking out a random series of notes on her acoustic guitar – nothing that could reasonably be called a song, mind, but merely something to maintain the finger dexterity she so prized after discovering the massive gap between humanoids and horses a decade earlier. One of her perhaps-friends was set to arrive soon; she could not remember who, but hoped the girl would be willing to reconcile as Rarity had. In hopes of moving the process along, she had popped down to the convenience store taking up the corner space on the ground floor of her apartment building and bought a few oatmeal cookies. Soft. Tasty. Reminded her of Equestria – when it came to dessert, Celestia’s chefs mostly made cakes (in keeping with their boss’s preference) but they could make a glorious oat cookie if asked/bribed. Her ruminations were interrupted by a knock on her door. Actually, it was more of a tap, barely audible. Had Sunset been in her bedroom, she would not have heard it. “Come in,” Sunset called out in as pleasant a voice as she could muster. For an interminable minute, nothing happened. “Come in.” Sunset said again, more insistent. The door creaked open with all the swiftness of molasses, eventually revealing her visitor standing in the threshold – a young girl with pastel yellow skin and waist-length pink hair, wearing a green ruffled skirt that was perhaps an inch shorter than regulation, likely owing to the girl being about that much taller than the average. She kept her arms clasped in front of her chest in an attempt to appear less visible… and possibly also to deflect attention away from her white tanktop that absolutely failed to hide (indeed, emphasized) the reality of her sizable bust. Sunset beckoned the girl enter the apartment, which she did with as little sound as humanly possible, taking off her green boots before shuffling across the carpeted floor and gingerly sitting herself down on the sofa next to Sunset. “So, how are you today, Fluttershy?” Sunset asked. Fluttershy stared at Sunset with those big teal eyes that melted the hearts of lesser men, saying nothing, her expression neutral, lips shifting as she contemplated forming words but then deciding against it, folding her arms in her lap and turning to look down at her knees, tilting her head in mild confusion at the sight of dirt, probably from kneeling down to try to attract those alley cats outside the building. She briefly pawed the carpet with her foot. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Sunset allowed her eyes to dart about in vain hopes of finding something to break the silence. None forthcoming, she turned her wandering gaze back to her visitor with a mood that rapidly shifted from confusion to incredulity to annoyance and then, finally, to resignation. She sighed, and decided to force a conversation. “I’m glad you’ve stopped by to see me. But I hope it’s not just because the others pressured you into it. If you really don’t want to be here, you can go. I won’t be mad.” Fluttershy merely continued to sit, unspeaking, briefly looking at Sunset before quickly turning back to contemplate her own feet. Sunset began to roll her eyes but stopped halfway, redoubling her efforts to keep her annoyance from bubbling over. She put her right hand to her chin in a classic thinking pose as she wracked her brain to find some method of making headway with the girl. “Aren’t you curious to know why I’ve been absent for so long, or why I asked to see all of you one at a time? What am I saying? I’m sure you already know; you’ve probably been through the s—” Then she understood. Sunset assumed a position near identical to Fluttershy’s and said in a near whisper, “…I’m sorry.” Fluttershy gradually turned her head toward Sunset, who was unable to respond in kind. “I was so horrible to you,” Sunset said, disgust bubbling in her voice. “For three long, miserable years, I made your life at school a living hell. Anything about you I could find to nitpick just to tear you down, I did.” Almost imperceptibly, still silently, Fluttershy shifted her body to face Sunset as much as she reasonably could given their positions. Sunset continued. “I guess, in a way, what I did to you was a lot worse than what I did to Rarity. Yes, I wrecked her reputation and sabotaged her bid for greater popularity at her first Spring Fling… but I only went after her once. You were my daily rhetorical punching bag, and not a single time did I ever consider how it must have made you feel, about me or yourself. Dear lord, no wonder you’re uncomfortable being here.” Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Ever since I found myself at the bottom of a smouldering blast crater of my own hubris, I’ve wallowed in my own self-pity and sense of guilt over everything I’ve done. It got to be too much and I shut myself off from the world for the last three weeks. I wanted to end the pain. You probably felt that way every day since you met me. Yet you kept going, enduring my abuse. That makes you a lot stronger than me.” Curious where Sunset’s monologue was headed, Fluttershy tilted her head. “I’m ashamed of who I was. I hate that there’s no way to change the past. I assume no one I hurt will forgive me, and I don’t think I deserve it anyway. You have every reason to hate me, to hold a grudge, yet you reached out your hand to me. I took it, but that was only half of what I needed to do, wasn’t it? I need to reach out my own hand and let you in. Fine. I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you except… if you need to talk, I can listen, just like you’re listening to me now. And I hope maybe, somewhere down the line, I can earn the right to call myself your friend.” Like a bullet fired from a sniper rifle, Fluttershy practically leapt at Sunset, nearly knocking her over as she wrapped her in an overpowering embrace. Sunset slowly, almost reluctantly, returned the gesture, holding it just long enough to show her acknowledgement. After an infinite moment, Fluttershy loosened her grip, raising her head to meet Sunset’s gaze. Sunset could not help but notice the tears in Fluttershy’s eyes, their impact multiplied by her small yet glorious smile. “Uh…?” said Sunset. “Thank you,” Fluttershy said in her characteristically soft voice. Sunset made a brief mental note that it was the girl’s first words since arriving. Nonetheless, Sunset still registered some confusion. “Huh?” “I, um, was still angry with you even after you apologized the first time. I mean, you did hurt me. But, I realized I couldn’t stay mad. After all, you’re still beating yourself up when you don’t need to anymore.” “Don’t need to?” Sunset asked. Fluttershy smiled serenely. “Even if you don’t forgive yourself, I forgive you. I do want to be your friend.” For the first time in a long while, Sunset genuinely smiled. “Well… since you’re here,” Sunset said. “Would you like a cookie?” Fluttershy briefly glanced down at her fairly flat stomach and not-at-all-flat chest, lips pursed in contemplation, before following her heart and answering, “Sure.” Sunset stood up and walked the short distance to her tiny kitchen where the bag of oatmeal cookies sat on the counter underneath a discount store wall clock. Debating for a moment whether she should follow proper decorum and put them on a plate for presentation, she decided neither of them would care about taking them directly from their bag. As she turned to head back to the couch, she found herself nearly smacking into Fluttershy, who had somehow teleported to standing right behind her. “Wah!” Sunset involuntarily cried out as she jumped back, which caused Fluttershy to jump an inch in the opposite direction. “Oh. I’m sorry!” Fluttershy said. “I just didn’t think you needed to go to so much trouble for me and I could…” She trailed off as something caught her attention. Sunset realized Fluttershy had become distracted. “What?” Fluttershy was staring at Sunset’s scarred left wrist, the underside of which, now exposed thanks to a slip of the sleeve, was directly facing her. Multiple thoughts raced through Sunset’s brain; most of them were some variation of Panic!! “I see,” Fluttershy said as she gingerly took Sunset’s wrist in her right hand. When she turned to her friend, she sported a look so sad that it made all those shelter dogs in that anti-animal-cruelty commercial look positively giddy. Sunset averted her eyes, but Fluttershy waved her free hand in front of her host’s face to get her attention. Eventually, Sunset tired of the distraction and reluctantly looked at her guest. Fluttershy’s eyes wandered down to her own hands, currently cupping Sunset’s, occasionally darting back up to beckon Sunset follow. On the girl’s pastel yellow wrists could be seen a couple of extremely faded scars. When they reestablished eye contact, Sunset’s expression was one of worried shock while Fluttershy’s told of simple resignation. “Those are… my fault, aren’t they,” Sunset stated matter-of-factly. To her surprise, Fluttershy shook her head no. “Not completely. Sunset, you weren’t the only person to tease me at school. Everyone took their turn, all the way back to elementary. Even if you hadn’t broken our group up freshman year, I still wouldn’t have had many friends. Of course it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.” “What stopped you?” asked Sunset as delicately as she could, though she also genuinely wanted to know. “I’m sure you’ll think this is silly,” Fluttershy said. “But… animals. One day, as I was heading to the Harmony Bridge to think about jumping before not going through with it again, I found a puppy wandering the alleys. I thought, this poor thing needs me and it would just be wrong to leave it. So even if I didn’t want to live for myself, I could live for all the sweet creatures no one else wanted. I started volunteering at the shelter, and that gave me a purpose and a space to be. Then I could start trying to make friends again.” Sunset smiled. “It’s not silly at all. In fact, I really admire your strength.” “You know I’m not strong,” Fluttershy retorted. “I’m weak. I’ve always been weak. But it doesn’t matter, because I have friends who can pick me up when life beats me down. That includes you, Sunset.” “Really?” “Of course!” said Fluttershy, before suddenly going quiet, pointing her fingers together. “I mean, if that’s okay with you.” Sunset nodded. “I’m so glad,” Fluttershy said with a pleased smile. Then she looked Sunset in the eye with all seriousness, clearly physically holding back her mind’s desire to avert her gaze; this was far too important. “Hm?” Sunset asked, cocking her head. “If that clock is right, I have to leave now. But before I go, there’s one thing I need to know. Will you come back to school this week?” Sunset briefly looked up, as she was wont to do when thinking, then back to meet her friend’s gaze. Her voice was steady, without hesitation or vacillation, as she answered. “Yes.” Fluttershy’s already big smile stretched even wider. “Good,” she said as she turned to head toward the door, allowing the fingers of one hand to slip down to Sunset’s upper arm and linger there before finally alighting and following the rest of her body; the other hand had taken the offered cookie with little notice. Sunset saw her out, guiding the girl through the dark hallway to the reasonably well-lit stairway. No more words were exchanged as Fluttershy waved goodbye and carefully made her way down the four flights of stairs. Alone again, Sunset sighed, content. Upon re-entering her apartment and remembering to lock the door, she glanced around the room, giving a curt nod as her face plastered itself with a look of determination. “I do need a change of scenery,” she said. EpilogueThe morning was unusually chilly for Spring. Nonetheless, most of the kids at Canterville High School wore clothes better suited to the inevitable warm snap coming later in the day as they made their ways across the carefully manicured lawn in front of the school, past the large horse statue that served as the school’s – and, by extension, the city’s – mascot. As the crowd thinned out, a hand reached out to gently stroke one corner of the statue’s massive four-sided base (that secretly housed a portal to another dimension). “Hey there,” Sunset Shimmer said quietly to the base. “Been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry I’ve been gone so long.” A brief blast of chilly wind whipped across the lawn, causing Sunset to bring her legs – exposed to the elements due to her choice of orange skirt – closer together for warmth. Her upper body was not cold in the slightest thanks to her decision to wear Rachel (the warmer of her two jackets). As she stared up at the unblinking eyes of the life-sized concrete horse, she was startled by something touching her shoulder. Whirling around, she found Rarity, dressed impeccably and smiling so wide it could probably turn on a stove. Sunset was incapable of that level of happiness, but she tried her best to respond in kind. They embraced. Once they disentangled, with Rarity making sure to keep an arm around Sunset’s shoulder, they both turned toward the school’s imposing recently-reconstructed front entrance. Sunset took a deep breath. “You can do this,” Rarity said. “I can do this,” Sunset confirmed, though whether to Rarity or to herself was not clear. “We’re all here, and we’re all rooting for you,” said Rarity. The morning sunlight reflecting off the school’s windows forced Sunset to squint, but she could make out four girls – her friends – standing between her and the doors. Two of them were waving, one excitedly, perhaps calling out to her, but with the din of crowd and traffic noise, she could not hear and did not need to. Sunset intoned, “Even if the whole world has turned against me…” “…It doesn’t matter. Your friends will always be here for you,” Rarity said in response as she removed her arm. “And you know the others agree too.” “Mm-hmm,” Sunset nodded in agreement. Turning to her friend, Sunset adopted an expression that melded determination with what might have been indigestion or mild apprehension that passed after a few seconds. Rarity, for her part, briefly glanced to the quartet of girls before turning back to Sunset and asking simply, “Shall we?” “Let’s go,” Sunset replied, placing one foot in front of the other. Tentative steps, yet eager to restart her journey. END Author's Note Read Me. Alternate BONUS CHAPTER: Pinkamena Diane PieSunset Shimmer sat Indian-style on her bed in her tiny room, her back against the wall for support, as she picked out a tune on her guitar, Mayfair. It was a melancholy song about a man who lived in a shed. For once, she decided to sing along, a different sensation – she could sing and she could play, but doing both took some getting used to. Still, it helped to pass the time as she waited for her potential friend to show up. Who was it today? Sunset could not remember. She winced as a sharp pain shot through her left wrist, still healing from her abortive attempt at self-inflicted death, nearly causing her to drop Mayfair. Of course there were so many dirty clothes piled on the carpeted floor that no harm would have come to her beloved guitar, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Still?” Sunset asked the scars. “They weren’t that deep. No stitches. But I guess quantity can be almost as bad as quality in this case, huh? Or is it psychosomatic? Maybe one of these years I’ll go see a doctor about it… What am I saying? I know I won’t. Just like I’ll probably never go down to the coin laundry and wash this pile of clothes.” As a precaution, she put Mayfair down in its privileged spot at the foot of the bed next to her overstuffed bookshelf. She contemplated the titles on the lower tiers, wondering if she might want to consider reading. Maybe the one about the rich guy who hosts all the parties yet has no friends, or the one about the guy who goes to space and the ship’s computer tries to kill him. Or the one about… A sudden knock at the door knocked Sunset out of her daze. It was a fast knock, a few decibels louder than one might consider appropriate, and had a distinct beat to it, as if sounding out the rhythm part of a tune. Of the girls she might consider calling her friends, she knew only one who would knock like that. Quickly she stood up and moved as fast as she could to her apartment’s door – locked for once – but slipped on a dirty shirt and came just two inches from smacking into the frame of her bedroom door. Once she regained her balance, she stepped into the just-as-tiny living area, fully prepared to sprint the dozen or so steps to the door, when she found her visitor already inside, standing in front of her sofa. It was a girl with pink skin and darker pink hair that included a front cowlick that seemed to defy physics, all framing big blue eyes. Her ensemble was a perfect complement to her personality, which was a near-perfect incarnation of the concept of ‘bubbly’ – white mini-T with a big heart on the front covered with a blue overshirt, pink skirt (emblazoned with a sewn-on balloon patch) cinched around her waist with a purple ribbon tied in a bow at the back. On her face was plastered a smile so intense it could probably blow up a bridge. As soon as the girl saw Sunset, she beelined for her, practically leaping as she wrapped her in a massive bear-hug that would have knocked a lesser mortal off her feet. Sunset, for her part, endured the display with an unseen frown and eye-roll, quickly getting over her shock. After about a minute – sixty seconds too long – she began to extricate herself from her visitor. “Pinkie. How did you get in here?” Sunset asked the intruder as she placed her a foot back. “Through the door, silly!” Pinkie replied with a giggle. Sunset stared at her, befuddled, as the security chain on said door was still engaged, as was the deadbolt. “You know what? No. I’m not even going to ask,” Sunset said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She need not have asked, or said much of anything, as Pinkie was more than prepared to do all of the talking. “I am so so so glad to see you, Sunset!” Pinkie bubbled at a speed and volume both a few ticks on the knob greater than pleasant. “Uh-huh,” replied Sunset with little conviction as she smacked her upper arms to get the blood flowing again. Completely undaunted, Pinkie kept going. “Or Sunny. Can I call you Sunny? How are you feeling? Are you still sick? Not sick? Kinda sick? Better? Worse? Same? Lobster?” “I, uh…?” “I mean, it’s been so long since you’ve come to school, we were wondering if you were ever coming back! Well, I was wondering if you were ever coming back. Maybe everyone else was too but were just too busy or upset to say anything. Or maybe they weren’t. Well, Rarity sure was! After about a week, she was so worried she was practically beside herself! So I said to both Raritys ‘We should pay Sunset a visit! Check on her! I bet she’ll love that!’ But then I remembered I didn’t know where you live… also there was only one Rarity. That day after school she went to her job at the fashion store place and pulled her store’s files to find your address because you bought a jacket there or something? Did you give it a name? I would! And then she headed out to see you… but of course you already know that since you were here!” Pinkie babbled. “Pinkie?” Sunset tried to get a word in edgewise. It did not work. “So anyway,” Pinkie continued without missing a beat, “She skipped school the next day! I don’t know if you knew that! Well, that made us worried that if you were sick with that stomach bug going around that she caught it from you. I almost reconsidered throwing you a Get Well party! BUT, Rarity was back the day after that and told us you just needed time to get better! The other three said that was okay, but I didn’t!” “Pinkie…” said Sunset in yet another failed interjection. “Because I’ve dealt with sick people before! After all, I used to volunteer at the pediatric ward in the hospital! The kids loved it, and so did the bosses because they said I’m cheaper than hiring a real clown… but the nurses said I was too much and told me never to come back without taking… what’s that pill? But that’s another story!” Sunset’s patience was fraying by the second. She tried again: “Pinkie.” “So you can imagine how over-the-moon I was when Rarity told us at lunch the other day that we could finally come see you!” rambled Pinkie, the words cascading inexorably, like an avalanche. “Now of course I wanted us all to head over first thing after school, because who wouldn’t be cheered up by seeing all her best friends? But, our free times just didn’t match up, and that made me so sad! Rarity said something about you not being able to ‘handle’ all of us at one time… and given how super-duper small this apartment is, she’s got a point! Still, I figured I’d make it my mission to spread enough joy for all of our other friends who can’t be here right now! I even brought a mini version of my confetti cannon! It’s parked right outside, so all I need to do is—” “Pinkie! Stop!!” Sunset near-screamed, foisting her left hand palm-forward one inch in front of her friend’s face. This was finally enough to get Pinkie to stop speaking. She contemplated Sunset’s palm, making note of the various lines, wondering if it might be a good idea to reconsider that fortune-telling gig – she did have a >90% success rate the last time she tried. Then her eyes wandered down to Sunset’s wrist, easily visible at that angle even if Sunset had been wearing her jacket. She saw the multiple tracks of raised skin, most parallel but some perpendicular, long thin scabbed lines standing in stark contrast, running down the middle of each. Pinkie blinked. “Sunset? Did you hurt yourself while cooking?” she asked innocently, though an unpleasant feeling began trying to force its way into her mind. Sunset vocalized a questioning grunt, then realized where Pinkie’s eyes had focused. After five seconds of a look that practically screamed Oh Crap!!, she lowered her arm and decided to fudge an answer. “No. It’s nothing. Just…” “But,” Pinkie interrupted, “Cuts like that can only be made with a blade, and those hurt and can be dirty. I’d hate for you to end up in the hospital over an accident!” “They… weren’t an accident,” Sunset said, barely audible, no longer willing to look her friend in the eye. “You mean someone attacked you? Even so, it’s crazy not to see a doctor unless…” Pinkie said before the thoughts poking at her brain breached her upbeat defenses. “…You wanted to hurt yourself,” she correctly concluded, her voice dropping in volume and pitch. Sunset nodded. Pinkie’s happy demeanour instantly turned crestfallen. “Why?” she asked in a tone not unlike a cat dunked in a bathtub would use if it could talk. With a forlorn sigh, Sunset decided to give a direct answer. “Because I didn’t see the point in living anymore. I just… figured the world would be better off without me.” As Pinkie stared at Sunset with a mix of shock, horror, and sadness, her curly hair began to go progressively limp. Sunset could have sworn she heard a balloon deflating. After less than thirty seconds, Pinkie’s hair had become perfectly straight (incidentally also showing off its incredible length – past her rear). Her normally ever-present smile was completely absent, to the point one would never have been able to tell it had existed in the first place, replaced by a despondent frown. Her eyes were the same baby blue as ever, but seemed to have a different kind of spark behind them than her usual joy and excitement – one of greater intelligence but also much greater sadness. Her lower lip quivered involuntarily. Pinkie turned away from Sunset and made her way to the nearby sofa, where she sat down on the far end, turned away, fighting back sobs. Sunset stood in the middle of the room, not sure what to do. Her brain worked feverishly, juggling and judging multiple possible responses. She wondered if this was how Rarity felt that awful afternoon when she encountered Sunset at her lowest. Cautiously, Sunset approached the sullen girl, sitting down on the opposite side of the couch, leaving a person’s worth of space in between them. “Pinkie, I… I’m… sorry. I didn’t want you to have to see…” “Did it have to come to that?” Pinkie asked in a tone Sunset had never heard before – noticeably deeper, quieter, and absolutely calm. “Huh?” This threw Sunset off guard. “What do you mean?” Pinkie turned to look at Sunset. Her eyes had become bloodshot from the tears still on her cheeks, expression a mix of annoyed disappointment and just plain sad. “Well, I guess I can’t blame you for feeling that way. All that guilt plus the way all the other kids treated you, it makes sense you’d want to take the easy way out.” “Excuse me,” Sunset interrupted. “Who are you and what have you done with Pinkie Pie?” “Still,” continued Pinkie, ignoring her, “Even if you don’t value your own life, what about your friends? Did you really think we wouldn’t care?? That we wouldn’t be sad about you being gone?” “…No,” said Sunset with an air of finality, causing Pinkie to flinch. “I see,” Pinkie said, despondent. “Guess we failed at friendship, then. What hurts the most, though, is you couldn’t see what was right in front of you. Maybe you still can’t.” Sunset raised her eyebrows slightly in confusion. “What do you mean?” Pinkie – or whoever this blob of sadness currently possessing her body was – placed her hands on Sunset’s upper arms, rooting her in place, staring directly at her with those big, sorrowful blue eyes. “Sunset, you’re a wonderful person,” said Pinkie, her voice wavering. “It may not mean much from me since you’d expect me to say that about anyone, but… I’m serious. You may be the smartest, most interesting person I’ve ever met. I’ve loved getting to know you, learning more about you. Life’s a lot more fun with you around. I’m sure the others feel the same. If you died… your dying… I’d m…” Unable to finish her sentence, Pinkie collapsed into a bawling mess. Sunset had seen her cry before, but it was usually happy-tears or had a vaguely comical effect. This was different. The girl had lifted her legs onto the couch and sat curled into a ball, her long straight hair draped over her back and the furniture like a brilliant pink shawl or perhaps a fancy cape. Hesitantly, Sunset eased closer to Pinkie. Once in position, she gently wrapped her arms around the girl. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said softly. “If it means anything, I’m feeling better now.” Pinkie turned her head to Sunset, which had the effect of making her look like the classic picked-on kid in one of those cartoons. She nodded, making a tiny squeak. “You are?” she asked, clearly unsure if Sunset meant it. “I am,” Sunset insisted. “Well, I’m not at a hundred percent yet, but these scars are from a couple weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll be doing it again anytime soon. After all, I’ve leaned I’m not alone anymore. Thank you for caring.” Pinkie smiled warmly. Her hair began to recurl, but stopped before it reached even lightly wavy. She looked to each side of her head, confused, grabbing a lock in her hand as she scrutinized it. “Something wrong?” Sunset asked, utterly baffled at Pinkie’s behaviour (unusual even by Pinkie standards). “I guess it’s going to take a little longer than usual to get back to normal,” Pinkie said. Her smile was still there, but thin, and her voice still had a tinge of sadness. “Usual?” asked Sunset, still unsure of anything. “You mean this… deflation… has happened before?” Pinkie sighed. “Yeah. You’ve never seen it because I keep it out of public view. It’s my way of coping with negative feelings. A bit less destructive than slitting your wrists, I’d imagine.” “True,” said Sunset with a snort of disgust at herself. “Maud says I was sad a lot as a kid, when I still went by my full name. So whenever I get like this, she uses it,” Pinkie casually explained. “It?” “My real name: Pinkamena Diane Pie.” “Ah. Still… I find it hard to believe I’m worth getting so sad over,” Sunset said. Pinkamena levelled a serious stare at Sunset. “And that is why we’re friends: because you deserve to see the you that I see. I came here because I wanted to tell you we’re planning a ‘Welcome Back To The World’ party as soon as you’re ready. We can host it at the Sugarplum Corner Bakery – since I work there, I can wrangle a big discount. I know you’re not big on get-togethers and like your solitude, but… do you think you could humour us? You might even enjoy yourself.” Sunset rubbed her chin for a moment in mock-contemplation, causing Pinkamena to shift uncomfortably in her seat, before responding. “I’d be honoured. Just… not too loud, please.” Pinkamena shrugged. “I understand, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to hold back once I’m the me everyone knows. After all, I’ll be so ecstatic to see you again.” “I guess I can live with that,” Sunset said as she helped Pinkamena off of the sofa. “So when will this party be?” “I’ll need at least a week to plan and make arrangements,” said Pinkamena in a businesslike tone Sunset rarely heard from her. “Inquire about everyone’s schedules before setting a time. Of course you’ll need to be emotionally up to it as well, but I’ll assume that’s a given.” “I guess you’d better get to work then,” Sunset said. “Exactly,” Pinkamena confirmed, her hair slowly curling as she juggled thoughts and numbers in her head. “I’ve got to go. Will I see you at school tomorrow?” “Maybe not tomorrow. But within the week, certainly,” Sunset corrected. “Whenever you’re ready. We’ll be waiting,” Pinkamena said with an understanding smile. Then her eyes went wide as sudden *poof!* sound heralded her hair resuming its standard curly mess. When she spoke again, her voice was back to its usual higher pitch and fast speed. “Okie-dokie-lokie! Oooh, this is gonna be so fun! I can’t wait!! See ya!” Pinkie chirped as a goodbye. With that, Pinkie bounded out the door and down the hall toward the stairs, making sure to greet the brass umbrella stand next to the busted elevator. Sunset locked her door and sprawled out on her couch, sighing as if a large weight had been lifted off her shoulders… but only by a couple of inches, meaning its presence was still there but not the pressure. Scratching a phantom itch on her chest, she mulled over the preceding encounter in her head, wondering about the girl who was simultaneously Pinkie Pie yet not. Then a sudden thought occurred to her. “What the hay did I just agree to?” Author's Note A Christmas gift to my loyal readers who asked me how Pinkie's chapter would play out differently if I had let her embrace the heavy thoughts. I hope y'all enjoyed it. Click here for more of my thoughts on Pinkamena.
Prologue“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this,” Sunset Shimmer said as she sat on the edge of her bed. For the first time in what felt like ages, she was wearing street clothes instead of her pyjamas – which had been forcibly removed by Rarity for washing at the coin laundry down the block. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now,” Rarity replied as she turned back from inspecting the squalor that was Sunset’s bedroom. “After all, you’re the one who wanted to do it this way. And this really is the best week for it; the others are all busy at different times, so their ‘visiting hours’ with you won’t overlap.” “Yes, I know. It was my idea, but I’m still uncomfortable,” Sunset said quietly, tugging on one of her jacket’s sleeves. Rarity nodded in acknowledgement but levelled a stern look at her friend. “Uncomfortable it may be, but you cannot remain confined mostly to your room. You must face other people again. You won’t heal any more until you do. Also, even if I wanted to be your go-between forever, which I do not, I simply lack the time now.” Sunset sighed. “Yeah. You have exams and stuff.” “So do you… I think,” Rarity said, unsure, before putting it out of her mind for the moment and moving on. “I also have a job that I’ve been shirking for far too long, dear. Now, don’t get me wrong; you’re far more important to me than a paycheck, but I would like to keep earning it, for my own health, and so I’m no longer tempted to steal your scooter for transp— Will you quit messing with your jacket!” Sunset immediately placed her hands on her knees. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve worn street clothes. And Rachel’s still kind of new; I’m not used to her yet.” “Rachel is the one with the inner lining, yes? Odd even by your standards that you would wear such a warm jacket when the weather outside is far from frightful.” Sunset shrugged. “Sasha needed a break,” she explained. “I will never not be amused at the fact you name your jackets,” Rarity said with a smirk. “The thought of doing that never even occurred to me.” “That’s because you have more clothes than you know what to do with,” replied Sunset. “By the way, I also named my scooter. And my guitar. And my—” Rarity chuckled as she rolled her eyes. “Of course. Listen, I have to go to work now. The first one of our friends should be here in about an hour. “Which one?” Sunset asked. Rarity puzzled for a second, then shrugged. “I can’t remember. But it really doesn’t matter. All of them really do care about you and only want to help.” “Yeah, I guess so.” “However,” Rarity continued, “Don’t be discouraged if they’re unable to understand what you’ve been going through at first. Their hearts are in the right place. Also, do remember if you get overwhelmed, that breathing technique I taught you. Good luck. I have faith in you.” Sunset harumphed, “All right. Just get going. The last thing I need on my conscience is for you to be fired because of me.” Rarity took Sunset’s hand in both of her own for a few seconds, squeezing slightly. For a brief moment, their eyes met. Sunset saw the look on Rarity’s face – concerned, but also reassuring. As quickly as she noticed it, it was gone, replaced by the standard business smile Rarity wore most of the time. Rarity nodded once, then turned around and left the apartment without a word, waving goodbye on the way out, her multiple bracelets jangling as she did so. After the apartment door closed. Sunset sat in the silence for a moment before verbalizing to break the quiet. “Well… here we go. I can do this. They’re good kids. I can do this.”
Rainbow DashSunset Shimmer sat on her navy blue sofa, Old Charley, in her apartment’s tiny living area, feet propped up on the giant wooden cable spool she stole from behind some business for use as a table, waiting for the knock on the door. As the only television she had was antenna and nothing even remotely decent was on, she decided to pass the time by engaging in some deep breathing exercises Rarity (prone to hyperventilating) had taught her, in preparation for this afternoon. The knock never came. Instead, Rainbow Dash burst into the apartment without so much as a warning, startling Sunset. The girl had clearly come straight from soccer practice, as sweat was still visible on her sky-blue skin, plus she was wearing her gym clothes and had her hair tied back in a ponytail. I seriously need to remember to lock that door, Sunset thought. Rainbow Dash plopped down on the couch next to Sunset, who did her best to hide her shock at Dash’s lack of decorum behind a friendly nod. For at least a minute, the two stared at each other in silence, the quiet broken only by the muffled sound of traffic outside the window on the far side of the room. Rainbow Dash’s own expression slowly shifted from confusion to annoyance before she finally spoke. “So… what?” Dash asked. “What?” Sunset replied, not getting it. “Rarity told me to come here. So I did. I even cut out of practice early. Now I’m here and you’re not saying anything.” “I’m sorry,” said Sunset, drooping her head. “Well, you should be,” snipped Rainbow Dash, not really looking at Sunset. “I may not be a working girl like Applejack or Rarity, but I still have things I gotta do. This is my only real free time this week and—” Then she noticed Sunset looking at her like a puppy that had been kicked in the face, mouth slightly open as her lower lip quivered. “Hey now,” Rainbow Dash said, trying to salvage the situation. “You don’t need to give me that face, okay?” Sunset nodded, trying to re-neutralize her expression. “Sorry. I’m… not usually this off.” “Yeah, seriously. What is up with you?” asked Dash, in her characteristic lack of tact. “I noticed a few days ago that I hadn’t seen you in, like, a long time, and Rarity said it was because you were ‘sick’. You don’t look sick, but you’re not acting like the Sunset I know.” “I’m not,” Sunset confirmed, morosely. “I mean, where’s the girl that ran CHS with an iron fist for three years, turned into a crazy monster, and blew up half the school?” “She’s dead… I hope,” said Sunset quietly, her voice breaking. “Uh-huh,” Rainbow Dash said breezily, not listening or really looking at Sunset. “I mean, I guess I can’t blame you for not wanting to show your face at school with all the stuff you did. You were kind of a… what’s wrong?” Sunset was hunched over, her hands grabbing either side of her head, fingers intertwined with her two-toned hair. Her breathing had become erratic as she allowed her composure to break, crying softly. A look of utter panic flashed across Rainbow Dash’s face as she looked around the room in vain hope of rescue. Finding none, she instead tried to recall her friends’ empathy lessons. If there was a time to use them, this was it. She leaned in to Sunset, her right arm draped on the back of the couch for stabilization. “Oh, crap. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Seriously.” Sunset turned to look at her with slightly-red eyes. “No. I-it’s fine,” she said, though her semi-fetal position and breaking tone made clear it was not. “It’s just how you are. I expected it to go like this.” “Huh?” Rainbow Dash huh’d. After a deep intake of breath, Sunset continued. “Dash, I know I didn’t do much to you during my reign of terror (ugh), but… I still did so many horrible things the last few years. You don’t need to remind me.” Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “But it just comes up naturally sometimes. That’s why I always say ‘no offense’, y’know?” Sunset sighed, shaking her head as she placed a hand on that spot in between her eyebrows. “I know. But it does hurt. I have to live with the guilt of what I’ve done for the rest of my life. Not just here, but everything I did back in Equestria too. I’m trying to show everyone that my past is not today; relitigating it isn’t exactly helpful.” “What?” Dash asked, clearly confused by the big word. Sunset spoke slowly as her brain worked double-time to craft a story her visitor could understand. “Imagine for a second that you… were playing… soccer as a kid…” “I did,” Dash interrupted. “That doesn’t shock me,” Sunset continued. “Anyway, in one of your peewee matches, it just rained the night before, so the field is wet. The coach still makes you all go out there. You have a good strike goal or whatever – sorry, I don’t sports – lined up. You run to kick the ball… and your cleats don’t do their job and you slip on the grass. You fall on your rear in front of dozens of people.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “Heh-heh. That sounds embarrassing. And… not too far off from what really happened. Were you at that game?” “I’m not finished,” said Sunset. “So you fall, but your foot is still straight out. Your teammate is standing right there and takes your foot to the face. She falls to the ground, hand over her mouth, blood seeping between her fingers. You broke her nose and knocked out some of her front teeth. They take her to the hospital in an ambulance.” “I don’t think I like where this story is going,” Dash said with a frown. “The next day, everyone at school knows what you did, or they think they do; you know how kids love to exaggerate. Anyway, you learn that you basically disfigured that girl – she’ll have to have false teeth and get a nose job when she’s older to fix your little accident. From then on, your classmates remind you every chance they get about how you messed up a girl forever. They laugh at you, give you a nickname like… face-rearranger. Even as you go into junior high and then high school, your classmates who knew you at the time tell everyone they can what you did. So no one you meet has the chance to get to know you on your own terms. No matter what you do, no one will ever let you forget. Ever,” Sunset concluded. “That’s… awful,” said Dash, shivering at the thought. “That’s my life. The difference of course is that most of what I did was on purpose, so I’ve been willing to accept punishment. But the point is the same, and so is the wish: to move on from the past without other people constantly weighing me down with its baggage,” explained Sunset. Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow, trying to think about what Sunset said. “So… you want people to stop telling you what a bad person you ar— uh, were?” Sunset wished she had a sheet of star-shaped stickers so she could mockingly affix one to Dash’s face. “No. I want you to stop doing that. Let me prove myself as a friend. I want to know I’ll have someone to turn to if I’m ever in this dark place again.” “I, uh, still don’t really get it,” Dash admitted, scratching her head, which was beginning to hurt from all the thinking. “Dash,” Sunset began, slowly and gently, “Not every ‘hurt’ or ‘sick’ is something you can see. A broken leg hurts, but it’s easy to fix. A broken mind is harder because you can’t see it, so it takes a lot longer to heal. I’ve learned that life will get to a point where you can’t go it alone. Twilight told me friends can be your rock. Rarity proved her right. But there’s no point in being friends with her if the rest of you hate me.” Rainbow Dash looked at Sunset as if she had spontaneously sprouted a second head. “We don’t hate you. I mean, I don’t hate you. Yeah, you were a big jerk to us, but that was then. Twilight said we should give you a chance. And any friend of hers deserves it. So I figure, why not? If you go crazy again I’ll just kick your butt!” Dash ended her spiel with a wink and a smile. Sunset sat on the couch, stunned into silence, until out of her came a sound she had not heard from herself in a long time – laughter. Not just a chuckle like with Rarity’s bad jokes. It was creaky and unsure, but unmistakable. Instinctively, she placed her fingers above the bridge of her nose. “Uh… you okay? Did I, like, break you or something?” Dash asked, her hands hovering over Sunset as if she were some sapient household appliance. Eventually, Sunset calmed down enough to respond. “No, no. Just… you. Ohh, I’d been dreading having to talk with you but… I think now I ‘get’ you a little better.” “Heh. Don’t know what there is to ‘get’. I’m awesome. That’s all anyone needs to know.” “You keep telling yourself that,” Sunset said. She was about to continue, but was interrupted by Rainbow Dash’s cell phone beeping. “Call?” Rainbow Dash looked at her phone. “No. Alarm. I gotta get going. It’s my turn to go buy stuff for eats with the team and I don’t wanna be late!” She hopped up and backed towards the door. “So… see you at school tomorrow?” Sunset shook her head. “No, not tomorrow. But soon. I promise.” “Cool,” Dash said as she turned to exit. “It’ll be awesome to have you back.” And with that, she was gone. Sunset closed the door. She turned to head for the kitchen to warm up some barely-edible leftovers, but doubled back to engage the deadbolt and security chain, shaking her head at her own silliness afterwards as she definitively made her way to her waiting food.
ApplejackThe sun hung low in the sky as Sunset Shimmer stood at her stove attempting to create a fancy dish out of the few ingredients she had that could combine with instant noodles and vegetable broth without being disgusting. She sighed at the knowledge that Canterville is not an easy place to live if one is simultaneously a vegetarian and liquid-asset poor. Briefly she glanced down at the makeshift cloth bracelet covering the fading scars on her wrist. She had hoped to finish eating before her current former future possible friend showed up, but her cooking was interrupted two seconds before she could boil the noodles by a knock at her door. Based on the knocking-style – firm and slow – and the fact that the visitor bothered to knock at all, she figured there was only one person out of the four possibilities it could be. “It’s open!” Sunset called out. The door opened and, as expected, in walked Applejack, clearly just off of some sort of manual labour. Her clothes had random dirt patches on them, as did her hat. Her long blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail, but its frazzled state suggested it could do with some upkeep. Applejack looked at her feet for a second, then removed her boots and set them by the door. She then took off her hat, holding it out to hang it on the coat-rack. Finding no coat-rack or hook of any sort, she shrugged and plopped the hat back on her head. Sunset turned off the stove, a gas range whose installation was probably not up to code, and greeted her visitor: “Hello, Applejack.” Applejack stood, arms crossed, in front of Sunset’s couch – the only piece of furniture she owned besides her bed and the disused cable spool she found behind a dumpster that she repurposed as a table. “Howdy,” Applejack replied in her thick rural accent, uncharacteristically terse. Sunset could nearly feel the tension in the air as Applejack seemed miffed about something. Worried she might have offended her visitor somehow, she trod toward Applejack delicately, which only seemed to annoy the girl even more, as did inviting her to take a seat on the couch. She shut her eyes in a desperate attempt to gather up the courage to find the words to break the ice. After one more deep breath, Sunset decided to attempt an indirect approach. “What’s wrong?” asked Sunset. Applejack studied Sunset from head to toe, scratching her chin for a moment, then grabbed Sunset’s left arm and rolled up the sleeve, revealing fading scars on the underside of the wrist and forearm. Sunset’s eyes widened like a coyote five microseconds away from being hit by a bus. She attempted to pull away, but Applejack had much too strong a grip. “What is this?!” Applejack demanded. Sunset frowned, her head drooping; she refused to answer. Applejack asked again, but again Sunset averted her eyes and would not speak. Finally, Applejack grabbed Sunset’s cheeks and forced them to make eye contact. Sunset realized then that Applejack’s expression was softer than she expected. Concerned, almost sad. “You know what it is,” Sunset answered with a sigh. Applejack pursed her lips, unsure whether she should be angry or consoling or both or neither. “Why?” she asked. “I think you can guess,” Sunset said. “Um, how did you even know to look there?” “If you’re thinkin’ Rarity sold ya out, she didn’t,” Applejack reassured her. “As ta how I knew ta check your arm, well, ya ain’t the first person I’ve known who’s got issues. It ain’t hard ta connect the dots when a girl disappears for weeks right after the entire school made fun of ‘er and then we hear you’re ‘sick’, and Rarity was actin’ real cagey ‘bout the whole thing.” “Well, it’s not something I want to broadcast,” Sunset said forlornly. Applejack had kept her hands in position on either side of Sunset’s face, but her grip began to soften as did her expression and her voice. “Why’d ya think ya couldn’t talk to us?” she asked. Sunset blinked. “I… all the awful things I did to you over three years. I broke up your friendship with Rainbow Dash for a laugh. You all have every reason to hate me just as much as the rest of the school does. I assumed you were only being nice to me because Twilight told you to.” Applejack lowered her arms as she considered this, and nodded. “Cain’t lie. That is why we took ya in at first. But we got used to havin’ ya around – an’ not just fer help on homework – an’ realized Twi was right about ya; you’re a good gal deep down.” Sunset resisted the temptation to roll her eyes at the compliment she did not believe, but still managed a mumbled, “I don’t know.” “When ya disappeared,” Applejack continued, ignoring her, “we didn’t think much of it at first; there was a stomach bug goin’ ‘round school. After a couple days, we all got worried, but we were split over what to do. Pinkie wanted to go find ya immediately, of course. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy thought it’d be best to let ya be. I wasn’t sure what to think, and Rarity stayed quiet. But it didn’t matter since none of us knew where ya lived and yer phone wasn’t workin’.” “It hasn’t worked in months. I didn’t see the point of paying my bill if there was no one to talk to,” Sunset admitted with a shrug, causing Applejack to raise an eyebrow. “Sure,” Applejack said, not entirely on-board with Sunset’s reasoning. “Anyways, weren’t long after, we find out Rarity did some detective work on ‘er own an’ found ya… well, you know what happened next better’n I do; she wouldn’t tell us much. When she gave us the all-clear to come see ya, I figured it was about time. Not sure why she made us wait ‘til we couldn’t all come here together.” “That… was my idea,” said Sunset as quietly as possible. “I didn’t think I could handle all four of you at once. Also, I wanted to hear all of you out individually, since I hurt you each individually.” “Sugarplum, it ain’t a good idea to think that way,” Applejack said. “You know better’n anyone ya can’t change the past. Besides, I wasn’t really one of yer main targets, so I ain’t got no over-big grudge against ya.” “Well, that makes me feel a little better,” Sunset admitted with a sigh, preferring not to think about time travel spells for the moment. “You owned up to what ya did an’ apologized, an’ yer tryin’ ta be a better person. That’s all anyone can ask of ya,” Applejack concluded with that air of certainty she often used, as she placed her hand on Sunset’s shoulder. The left side of Sunset’s mouth twitched, clearly attempting to form a smile. Applejack realized it and shot a wide grin in return. “Atta girl. Now, I’m sorry ta cut it short but I gotta skedaddle on home an’ help put food on my family. You’re comin’ to class tomorrow, right? We’ll all be waitin’ for ya.” Sunset scratched her head as she shuffled her feet slightly. “It’s more likely now than it was this morning. That’s the best answer I can give. Just… don’t be too upset if I don’t show, okay?” “Fair enough,” admitted Applejack before tipping her hat, turning on her heels, and ambling out the door. A few minutes later, after Sunset remembered to lock the door, she lay down on her couch, kicking off her boots, staring across the bare ‘table’ to her television, an old secondhand model served only by an aerial which made the whole setup look like a throwback to decades earlier. She fumbled around the cushions for the remote. Not finding it, and not feeling like turning on the set manually, she stretched out with a relieved sigh as she stared at the black screen, then her white ceiling.. “That went okay,” she said to no one.
Pinkie PieA hardly-cloudy-at-all afternoon, not that Sunset Shimmer would notice as her bedroom’s only window remained obstructed by a light-blocking curtain. Earlier that day, she had pulled the curtain back to gaze down at the urban streetscape a few storeys below for a few moments. As her vista provided little to no view of flora (edible or not), she closed the curtain again, shaking her head at her own silliness. She had a lamp or three that were more than capable of providing light – a warm light, not as harsh as the morning or midday sun. She sat on her bed, tuning her guitar, which she had named Mayfair, before mindlessly strumming out a few chords, when a knock on her front door startled her to the point she almost threw her beloved instrument to the floor. It was a rapid knock, perhaps slightly too loud, seeming to tap out some sort of rhythm to a song. Only one person I know knocks like that, Sunset thought as she hurriedly left her bedroom, tripping on a pile of unwashed clothes before reaching the living area. As Sunset moved as rapidly as possible to reach the front door, she called out to the visitor, “Just a sec—” The door flew open before Sunset could finish her sentence, revealing a young pink-skinned girl with big baby-blue eyes and long, curly, deep-pink hair (including a front-curl that seemed to defy all physics), whose entire motif could be summed up as “cheerful” – purple-trimmed white T-shirt emblazoned with a pink heart, covered by a blue overshirt open in the front; poofy lavender skirt with a balloon patch, cinched at the waist with a purple ribbon tied in a bow. As soon as the girl saw Sunset, she immediately beelined for her, nearly leaping and wrapping her in a massive bear-hug that would have knocked a lesser mortal off their feet. Sunset, for her part, endured the display with an unseen frown and eye-roll, momentarily shocked but not at all surprised. After about a minute, she carefully began extricating herself from her visitor. “Hello, Pinkie,” Sunset said, nearly devoid of emotion. “Thanks for coming but, uh, could you let go of me?” Like a suction cup suddenly becoming freed from its glass, Pinkie popped off and reconstituted herself about two feet back. Her smiling expression not wavering in the slightest. “I’m so so so glad to see you, Sunset!” Pinkie said, a few ticks on the volume knob louder than one would consider acceptable. “Uh-huh,” Sunset replied as she waited for the feeling in her extremities to return. Completely undaunted, Pinkie continued. “How are you feeling? Are you still sick? Not sick? Better? Worse?” “I, uh…?” “It’s been so long since you’ve been to school, a lot of us were wondering if you were ever coming back! Well, at least I was wondering that. Maybe everyone else was too, or maybe they weren’t. Well, Rarity sure was! After about a week she was just beside herself worried! So I said to both Raritys ‘We should go and check on her!’ But then I realized I didn’t know where you lived… and there was only one Rarity. She went to work and pulled up her store’s files to find your address because you bought a jacket there – did you give it a name? I would! – and she went to check on you… but of course you already know that since you were here!” Pinkie babbled. “Pinkie…” said Sunset, not yet sure how to stop Pinkie’s diatribe. “So anyway, she skipped school the next day! I don’t know if you knew that. But it made us worried she might’ve caught whatever it was you had. I almost reconsidered throwing you a Get Well party! BUT, she was back the next day and told us that you just needed time to get better. Everyone else said that was fine, but I didn’t!” “Pinkie,” Sunset attempted to interrupt, but failed. “I’ve dealt with sick people before! After all, that’s what I did when I volunteered at the kids’ ward in the hospital! The kids loved it, and the bosses liked me because they said I’m cheaper than hiring a clown, but the staff said I was too much and told me never to come back without… what was that pill? But that’s another story! I’m here for you!” “Pinkie!” interjected Sunset, louder this time, but still not loud enough. “So you can imagine how over-the-moon I was when Rarity told us at lunch the other day that we could finally come see you. Now of course I wanted us all to head over first thing after school, because really who wouldn’t be cheered up by seeing all her best friends? But our free times just didn’t match up, and that made me so sad! But Rarity said that you might not be able to ‘handle’ all of us at one time? Not really sure what she meant by that but… She might have had a point.” Pinkie said. “Huh?!” Sunset was shocked by Pinkie’s unexpected halt in speech. “Well, yeah!” Pinkie answered. “This apartment is super tiny! What is it, like three hundred square feet?” “Give or take,” said Sunset, though she had long since forgotten its exact dimensions. “Exactly! So it really might not be able to hold all six of us!” Pinkie motioned around the living room, somehow managing to twirl with her arms out without smacking against the wall. “That’s… you’re right my apartment’s small, but that’s not why I waited to see you individually.” Pinkie blinked in confusion. “So why? Oh! I know! You’ve been writing the great Canmerican novel and it’s got a massive conspiracy with men in black and you got so deep into it that you started to think they’re around every corner about to take you out for exposing their secrets!” “Uh, no,” Sunset said. “The only writing I do is for the Underground Weekly Daily, and I haven’t even done that in a month.” Pinkie scratched her chin, narrowing her eyes in concentration. “Then… Ooh! It’s because your existence has been co-opted by some hack writer who isn’t comfortable writing group scenes or your friends, and thought it would be easier to reintroduce you to us one at a time!” Sunset’s face contorted into utter confusion. “That’s not… What?!” Pinkie laughed. “Hey, it’s a better guess than the really silly one!” “And what’s that?” Sunset asked, afraid to find out. “That all the guilt you feel from years of being a super-meanie-face both here and in the horse-world, plus the constant abuse from everyone at CHS who don’t think your reformation is real, caused you to have a nervous breakdown and nearly kill yourself, and you’re ashamed of it and still think that the only reason the five of us even talk to you is because Twilight told us to, and no one could ever really like you for who you are because of what you were!” Sunset stared at Pinkie, completely dumbfounded that the hyperactive pink girl just laid out the reality of Sunset’s last month without realizing it. “Isn’t that just silly?” Pinkie asked, rhetorically, as to her it clearly was. “N-no, I don’t think it’s…” “Of course it is, Sunny! D’ya mind if I call you Sunny? It’s shorter than Sunset Shimmer, and a lot happier! Anyway, why wouldn’t people like you? You’re, like, the coolest person I know! …Actually, that would be Rainbow Dash. Sorry. But you’re the second coolest!” Pinkie insisted, gesticulating wildly. “Why would you say that?” Sunset wondered aloud. Now she was genuinely invested in figuring out where Pinkie’s thought process, such as it was, was going. “Well, duh!” Pinkie began. “You have to be super-duper strong to take on your past and prove you’re better by rebuilding yourself from the ground up and becoming someone anybody could be proud of! Also, you have the most amazing taste in tables!” she motioned to the wooden cylinder next to her. Sunset looked at the cylinder, confused. “It’s just a disused cable spool I stole from behind a dumpster, cleaned up, and brought up here.” “It’s so you!” Pinkie insisted. “Just like that awesome jacket. What’s its name?” “…Rachel,” Sunset said, blushing slightly. “The other is Sasha. The one that got wrecked when I… uh…” “Became a world-destroying zombie-controlling raging she-demon?” Pinkie finished helpfully. “Yes. That,” confirmed Sunset, less than enthused. “Its name was Heather. How… did you know I name my jackets?” “Easy!” Pinkie said. “It just seems like something you’d do! Like I said, I’d do it too if I didn’t have so many different outfits for entertaining! Different parties take different approaches, you know! So, when and where do you want your Welcome Back Party to be?” “I… what?” “Well, I mean, obviously you’re going to come back to school and meet up with all your friends again! After that, we’ll all go to the Sugarplum Corner Bakery and have a big party in your honour, to celebrate your return to the land of the living! I work there part-time so I can get us a nice discount!” Pinkie said. Sunset pondered this for a minute. “I really don’t want a pa—” Then realized it was pointless to resist the Pink head-on. “Look, can we wait to discuss this until after I’m back at school?” Pinkie stared at Sunset, suddenly serious, causing Sunset to back up two steps, worried that Pinkie would not take no for an answer. That girl did take parties very seriously, after all. Much to the relief of Sunset and probably everyone else in the building, Pinkie’s expression just as suddenly snapped back to her standard massive grin. “Okay! Actually, that’s better anyway, since we can talk and make sure everyone can be there!” “Uh, yeah,” Sunset said, noncommittal. “So… I guess you’d better get started on preparations or whatever.” Pinkie nodded. “Yep! I’ve got a lot to get done now! This is gonna be the best Welcome Back To The World Party ever! Bye!!” With all the subtlety of a pickup truck modified to have its exhaust pumped out via a massive pipe through the bed rather than through a muffler like a sane person’s ride, Pinkie took her leave. After the door slammed, Sunset locked the deadbolt and the security chain, collapsing on the couch with an unwinding sigh. After a minute, she perked up as she recalled the conversation. “What the hay did I just agree to?”
FluttershySunset Shimmer reclined on her navy blue felt sofa, bought for next to nothing at a local thrift shop a few blocks from her apartment, lazily picking out a random series of notes on her acoustic guitar – nothing that could reasonably be called a song, mind, but merely something to maintain the finger dexterity she so prized after discovering the massive gap between humanoids and horses a decade earlier. One of her perhaps-friends was set to arrive soon; she could not remember who, but hoped the girl would be willing to reconcile as Rarity had. In hopes of moving the process along, she had popped down to the convenience store taking up the corner space on the ground floor of her apartment building and bought a few oatmeal cookies. Soft. Tasty. Reminded her of Equestria – when it came to dessert, Celestia’s chefs mostly made cakes (in keeping with their boss’s preference) but they could make a glorious oat cookie if asked/bribed. Her ruminations were interrupted by a knock on her door. Actually, it was more of a tap, barely audible. Had Sunset been in her bedroom, she would not have heard it. “Come in,” Sunset called out in as pleasant a voice as she could muster. For an interminable minute, nothing happened. “Come in.” Sunset said again, more insistent. The door creaked open with all the swiftness of molasses, eventually revealing her visitor standing in the threshold – a young girl with pastel yellow skin and waist-length pink hair, wearing a green ruffled skirt that was perhaps an inch shorter than regulation, likely owing to the girl being about that much taller than the average. She kept her arms clasped in front of her chest in an attempt to appear less visible… and possibly also to deflect attention away from her white tanktop that absolutely failed to hide (indeed, emphasized) the reality of her sizable bust. Sunset beckoned the girl enter the apartment, which she did with as little sound as humanly possible, taking off her green boots before shuffling across the carpeted floor and gingerly sitting herself down on the sofa next to Sunset. “So, how are you today, Fluttershy?” Sunset asked. Fluttershy stared at Sunset with those big teal eyes that melted the hearts of lesser men, saying nothing, her expression neutral, lips shifting as she contemplated forming words but then deciding against it, folding her arms in her lap and turning to look down at her knees, tilting her head in mild confusion at the sight of dirt, probably from kneeling down to try to attract those alley cats outside the building. She briefly pawed the carpet with her foot. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Sunset allowed her eyes to dart about in vain hopes of finding something to break the silence. None forthcoming, she turned her wandering gaze back to her visitor with a mood that rapidly shifted from confusion to incredulity to annoyance and then, finally, to resignation. She sighed, and decided to force a conversation. “I’m glad you’ve stopped by to see me. But I hope it’s not just because the others pressured you into it. If you really don’t want to be here, you can go. I won’t be mad.” Fluttershy merely continued to sit, unspeaking, briefly looking at Sunset before quickly turning back to contemplate her own feet. Sunset began to roll her eyes but stopped halfway, redoubling her efforts to keep her annoyance from bubbling over. She put her right hand to her chin in a classic thinking pose as she wracked her brain to find some method of making headway with the girl. “Aren’t you curious to know why I’ve been absent for so long, or why I asked to see all of you one at a time? What am I saying? I’m sure you already know; you’ve probably been through the s—” Then she understood. Sunset assumed a position near identical to Fluttershy’s and said in a near whisper, “…I’m sorry.” Fluttershy gradually turned her head toward Sunset, who was unable to respond in kind. “I was so horrible to you,” Sunset said, disgust bubbling in her voice. “For three long, miserable years, I made your life at school a living hell. Anything about you I could find to nitpick just to tear you down, I did.” Almost imperceptibly, still silently, Fluttershy shifted her body to face Sunset as much as she reasonably could given their positions. Sunset continued. “I guess, in a way, what I did to you was a lot worse than what I did to Rarity. Yes, I wrecked her reputation and sabotaged her bid for greater popularity at her first Spring Fling… but I only went after her once. You were my daily rhetorical punching bag, and not a single time did I ever consider how it must have made you feel, about me or yourself. Dear lord, no wonder you’re uncomfortable being here.” Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Ever since I found myself at the bottom of a smouldering blast crater of my own hubris, I’ve wallowed in my own self-pity and sense of guilt over everything I’ve done. It got to be too much and I shut myself off from the world for the last three weeks. I wanted to end the pain. You probably felt that way every day since you met me. Yet you kept going, enduring my abuse. That makes you a lot stronger than me.” Curious where Sunset’s monologue was headed, Fluttershy tilted her head. “I’m ashamed of who I was. I hate that there’s no way to change the past. I assume no one I hurt will forgive me, and I don’t think I deserve it anyway. You have every reason to hate me, to hold a grudge, yet you reached out your hand to me. I took it, but that was only half of what I needed to do, wasn’t it? I need to reach out my own hand and let you in. Fine. I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you except… if you need to talk, I can listen, just like you’re listening to me now. And I hope maybe, somewhere down the line, I can earn the right to call myself your friend.” Like a bullet fired from a sniper rifle, Fluttershy practically leapt at Sunset, nearly knocking her over as she wrapped her in an overpowering embrace. Sunset slowly, almost reluctantly, returned the gesture, holding it just long enough to show her acknowledgement. After an infinite moment, Fluttershy loosened her grip, raising her head to meet Sunset’s gaze. Sunset could not help but notice the tears in Fluttershy’s eyes, their impact multiplied by her small yet glorious smile. “Uh…?” said Sunset. “Thank you,” Fluttershy said in her characteristically soft voice. Sunset made a brief mental note that it was the girl’s first words since arriving. Nonetheless, Sunset still registered some confusion. “Huh?” “I, um, was still angry with you even after you apologized the first time. I mean, you did hurt me. But, I realized I couldn’t stay mad. After all, you’re still beating yourself up when you don’t need to anymore.” “Don’t need to?” Sunset asked. Fluttershy smiled serenely. “Even if you don’t forgive yourself, I forgive you. I do want to be your friend.” For the first time in a long while, Sunset genuinely smiled. “Well… since you’re here,” Sunset said. “Would you like a cookie?” Fluttershy briefly glanced down at her fairly flat stomach and not-at-all-flat chest, lips pursed in contemplation, before following her heart and answering, “Sure.” Sunset stood up and walked the short distance to her tiny kitchen where the bag of oatmeal cookies sat on the counter underneath a discount store wall clock. Debating for a moment whether she should follow proper decorum and put them on a plate for presentation, she decided neither of them would care about taking them directly from their bag. As she turned to head back to the couch, she found herself nearly smacking into Fluttershy, who had somehow teleported to standing right behind her. “Wah!” Sunset involuntarily cried out as she jumped back, which caused Fluttershy to jump an inch in the opposite direction. “Oh. I’m sorry!” Fluttershy said. “I just didn’t think you needed to go to so much trouble for me and I could…” She trailed off as something caught her attention. Sunset realized Fluttershy had become distracted. “What?” Fluttershy was staring at Sunset’s scarred left wrist, the underside of which, now exposed thanks to a slip of the sleeve, was directly facing her. Multiple thoughts raced through Sunset’s brain; most of them were some variation of Panic!! “I see,” Fluttershy said as she gingerly took Sunset’s wrist in her right hand. When she turned to her friend, she sported a look so sad that it made all those shelter dogs in that anti-animal-cruelty commercial look positively giddy. Sunset averted her eyes, but Fluttershy waved her free hand in front of her host’s face to get her attention. Eventually, Sunset tired of the distraction and reluctantly looked at her guest. Fluttershy’s eyes wandered down to her own hands, currently cupping Sunset’s, occasionally darting back up to beckon Sunset follow. On the girl’s pastel yellow wrists could be seen a couple of extremely faded scars. When they reestablished eye contact, Sunset’s expression was one of worried shock while Fluttershy’s told of simple resignation. “Those are… my fault, aren’t they,” Sunset stated matter-of-factly. To her surprise, Fluttershy shook her head no. “Not completely. Sunset, you weren’t the only person to tease me at school. Everyone took their turn, all the way back to elementary. Even if you hadn’t broken our group up freshman year, I still wouldn’t have had many friends. Of course it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.” “What stopped you?” asked Sunset as delicately as she could, though she also genuinely wanted to know. “I’m sure you’ll think this is silly,” Fluttershy said. “But… animals. One day, as I was heading to the Harmony Bridge to think about jumping before not going through with it again, I found a puppy wandering the alleys. I thought, this poor thing needs me and it would just be wrong to leave it. So even if I didn’t want to live for myself, I could live for all the sweet creatures no one else wanted. I started volunteering at the shelter, and that gave me a purpose and a space to be. Then I could start trying to make friends again.” Sunset smiled. “It’s not silly at all. In fact, I really admire your strength.” “You know I’m not strong,” Fluttershy retorted. “I’m weak. I’ve always been weak. But it doesn’t matter, because I have friends who can pick me up when life beats me down. That includes you, Sunset.” “Really?” “Of course!” said Fluttershy, before suddenly going quiet, pointing her fingers together. “I mean, if that’s okay with you.” Sunset nodded. “I’m so glad,” Fluttershy said with a pleased smile. Then she looked Sunset in the eye with all seriousness, clearly physically holding back her mind’s desire to avert her gaze; this was far too important. “Hm?” Sunset asked, cocking her head. “If that clock is right, I have to leave now. But before I go, there’s one thing I need to know. Will you come back to school this week?” Sunset briefly looked up, as she was wont to do when thinking, then back to meet her friend’s gaze. Her voice was steady, without hesitation or vacillation, as she answered. “Yes.” Fluttershy’s already big smile stretched even wider. “Good,” she said as she turned to head toward the door, allowing the fingers of one hand to slip down to Sunset’s upper arm and linger there before finally alighting and following the rest of her body; the other hand had taken the offered cookie with little notice. Sunset saw her out, guiding the girl through the dark hallway to the reasonably well-lit stairway. No more words were exchanged as Fluttershy waved goodbye and carefully made her way down the four flights of stairs. Alone again, Sunset sighed, content. Upon re-entering her apartment and remembering to lock the door, she glanced around the room, giving a curt nod as her face plastered itself with a look of determination. “I do need a change of scenery,” she said.
EpilogueThe morning was unusually chilly for Spring. Nonetheless, most of the kids at Canterville High School wore clothes better suited to the inevitable warm snap coming later in the day as they made their ways across the carefully manicured lawn in front of the school, past the large horse statue that served as the school’s – and, by extension, the city’s – mascot. As the crowd thinned out, a hand reached out to gently stroke one corner of the statue’s massive four-sided base (that secretly housed a portal to another dimension). “Hey there,” Sunset Shimmer said quietly to the base. “Been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry I’ve been gone so long.” A brief blast of chilly wind whipped across the lawn, causing Sunset to bring her legs – exposed to the elements due to her choice of orange skirt – closer together for warmth. Her upper body was not cold in the slightest thanks to her decision to wear Rachel (the warmer of her two jackets). As she stared up at the unblinking eyes of the life-sized concrete horse, she was startled by something touching her shoulder. Whirling around, she found Rarity, dressed impeccably and smiling so wide it could probably turn on a stove. Sunset was incapable of that level of happiness, but she tried her best to respond in kind. They embraced. Once they disentangled, with Rarity making sure to keep an arm around Sunset’s shoulder, they both turned toward the school’s imposing recently-reconstructed front entrance. Sunset took a deep breath. “You can do this,” Rarity said. “I can do this,” Sunset confirmed, though whether to Rarity or to herself was not clear. “We’re all here, and we’re all rooting for you,” said Rarity. The morning sunlight reflecting off the school’s windows forced Sunset to squint, but she could make out four girls – her friends – standing between her and the doors. Two of them were waving, one excitedly, perhaps calling out to her, but with the din of crowd and traffic noise, she could not hear and did not need to. Sunset intoned, “Even if the whole world has turned against me…” “…It doesn’t matter. Your friends will always be here for you,” Rarity said in response as she removed her arm. “And you know the others agree too.” “Mm-hmm,” Sunset nodded in agreement. Turning to her friend, Sunset adopted an expression that melded determination with what might have been indigestion or mild apprehension that passed after a few seconds. Rarity, for her part, briefly glanced to the quartet of girls before turning back to Sunset and asking simply, “Shall we?” “Let’s go,” Sunset replied, placing one foot in front of the other. Tentative steps, yet eager to restart her journey. END Author's Note Read Me.
Alternate BONUS CHAPTER: Pinkamena Diane PieSunset Shimmer sat Indian-style on her bed in her tiny room, her back against the wall for support, as she picked out a tune on her guitar, Mayfair. It was a melancholy song about a man who lived in a shed. For once, she decided to sing along, a different sensation – she could sing and she could play, but doing both took some getting used to. Still, it helped to pass the time as she waited for her potential friend to show up. Who was it today? Sunset could not remember. She winced as a sharp pain shot through her left wrist, still healing from her abortive attempt at self-inflicted death, nearly causing her to drop Mayfair. Of course there were so many dirty clothes piled on the carpeted floor that no harm would have come to her beloved guitar, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Still?” Sunset asked the scars. “They weren’t that deep. No stitches. But I guess quantity can be almost as bad as quality in this case, huh? Or is it psychosomatic? Maybe one of these years I’ll go see a doctor about it… What am I saying? I know I won’t. Just like I’ll probably never go down to the coin laundry and wash this pile of clothes.” As a precaution, she put Mayfair down in its privileged spot at the foot of the bed next to her overstuffed bookshelf. She contemplated the titles on the lower tiers, wondering if she might want to consider reading. Maybe the one about the rich guy who hosts all the parties yet has no friends, or the one about the guy who goes to space and the ship’s computer tries to kill him. Or the one about… A sudden knock at the door knocked Sunset out of her daze. It was a fast knock, a few decibels louder than one might consider appropriate, and had a distinct beat to it, as if sounding out the rhythm part of a tune. Of the girls she might consider calling her friends, she knew only one who would knock like that. Quickly she stood up and moved as fast as she could to her apartment’s door – locked for once – but slipped on a dirty shirt and came just two inches from smacking into the frame of her bedroom door. Once she regained her balance, she stepped into the just-as-tiny living area, fully prepared to sprint the dozen or so steps to the door, when she found her visitor already inside, standing in front of her sofa. It was a girl with pink skin and darker pink hair that included a front cowlick that seemed to defy physics, all framing big blue eyes. Her ensemble was a perfect complement to her personality, which was a near-perfect incarnation of the concept of ‘bubbly’ – white mini-T with a big heart on the front covered with a blue overshirt, pink skirt (emblazoned with a sewn-on balloon patch) cinched around her waist with a purple ribbon tied in a bow at the back. On her face was plastered a smile so intense it could probably blow up a bridge. As soon as the girl saw Sunset, she beelined for her, practically leaping as she wrapped her in a massive bear-hug that would have knocked a lesser mortal off her feet. Sunset, for her part, endured the display with an unseen frown and eye-roll, quickly getting over her shock. After about a minute – sixty seconds too long – she began to extricate herself from her visitor. “Pinkie. How did you get in here?” Sunset asked the intruder as she placed her a foot back. “Through the door, silly!” Pinkie replied with a giggle. Sunset stared at her, befuddled, as the security chain on said door was still engaged, as was the deadbolt. “You know what? No. I’m not even going to ask,” Sunset said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She need not have asked, or said much of anything, as Pinkie was more than prepared to do all of the talking. “I am so so so glad to see you, Sunset!” Pinkie bubbled at a speed and volume both a few ticks on the knob greater than pleasant. “Uh-huh,” replied Sunset with little conviction as she smacked her upper arms to get the blood flowing again. Completely undaunted, Pinkie kept going. “Or Sunny. Can I call you Sunny? How are you feeling? Are you still sick? Not sick? Kinda sick? Better? Worse? Same? Lobster?” “I, uh…?” “I mean, it’s been so long since you’ve come to school, we were wondering if you were ever coming back! Well, I was wondering if you were ever coming back. Maybe everyone else was too but were just too busy or upset to say anything. Or maybe they weren’t. Well, Rarity sure was! After about a week, she was so worried she was practically beside herself! So I said to both Raritys ‘We should pay Sunset a visit! Check on her! I bet she’ll love that!’ But then I remembered I didn’t know where you live… also there was only one Rarity. That day after school she went to her job at the fashion store place and pulled her store’s files to find your address because you bought a jacket there or something? Did you give it a name? I would! And then she headed out to see you… but of course you already know that since you were here!” Pinkie babbled. “Pinkie?” Sunset tried to get a word in edgewise. It did not work. “So anyway,” Pinkie continued without missing a beat, “She skipped school the next day! I don’t know if you knew that! Well, that made us worried that if you were sick with that stomach bug going around that she caught it from you. I almost reconsidered throwing you a Get Well party! BUT, Rarity was back the day after that and told us you just needed time to get better! The other three said that was okay, but I didn’t!” “Pinkie…” said Sunset in yet another failed interjection. “Because I’ve dealt with sick people before! After all, I used to volunteer at the pediatric ward in the hospital! The kids loved it, and so did the bosses because they said I’m cheaper than hiring a real clown… but the nurses said I was too much and told me never to come back without taking… what’s that pill? But that’s another story!” Sunset’s patience was fraying by the second. She tried again: “Pinkie.” “So you can imagine how over-the-moon I was when Rarity told us at lunch the other day that we could finally come see you!” rambled Pinkie, the words cascading inexorably, like an avalanche. “Now of course I wanted us all to head over first thing after school, because who wouldn’t be cheered up by seeing all her best friends? But, our free times just didn’t match up, and that made me so sad! Rarity said something about you not being able to ‘handle’ all of us at one time… and given how super-duper small this apartment is, she’s got a point! Still, I figured I’d make it my mission to spread enough joy for all of our other friends who can’t be here right now! I even brought a mini version of my confetti cannon! It’s parked right outside, so all I need to do is—” “Pinkie! Stop!!” Sunset near-screamed, foisting her left hand palm-forward one inch in front of her friend’s face. This was finally enough to get Pinkie to stop speaking. She contemplated Sunset’s palm, making note of the various lines, wondering if it might be a good idea to reconsider that fortune-telling gig – she did have a >90% success rate the last time she tried. Then her eyes wandered down to Sunset’s wrist, easily visible at that angle even if Sunset had been wearing her jacket. She saw the multiple tracks of raised skin, most parallel but some perpendicular, long thin scabbed lines standing in stark contrast, running down the middle of each. Pinkie blinked. “Sunset? Did you hurt yourself while cooking?” she asked innocently, though an unpleasant feeling began trying to force its way into her mind. Sunset vocalized a questioning grunt, then realized where Pinkie’s eyes had focused. After five seconds of a look that practically screamed Oh Crap!!, she lowered her arm and decided to fudge an answer. “No. It’s nothing. Just…” “But,” Pinkie interrupted, “Cuts like that can only be made with a blade, and those hurt and can be dirty. I’d hate for you to end up in the hospital over an accident!” “They… weren’t an accident,” Sunset said, barely audible, no longer willing to look her friend in the eye. “You mean someone attacked you? Even so, it’s crazy not to see a doctor unless…” Pinkie said before the thoughts poking at her brain breached her upbeat defenses. “…You wanted to hurt yourself,” she correctly concluded, her voice dropping in volume and pitch. Sunset nodded. Pinkie’s happy demeanour instantly turned crestfallen. “Why?” she asked in a tone not unlike a cat dunked in a bathtub would use if it could talk. With a forlorn sigh, Sunset decided to give a direct answer. “Because I didn’t see the point in living anymore. I just… figured the world would be better off without me.” As Pinkie stared at Sunset with a mix of shock, horror, and sadness, her curly hair began to go progressively limp. Sunset could have sworn she heard a balloon deflating. After less than thirty seconds, Pinkie’s hair had become perfectly straight (incidentally also showing off its incredible length – past her rear). Her normally ever-present smile was completely absent, to the point one would never have been able to tell it had existed in the first place, replaced by a despondent frown. Her eyes were the same baby blue as ever, but seemed to have a different kind of spark behind them than her usual joy and excitement – one of greater intelligence but also much greater sadness. Her lower lip quivered involuntarily. Pinkie turned away from Sunset and made her way to the nearby sofa, where she sat down on the far end, turned away, fighting back sobs. Sunset stood in the middle of the room, not sure what to do. Her brain worked feverishly, juggling and judging multiple possible responses. She wondered if this was how Rarity felt that awful afternoon when she encountered Sunset at her lowest. Cautiously, Sunset approached the sullen girl, sitting down on the opposite side of the couch, leaving a person’s worth of space in between them. “Pinkie, I… I’m… sorry. I didn’t want you to have to see…” “Did it have to come to that?” Pinkie asked in a tone Sunset had never heard before – noticeably deeper, quieter, and absolutely calm. “Huh?” This threw Sunset off guard. “What do you mean?” Pinkie turned to look at Sunset. Her eyes had become bloodshot from the tears still on her cheeks, expression a mix of annoyed disappointment and just plain sad. “Well, I guess I can’t blame you for feeling that way. All that guilt plus the way all the other kids treated you, it makes sense you’d want to take the easy way out.” “Excuse me,” Sunset interrupted. “Who are you and what have you done with Pinkie Pie?” “Still,” continued Pinkie, ignoring her, “Even if you don’t value your own life, what about your friends? Did you really think we wouldn’t care?? That we wouldn’t be sad about you being gone?” “…No,” said Sunset with an air of finality, causing Pinkie to flinch. “I see,” Pinkie said, despondent. “Guess we failed at friendship, then. What hurts the most, though, is you couldn’t see what was right in front of you. Maybe you still can’t.” Sunset raised her eyebrows slightly in confusion. “What do you mean?” Pinkie – or whoever this blob of sadness currently possessing her body was – placed her hands on Sunset’s upper arms, rooting her in place, staring directly at her with those big, sorrowful blue eyes. “Sunset, you’re a wonderful person,” said Pinkie, her voice wavering. “It may not mean much from me since you’d expect me to say that about anyone, but… I’m serious. You may be the smartest, most interesting person I’ve ever met. I’ve loved getting to know you, learning more about you. Life’s a lot more fun with you around. I’m sure the others feel the same. If you died… your dying… I’d m…” Unable to finish her sentence, Pinkie collapsed into a bawling mess. Sunset had seen her cry before, but it was usually happy-tears or had a vaguely comical effect. This was different. The girl had lifted her legs onto the couch and sat curled into a ball, her long straight hair draped over her back and the furniture like a brilliant pink shawl or perhaps a fancy cape. Hesitantly, Sunset eased closer to Pinkie. Once in position, she gently wrapped her arms around the girl. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said softly. “If it means anything, I’m feeling better now.” Pinkie turned her head to Sunset, which had the effect of making her look like the classic picked-on kid in one of those cartoons. She nodded, making a tiny squeak. “You are?” she asked, clearly unsure if Sunset meant it. “I am,” Sunset insisted. “Well, I’m not at a hundred percent yet, but these scars are from a couple weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll be doing it again anytime soon. After all, I’ve leaned I’m not alone anymore. Thank you for caring.” Pinkie smiled warmly. Her hair began to recurl, but stopped before it reached even lightly wavy. She looked to each side of her head, confused, grabbing a lock in her hand as she scrutinized it. “Something wrong?” Sunset asked, utterly baffled at Pinkie’s behaviour (unusual even by Pinkie standards). “I guess it’s going to take a little longer than usual to get back to normal,” Pinkie said. Her smile was still there, but thin, and her voice still had a tinge of sadness. “Usual?” asked Sunset, still unsure of anything. “You mean this… deflation… has happened before?” Pinkie sighed. “Yeah. You’ve never seen it because I keep it out of public view. It’s my way of coping with negative feelings. A bit less destructive than slitting your wrists, I’d imagine.” “True,” said Sunset with a snort of disgust at herself. “Maud says I was sad a lot as a kid, when I still went by my full name. So whenever I get like this, she uses it,” Pinkie casually explained. “It?” “My real name: Pinkamena Diane Pie.” “Ah. Still… I find it hard to believe I’m worth getting so sad over,” Sunset said. Pinkamena levelled a serious stare at Sunset. “And that is why we’re friends: because you deserve to see the you that I see. I came here because I wanted to tell you we’re planning a ‘Welcome Back To The World’ party as soon as you’re ready. We can host it at the Sugarplum Corner Bakery – since I work there, I can wrangle a big discount. I know you’re not big on get-togethers and like your solitude, but… do you think you could humour us? You might even enjoy yourself.” Sunset rubbed her chin for a moment in mock-contemplation, causing Pinkamena to shift uncomfortably in her seat, before responding. “I’d be honoured. Just… not too loud, please.” Pinkamena shrugged. “I understand, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to hold back once I’m the me everyone knows. After all, I’ll be so ecstatic to see you again.” “I guess I can live with that,” Sunset said as she helped Pinkamena off of the sofa. “So when will this party be?” “I’ll need at least a week to plan and make arrangements,” said Pinkamena in a businesslike tone Sunset rarely heard from her. “Inquire about everyone’s schedules before setting a time. Of course you’ll need to be emotionally up to it as well, but I’ll assume that’s a given.” “I guess you’d better get to work then,” Sunset said. “Exactly,” Pinkamena confirmed, her hair slowly curling as she juggled thoughts and numbers in her head. “I’ve got to go. Will I see you at school tomorrow?” “Maybe not tomorrow. But within the week, certainly,” Sunset corrected. “Whenever you’re ready. We’ll be waiting,” Pinkamena said with an understanding smile. Then her eyes went wide as sudden *poof!* sound heralded her hair resuming its standard curly mess. When she spoke again, her voice was back to its usual higher pitch and fast speed. “Okie-dokie-lokie! Oooh, this is gonna be so fun! I can’t wait!! See ya!” Pinkie chirped as a goodbye. With that, Pinkie bounded out the door and down the hall toward the stairs, making sure to greet the brass umbrella stand next to the busted elevator. Sunset locked her door and sprawled out on her couch, sighing as if a large weight had been lifted off her shoulders… but only by a couple of inches, meaning its presence was still there but not the pressure. Scratching a phantom itch on her chest, she mulled over the preceding encounter in her head, wondering about the girl who was simultaneously Pinkie Pie yet not. Then a sudden thought occurred to her. “What the hay did I just agree to?” Author's Note A Christmas gift to my loyal readers who asked me how Pinkie's chapter would play out differently if I had let her embrace the heavy thoughts. I hope y'all enjoyed it. Click here for more of my thoughts on Pinkamena.
