Higher and Higher

by Lumina Faith

Rating: everyone
Tags: Tragedy, Sunset Shimmer, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1100

Inside the mind of Sunset Shimmer was a voice who never gave up.

Sunset Shimmer was a model student when it came to academic achievements. She aced every test, topped every chart, and became the personal student of the Sun Goddess.

Even after becoming friends with the most inspiring people around and changing her life for the better, Sunset can’t help but criticize her time in Equestria.

Published 2018-11-04 23:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2018-11-04 23:30:02 UTC

Until You Fall

At first, it was hard to reach high, because you were small and insignificant and there’s nothing special about you.

And then you saw her, in a blazing ring of morning light and it ignited a spark inside of you.

Read the books, practice the magic, get the older unicorns to teach you more and more and more until they can’t teach you anything else. There isn’t anything left at this orphanage, so you have to ask the director if you can go to the public library. Use every means possible: scream, cry, beg, do more chores than you ever imagined doing, help the foals. Anything that was there to be done, you did to get what you wanted.

The moment the director said yes, you were too tired to celebrate. Everything ached from all the activity and not enough nourishment, but at least you got the chance to go further.

And the library was magnificent.

Books upon books of every notion and action possible, and yet you knew that there was a library even grander than Canterlot’s, but it’d take even more work to visit it. And so, you set yourself to reading, to practicing, to failing and crying, until every regular and staff member of the library knew you by name, until you reached high enough to get clearance to even more books and more spells, and by then, the spark had been stoked into a flame that almost burned itself onto your flanks.

You were making a name for yourself among the students who frequented the library. They shared their tips with you and let you read their textbooks, granting you knowledge not available to the common pony. One told you about a school that would help you reach horizons you never imagined, hosted by the Sun Goddess herself. A new goal was set, and you threw yourself into studying.

Applications came and went, and soon, you’re standing in a room for your entrance exam, with no parent there to support you. They’re impressed by your spells and knowledge, and praise you for passing with flying colours, but then she walks in. She, who had heard of a bright, young, talented filly performing spells well out of her age range with practiced ease, took you under her wing.

In an instant, every expectation you had for yourself exploded.

You aimed high at the entrance exam, and then you had to go higher as her student. She expected great things from you, who had the promise to become the nation’s most powerful unicorn in centuries. She said you could rival even Starswirl himself.

You rubbed shoulders with some of Canterlot’s elites, and had more than a few hopeful stallions ask for your hoof. The only problem? You don’t have enough time for love; you’re devoting it to studying and to gaining just a little bit more of the Goddess’s love.

You stood with her at Galas and diplomatic meetings, chest swelling with pride when she introduced you as her most faithful protégé and at how impressed others looked with your accomplishments. Once, a curious foreign official asked about them, and by the stars, his eyes were as large as dinner plates as you kept listing off feat after feat, until pressing duties dragged him away.

With such success, you were practically guaranteed to land any job you wanted, from the most prestigious to the most outlandish. But that success brought doubts and suspicion of fraud, so you set out to prove them wrong.

You went higher.

And higher.

You took the skeptics by storm and left them flabbergasted in your wake. You went high enough that no chart could rate you.

But it wasn’t enough, so you aimed higher.

You went higher by producing scientific research reports and articles, and even a published book of your own, all to critical acclaim and the best response a scientist could ask for.

You set a record in your first year as her student, and then a second in the second year. You set records yearly, then monthly, then weekly. You destroyed every single record there was to be broken, and left a blazing trail of accomplishments behind you. Newspapers, magazines, radio shows, and preachers sang your praises and called for your promotion to a royal scholar, if not a proper princess.

But it wasn’t enough, because it’s never enough.

It’s never enough, not for her. Not for the one who boggles powerful minds daily just by being present in the room. She, who makes every single living being feel small in her presence, expects SO MUCH.

And you meet those expectations over, and over, and over again. But it’s never enough.

Not for you.

You made goals of your own and set out to reach them, growing at a rate that surprised even the Goddess. You borrowed tomes and returned them by the end of the day, having mastered every single technique and spell within it.

You made connections, pulled some strings, to get on the good side of the influential and the powerful. That led to access to old magical heirlooms and spellbooks. Flattery got you everywhere, but what they had wasn’t enough.

You needed things that were kept from you, secrets that shouldn’t be revealed to anyone for their dangers, but they held the key to gaining more power and mastery over arts that only existed in rumour. The inner flame was now a raging firestorm, one that was in constant need of more fuel.

And fueled it was by the promise of power from that mirror. Oh, how tempting was the image within, but so unobtainable at your current level.

So you aimed higher.

And higher.

Higher, until the sky couldn’t contain you.

Higher, until she had to see you for who you were.

Higher, until the heavens were almost yours for the taking.

And then you fell.

You landed hard and wounded.

All your records, successes, articles, and awards were wiped from history for the disgrace that you were.

A blank slate, left open for somepony else to waltz in and snatch up.

How pathetic.

Author's Note

If you made it this far, congratulations!

This is my first published work on the site, which was written on a whim and spawned off of the school stress I’m under.

Since I wrote this in such a hurry, I doubt it’s of any good quality :twilightblush: If you like what I wrote, then I hope you might stick around to see other things I might write, as sporadic as those may be!