Twilight blearily narrowed her eyes in the dark as she awoke from sleep, blinking past the fatigue and pushing herself up into a sitting position. She kneaded at an eye with the palm of her hand in an attempt to bring her spectacle-less vision into focus; as best as she could, anyway.
The familiar hum of the fish tank filled her ears, along with the fridge under her desk. Those noises had become somewhat of a lullaby for her, and with Spike curled up at the foot of her bed, sleeping soundly, and probably chasing squirrels in his dreams, she could only conclude that something else had roused her from her slumber.
Her eyes traced over the silhouette of shapes around the perimeter of her large bedroom; but the two large windows on opposite ends of her room cast shadows in every which direction— it was difficult to discern if anything were out of place or not. Twilight groaned as she stretched to peer over the side of her bed, towards the bookcase to her right, in case anything had fallen from its mahogany shelves; but the empty floor left her once again, perplexed. Just what had woken her up?
She grumbled, frustrated, and shifted in order to settle back down into bed; the brief sensation of alertness fading from her body and once again tiredness set back in over her eyelids. However, the hollow humming of springs beneath her caused Twilight to roll over in exasperation, finally figuring out what had utterly ruined her night.
Letting out a small huff, the purple teen mumbled under her breath as her hands dug through her lavender sheets in search of the small device that was buzzing against her mattress; the villain that had robbed her of sleep.
The screen was already lit up with a notification; the bright light causing Twilight to groan and squint as she did her best to fidget with the settings to make it even slightly more bearable to look at.
Twilight leaned over to take the folded pair of glasses from her bedside table and pushed them onto her face in order to find out just who had been evil enough to wake her at this hour— on a Saturday, nonetheless!
She blinked down at the phone, her eyes taking a moment to adjust before scanning over the name on the screen. There was a pause before her lips parted with an audible “Huh?”
Twilight pinched at the bridge of her nose in confusion and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. Sunset Shimmer was a night owl—a complete insomniac for lack of better word— and she often found herself trudging through school after a sleepless night before.
Twilight and the girls knew this, of course. The redhead had always preached there was never enough time in the day for her to do everything she wanted. Sunset Shimmer was a busy girl, and always kept herself preoccupied; no matter how trivial the task may have been.
However…. it was only now, Twilight’s eyes reading and then re-reading the message before her that the purple teen finally began putting the pieces together.
Just why did Sunset keep herself so busy?
“I don’t know what to do anymore.”
The sentence was simple, but something about Sunset’s message seemed....off.
The ambiguity behind it was unsettling. What made Twilight more concerned was the fact that Sunset was fully aware of the younger girl’s sleeping habits, and that she would most likely be asleep by now.
The text buzzed around Twilight’s head as she tried to figure out just what the other girl meant. Her thumbs hovered over her keyboard for a moment before she quickly typed out, “What does that mean?" in response; and the next few minutes were spent anxiously anticipating a reply that never came.
Twilight unlocked her phone and pressed Sunset’s contact, her heart thumping in her chest as she heard it ring.
And ring and ring.
Until Sunset had picked up.
There was some shuffling on the other end, and then sniffling. Twilight heard Sunset clear her throat and greet, “Hello?” the word coming out hoarse and shaky before Twilight heard another small sniffle.
“Sunset?” Twilight whispered softly, her voice laced with confusion and sleep.
“Oh,” the other girl’s laugh came out forced, “did I wake you?”
Twilight couldn’t help the gentle smile that pulled at her lips at the sound of the other girl's voice, and she responded with a light chuckle of her own. Twirling a strand of hair around her finger she let out a light hum, “Nah. I’m always awake at this time. You know me; a real party animal.”
Sunset’s laugh sounded more genuine this time around; however, the pause of silence that followed left a knot in the pit of Twilight’s stomach. The line was tense, and the purple teen’s eyes glanced around the darkness in her room once more as she waited for the other girl to speak again.
“...Can… C-Can you come over?...”
The confident bravado that the older girl radiated was completely shattered in that instant; the whimper in her voice all the evidence Twilight needed to know that the other girl was desperate for... Something.
In need of help, perhaps— but of what kind Twilight didn’t know yet; but she was determined to support the older girl— whatever way she could.
Twilight pulled her phone away from her ear to quickly glance at the time.
3:24 am.
Dammit, Sunset…
The purple teen looked outside her window to see the moon was high in the sky. She had never ventured outside during this time of night before, but she knew Sunset needed her. She exhaled, pulling the covers off her body.
“Okay. I’ll be there in five.”
The cold morning air made Twilight shiver as she walked to Sunset’s apartment; brisk and nervous. Her eyes darted this way and that— every sound she heard causing new waves of anxiety to wash over her skin. Hands in her pockets, she kept reminding herself that it was only a few blocks and that she could do this.
Her heart thumped in her chest with every step she took, and the purple teen’s sneakers squeaked over wet grass as she crossed the street. Twilight’s hand hovered over the door handle for a few moments as she inwardly debated whether she should just walk in or not. Sunset had invited her over, after all, and was expecting her anyway. Was the door locked— or had the redhead left it open just for her— Twilight just wasn’t sure.
Her teeth toyed with the flesh of her bottom lip before she clicked her tongue and resolved to enter quietly. She called out the other girl’s name lowly, into the dark apartment. “Sunset…? Are you still awake?”
Inching the door open and stepping inside, Twilight squinted her eyes in order to focus on the silhouette that was sitting on the couch before she tried once more; “Sunset? It’s Twilight.”
As if hearing her friend’s name had broken some sort of spell, Sunset was snapped from her almost vacant staring at the blank TV screen in front of her.
“Huh? Oh—” She raised her head from it’s resting place on her knees, and her arms relaxed from around her legs. The redhead blinked and rubbed at her eyes with vigor to dispel the wetness that had left damp stains across her cheeks. She shifted in her seat, straightening out some as she coughed in an attempt to clear the bile in her throat. “Hey, Twilight.”
The purple teen stepped closer and it was only now, from her new position, that Twilight noticed the tissues littered beside and around the other girl; both on the couch and on the floor. Dark brows furrowed as the corner of Twilight’s lips were pulled downward in a small frown and she gingerly took another step towards her best friend. “Hey, Sunny… Are you doing alright? I’m sorry that I didn’t really understand your text, but… I’m here if you have anything you need to get off your chest?”
Her eyes wandered the room, trying to focus on clues as to why the older girl was in such a state. The only source of light came from the small dotting of fairy lights that were strewn above the older girl’s desk, and the bland, staticky drone of computer monitors in the corner of the room. Despite the dim lighting, it didn’t take master observation skills to notice the puffy redness beneath Sunset’s eyes. “What’s got you up so late?”
Sunset laughed, although it came out dry and harsh. “You know, just my video games;” she said, sniffling, “they can get super emotional sometimes.”
Twilight’s lips drew into a thin line as she narrowed her eyes slightly at the other girl, “Video games?” Twilight asked, perplexed, “Sunset you know that it’s okay to talk to me if something’s wrong. You’re always there for me, and the girls. You can lean on us, too.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sunset mumbled in reply, eyes downcast in an attempt to avoid Twilight’s benign stare.
“No, Sunset; I don’t think you do.” Twilight’s brows furrowed upward as she clucked her tongue and moved to take a seat beside her friend on the couch; the other girl swept the tissues gathering to her right onto the floor with her hand before shifting over to give the purple teen more room to sit down, “Tell me what’s eating at you.”
“Nothing—”
“Sunset.” The word was stern; commanding, almost, “It isn’t like you to call me out in the middle of the night. It’s also not like you to send cryptic messages. I know I’m no ‘Princess of Friendship’— I’m not an expert— but I can tell when there’s something wrong.”
The older girl swallowed audibly before opening her mouth to speak, but the only sound that came out was a shaky breath. Sunset clenched her jaw once more and hugged her legs closer to her chest.
“This was a mistake; I’m sorry.”
Twilight reached her thumb and forefinger under the frame of her glasses to rub at her eyelids and the bridge of her nose to dispel the fatigue that was nipping at her. “I can’t help if you don’t talk to me, and from the looks of things here… You really need to talk to me, Sunny.”
Sunset squeezed her arms at the mention of her nickname, and she buried her chin against her knees. There was a beat of silence, but the sense of hesitation left a tension in the air that was enough to let Twilight know she was at least getting somewhere.
“I just… I have a lot of feelings, and thoughts,” the last word brought with it a waver in the older girls voice, as if Sunset was digging up some deeply hidden secret from the tomb within her mind— her heart— and the mausoleum walls were trembling under the pressure.
“And that’s okay,” Twilight told her, rubbing the small of her back as Sunset took shuddering breaths. “You’re allowed to feel things. You’re human, and your emotions are just as valid as ours.”
“There are a lot of things that I want to say,” Sunset started, looking Twilight in her eyes gingerly, “a lot of things I’ve been holding back.” The emotions beginning to swell in Sunset’s chest felt akin to fire; like a pot on a stove that had been left on for too long, and she’d finally reached her own boiling point. “I feel like I need to be the one to fix everyone’s problems; that I need to be the helper. But I don’t let anyone help me.”
Twilight’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why’s that?”
“All the awful things I’ve done,” Sunset hiccuped, tears beginning to form in her eyes again. “I need to make up for them.”
“Hey, hey,” Twilight shushed her, continuing to rub her back as she edged closer. “You’ve done more than enough to make up for the things you did in the past. You deserve to let your feelings out.”
“But— all the mistakes I made in the past- they’re still coming to bite us in the ass, even now. I might’ve been blasted with a literal rainbow, but that doesn’t just make all the things I did magically disappear.”
“I never said they did.” Twilight wrapped an arm around the older girl’s shoulders and Sunset, in turn, allowed herself to return her friend’s stare. “I never knew you back then, so it might seem kinda patronizing to hear this from me; but no one thinks of you now how they thought of you back then.”
The red-haired girl’s gaze fell once more as she seemingly shrunk in on herself, “They’re wrong.”
“Huh?”
“They’re wrong to think that way. It’s that kind of thinking that let me hurt them in the first place. They gave me the benefit of the doubt and just let me in like it was nothing, and all I did was manipulate them and use their trust to get what I wanted out of them.” Sunset rubbed at her eyes vigorously and sat up out of the purple teen's embrace, her voice then breaking in a hiccup; “I was a terrible person— am a terrible person— I just got better at manipulating people.”
Twilight’s lips pressed into a thin line, her mind working overtime. “Do you really think that? That you’ve been manipulating people this entire time? Trixie? The girls? Me?”
“I don’t—... I don’t know.” The last word came out as a sob before Sunset’s shoulders began trembling. She did her best to fight back the tears that gathered in her eyes once again, but the trails of salty regret stained her cheeks despite her best efforts. “I can’t trust myself. How do I know I’m not just doing all of this to get something out of it in the end? How do I know that I’m not doing all of this with some malicious intention— that’s the only reason I ever did anything back then— who am I to say that I’m really a good person now, after all of that?”
“Someone with malicious intent wouldn’t have saved someone they didn’t know from the brink. Someone with malicious intent wouldn’t welcome the girl who put their friends’ lives in danger with open arms. If it weren’t for you, I could have seriously hurt a lot of people—”
“So I become the hero who ‘saves the day’, right?” The older girl chuckled in a mocking, bitter tone; “How can you sit there and tell me I’m selfless when you have no idea if my intentions really were good? For all you know I could have used that opportunity to change how people see me. What happened at the Friendship Games was the closest thing to what I had done since the Fall Formal. Who wouldn’t use that as a chance for redemption?”
Twilight opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, not quite sure how to respond to that. She paused in hesitation, not sure whether to reach out and set a hand on the other girl's shoulder as some indication of comfort and understanding or to just sit twiddling her thumbs in her lap. Seeing Sunset so… crushed, so utterly defeated… Twilight couldn’t stand it.
“That may be so,” she said slowly, “but you and I both know that isn’t true.”
The older girl peeked her wet eyes from behind damp knuckles, the moonlight reflecting tears that expressed all the sadness she’d kept welled up inside. “I don’t know how, but you’ve managed to convince yourself of the craziest things.
“I know how it feels to regret. In case you forgot I’ve made mistakes, too; but the Sunset Shimmer I know would never let me beat myself up over that. You need to stop putting yourself in this mindset. It’s not good— it’s not healthy— and it’s eating you up inside. I can see it,” she said, glancing momentarily at the bags under Sunset’s eyes.
The former Equestrian’s breath hitched in her throat and she let out a small whine. “I’m sorry—”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, Sunset.”
“But there is!” Orange palms pressed against wet eyes once more to wipe away Sunset’s tears, “even if I’ve changed and made up for the things I did in the past— all the magic leaking into the world now is still my fault.”
Twilight reached out a hand to give the other girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, but she flinched back as Sunset continued in earnest. “The magic, ruining Camp Everfree, The Friendship Games—”
“Hey, no. What happened at the Friendship Games was not your fault. That all happened because I was messing around with—”
“With magic, Twilight!” Sunset pulled her hands away from her face and gave a wide gesture with her arms in order to emphasize her point, and stared into lavender eyes with solemn conviction. “Midnight Sparkle was my fault.”
A beat of silence passed between them and Twilight felt her own throat tighten. Just when had she begun shaking, too?
Sunset’s chest rose and fell rapidly as her breathing began to quicken, and she curled into herself again before she dissolved into a puddle of whimpers and hiccups. “There’s so many problems in this world now because I messed with things I didn’t understand. I yelled at you at the games— but all those things I said are things I’ve thought about myself for the longest time.
“Even now— I’m trying to figure things out, but the magic here just… It doesn’t make sense. Before you showed up I was thinking about just— just h-heading back to Equestria. But if I did that, now, it would just be me running away from all the mistakes I made. I’m so useless.”
The lump in Twilight’s throat twisted and she could feel her eyes beginning to sting with tears of her own. The idea of Sunset drowning herself in these thoughts, every night; it made her stomach churn.
“You’re wrong,” The scientist grabbed the older girl’s shoulders firmly and turned her in order for their eyes to meet. Sunset’s brows were furrowed, bottom lip quivering, eyes narrowed. For lack of better word, Sunset looked absolutely broken. There was no shred of cocky bravado or bright radiating aura that drew people in. It was like looking at a stranger, but that didn’t matter to Twilight.
She swallowed thickly and clenched her jaw, “You’re so, so wrong. Yes, you’ve made mistakes. Yes, those mistakes still have an effect to this day; but you’re still here. You’re still dealing with them as best you can.
“You don’t have all the answers— but no one does. Tackling a problem in the face of uncertainty takes one thing; and do you know what that is? Bravery. You are such a brave person, and so strong. Honestly, I envy how strong you are. You’ve come through the darkest time of your life, still fighting, and using empathy to help others struggling with the weakness and doubt inside themselves.
“So it’s okay, Sunset. It’s okay to make mistakes and have things you regret. It normal— it’s human. You don’t need to keep this all bottled up anymore. I know you have this idea that you have to be strong all the time— Starswirl knows why— but that just… isn’t true. It’s okay to be sad, and you’re allowed to be weak. We’re here for you— myself especially. You don’t have to be alone anymore. You’re not alone anymore; and no matter how long it takes for you to break those walls you’ve built down, just know the girls and I are going to be here waiting for you on the other side.”
In that moment Sunset’s shoulders slumped, and all the tension— all the things that she was holding in— came pouring out of her with every broken sob. She felt Twilight’s arms wrap around her shoulders, and the warm and comforting touch of the younger girl made her cry even more.
Twilight didn’t say anything, not that she even thought that she could at this point, and so she resolved to just hold the former unicorn, running a hand down her back in comfort with an occasional mumble of “It’s okay,” or “let it out.”
Sunset responded by burying her face into Twilight’s shoulder; but after snaking her own arms around the other girl’s waist she turned her head into the crook of the scientist’s neck, the wetness of her tears warm against Twilight’s skin.
Twilight could feel Sunset’s fingers grip tightly at the material of her cardigan, and after a while her muffled wails and sobs began quieting down, devolving into hiccups. Her tee shirt was utterly ruined, stained with Sunset’s tears; but in that moment she didn’t care, all she cared about was the girl in her arms.
It might’ve been true that Sunset symbolized the Element of Empathy; but Twilight knew and very well understood, that even the Element of Empathy needs some empathy every once in a while.
Author's Note
This was a hurt/comfort collab piece that myself and The New York Brony worked on together, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
The idea of Sunset bottling up her emotions and true feelings is something I haven't seen a lot of people experiment with, but its a topic I find really interesting in regards to the show's dynamic.
I also had inspiration from an art piece by cover artist freshfriend of which can be found here.
