Sunset, it’s me, Twilight. I know this will sound strange, but something important came up. Can we talk? In person? I have a few questions to ask, and I don’t know if it’d be appropriate to do so here. You pick the time and place. I’ll be there.

Please.

Your friend,
Princess Twilight Sparkle

• • •

It never got less weird stepping through the portal. No matter how many times I had crossed over, the initial shock of standing on two legs and having these weird, dangly fingers never quite left. Thankfully, I had gotten used to the idea of being human, and the feeling usually passed as quickly as it took me to find my balance.

It was midmorning on this side of the portal and, being a weekend, no one was in or around the schoolyard. I headed toward the center of town, as per Sunset’s directions.

I found the place easily enough—Coney Dog’s, some retro dive bar with enough hard plastic seating, chrome trim, and lithographic posters to stir up a sense of nostalgia for a culture I never had the luxury of experiencing. Sunset was already seated at a booth, so I headed over.

She sat with her back against the wall, one leg stretched across the length of the booth seat, the other pulled close so as to casually rest it against the lip of the table in the bad-girl, screw-public-decorum sort of way I had come to admire about her. Definitely getting looks from other restaurant-goers, though, that was for sure.

She held her phone in her lap, tapping it with her thumbs to the plink-plonk rhythm of some game as I slid in across from her. The noises stopped a moment later, and she looked up at me with a casual smile.

“Hey,” Sunset said.

“Hey. Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice. I… really wasn’t expecting it to be a ‘hey, right now works’ moment, but yeah.”

Sunset shifted herself into a more proper both-feet-on-the-floor position and stuffed her phone into the pocket of her leather jacket. “Well, yeah. I know you know that school’s been pretty busy gearing up for finals these last few weeks. But you caught me literally as I was walking back from the corner store for study snacks. Figured I could use an actual study break instead of just that five-minute walk, so it’s all just great timing. It’s always great seeing you again.”

“You, too,” I said. My eyes naturally gravitated to her coffee and its little stirring spoon. “I like having the opportunity to come here. It’s… different. In a good way.”

“If by good,” she said, watching me eye her coffee cup, “you mean they have shit coffee, then yeah.” She laughed and slid it toward me. “Still the best this side of town, though. You want it?”

I joined in on that laugh, but held up a hand. “I’m good, thanks. I already had some before heading over.”

Sunset shrugged before taking a sip. “More shit coffee for me, then.”

We let the noise of the restaurant sink in for a moment. The cook called out an order of “animal fries” through the little window in the back.

“So…” I said. “I hate the idea of starting our meetup on the wrong foot, but this is… seemingly important. And I want to make sure I approach it with all due respect for you and everything between the two of you, but it’s serious to her, so it’s serious to me, and I just…”

Sunset smirked at me and leaned forward on her elbows, propping up her head in her hand. “Twilight, you’re rambling. What’s got you all nervous like this? Between me and who?”

I watched her carefully as I said, “You and... Princess Luna.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Princess Luna? As in Princess Celestia’s sister? Um, okay. You’ve mentioned her like once or twice. What’s… this have to do with me?”

I wasn’t sure how best to answer that. Did she really not know? Or maybe she didn’t remember what Princess Luna was referring to? Or maybe Princess Luna was mistaken, and this had nothing to do with Sunset?

While those thoughts whirled in my head, the waitress walked up. She was a heavyset mare—er, woman—with faded pink hair and an easygoing smile that reminded me of Applejack.

“Hello, dearie,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink?”

And a voice reminiscent of Granny Smith, minus a decade or two. Maybe she was a distant Apple.

“Oh,” I said. “I, uh… I’ll take a green tea if you have it, please.”

“I’m sorry, but we only serve sweet tea. Is that all right?”

“That’s fine.”

“Iced or warm?”

“Warm, please,” I said instinctively. The Applejack on this side of the mirror had once told me to never take my sweet tea cold this far north. Apparently, they never made it right otherwise.

The waitress smiled and scooted off to the next table.

With the conversation effectively broken, I hesitated on where to pick back up again. In a bid to fill the silence, I took the napkin from my placemat. The fork and knife placed on them skittered in front of me, and a twinge of nerves bid I straighten them out.

Did Sunset really not remember? Did she repress it? Should I be bringing this up?

“Princess Luna…” I said, rubbing the napkin between my thumb and forefinger. The more I felt myself trying to pick safe words, the more I felt a stranger in this domain and the message I had to deliver just as unwarranted. “She said that she hurt you?”

The ghost of a worry passed over Sunset’s face, and a guarded curiosity overtook her as she sat back in her booth seat. “What do you mean?”

Just seeing that look on Sunset’s face was enough to have me regret writing to her in the first place. “I’m sorry. I-I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

“Twilight, no,” she said. “You don’t just write to me asking for an emergency meeting, be all tip toe-y about whatever it is you came here to say and then renege on me. Seriously, what’s up? You’re starting to worry me.”

The potential of just what could be between them had me tapping my fingernail on the table, napkin still clutched between my thumb and forefinger. “You know who she is, right? Who she used to be?”

“I take it you’re going to tell me?”

I looked back and forth between her eyes and the goodness I saw in them. But it was too late now, and I only hoped it wasn’t as big as Princess Luna made it out to be.

“She used to be Nightmare Moon,” I said. “The Mare in the Moon?”

As I had feared, the moment the words left my lips, the realization hit her like a freight train. Her gaze dropped to her coffee mug, and her fingers slowly clenched into fists. It might have been my eyes playing tricks on me, but I swore she was trembling.

“What the fuck does she want?” she said sharply.

I began rubbing the napkin between my thumb and forefinger again. “She… said that you’re hurting.”

“And how would she know that?”

“I… don’t know? But she watches over everypony’s dreams. Maybe she saw one of yours?”

That prompted her to take another deep breath. Her eyes roved around the room, looking for something to latch onto. By the rhythm of her breathing, I could only guess as to how many mantras she had running through her head.

I placed my hand palm up on the table for her to take. “Sunset, whatever it is, I’m here.”

She took my hand in hers as if it were a lifeline, gripping tight enough that it hurt. I did my best not to show it.

We stayed like that for a minute as she stared at my hand, searching for the courage to handle this conversation. She closed her eyes, swallowed, nodded, then looked at me—into me, grasping for a connection I couldn’t put into words.

“Why?” she said. “Twilight, what does she want?”

“I don’t know. To fix whatever it is between you two? I don’t know the details, but she’s hurting, and you clearly are, too.”

She squeezed my hand a bit harder before letting go and dropping her gaze to her coffee mug. The briefest flash of anger showed on her face and was gone again, like the shadow of a cloud passing over a field.

“Maybe she deserves to hurt…” she said under her breath.

That got goosebumps running up and down my arms. “Sunset—”

“Twilight,” she said. Still leaning forward on her elbows, she opened her hands and held them inches apart as if trying to hold something as fragile as an idea before clenching them again. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me right now. You really don’t.”

I bit my lip. Sure, I had seen her worried, but never to the point of barely restrained terror. It felt like the only thing keeping her from falling apart was the fact we were in public. I clenched my hands and relaxed them, finally settling on clasping them together on the table.

“I’m… realizing that,” I said. “I’m sorry. But… I’m right here if you want to talk about it.”

Sunset sunk backward into her seat. She held her elbows tight, and I knew what I said hit a nerve.

“I’m just… I guess I'm asking for permission to help you in any way that I can. And I think that talking to her is the way to do that. Or at least to start doing that.”

That didn’t seem to help any. She tightened her grip on her elbows and took a strained breath.

I didn’t know what to think, since Luna hadn’t told me exactly what had happened between them. Whatever it was, I was sure they could come to some agreement. I just had to not screw up convincing her, which it seemed I was doing a terrible job of.

I sat back in my seat and clasped my hands together in my lap. The waiter made good timing, swinging by with my sweet tea. I thanked her for it and filled the pause in conversation with a sip. A little sweeter than I was used to, but otherwise fine.

What wasn’t fine, though, was the silence that lingered after my sip. I had hoped either Sunset would say something or I would think of a new subject to circle back with, but nothing. I picked up my glass and set it back down.

“I don’t think that will help, Twilight,” Sunset said. “I really don’t. I really don’t think there’s much you can do. I really don’t think there’s anything she can do…”

“I get that you don’t trust her. For… any and all valid reasons you have. From what little she’s told me and now from how you’re reacting, it’s… big, whatever it is, and now that I’ve just plowed headfirst into this I knew this was a mistake and now I just… I guess it’s just that I don’t understand.”

“But that’s it, though,” Sunset said. She stared at me with a haunted look in her eye. “You’re right. You don’t understand. You can’t understand. It’s not just some simple thing that magic or talking about our feelings can fix. I get that you want to help, but… I just…”

Her eyes fell to her coffee again. She took a sip, though it seemed more a compulsion to fill the heavy silence than for a desire to drink it.

This silence. Even the din of the restaurant couldn’t quite muffle it. Princess Celestia touted me as the Princess of Friendship, but more often than not, I felt like I had no clue what I was doing, like I bumbled blindly through every word out of my mouth and every step with my hooves, and the more I did so, the more I trampled whatever goodwill I tried bringing to the table.

“She put you up to this,” Sunset said. “Didn’t she?”

I frowned at the notion. “No, she didn’t. She’s a friend of mine who is hurting, so I offered to help. You’re a friend of mine who is also hurting. I want to help.”

She glanced at some couple walking past our table for the exit, then out the window beside us at the goings-on of the city. It didn’t take a mind reader to know she had already made up her mind on that idea.

“I have… nightmares,” she said.

That got goosebumps going up my arms. Nightmares, Nightmare Moon, the look in Sunset’s eye.

I let her continue.

“I have nightmares about…” Her knuckles went white around the coffee mug, and it rattled ever so slightly on its saucer. “I-I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“And you don’t have to if you really don’t want to. I just hate—”

“You hate what?” she said. “You hate seeing me like this? Seeing her like this? Maybe she deserves to be seen like this.”

I blinked, taken aback. “Sunset?”

She sighed and held her head in her hands. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I just… I know you’re just doing what you think is right. That’s… something I’ve always admired about you. But I just…”

“It’s a lot,” I said, looking down at the napkin in my hand. “I… All we can do is try.”

We lapsed into silence, and I spent that next minute struggling to keep my composure. Part of me wished I was doing it for Sunset’s sake, to give her the moment she needed to keep herself from falling apart, but I was never good at lying to myself about things like that. Composure had never been my strong suit.

“I don’t know what’s between you two,” I said. “But whatever it is, she’s changed, Sunset. I saw the Elements change her back to good.”

“Yeah… I know how that feels.” She curled in on herself.

I bit my lip. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

No answer. A long few seconds passed before I found a better way to approach the subject.

“I… I saw her fight the Tantabus,” I said.

That brought Sunset’s eyes up to mine. “The what?”

“The Tantabus. It’s… this thing. She made it or something after we changed her back. She made it to give herself nightmares so that she would never forget what she did as Nightmare Moon.”

Sunset had put her hands on the table. She stared at me with reserved conviction. Whatever this meant to her, it meant a lot.

“It slipped into our dreams by accident one night,” I continued. “And she had to chase it down. Eventually, it got into all of Ponyville’s dreams, and we had to fight it together as an entire town.

“It fed on her guilt, to the point that it almost escaped into the real world. But we showed her just how hard she was fighting to save us. And it was because of that that she realized just how much she had changed, too.”

“So what you’re saying is that she doesn’t feel bad about it anymore.”

I jerked back in my seat. “What? No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I… I guess what I wanted to say got lost in there somewhere. But what I’m really trying to say is… what I’m saying is that she’s changed. Really and truly. She’s repented, and she felt strongly enough about everything she did as Nightmare Moon that her guilt alone could have destroyed Equestria. I…”

I reached toward her, palms outstretched as if it would somehow help impart the emotions twisting my heart into a knot. I sighed and placed my head in my hands. “I don’t mean that everything’s perfect or that what she did to you means nothing, but she’s ready and willing to help you in order to make things right. She would die for the opportunity. She’s that kind of pony. The real her is that kind of pony.”

Sunset clenched her hands into fists, but relaxed. Maybe, hopefully, she found it in herself to believe those words as well as I did.

“I just ask that you give her the chance,” I said. “I’ve read every single letter you’ve sent me. All the people you’ve helped and shown that friendship really is magic. I know that you know true repentance. There’s nopony who understands that as well as you.”

Sunset looked toward the center of the restaurant again. Her knuckles were white from clenching them so hard.

“You really trust her that much?” She said it so softly that I almost didn’t hear her, but when she brought her eyes around to me, I felt the weight behind the question like an avalanche ready to bury me. She put her hands out on the table for me to take, and I did on instinct.

“Yes,” I said. “I can tell—”

“Say it,” she said, and I gazed up the slope of that mountain.

I squeezed her hands back. “I trust her that much, Sunset. I really do. I know you don’t, and I’m not here to tell you that you shouldn’t, but if you were to give this a try, I would never let her do anything to hurt you. I promise you that.”

She stared at me a moment longer before letting go of my hands and leaning back in her chair, hugging herself about the waist. Again, she stared into her coffee mug in search of an answer. One, two, three seconds.

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered.

And that was that.

The happenings of the diner bled back into our little corner of the universe, and the next breath I took made me realize just how much I had been hanging on those words. I didn’t have the heart to break the silence this time, so I clammed up and placed my hands around my sweet tea.

“You ever taken linear algebra?” Sunset asked.

I blinked. It took me a moment to register the change in subject. “I, uh, yeah, why?”

A tiny smile perked up the corners of her lips. She ran her fingers through her hair before resting her head in her hand. A non-committal shrug punctuated whatever this was supposed to be.

“I don’t know, just got a test coming up. I could use your help with some of the problems.”

I raised a finger in question. “But… wouldn’t you have taken linear algebra back in Equestria in order to…”

She stared at me like I had completely missed the point.

Oh. It was one of those questions where she was actually asking something else. So yeah, I did miss the point.

“Of course I can help you with your algebra,” I said, blushing. I twirled a lock of hair with my finger as if that had been the intent all along. “And any other questions or concerns you might have. Math-related or otherwise. I’m always here for you.”

“Thanks, Twilight.”

• • •

We spent another half hour catching up on little things. Rainbow Dash’s upcoming soccer tournament, Pinkie Pie’s most recent party. Things like that. It kept her smiling, and I couldn’t help smiling, too.

Convincing her to talk with Luna hadn’t gone as well as I had planned, but I did my best. I had faith that my intentions—and by extent, Luna’s—got through to her. But even with that confidence, my heart wouldn’t sit still.

Sunset was one of the most fiercely loyal, forgiving ponies I knew. If this wedge between them bothered her as badly as it seemed, it worried me to think just what had happened.

Regardless, Sunset was hurting. Same with Luna. They needed to get through this.

And if they didn’t? Honestly, it terrified me to think what could happen.

Author's Note

Simple conversations like this are always fun to write. So many opportunities to flex the old environment muscle. Also, more intrigue into the rift between Sunset and Luna. You know, the driving force of the entire story. That, too.

Onward and Upward!

This story has undergone changes. Some comments may no longer make sense or be relevant.