Compatī

In all honesty, I didn’t mind visiting him.

Well, that was a lie. I did mind, but… it was complicated.

I knew I had to, whether by Celestia’s or Luna’s command or not. He was one of many names on my mental checklist. I needed this just as much as he did.

After what I did to him… God have mercy on me.

I couldn’t go groveling back to Celestia for his whereabouts after that little display I left her with, but it didn’t take long to corner a guard on my way out of the castle.

Greener Pastures Retirement Center. The name alone made me sick.

Thankfully, the place itself seemed nicer than I first expected. Maybe it was just a human world stereotype.

Whenever I thought of retirement homes, I thought of droning old-timey music and quiet hallways, the lifeless shuffling of rickety bones collectively awaiting their turn on the slab. That thin veneer of liveliness and newfound energy that twisted the phrase “golden years” into “golden” years.

This place fit the bill at first glance, but it had more color to it than the few others I’d seen, and no shortage of pictures and whatnot to fill in wall space, like the ponies running it actually tried to put some “home” into this retirement home. There was even a bonsai tree and a little water feature in the lobby. Veneer or not, one could hope.

Still, that didn’t change the reason for my visit, and as luck would have it, my reputation preceded me.

The cream-colored earth pony nurse at the counter recognized me like a preacher man meeting the devil. She shot to her hooves, her wide amber eyes watching my every step up to the counter.

“Ma’am,” she said. “D-do you have an appointment?”

I watched her hoof hover under the desk. Probably a panic alarm, like at banks.

“No,” I said. “Do I really need one?”

“You’re not allowed to visit patients without an appointment.” She affected a prim and proper little scowl to compliment the tight auburn bun that was her mane. What she didn’t know was that I could be way more assertive than whatever mirror she practiced in front of every morning.

“Would it help if I said Celestia sent me?”

She pursed her lips instinctively at the name drop, but she squared her shoulders and doubled down on that brave face of hers. “No visitors without an appointment.”

Oh, was she being cute. I didn’t have time for this. I picked up the clipboard behind the receptionist desk, penciled myself into one of the boxes—I didn’t bother reading it—and slapped it back down on the desk.

“That was a medication chart!” She reached for it to see what damage I had done.

“Yeah, well now it’s a visitation schedule.” I started down the hallway, checking the patient doors as I passed—all of which stood open for the charge nurse to better keep an eye on them.

I didn’t know if she pressed that button or not, but at this point I didn’t care. They’d have to drag me out of this place in manacles if they wanted me gone before I saw him.

“Ma’am!” The nurse badgered me all the way down the hall. Her clip-clop on the linoleum echoed after me. “Ma’am, you’re not allow—”

I stuffed a hoof in her mouth as I came to a standstill outside room 183. It was a small room, one fitted to look and feel like a miniature house, with a corner kitchenette and a sitting area. A radio on the nightstand played some upbeat, old-timey swing number that sounded like a gramophone recording.

He sat staring out the tall solarium windows spanning the far wall, soaking up the rays of a midafternoon sun. I couldn’t see his face, but I’d recognize that cropped mane and statue-like posture if I was deaf, dumb, and blind.

I swallowed. It took me a moment, but I found the strength to knock on the door frame.

His ears perked up, and he turned with that little smile I all too often saw whenever I visited Celestia.

“Hey, Stone Wall,” I said meekly. A lump settled in my throat just getting that out.

My god, just look at him. I wanted to think he looked strange because he wasn’t wearing his usual get-up, but I knew better.

He looked like a ghost of his old self. A stiff wind could have carried him off to Cloudsdale. There were lines in his face that weren’t there before. Half of them looked more like scars than wrinkles.

“I was hoping I’d see you again,” he said. He hobbled over and hugged me. Like, actually hugged me.

I stiffened at his touch. I didn’t know what to do. This intimacy felt so wrong, yet his precedent was the only one I had to follow, so I hesitantly put a hoof around his back. I could feel the individual vertebrae along his spine and the patches where his fur didn’t grow properly.

“You look great,” he said when we pulled apart.

“I…” what was I supposed to say to that? You too? His cheeks had hollowed out some. Was he eating enough? Could he eat enough? “Thanks.”

He brushed my mane out of my face. It took all my strength to not jerk away. He of all ponies didn’t deserve that from me.

My eyes drifted to his left hind leg—or, what was left of it. A thick bandage wrapped the stub from haunch to hock.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. He followed my gaze to his back leg. “You get used to it after a while. Besides, I lost the weight my dietitian was always yelling at me about.”

I laughed half-heartedly and looked away. Hiding pain with jokes like that never sat well with me. I tried that route for a while. It didn’t end well.

The song on the radio faded out, and in its place came the slow introduction of a piano-sax jazz number that reminded me of the Fall Formal back at Canterlot High. Stone Wall hobbled toward it.

”Don’t need this on while you’re here,” he said.

“N-no, it’s… I like it.”

He looked at me funny. “Since when were you into old-timer music?”

“Since when were you? You aren’t even fifty if I remember right.” Not even fifty and already put out to pasture, my mind drilled into the backend of my skull.

That got a chuckle out of him. “I’m allowed to like what I want.”

“And I’m not?”

He gave me that smile of his I remembered frighteningly well from our little moments in Celestia’s hallway. “Of course you are. And don’t you ever let anypony tell you otherwise.”

He grunted and strained as he sat down beside the bed. I made to help him, but he waved me off.

“I’m good,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.” He straightened himself out and tried giving me a placating smile.

The nurse huffed at him from over my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I had forgotten about her.

“You should be sitting on your pillow, Mr. Stone Wall,” she said. She grabbed a pink lace pillow very unbecoming of the stallion I remembered from a little wire seat in the solarium.

“Oh, I’m fine,” he said and shooed her away. “Get outta here, y’old bat.”

She frowned at him before turning up her nose, settling on leaving the pillow beside him should he change his mind. “Fine. But don’t come crying to me when your back is out of shape.”

She gave me a final “I’ve got my eye on you” scowl as she trotted out of the room.

Wonderful mare, that one. Stiffer than the broom handle she surely had up her ass.

“Don’t mind her,” Stone said, nodding at the door. “Acuity, by the way. She’s nice once you get to know her. Sometimes she can be too blunt, though. Comes from when she worked in the ER, I think. You wouldn’t believe the stories she has.”

He gave the doorway a quick glance before sliding the pillow under the bed. “Can’t stand that thing. My ass slip-slides all over the place if I use it on anything but carpet.”

I smirked, because that was the reaction he wanted from me. Part of me did enjoy his antics, but the rest drowned in the guilt of watching him struggle with basic, everyday things.

I noticed the muscles on his right side were more tense than his left. Even without his left hind leg, he refused to compensate his balance by widening his stance or shifting his weight. Not a hoof out of place. A soldier’s poise, always and forever.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I’d waited long enough to say that. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, and everything that’s caused.”

He waved his hoof at me again. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, I’d run my course.”

“Don’t say that.” My throat threatened to cinch up at the thought, and my eyes primed themselves for tears I didn’t have the courage to shed. “Don’t ever say that.”

“You’ve never been in the service. Once a soldier, always a soldier, they say. It’s true, but there’s always that nagging voice in your head. There are younger ponies ready to fill your boots. I mean hell, have you met Razorwing? It’s not his real name, but I don’t think anypony’s got the balls to ask what it is. Kid’s a walking goddamn nightmare.”

I couldn’t disagree. He was rather intimidating. Not sure if Celestia really wanted a soldier like that as her personal guard, but, knowing her, she intended to slowly work it out of him one way or the other. Make a model citizen of him by the time he sported his first grey hair.

“But seriously,” he said. “Don’t apologize. The princess visits every weekend, so it’s not like everything’s all bad. Makes it feel like a vacation rather than a retirement.”

He always addressed her like that: “the princess.” I’d never once heard him say her name, not even back then. I found it curiously reverent.

“But while we’re on that topic,” he said. “What exactly happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

And there it was. The big question. The whole reason I’d dragged myself here. I knew in my heart that this needed to happen, but now, in the moment, I wanted to run.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I was strong. I had to be.

“I fucked up,” I said.

“We all fuck up,” he said way more matter-of-factly than I expected. Which shouldn’t have surprised me. He’d been way more casual about everything than he had any right to be from the moment I got here. Always was, honestly. “What counts most is what you do to fix your fuckups, and you’re here now.”

“Way after the fact…”

He put a hoof on my shoulder. His side muscles quivered just holding himself like that.

“You’re here now,” he repeated. “Care to explain?”

“I’ve…” I’d already explained this so many times I wanted to puke. Just thinking about saying it all over again made me nauseous.

A wave of guilt snapped my eyes to his back leg for the tiniest fraction of a second. He of all ponies had a right to know.

I sighed and shook my head. I ran my hoof through my mane, but all it did was fall right back in place.

“I was… I was stupid and blindly in love, and then that got turned on its head. I became… angry. So, so angry and resentful of everyone and everything, and you just happened to be…” I almost said “in the way,” but the phrasing disgusted me—it made him sound so disposable—and I lost the strength to find the right words.

He nodded with a far-off look on his face. He knew exactly what I was going to say.

“Love can make a pony do crazy things,” he said. “So can anger. Any emotion, really, but those two are the ones ponies usually blame.”

Yeah. I didn’t need reminding of that. I spent practically every hour of every day for a solid year thinking about that after Twilight saved me from myself.

“Do you know why I joined the Royal Guard?” he asked.

I blinked, his question pulling me out of that dark corner of my mind. I actually remembered the conversation he was talking about. We were in the hedge gardens, because Celestia was in the mood for a night walk. It had rained that evening, and all the chrysanthemums smelled like heaven.

“You told me it was because you wanted to protect the ponies you love,” I said.

A little smile played on his lips. “That sounds like a white lie I’d tell. Well, white lies being what they are, that’s not the real reason I joined.”

I slanted my mouth. I didn’t know why the thought crossed my mind, but I went with it anyway: “Thi-is isn’t one of those weird-ass revelation things where you tell me that you’re my real dad or something, is it?”

That got a real laugh out of him. He doubled over—half laughing, half flinching from whatever pain it elicited. When he came back up, there were tears beading in the corners of his eyes.

“Oh, damn,” he said. “I haven’t laughed like that in a long time. No, this ain’t some crappy radio soap opera. I joined because I didn’t have anything else.

“I was a Canterlot street urchin. Grew up on stale bread from the trash can behind Leaven’s Breads up there on Oatley, and whatever spare change I could sneak off the stuffy nobles walking around like they owned the place. When I was old enough, I saw an opportunity to get out of the hole I was in, and I took it. Best damn choice I ever made.” A far-off look built up in his eye, kind of like the thousand-yard stare I was so used to seeing back when.

“It made me… patient. I learned how to deal with my problems, from boredom, to the anger issues I had as a colt. Maybe that’s just part of growing up, but I like to think the Guard at least beat some sense into me.” He shrugged. “I never expected to become the princess’s personal guard, but that’s a different story.

“The big thing about it, mmm maybe three or four years into it,” he said, rocking his head side to side. “I learned that I like pony watching. I like seeing everypony go about their lives, running back and forth, wondering just what’s going through their heads and how their lives all fit together.” A smile tugged up one side of his lips. “Bet you never thought I was so philosophical, eh?”

I smiled back half-heartedly. I wouldn’t have considered that philosophical, per se, but I appreciated the sentiment.

“Being a guard let me do just that,” he continued. “And I’ll have you know, there’s a lot to see in this world if you pay attention, and a lot more nuance in each and every pony you’ll ever meet.” He nodded. “And the more I came to appreciate that, the more I understood what was actually important in this world.”

He glanced at the radio, which had since moved on to some baritone stallion leading a stage band in a slow lullaby.

“I always liked watching you come and go. Wondered what all you were learning, what the princess taught anypony one on one, what was important enough to teach ’em that way and all. Never really asked you, though. Wasn’t my place, and you never said much. But you always did give me that smile of yours.” He sighed.

“I always wanted kids, but no time for it. The Guard does that to you.” He ran his tongue across the inside of his upper lip, his eyes still lost in some distant thought beyond the kitchen table. “But, you know, I always felt kinda lucky with that… With how you were always coming and going, those little bits of conversation we shared, I kinda felt like I was getting the best of both worlds.”

I felt a lump form in my throat, and my eyes misted over. Goddamn it. He can’t just sucker punch me like that.

“And of course…” He laughed and gave a little shrug. “Now I have all the time in the world, so heaven doesn’t have to wait anymore, eh? Guess I have you to thank for that.”

And the beating continued. Trying to twist the consequences of my short-sightedness into a silver lining, and a bold one at that. I couldn’t stomach that kind of forgiveness. I flattened my ears back and shrank in on myself. Even if he meant it, no sort of end could justify those means.

“You’re supposed to hate me,” I said. I barely got it out. It almost sounded like a croak for how big that lump in my throat got. I couldn’t keep this mask on anymore. The tears brimmed in my eyes, and the levee man had long since punched out.

“And who says that?” His eyes were trained on me, half serious, half disbelieving. “The only pony I report to is the princess herself, and I don’t remember her giving me an order to hate you.”

I had no answer. I didn’t deserve to answer. An eye for an eye was all I deserved.

“Hey,” he said. He lifted my chin to meet his gaze. The smile he gave me was one of genuine unbridled happiness, but all I could see was him standing outside the Royal Treasury and the reflection of fire in his eyes—how he saw it coming but didn’t so much as lift a hoof to stop me.

“You couldn’t do anything to me that I couldn’t forgive in a heartbeat,” he said.

I shut my eyes and pulled away. Goddamn it. I couldn’t cry now. I didn’t deserve this kind of sympathy from him.

When I first got here, I had expected him to freak out and throw things at me. I expected nothing but hate and a thousand lifetimes worth of curses. I destroyed his life, yet he welcomed me back with open arms. I didn’t deserve this kindness.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“This.” I gestured around me at nothing in particular. “You being here in this place. You having to go through that”—I pointed at his missing leg, then the patchy fur and his ribs I could count from here—“this, all of this pointless suffering because of me. You shouldn’t be forgiving me. I haven’t earned it.”

“Maybe not, but you’re actively working at it, right? Look at you now. You’re back in Equestria, and you’re talking to me. That means you saw the princess. And if you’re on good enough terms to talk to her, then that’s enough in my book to know you’re on the right track.”

“I…” I shook my head.

“You might not think you’ve earned the right to be forgiven, but in all honesty, that doesn’t matter.”

He struggled to his hooves and worked a kink out of his back. He still held an imposing stature despite his gauntness, but nothing about it gave me any reason to fear for my safety. Rather, there was a softness to his stance, the sort of gentle giant-ness I’d always seen in him.

“I choose to forgive you,” he said. “So it’s up to you whether or not you accept it, and more importantly, if you choose to forgive yourself.”

I dropped my gaze to my hooves. I was not going to cry. I was not going to cry. Goddamn it, why was I like this?

The tremors started, but I held the tears back like the adult I had to be. I was Sunset goddamn Shimmer. I was strong.

He was right, though. He had every right to forgive me no matter how stupid or arrogant I was or how little I deserved it. Saying otherwise would just be spitting in his face.

But while he might have freely chosen to forgive me, I couldn’t, not ’til I’d earned it. However long that’d take, I didn’t know, but if he really believed in me the way it seemed, I could at least try.

“Thanks,” I said. “This wasn’t exactly how I pictured this going. I-I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I got to see you again. That’s all that matters to me.”

And that got the waterworks going. Fuck. I couldn’t do this. I broke down sobbing into his chest, and he rubbed my back with a slow, steady hoof. It took a good minute for the tears and hiccups to subside, and I pulled away once I had a semblance of control, wiping away the tears.

God, I felt like a mess. I didn’t want to think about what I looked like. This was all backwards. I should have been the one comforting him over what’d happened, not the other way around.

But like the trained soldier he was, he made no show of whatever feelings he felt inside. He made sure I only got a good view of his smile, full of reassurance and good will.

I truly hoped heaven didn’t wait for him. With a genuine smile like that, he’d make the best damn father both this side of the portal and the other.

“Thanks,” I said again. It was the only appropriate response.

“Of course.”

I took a deep breath to finalize my little outburst there, and I was good now. I was okay. No more crying. I smiled to punctuate that fact.

“Whatever happened to your friend, by the way?” he asked. “That blonde mare you always hung out with.”

I broke eye contact and settled on staring at the radio, now dolling out a soft jazz instrumental. “I… I don’t know. I haven’t seen Copper since I left.”

“Oh,” he said, deflated. “That’s a shame. She was a nice mare. The princess really liked her.”

The silence let a whole slew of bad memories fill in the gaps. I rubbed the side of my foreleg.

Thankfully, the nurse made good time swinging back through. The overtly loud clip-clop of her hooves on the hallway linoleum was by no means a subtle preamble to whatever variation on the phrase “piss off” she had primed at the tip of her tongue. She made a show of clearing her throat once she stepped inside and glared daggers at me with the milquetoast assertiveness she aspired to.

God, what was wrong with me? She may have been a snippy little priss, but she was just doing her job. Where the hell was all this vitriol coming from on my end?

“Well,” Stone Wall said, dragging me back down to reality. “Looks like the drill sergeant needs me up and at ’em.” He gave the nurse a friendly smile, which didn’t amuse her one bit. Back to me: “Hallway ain’t gonna patrol itself, right? I hope you’ll swing by again sometime soon?”

That upward inflection cut through me like glass. The mere thought of coming back terrified me beyond reason—he was a constant reminder of my endless trail of fuckups. But I wouldn’t dare hurt him again. He didn’t deserve that.

“Of course,” I said.

He hugged me, and this time I actually felt comfortable enough to press into it. His hoof found the back of my head to hold me the way that always made me feel so safe.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Really.”

I nodded into his chest. The walls came down, and I let a fresh wave of tears out.

“Okay,” I said.

“You’ll make somepony real happy one day. But you gotta make yourself happy first. Just remember that.” A little squeeze, and he let me go. “Now go save the world. That’s what the princess’s star pupils do best, right?”

I laughed despite the tears. I didn’t even know what emotions I was feeling anymore. I wanted to go home, bury my face in my pillow, and scream, yet somehow he still got me to smile.

“Yeah…” I gave him a final hug, and I left that godforsaken place.

The train ride back to Ponyville didn’t even register. It felt like I teleported from one end of Equestria to the other. But no matter what black magic had my brain feeling unstuck from time, the sun hung low in the sky as proof that I had missed a good four hours somewhere, lost in my head.

I stumbled through the front doors of Twilight’s castle, and when all eyes locked onto me as I entered the portal room, I felt less myself and more like a ghost trespassing on holy ground.

“Put me back in,” I said to Twilight.

She looked at me surprised. “Uh, are you sure? You don’t look quite ready—”

“Twilight. Put me back in. Please.”

Her eyes danced back and forth between mine. I could feel her heart reaching out to me, but I couldn’t deal with that right now. If I let even the slightest bit of her get to me, I wouldn’t have the strength to sit myself in the chalk circle, let alone gather myself for the coming conversation.

Quickly enough, the dream dive magics washed over me, and I found myself in the auditorium, staring out at the infinite darkness.

“What is wrong?” Luna asked, her brows knitted in concern. “Why do you return so soon?”

“I can’t do this,” I said. “It’s, I just… this isn’t working.”

“If it is not working, then it is because you did not let it work. You did not truly open up to these ponies.”

“Yeah? And how would you know if I opened up or not?” I squared up with her. “I didn’t see you out there talking to them. You’re just this high-and-mighty piece of shit who thinks she knows how to fix me, but you don’t. Why do you even assume I need fixing? You’re clueless and arrogant, and I just… I can’t. I just can’t.”

Luna came up to me. “I know it is difficult, Sunset, but—”

I backed away to keep my distance. “What do you know about difficult? Why does everyone think they know so much about what it’s like?”

I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut. My life was turning into a broken record. They all thought they knew so much, and every time I had to explain it over and over and over and over again.

“I did not—”

“Don’t even. Just… don’t even bother.” I sat down and turned away. Fuck me. Why did I even think coming back here was a good idea?

“To overcome one's problems means to face them, Sunset, but in doing so make oneself vulnerable to them.” Her voice carried disgustingly gently in the silence between us. I could picture the feigned worry on her face without even looking. “It means not looking away even when we want nothing more than to do just that. Because that is how one overcomes them, not by hiding away from them.”

That got me onto my hooves and right up in her face. “Don't even fucking talk to me about vulnerability. You have no idea how vulnerable I've been with my friends about this. I told Twilight everything. Everything,” I added, and I watched as her ears fell back in shame.

“Can you even possibly comprehend how hard it was putting that into words? How… how disgusting it made me feel admitting to that? Because that's what it felt like: an admission. Like I had done something fundamentally wrong by simply being a decent human being and letting you into my life, only for you to…”

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath to steady myself. This, too, felt like just as much of an admission, but I'd rather throw myself into a fire than let these feelings lie.

“Have you ever watched the light die from someone's eyes, Luna?” I said. My legs started shaking, and it took everything I had just to keep myself standing. “Because that's what happened when I told her. And I had to see it again the morning after when she saw you lying there, and every dream dive since. Do you think I enjoyed that? Do you think I liked ruining the happiness she felt about you? That… that inherent admiration she held because of who you were to her? It made me feel like I stole something from her. Like you once again made me do something against my will, that you took that agency away from me, just like you did when you took everything else from me.”

We stared at each other for a long time. She looked almost afraid, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to be the first one to look away.

I shrugged my shoulders at her. “Well? Is there a single goddamn brain cell in there that has anything to say to that?” Still nothing followed, so I scoffed, “Of course not. It doesn't matter to someone like you. It's just one more reason on the pile of why she should smother you with a fucking pillow.”

She let her eyes fall to the ground, and her wingtips slackened below the arch of her back. “Regardless of what you may think, Sunset, I do care. And I hate what I did with as much passion as you, if not more.”

What? No. There was no fucking way she just said that. No one in their right mind could ever be that dense.

“Say that again,” I said.

She eyed me warily, and I noticed the tiniest spreading of her wings—instinct doing its fair share of heavy lifting in the piss-me-off department.

“You hate what you did…” I shook my head, and I couldn’t help the tiny laugh that escaped me. “And what did you do, Luna? What could you have possibly done that you hate so much, huh?”

No answer, so I slapped her across the face. For what it was worth, she took it, and the alarm on her face when she brought her gaze back around gave me something to latch onto and drive that anger home.

“That right there,” I said. “That bullshit right there. Stop talking around it. Stop fucking acting like it’s this thing you get to ignore or go quiet about when it’s convenient for you. All you’ve done since we started was dance around the subject with your pretty words and your woe-is-fucking-me attitude. You don’t get to hide from this.”

I thumped myself in the chest. “You don’t get to, because I don’t get to. So if there’s even a single repentant bone in your body, then shut the fuck up with all your holier-than-thou bullshit and do me the one goddamn courtesy even you can’t be too stupid to realize.”

The trembling came back. All the anger, all the misery, all the everything that was my life up to this moment rushed through me like toxic sludge. It was all I could do to grit my teeth and level every last ounce of it into my voice.

“Say it,” I spat. “Say exactly what you did to me.”

“Sunset, I—”

I slapped her again and seethed: “Use the word, you fucking coward.”

She looked me in the eye. By god, she looked into the very depths of my soul, and maybe—just maybe—she finally saw the depths of her evils.

Shakily, she said, “I… raped you, Sunset Shimmer.”

I took a step forward, grabbed her by the cheeks, and brought her nose to nose with me.

“Again,” I said.

She stared at me, longer this time. Maybe a second, maybe ten. I didn’t fucking know nor did I care. I could hardly breathe for all the emotions choking the life out of me, but I would have rather died on the spot than let her go another moment without feeling at least a drop of the tidal wave that had drowned me every day for the last seven years. And as I held her there, I saw whatever shred of dignity, whatever sliver of humanity she still might cling to, squirm the way I did beneath her seven years ago.

A single tear ran down her cheek, and she sucked in a shaky breath. “I, Princess Luna of Equestria, raped you, Sunset Shimmer. And I am forever sorry.”

I pulled her forehead against mine to the clack of our horns and held her there. “Take your own fucking advice and look me in the eye. You can hate what you did all you want. And maybe you actually do hate it more than me. But I don’t care, and I never will. Not in a million fucking years.

“Because your sorry doesn’t pull your weight off of me as I couldn’t breathe. Your sorry doesn’t untie me from your magic as I begged you to stop. Your sorry doesn’t put back the tears that you licked from my cheeks as you… you… entered me.” I pressed my forehead harder against hers, and although she had easily twice my strength, she practically collapsed beneath my weight.

“Your sorry means nothing.”

I pushed myself away from her. Turning my back on that worthless piece of shit was probably the worst thing I could have done, but goddamnit, I couldn’t stand to look at her. All it did was make me think of then—all the probing and the touching and the violation and wanting to just die so I didn’t have to feel it anymore.

I took a deep breath, and I focused on the sound of that breath entering my lungs. Listen to the breathing. Become the breathing, and let it become me.

“Not once have I thought myself above what I have done, Sunset,” Luna whispered. Her breaths came in shaky spurts. “Not a moment has passed that I haven't regretted the evils I committed, the equinity that I shed the moment I stripped yours from you. I am not ignoring it, Sunset. I never once have.

“I cannot change what I have done. That is forever a scar upon my heart. But there remains what I can change, and that is and forever will be the Nightmare, until it is naught but a memory. I pledge my life to that end, now and as I had when we began.”

And there she went again with her pretty words and the woe-is-me. She just had to inject herself into my headspace at every given opportunity. Force and pry, wedge and weasel, crawl and slither into the one remaining place that should have been sacred from her corrupting touch.

“That’s what you don’t seem to understand,” I said, wheeling about to stare her down. “I don’t care if you want to help. I don’t care if what you’re doing is the right thing or that you have my best intentions at heart. Because you still gain something from this. Because you get to feel some sort of peace of mind, some… some self-appointed justice about it all. But what do I get from it? Huh? Square one? I don’t even get square one or whatever shitty metaphor will finally drill that hole through your fucking skull. Your opinion, your hopes and best intentions mean nothing.

“You don’t get a say in any of this.” I was shaking now. Goddamnit, I couldn’t help it, but the truth hurt too much to keep in. “You’ve said that time and again like it’s this thing you can just deal with. Like it’s some wall you can bash your head against until it falls down. Because you’re the lucky one who has a wall you can do that to. Because for you, it’s just a wall.”

I shook my head, and I loathed the tears running down my face. “But not for me. For me, it’s a mountain. It’s the biggest fucking mountain with all the gnarled tree roots and twisting paths and little bits of stone that you think will hold your weight. But the moment you put your foot on them, you slip and fall. All the way to the bottom.

“And it doesn’t matter how many times I try.” I put my hoof to my heart, and my throat tried cinching up on me. No matter how hard I swallowed, that bitter pill wouldn’t go down. “It doesn’t fucking matter. Because there’s no top to that mountain. There’s no summit that I get to reach and look out on all the beautiful things in this world and the other.

“Because you took that away. Because you dragged me down from it. Because you decided I was less than.” I stepped up to her, wearing the shame of my tears for the world to see.

“And that is why you and everything you stand for can burn in hell.”

I lit my horn and ripped myself from the dream. I was already on my hooves and heading for the portal before anyone noticed I’d woken up.

And no matter how many times they cried my name, I didn’t bother looking back.