The consequences of one's actions
Author's Note
If you want more context then the story itself provides, this is happening in the city of (human) Canterlot not long after the the first movie.
It is specifically happening at the time when Sunset is still in the process of apologizing to everyone she's wronged for her past actions. And the specific place is in side alley instead of a main street, where Sunset isn't disturbed by any passers by and, more generally, where things can be done away from prying eyes.
(I'll have more notes after the story.)
The consequences of one's actions
Actions have consequences, Sunset.
The words were as clear as if they were being spoken right now.
Consequences that don't go away the moment you say, “I'm sorry.”
Sunset tried to get up. It didn't work. She was barely able to move. While the effort made her groan in pain, it accomplished little else. She was still lying on the ground, beaten and bruised.
I worry that the path you've set yourself on is because of me.
Sunset rolled onto her side. Her body protested in new and different ways as her weight shifted and as parts of her involuntarily stretched or contracted in the process.
I've been so willing to forgive, so quick to accept your apologies, that you seem to think no matter what you do, no matter who it hurts or what rules it breaks, you just need to say you're sorry and everything is magically better.
While she was sure that she had had some plan for what to do once she got onto her side, it had somehow slipped her mind. What in Tartarus was she supposed to do, laying here on her side, if she couldn't pick herself up off the ground?
There is no magic so strong that it can allow an individual to escape the consequences of their actions.
Sunset decided to finish rolling over. Her body protested more as she shifted onto her back.
Apologies are not Eldritch spells that invalidate cause and effect.
Her situation was improved. It was easier to breathe in this position. Her body wasn't as compressed as it had been when she was face down or on her side. Looking up at the sky --what she could see of it between the buildings on either side of the alley-- wasn't so bad.
Actions have consequences, and they cannot be escaped.
Sunset just lay there, allowing her awareness of the world around her to dim.
I've always thought that teaching you the value of friendship was the most important thing I could do for you, and I've been frustrated by my perpetual failure.
Sunset almost said she was sorry. She almost said --to the Celestia from her memories, who would never hear her-- that she was sorry.
I see now that I was failing you on an even more fundamental level. Without an appreciation for action and consequence, for cause and effect, it's impossible to teach you the value of anything.
Yeah, because that worked out so well.
You've become hardened. I can barely get through to you on most days, and when I do it's far too little, especially since it comes so late.
Sunset closed her eyes. Maybe she'd take a nap here.
I fear that the only way to make you understand is to take drastic action.
Anger flared in Sunset. The “drastic action” hadn't worked at all, now had it?
I can only hope that we're both able to endure the consequences of my action.
What had she had to endure?
This is not just a punishment.
What else could it be described as?
I have harmed you, Sunset Shimmer, by not being what you needed me to be.
No. The harm came later.
If it weren't for me, you'd have learned these lessons long ago.
If it had been her fault, why did Sunset have to suffer for it?
Other ponies are not as quick to forgive or forget as I have been with you.
Sunset sighed. Making it sound like living with normal ponies was akin to being thrown to the sharks had, perhaps, not been Princess Celestia's most intelligent decision.
Amongst them you will learn that the consequences of one's actions are inescapable.
Yup. She'd learned that one.
Everything before has led up to this. Every rule you broke, every pony you mistreated, every apology you gave to me when you had no intention of changing your behavior.
Every student she'd blackmailed, every friendship she'd torn apart, every kid she'd intimidated, every human she'd torn down.
For all of these these things, you are hereby dismissed as my student.
“And you'll have the shit kicked out of you some years later,” Sunset said to the empty alley.
This is my decision, and no half-hearted apology will change it.
“You could have warned me that full-hearted apologies don't work either,” Sunset said to the voice from her memories.
This is the consequence of your actions, and for once you shall have to live with it.
Sunset sighed and lay an arm across her face, blocking out what light her eyelids had not. She'd lived with alright. She'd lived with it, she'd keep on living with it, and maybe some day she'd even die with it.
Right now, she was living with it while lying on her back in a dingy alley while various parts of her body throbbed in pain. Tomorrow, she'd be living with it while in a school full of people who hated her. For the foreseeable future she'd live with it in a world she had never wanted to be in in the first place.
This was supposed to be --had always been intended to be-- a temporary situation. A place to regroup. A place to plan beyond the reach of Equestria. A place where an Element of Harmony could be bent to one's will as easily as one would put on a crown.
Never a place to stay.
That didn't matter, though. Right now it was a place to be in pain. The forecast was for clear skies, no need to find shelter from the rain. She'd sleep here. One alleyway was as good as another.
⁂
Author's Notes:
(Be warned, these are extensive. They're ~~almost~~ half as long as the actual story, all told.)
As I said in the long description, when anything manages to break through my depression enough for me to write, I tend to go with it (and do so gladly) because most of the time these days I'm incapacitated, creatively speaking. (And in other ways too, in the past week or so I realized that I haven't been eating enough --for god knows how long-- and the lack of calories was augmenting my depression.)
Most of the time the results of such things are pretty much crap. We're talking about extremely rough first draft quality as written in a single spurt. (And then probably never returned to for editing or improvement.) This, I feel, was rather better than that.
It didn't start off as a quiet scene were Sunset thought back to what Princess Celestia told her before expelling her in the context of her post-Fall Formal apology tour. Well, that's not precisely accurate. It didn't start out with the intention of being that.
The only editing done is correcting some typos and changing the occasional word or phrase, in terms of what was actually written it is exactly what it started out as. The original intent, however, was completely different. The original intent had a supernatural element because the idea that broke through my depression was the headcannon I've seen in a few fics that Demon-Sunset is still there, waiting for Sunset to let her out, so to speak.
That's not my headcanon. I think that Sunset's demon form was created by a combination of the magic of Element of Harmony she twisted and her own feelings and intentions at the time of doing so. Without the Element, the demon form doesn't exist. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't see the potential in a story with that as an element. (No pun intended.)
There's certainly a lot of potential in having Sunset as a meek (think beginning of Rainbow Rocks) character who is enduring the wrath of an entire school who has everything made more difficult by the fact that she's constantly aware that if she just let go she could bring down everyone who has mistreated her.
And that's what this was going to be. The aftermath of getting beat up (not tortured or stabbed the way you see in some fics, just roughed up on a level that is, unfortunately, within the norm for certain types of high school bullying) seemed like a perfect place to show the push and pull between guilt and anger. Between the desire to be a better person, and the base impulse to lash out and hurt those who have hurt oneself.
But in the process of actually writing, it never went there. I think the story ended up much better for it. It's just a quiet reflective, self-contained, piece instead of the beginning of an epic tale of a magic infused battle between redemption and vengeance. An epic tale that would likely never have been continued, given that I have more than enough current projects in need of continuation, and don't need to add something new to the docket.
These notes are literally ~~almost~~ half the length of the story itself. Whoa. I'm going to add a warning to the beginning of the notes.
