No longer Necessary

Chapters

Prologue: Obvious Solutions
Chapter 1: An Ordinary Day
Chapter 2: The Wind of Change
Chapter 4: Networking, and it's unanticipated hazards
The Daughters of Hope (pre-revision)
Chapter 3: Encounters with Greatness and Authority

Prologue: Obvious Solutions

Sunset woke up to an empty bed. It took all of three seconds to become completely awake, look around, and locate Wallflower: she was sitting cross legged on the floor, her back to Sunset, in a familiar spot.

Sunset crawled off of the bed and across the floor quietly. She wasn’t aiming for stealth, but it seemed to have had that effect. Though, truthfully, she couldn’t tell if Wallflower hadn’t heard her, or if Wallflower were simply in an unresponsive state.

Sunset didn’t need to look at the section of floor Wallflower was intently staring at. She didn’t need to see the memory stone, retrieved again from its hiding place.

Sunset maneuvered to give Wallflower a quick kiss --a peck on the temple, just in front of her right ear-- and then settled into her own familiar place: seated on the floor behind Wallflower.

“You don’t want to do that,” Sunset said.

“How do you know what I want?” Wallflower asked.

It hurt to hear her voice so . . . dead. There was nothing there. The flatness would give Maud Pie’s voice a run for its money if not for the tint of utter despair.

Still, no matter how much it hurt to hear, it was a question, and thus Sunset would have to give an answer.

“Experience,” she said. “I’d like to think that I know you well enough to make that call.”

Wallflower didn’t turn toward Sunset; she didn’t move at all. She just kept on looking at the stone.

“I could make it go away,” she said. “All of it. I could make them all forget that the Rainbooms accused you.” Her voice showed signs of life: it started to speed up, “I could make everyone forget everything that made them think you even might be Anon-a-Miss. I could make them forget they hate you. I could make them forget they want to hurt you. I could make them forget that it’s open season on Sunset Shimmer. I could--”

“You could get overwhelmed,” Sunset said. “You could lose control.”

“You don’t know that.” Something about the way that had been said made Sunset think Wallflower would turn to face her. Wallflower didn’t move. “There’s a solution right in front of us,” she said. “I could fix things.” There was real hope in her voice now. “Why not try?”

“Why risk it?” Sunset asked. “You know what happened to me.”

“You turned into a raging she-demon,” Wallflower said; “you only mention it every fifteen minutes.”

Sunset said, “Forget the transformation!” Then she realized she’d been shouting, and said, “Everyone focuses on the transformation,” at a more usual volume.

“Because they follow your lead,” Wallflower shot back.

“Look,” Sunset said, then paused a moment to figure out what to say next. “Demon, human, unicorn-- it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I used more magic than I could control, and it took control.” Sunset took a breath, shook away unpleasant thoughts and memories, and said, “I tried to murder someone.”

A small nod was the first time Wallflower acknowledged Sunset’s presence with her body rather than her voice.

“That’s not me. That’s never been me. Even at my worst, it’s not something I would ever consider,” Sunset said. “But when I put that crown on I lost myself.

“I was angry; I became a demon. I was perturbed at the fact that I’d lost control of the school; I used mind control on the entire student body. I was pissed the fuck off at Twilight Sparkle; I tried to kill her.” Sunset paused a moment. “All of the parts of me that might have said, ‘No,’ to any of those things were shut off. I was a monster --not because of the claws, but because everything that made me more than a collection of base desires had been overwhelmed and cast aside.”

“Exactly,” Wallflower said.

Sunset had no idea how to respond to that and, after a few moments, just parroted back, “Exactly?” in the form of a question.

Wallflower looked back at Sunset, over her shoulder, and said, “You tried to use the element when you were in the wrong state of mind, and everything went wrong.” Wallflower returned to looking at the memory stone. “If I use the stone while I’m calm, with a single clear objective in mind-- think about it Sunset.

“You were drowning in emotions and being pulled in three different directions,” Wallflower said. “That’s why things went wrong: you didn’t have something to hold onto. Something to remind you why you were doing what you were doing. If you’d had the element when you were able to clear your mind of everything but the desire to be an alicorn, who’s to say it wouldn’t have worked?”

“Who’s to say it would?” Sunset asked.

“It’s worth a try,” Wallflower said. “Every day I see you, and you’re so . . . broken. You’ve never been . . . you’re not supposed to be this way Sunset. You’re the strongest person I know.” Sunset couldn’t see her face, but she knew Wallflower was crying now. “This is all wrong.”

“You’re talking about a massive magical procedure,” Sunset said. “Mental manipulation of everyone at CHS, and probably a smattering of others from the greater Canterlot area, all with surgical precision. On top of that, the ideal time to do it is when the vast majority of them are asleep, so they’re going to be scattered around the city in their beds, not congregating in easily zapped locations. You'd need to find each one of them first.”

Sunset paused for long enough that most people would have thought she'd finished speaking; Wallflower didn't interrupt.

“The stone itself isn’t smart enough to do any part of that,” Sunset said. “It can’t identify the targets, it can’t find them, and it certainly can’t go through the high level reasoning necessary to determine what to take out and then separate those things from the ones that ought to be left in.

“That means it’s going to use your brain to get the job done. It won’t ask, it’ll just channel all of that magic through your head so that it can use your grey matter as the hardware for its software. It’ll rewire you, and --since it won’t tell you what it did-- you’ll have no way to check if it put things back to normal afterward.”

Sunset took a breath.

“And that’s not even the point,” she said. “The point is that, regardless of whether the brain stuff is a problem in itself, there’s no way to do what you want without channeling the magic through you. All of it. No matter how clear your mind or precise your goal, there's no changing the fact you’ll be hitting yourself with more magic than a human being should ever face.”

Wallflower would know Sunset was finished with her mini-rant, Sunset was sure. She'd know it without having to wait long enough to see if Sunset resumed. It was refreshing not to have to tell someone, “I’m not done yet,” and “Ok, now I’m done,” when she got into these kinds of conversations.

“If it could make you happy,” Wallflower said, “it’s worth the risk.”

Sunset didn’t know what to say to that. Before she figured out, Wallflower added, “Besides, maybe I could take it. Maybe I’d be fine.”

Sunset let out a rough breath. There was a chance she might be crying soon.

“You’re already being affected by leakage,” Sunset reminded Wallflower. There was an urgency there that she couldn’t hide, and she didn’t know if she wanted to. “It’s why people have a hard time remembering you even when you don’t use the stone.”

Wallflower nodded.

“The kind of output you’re talking about is unprecedented,” Sunset continued, “there’s no telling what the side effects could be. You’re talking about . . . how to human terms this?”

Sunset took a moment, not so much to figure out the human terms to use, but just to keep herself somewhat close to calm. She was getting worked up enough that hyperventilating would be a risk.

Wallflower was right. This was all wrong. Sunset Shimmer and hyperventilating weren’t supposed to go together.

Once she had her breathing under control, Sunset said, “You’re talking about finding out a reactor is leaking dangerous radiation, even when it’s running at the lowest --safest-- levels, and then cranking it up 300%. Even if it doesn’t explode, the results won’t be pretty.”

“Nuclear reactors don’t explode, Sunset,” Wallflower said. “They melt down.”

“The point, love,” Sunset said with heavy sarcasm, “you are missing it.”

“Nothing’s getting better,” Wallflower said. “Maybe we need to take bigger risks.”

“And what if, after you do this, the side effects get to the point where I can’t remember you?” Sunset asked.

“You’ll have your old friends back. You’ll be the most popular girl in the entire school: the star of everyone’s favorite redemption story.” Wallflower paused. “You won’t need me.” Another beat of pause. “You’ll be fine.”

Sunset hadn’t been thinking about herself. At all. So she asked, “What about you?”

“I can make it all go away,” Wallflower said. In a sense they’d come full circle: Wallflower had started by saying, more or less, that. But this time was different. It was disturbing in a way that Sunset couldn’t quite identify.

Sunset was afraid, and she didn’t know why.

“What if I made myself forget how to breathe?” Wallflower asked. She was serious.

Sunset considered pointing out that breathing was primarily an involuntary action, and therefore it was probably impossible to forget how to breathe. She decided that had nothing to do with the point.

“Wall--” Sunset didn’t even make it to the second syllable.

“Or forget that eating is a thing,” Wallflower said. Again, she was completely serious. This was a viable option in her mind. “It doesn’t have to involve injury, you know. I could just forget what it means to be Wallflower Blush. Forget school, forget being alone, forget being ignored, forget gardening, forget . . . everything.

“I could be just a Jenny Doe with amnesia at Canterlot General,” Wallflower said. “Every time I tried to give myself a fresh start before, I held back. I didn’t go all the way. Maybe what I’ve needed all this time is a truly blank slate.”

“What about me?” Sunset said. “How do you think I’d feel about losing my girlfriend, my best friend, my only friend?”

“You wouldn’t need me anymore,” Wallflower said, “so you wouldn’t need to remember me. You wouldn’t need to suffer at all.” Sunset had felt the way Wallflower sounded right now. She knew the emotion well.

This was ‘I’m heading to the roof, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be jumping when I get there’ territory. That, actually, gave Sunset an idea.

Wallflower knew that Sunset had bad times. She knew that Sunset thought about hurting herself. She didn’t know everything, though. Sunset had tried to balance honesty with the fact she didn’t want Wallflower to worry, and the result was that everything she’d told Wallflower was true, but she always stopped short of telling the whole truth.

Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe Wallflower needed to know that Sunset had been there, and that she knew what it was like.

“Wallflower,” she said. No response. “Wallflower,” she repeated more loudly. Nothing. “Wallflower I need you to look at me.” Nada.

Sunset took hold of Wallflower’s shoulders and --firmly, but not with enough force to cause pain-- spun Wallflower to face her.

“Wallflower,” Sunset said, releasing her shoulders and looking her in the eyes for the first time this conversation, “what if I jumped off the roof?”

Wallflower’s eyes went wide.

“You know how much I like it up there,” Sunset said. “It’s not like there’s a big wall around the place. It’d be the easiest thing in the world to just,” she moved a hand sideways in a quick gesture and said a non-word that sounded like, “whhuut.” She paused, but not long enough to let Wallflower interrupt.

“There’d be a bit of stumbling on the inclined section,” she said, “but it is, in a very real sense, all down hill.” Wallflower was looking increasingly distraught. “Once I get passed that, it’s just a few seconds of freefall, and then all my problems are solved.”

“Suns--” Wallflower said.

This, probably, would have been a good place to stop, and possibly reflect on whether that had been even close to a good way to broach the topic. Sunset kept right on going.

“And don’t worry about being sad,” she said. “You can use the stone to forget everything you ever liked about me,” Sunset more or less repeated her earlier gesture, but this time the tips of her fingers started out touching her head, which she hoped gave a sense of memories being removed, and said, “whhuut,” again --it occurred to her that, perhaps, ‘woosh’ would have been a better sound effect, but she was in the middle of a sentence and so didn’t have time to dwell on it, “and there will be nothing for you to be sad about.”

That, very much, did not put Wallflower at ease. If anything, the horror showing on her face had grown.

“Or, you know,” Sunset said, “I could do it preemptively. You wouldn’t remember ever having met me, so when you heard that I’d died it would be unpleasant, in the way that news of suicide always is, but not in any way personal. Certainly not devastating.”

“Sunset,” Wallflower said, “I don’t . . . no. You can’t do that.” When she added, “You won’t do that,” it was clearly a command.

“But what if?” Sunset said. “It’s not like there’s anything that’s really standing in my way. It’s definitely an option.”

“Don’t consider it, don’t imagine it, don’t even think about it,” Wallflower said. “You are not allowed to kill yourself. The only reason for you to ever bring this topic up again is if it’s to say, ‘Wallflower, I need help to stop thinking about this.’”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about it,” Sunset said, now somber, “but I have something, not involving hurting myself, that I want to suggest.”

“What?” Wallflower shouted with volume and anger that Sunset thought was uncalled for. Apparently Wallflower felt the same way, because she said, “Sorry, kind of worked up right now,” before asking, “What?” again without any anger and at a more appropriate volume.

“I want to . . . propose a deal,” Sunset said.

It might have been a good idea if she’d put thought into how she was going to actually phrase this earlier. Obviously it was too late for that, so she decided to just blunder on and hope it worked out. Given how simple the idea was, it would probably work.

“A quid pro quo, as it were,” Sunset said. “I’ll never suggest killing myself again. If I can’t convince myself that jumping is a non-option on my own, I’ll come to you and we’ll work through it together.” It was pretty clear that Wallflower liked things so far. “In return, you don’t suggest lobotomizing yourself. Ever. If you start to think about it, you either stop it on your own or you come to me--”

Wallflower said the final words with Sunset, “and we’ll work through it together.”

“I . . .” Wallflower said. After a few moments of silence she tried again, “If it’s what it takes to keep you from hurting yourself, then I guess . . .”

Wallflower looked away. “It’s just that everything stays the same,” she said. “Things aren’t improving. This might never end. I see you hurting so much. I want you to be happy, Sunset. I want you to smile, and laugh and . . . and dance, or something. I want this mess to be over. I want it so much.”

“Look,” Sunset said. Then she reconsidered. “Or don’t look. I‘d prefer you to look, but you don’t have to. I just need you to listen to me.” Wallflower did look, allowing Sunset to look her in the eyes again.

This had to be right, Sunset thought, so taking a moment to think over the words seemed worthwhile. Once that moment was taken, Sunset --stilling looking Wallflower in the eyes-- did her best.

“Things aren’t good. And they’re not happy. And they’re not what either of us would have chosen. But, Wallflower,” Sunset didn’t exactly take Wallflower’s hands in her own, it was more that she gently grasped the green girl’s wrists, “they’re enough.”

For a moment nothing happened. “They’re enough,” Sunset repeated.

Wallflower nodded. “So,” she said, “I don’t zap, and you don’t jump, and we both just . . . survive.”

Sunset nodded.

They ended up hugging, and they fell asleep on the floor still holding one another.

Author's Note

So, notes and such.

I used "to human terms" as verb (infinitive form) and I feel no shame.

Someone will doubtless pop up to tell me that "Jane" is used in FIM and/or EG somewhere, but it really doesn't seem like an MLP name to me. Jenny can fit more easily (in two different ways, no less) so I go with "Jenny Doe" instead of "Jane Doe".

If you plan to stick around, get used to asyndeton; there will be a lot of it.

This story came from three things. The first was Anon-a-Miss being mentioned in the contest FAQ again this year. The second was the theme and it's interpretation: the featured relationship has to end. That got me imagining a fic where Sunset and a romantic partner were both using the relationship as a form of self-medication, and (when things stopped being objectively terrible) they stop needing it.

The third thing was River Road suggesting that it could be a Sunflower fic. At that point it all kind of came together.

This was the first part I actually wrote:

“Things aren’t good. And they’re not happy. And they’re not what either of us would have chosen. But, Wallflower,” Sunset didn’t exactly take Wallflower’s hands in her own, it was more that she gently grasped the green girl’s wrists, “they’re enough.”

Everything else in the story is working backward (for most of the prologue) and forward (for the rest of the story) from that.

Final note: the idea that the memory stone is "leaking" on Wallflower is something I've had for as long as Wallflower Blush has been a character.

Chapter 1: An Ordinary Day

Sunset ran out of the classroom and down the hall, taking the first corner so fast she almost fell over. While she could usually wait until class had ended for this sort of thing, and she usually didn’t do anything so obvious as run through the halls at full clip, this was becoming a fairly regular activity for her.

She figured that the students she'd left behind were congratulating themselves on driving her off. If they were, they had it backwards. She wasn’t running from them; she was running toward salvation.

Normally she tried not to dwell on how this once would have been unthinkable. Usually she tried not to think about how easily the Rainbooms --her friends-- had turned on her. She spent most of her time these days pretending --telling herself again and again-- that she wasn’t devastated by the fact it only took two posts --two fucking posts-- from an anonymous account, which wasn’t even impersonating her well, to erase everything she’d done to make up for how she used to be.

At times like these, though, those were the thoughts she wanted most. Yes, she was devastated, also despondent, deeply in despair, and all sorts of other depressing “D” words. No, alliteration and assorted wordplay no longer brought her joy. Yes, the betrayal hurt like Tartarus.

She needed those thoughts because, if she could just hold on to enough pain long enough, she could finally end it.

She was almost at the library, and with it access to the roof, when something unwanted came to mind. She hadn’t forgotten it so much as pushed it aside and ignored it. Now it was back in the front of her mind. She’d made a promise. Not just a promise: a deal.

If she went through with this, her pain would finally end, but would Wallflower still be Wallflower the day after?

Before it had always been about her; now it wasn’t. She wouldn’t make it to the library.

The feeling was still there, though. If she didn’t do something about it, there was no telling where things might go. She thought through the same old things.

Physical pain could be cleansing. It focused your attention on annoying but ultimately irrelevant things like broken bones, influenza, or traumatic brain injury. So if she just punched a brick wall until her hand broke or bashed her head into a wall until she passed out, that’d be a release.

She came to the same conclusion she always did: that would hurt Wallflower more than it helped her. “Hi. I know I’m all bloody and my hand and/or head is broken, but at least I’m not dead,” was not a viable way to start their next conversation.

That meant she'd be doing the same thing she always did. It made her hate herself, but it would get her what she needed without hurting Wallflower. Also, it was almost time for the bell to send everyone to their next class, so the timing was as close to perfect as it could be.

~ ~ ~

Wallflower just barely managed to avoid yelping when a near-shove brought her into a janitor's closet. Once she was in, she closed the door with a sort of spin that left her back against it while Sunset attempted to perform the kissing version of aggravated assault on her face and neck. Obviously the only thing to do was to kiss back, and she got to work on that.

They eventually slowed down, transitioning into the kind of kiss that lasted so long they needed to stop for air afterward. It was in one of these pauses that Wallflower asked, “Tough class?”

“Brutal class,” Sunset said.

After a few more kisses, Sunset pulled back and added, “Teacher needed to go to the photocopier--”

It wasn’t hard to see what was coming next, Wallflower preemptively gave Sunset a quick and light kiss on the lips.

“--and trusted the students to behave themselves till he got back.” Sunset could have said, “Naturally, they did,” with a straight face and an even tone and lost none of her meaning, but --in Wallflower’s opinion-- the sarcasm Sunset’s voice was laden with added some indefinable quality that made the whole thing complete.

As for the content of Sunset’s speech, Wallflower couldn’t come up with the right swear for it. She ended up looking down, pinching the bridge of her nose, and growling. When she looked up, though, something put all of it out of her mind. She was in a room with her girlfriend, they were completely alone, and they were unlikely to be disturbed.

The kissing resumed.

⁂

Wallflower walked to lunch surrounded by people who couldn’t be bothered to notice her.

Apart from an impromptu make out session, her day had been the same as it always was. In fact, it was honestly hard to distinguish one day from the next, given how monotonously similar they all were.

No one talked to her. Multiple people pronounced rooms empty while she was still in them. She was never picked in gym, even though, barring absences, that always left the teams uneven.

When she raised her hand to answer questions --something she had to work extremely hard to do, given her anxiety-- she was never called on. Even when she was the only one with a hand up. Today one teacher complained that "no one" was willing to answer while she had her and up and had even resorted to waving it like a fifth grader.

When she tried to join conversations, she was ignored. When she gave up and stood in one place, or dropped to the floor and hugged her knees into her chest, most people didn’t even walk around her, not completely. They'd avoid the kind of collision that might stop them in their tracks or knock them over, but only just. When she wasn't the one dodging, glancing collisions, which the other students didn't even seem to notice, were frequent.

More of the same, nothing ever changed.

Even knowing that it was, at least in part, because of magic that had never been meant for her world, it made her wonder --always wonder-- if maybe everyone treated her like nothing and nobody was because she was a nobody, and she was worth nothing. Magic or not, it was almost impossible to believe that an important person, or even an unimportant one who merely mattered in some small way, would be treated this way.

Maybe she was better off forgotten and invisible. If no one cared enough to acknowledge her, didn't that mean she wasn't worth caring--

The warmth and pressure of someone taking her hand blew all of those thoughts away. She knew who it was, of course, but she still looked over to see. She smiled at the sight of Sunset's face.

Wallflower mattered. She was somebody. She was worth something. She knew these things because Sunset Shimmer --Sunset Fucking Shimmer-- believed them, and --good or evil-- Sunset had never been one be wrong about such things. Sure, she'd lie about it in the bad old days, but Sunset always understood who was important and how much they mattered.

Just having Sunset tell her, and remind her, that she deserved to be noticed, acknowledged, and remembered might have been enough in itself, but things were so much better than that. Sunset loved her, she loved Sunset, and that was all she needed.

For the moment, at least. The sudden-Sunset-euphoria would die down; the joy of seeing each other after time apart couldn't be sustained indefinitely, but the fact that she did have one bright spot in her dreary life would not go away. The hard part was remembering it when Sunset wasn't around.

They walked in silence for a bit, then Sunset said, “I'm sorry about earlier,” as though she'd done something horrifically wrong. “In the closet,” she added.

Wallflower stopped and half turned to face Sunset, Sunset mirrored the action and they were face to face. Wallflower took Sunset's other hand, mostly so there would be symmetry, and told Sunset, “You don't ever have to apologize for kissing me.”

Sunset half smiled, but then looked away. “I just feel like . . . I worry . . . I worry that if I don't say something, that --maybe--”

Wallflower closed the distance between them and gave Sunset a quick kiss on the lips. It would have been easier if Sunset had been looking in the right direction --Wallflower wouldn't have had to awkwardly lean partway around Sunset-- but it was worth it. Also: afterward Sunset was looking at her again, which was always a plus.

“I don't think you see me as a pick-me-up or a way to get a fix,” she said. They'd been through this, though usually not in a school hallway. “I do know that you love me. I also know how hard everything is for you right now, and if I can make it less bad just by kissing you--”

“You can,” Sunset said.

“Then I want to,” Wallflower said. Then she looked away. “I just . . .” She looked back. “I wish everything else were so easy to . . . make less bad.”

Sunset smiled. “We both do,” she said.

They started walking again --lunch wouldn't wait just because they were having a moment-- and things were good.

When Sunset filled her in on the exact details of what happened in that class, things would be less good. There was also a chance (Wallflower estimated anywhere from twelve to twenty percent) that one or both of them would have a nervous breakdown before the day was over. Still, right now things were good, and --right now-- that was what mattered.

⁂

Some enterprising soul had added graffiti to Sunset's locker during lunch. Usually she had to wait till the next morning for an update. In one sense, it was more of the same. Not particularly different from what it was written over. In another . . . Sunset had to wonder why no one had thought to call her “snitch” before.

In the original confrontation, Pinkie Pie claimed their friendship had been a ruse on Sunset’s part, a way to gather information, and then branded Sunset a secret stealer. That's what a snitch was, right? It wasn't as though anyone at school would get hung up on technicalities, so it was only the broad strokes that mattered.

Less than a week after that, people she'd never actually had a relationship with were calling her, "Traitor," so why did it take so long to get to "snitch"?

If whoever wrote it had been hoping to set her off, they'd picked a bad day for it. She'd been on her way to the roof before first period was over --she wasn't heading that way again today-- and this wasn't a day for dropping to the floor and sobbing. Right now was a time of apathy.

It was a state she could get comfortably ensconced in. Nothing hurt, and --when Wallflower wasn’t around-- that was as good as things got these days.

One more period of classes and she and Wallflower could head home. Home. The thought almost made her smile. It was like she could feel the emotion trying to exist, but not quite succeeding. A warm bed in wintertime was a miracle in itself.

Author's Note

I am interested in if anyone thinks this should have tags it doesn't have. As an example, it doesn't meet the technical requirements for "Suicide/Self-Harm", but I'm not interested in setting anyone off so maybe the technical requirements aren't what matter here. I'm not sure.

On that particular subject: please stay alive and please also stay as unharmed as it is within your power to be. I very seriously, and completely truthfully, care about you even though we've never met.

(Back on the first topic, I've also just learned that I've been misusing the AU tag the whole time I've been here, so that doesn't lead to confidence in my tagging ability.)

⁂

Ok, so, what else . ? . Given the word limit for the contest this is (hopefully) going to be an entry into, a chapter like this might be a mistake.

I mean, I probably don't have a hope of winning anyway, especially since the contest creator specifically said they'd hate anyone who entered an Anon-a-Miss story, but I'm still trying to make a legitimate entry.

This does, I hope, meet Vonnegut’s 4th rule, in that it reveals character, but none of it advances the action. As the title suggests, it's an ordinary day. As Sunset and Wallflower both think (in their own ways), it's more of the same.

I feel like it fills an important role because the prologue, while it gives a snapshot their feelings, doesn't fully establish what Sunset and Wallflower's normal is. Without this chapter to establish the baseline, I don't think readers will have a sense of what things are changing from as the story moves.

The problem is that I've just used a third (technically 31.173%) of my available word-count to set the stage, leaving me with a lot less room to have the plot unfold.

⁂

Since the whole story is going to be from the point of view of either Sunset or Wallflower, there's a lot of wider-world stuff that won't get covered. I know that some people like to learn such stuff even when it isn't in the story, so I've got a blog post to talk about that. (At length.)

Some salient details:

Anon-a-Miss and thus the bullying of Sunset has gone on longer than in the original comic, but it hasn't intensified. This is not an escalation fic.
The Rainbooms are no worse in this than in the original comic
The CMC aren't either, it's just that the event that opened their eyes to the harm they were doing in the comic didn't happen that way in the this story.
Sunset has kept human Celestia and Luna, as well as Princess Twilight, in the dark about how bad things are for her. They're not ignoring the problem; they are limited by the information they have on hand.

Chapter 2: The Wind of Change

Part of Sunset knew that she'd back down. The things that had stopped her before were no less true now. What she was feeling now was no worse than what she’d felt before. There was still Wallflower. Tartarus, there was still Twilight on the other side of the portal.

That part wasn't the one in charge.

Maybe it was just because Wallflower was right: nothing was getting better. Maybe it was because one good thing could only counterbalance everything else in the world being terrible for so long. Maybe it was because looks of disappointment somehow hurt worse than looks of hate.

Maybe it was because disappointed looks from Fluttershy and angry yelling from Rainbow Dash somehow worked together synergistically to create something far worse than one would expect the combination of those two, already terrible, things to produce.

Maybe it was that she had a headache.

Maybe it was that before school she’d seen a girl who was absolutely devastated, to the point that it looked like she might jump, and Sunset’s gaze had met the girl’s cold, broken eyes. There was no anger, no hate, no malice. There was no indignation or desire for revenge. There was just pain and the unspoken question of, “Why?”

Or maybe it was simply that unicorns were herd animals, becoming human hadn’t changed that part of Sunset, and a Sunset and a Wallflower did not a herd make.

Whatever the reason, Sunset was allowing herself to be guided by a very specific part of her psyche: the part that said this was the worst she'd ever felt and things would somehow keep on getting worse. It told her that good things only existed to make it more painful when she crashed and burned, it said every time she'd pulled back from the brink before had been a mistake, it said to keep trying.

Which meant Sunset was heading for the roof. Promises and deals be damned. Wallflower was a resourceful girl; she'd survive.

Sunset shot through the library, was up the stairs in what seemed like no time, burst through the door to the roof, and . . . saw Wallflower.

Wallflower was just standing there, a few feet away, facing the door, backpack at her feet, left arm hanging limply at her side, and right arm apparently scratching her back.

For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.

Wallflower broke the silence with, “I thought you'd come up here eventually.”

Sunset's initial response was, “Uh . . .” She followed up with something that was, in her opinion, more reasonable, “Have you been standing there the whole period?”

“It seemed like the logical thing to do,” Wallflower said. “You don't exactly give me a freak-out schedule.”

“Wallflower,” Sunset said, “why . . .” At that point she realized she didn't actually have a question.

“Sunset,” Wallflower said as she began to pull her right arm from behind her back, “we need to talk.” By the time she'd finished speaking, Wallflower's right hand was in plain view, about level with her head, pointed palm forward to show what she was holding.

For some reason, Sunset's first thought was, Unless she uses pure evil as a back-scratcher, she probably wasn't scratching her back earlier.

That wasn't a particularly useful thought, so Sunset went with her second thought, which was, “I really wish you'd put that thing back in the ground.”

Sunset had already run all the tests she safely could, which meant there was no reason for the damned thing to be accessible. She would have said as much, but Wallflower spoke first, “And I really wish you'd stop coming up here with the intent of demonstrating a causal relationship between gravity and mortality.”

Sunset couldn't deny that that was a fair response without lying, but that didn't mean she was ready to acknowledge the point.

Wallflower continued, “You're not the only one who likes to periodically commune with her exit strategy; the difference is mine fits in a backpack.”

Wallflower sighed and let her arm drop. Apart from the fact she was still holding the stone, her right arm now hung just as limply as her left. She asked, “How long do you think we can do this before one of us doesn't stop?”

Sunset had no answer, but she felt she owed Wallflower a response, so she said, “I don't know.”

“We can't go on this way,” Wallflower said.

Sunset nodded, then said, “We need to give you something worth remembering.”

“We need to give you something to live for,” Wallflower said.

Sunset wished that she had something more to say, something beyond, “I don't know how.”

“I don't either,” Wallflower said.

A few seconds passed in silence.

Wallflower held out her left arm --hand flat, palm up-- in a way that they'd given special meaning and asked, “Together?”

Sunset gently grasped Wallflower near the elbow, Wallflower reciprocated, once they were connected forearm to forearm she affirmed, "Together," and then spun into a sort of hug: her back against Wallflower, their joined arms across her belly, and Wallflower nuzzling the left side of her neck and head. It felt good to be nuzzled.

⁂

Wallflower had been aware that there was a huge difference between acknowledging that things needed to change and actually changing them, of course, but that didn’t make the time spent on failed attempts any less frustrating.

Especially since, instead of results, the most recent one somehow left ranting about the fact she wasn’t exactly a moral paragon.

“I ripped out parts of people's minds,” she said to Sunset, “yours included.”

Sunset was about to respond, but Wallflower added more, “And I still want to. Every time you have a new bruise, every insult someone throws at you, every time that people speak your name like it's a dirty word, every time . . . any of it, I want to reach into all of their minds and tear out everything to do with Anon-a-Miss.”

Wallflower took a short breath then went on, “And --ever since you made me stop and think about it-- I know how wrong it is, and I'd feel indescribably guilty, except . . . then I think, ‘I could erase my own memories of doing the deed, and I wouldn't feel guilty at all.’”

Wallflower paused. This time Sunset didn't try to speak.

“Because it's all about me, right?” Wallflower asked sarcastically. “The problem with me doing bad things is that I'd feel bad about them. If I don't feel bad, then obviously everything is fine, and there's no need to consider the effects I've had upon my victims.”

Sunset nodded in that, 'I know exactly what you're feeling,' kind of way.

For a moment they stayed there in silence. Wallflower in her chair, Sunset kneeling in front of it to make them eye to eye, Sunset's hands holding Wallflower's own.

“You know what I want?” Sunset asked.

“You want to disappear,” Wallflower said.

Sunset gave a shrug of acknowledgement then said, “So do you.”

“True,” Wallflower admitted.

Sunset hadn’t been going there, though. After a tangent on how easy it would be to steal the Element of Magic again, now that it was simply being left in a tree, she actually started telling Wallflower her own less-than-moral desires.

"I want to co-opt the magic of a powerful artifact,” she said, “and turn myself back into a raging she-demon."

Wallflower said, “But you hated being the demon!” in utter shock and confusion, because no other response was possible.

“Ah,” Sunset said while raising her index finger, “but I didn't hate it at the time.” She paused a beat, “Think about it, Wallflower: All. That. Power.”

Given how little the words were helping, Wallflower wished she had a firm grasp on body language, but no one had ever given her the manual that everyone else seemed to have memorized at birth. Then again . . . would it even help with Sunset? Sunset was human as human could be, but she certainly didn't start out that way.

Sunset continued, “And . . . and,” Sunset turned away, “none of this guilt.”

Suddenly everything made a twisted kind of sense.

Sunset went on to describe a fairly standard ‘Burn it to the ground and salt the fields’ revenge fantasy in which she tormented and psychologically broke everyone who had ever wronged either of them. Special emphasis was placed on the fact that, in her transformed state, she’d be able to enjoy every moment of the depraved vengeance she wrought with no interference from things like guilt, morality, or standards.

When it was over, Sunset said, “That's what I want, Wallflower.”

Wallflower wanted to reassure Sunset that bad thoughts didn't make her a bad person. That being angry was ok. That her feelings were justified. That . . .

The words didn't come.

Wallflower pulled Sunset into a hug, and held her there for a while. When she was ready to let go, she finally found the words, and said, “It doesn’t matter that you want it. You could do everything you’ve described. You could; but you won’t, and that’s what matters.”

Sunset said, “It's the same for you,” just before they separated.

They paused, collected themselves, and switched gears. At first the new approach seemed just as useless as the last, but eventually Sunset came to a promising realization: she did know of one non-Wallflower person who believed she wasn’t Anon-a-Miss.

“It's not someone I would choose,” she cautioned, “and I kind of burned that bridge already.”

“How?” Wallflower asked.

“I accused her of being Anon-a-Miss,” Sunset said, now looking at the floor in shame.

“Sunset . ? .” Wallflower vaguely sort of asked.

“I know I need to apologize,” Sunset said loudly. Then she switched into 'quiet Sunset whose volume is inversely proportional to her enthusiasm' mode when she added, “It's just that I'm not looking forward to asking for forgiveness from Trixie.”

⁂

Sunset knew things weren't going to go well, when Wallflower said, “Actually, we met in third grade.”

“Ah, I remember third grade,” Trixie said. That could have been the introduction something good --the kind of thing Wallflower needed to hear from people other than Sunset-- but Trixie lived right down to Sunset's expectations instead, “Not you, specifically, but what a grade it--”

What Sunset hadn't predicted was that Wallflower wouldn't be the one Trixie set off.

“She's standing right there, you know,” Sunset said with more anger than was probably healthy.

Trixie said, “The Great and Powerful Trixie was--”

“Totally ignoring the person she was talking to in favor self aggrandizing--” Sunset stopped. Wallflower's hand was on her shoulder, and when she turned to look at Wallflower she didn't see someone being hurt by Trixie's words or actions. She saw someone who was worried about her.

“It's ok,” Wallflower said to Sunset. Then she turned to Trixie and said, “Sunset came here to apologize to you.”

“A-apologize?” Trixie asked in obvious shock. It really shouldn't be that shocking, Sunset had probably given out the most apologies of anyone in the history of Canterlot High School.

“If you'll stop aggravating her, and let her speak, she still will,” Wallflower said. Wallflower turned her gaze back to Sunset and asked, “Right?”

Sunset couldn't say, 'No,' to that. Maybe it was Wallflower’s eyes, or the specific tone she used, or the way the glare of the sun off of the cars in the faculty lot came through the window and lit up her hair, or maybe something else entirely; whatever it was, there was no way Sunset could refuse right now.

“Right,” Sunset said, and nodded to herself. She turned her attention to Trixie, took a moment to collect her thoughts, and said, “I'm sorry I accused you of being Anon-a-Miss. I should never have done that. I just . . .” This was the hard part. Trixie deserved to know why Sunset had done it, but facing the fact that she'd done something so similar to what the Rainbooms had done to her wasn’t easy.

“I wanted you to be Anon-a-Miss,” Sunset said. “You basically declared war on the Rainbooms at the end of the Battle of the Bands; no one else even had a motive. There were no leads. If you were Anon-a-Miss then everything could go back to normal --heck, I'd be a hero-- if you weren't . . .” How did one even describe it? “If you weren't then this,’ Sunset turned in a circle while making a gesture that she hoped would be understood to encompass the entire universe, “would happen.”

“I'd be alone, outcast, helpless,” Sunset had stopped because she was pretty sure if she said one more word she'd either be screaming in rage or sobbing in despair. That brought up a question: was it possible to do both at once? When she got her emotions under control, she said, “No friends, no family, no future, and no way out.

“I didn't want this,” Sunset said, “and if you were guilty none of it would come to pass, so I desperately wanted it to be you. I accused without a shred of evidence, and you deserve better than that, Trixie. I'm sorry.”

Trixie stood in what appeared to be shock for several seconds.

“Trixie is sorry too,” she eventually said. “She never thought you were Anon-a-Miss, but she was angry at the accusation and . . .” Trixie looked at the floor. Then she looked out the window. “She wanted to hurt you,” she said still looking out the window.

Apart from Trixie being apologetic, that simply confirmed what Sunset had already believed.

“She shouldn't have done that,” Trixie said, “and she . . . I'm sorry.”

“Question,” Wallflower said.

Sunset turned to see Wallflower with her index finger raised and an uncertain look on her face.

“So. . .” Wallflower said, drawing out the word. When she finished she pointed from Sunset to Trixie and back again. “Friends?” she asked.

Sunset turned her attention back to Trixie, and found that Trixie didn't have a, 'Tartarus, no!' look on her face.

Sunset smiled. Trixie gave the tiniest hint of a smile in return.

Sunset said, “The whole school will hate you.”

Trixie smirked. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not fear the ignorant masses!” she announced.

“So…” Wallflower said, not drawing the word out nearly so long this time, “that's a 'Yes' then?”

Trixie said, “Yes,” at the same time Sunset said, “Yeah, that's a yes.”

Author's Note

Getting Trixie to join Team "Sunset isn't guilty and Wallflower exists" basically marks the beginning of two things. One the transformation of Sunset and Wallflower's lives into things that don't suck. The other is the ultimate collapse of their relationship. So, you know: fun.

⁂

There aren't enough words for ways people touch one another.

Hopefully it's clear how Sunset and Wallflower are holding each other pre-spin, but there's not a word for it. (If I'm wrong, and there is, do share.)

It's sort of like the full forearm equivalent of a certain type of holding hands. Said type of holding hands also doesn't have terminology to differentiate it from the more common forms of holding hands.

⁂

It's actually easier for me to write Trixie talking about herself in third person, for some reason, even though in canon she's throwing around first person pronouns all over the place. I'm going with BittyBug's idea (showcased in the story It takes a while) that it was initially her default state, she's worked to put it behind her, but in unguarded moments she slips back into it.

⁂

Random meta notes:

My internet connection briefly went weird just as I was trying to publish this. I'm currently checking to make sure that didn't result in any problems.

Thanks are due to Scampy for the new cover art.

I was originally going to go into more detail about how they ended up talking about Wallflower ripping things out of people's brains, and show the whole conversation from what led to that to Sunset not looking forward to apologizing to Trixie. I think there's value to be had in playing things out like that, but not in a story of this length.

⁂

Trixie's role in the Equestria Girls Holiday Special tends to get forgotten. On the one hand, that's sort of a good thing because her appearance is basically a one page character assassination. On the other hand, there's a lot of fertile ground there.

In some ways Sunset is doing the same thing the Rainbooms did. Most notably, she's making an accusation that, while it makes sense to her, she can't back up. In other ways it's completely different.

Sunset gets a lot of things right. She confronts Trixie when no one else is around, which means she doesn't make Trixie a target for bullies. She's up front about her suspicions. She listens to Trixie. And, finally, she ultimately trusts Trixie.

All of that is way better than what the Rainbooms did, but she still owes Trixie an apology.

⁂

The Wind of Change by the Scorpions was basically the soundtrack for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. That has no bearing on the story whatsoever, but it's the chapter title that spoke to me. (They're talking about the need change on a roof. Roofs are often windy.)

This is how I imagine Sunset playing it on guitar:

This is the official video from the original band:

Chapter 4: Networking, and it's unanticipated hazards

Sunset had grown ears, Trixie had not, and the feeling had been incredible.

Sunset had thought that she’d need to find a closet with Wallflower to deal with unwanted emotions, but Wallflower was with Trixie, and . . .

Ok, that could have easily been dealt with, but the moment Sunset showed up Wallflower had asked, “Hey, you both play guitar, right?” and then a conversation that Sunset couldn’t quite remember led to the two of them jamming in the CHS music room while Wallflower listened.

Sunset hadn’t realized how much she’d missed playing guitar with someone else until she actually did it again. The high was enough that she could actually suppress the . . . things that needed suppressing.

Obviously it wasn’t nearly as effective as her usual method, which meant that it would probably wear off fairly quickly, but Sunset was surprised it was effective at all. Apparently she’d needed more music in her life.

It wasn’t actually to ruin the mood, but Sunset said, “Just to ruin the mood,” to Trixie as a lead in to, “how was your first week of being hated?”

“Trixie has had tomatoes thrown at her before,” Trixie said. “The solution is to eat them.”

Sunset smirked and said, “I’m pretty sure tradition calls for rotten tomatoes.”

“Clearly those who throw vegetable-fruit do not care about tradition,” Trixie said. After a beat, she added, “Those were good tomatoes.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow, but decided not to get into that. She ate out of dumpsters all the time; who was she to judge Trixie’s tastes in food?

Instead Sunset said, “I’m still trying to understand why anyone would have whole tomatoes at school.” It wasn’t as though one could slice them on-site. Any decent tomato knife was strictly verboten. Cutting a tomato with a plastic cafeteria knife seemed like it would be an exercise in frustration.

Wallflower, apparently, was thinking along entirely different lines. “I’m surprised they threw anything at all,” she said. “No one’s thrown anything at Sunset.”

Sunset initially planned to let Trixie respond to that, but the magician was uncharacteristically quiet. So Sunset said, “I’m guessing you couldn’t hear what Trixie was saying from where you were.”

Wallflower shook her head.

“They deserved every word that the Profane and Polysyllabic Trixie threw at them,” Trixie said.

Wallflower laughed. Sunset said, “You’re lucky, perhaps more so than you understand, that Luna arrived after you’d finished speaking.”

Trixie shrugged.

“Anyway, I meant overall, not the one incident I definitely saw firsthand,” Sunset said. “Now that you’ve sided with me, the whole school is against you, and--”

Trixie actually put some thought into that. Or made a show of pretending to put some thought into it, which would arguably be harder than simply putting in the thought. Then she said, “I’m fine,” she seemed to be finished, but added, “and I doubt it’s the whole school,” a moment or two later.

“If you know of anyone else who isn’t on Team ‘Sunset is Evil and must pay for what she has done,” Sunset said, “I’d love to hear about them.”

Trixie said, “What about your friend,” Sunset suppressed a flinch, “with the super sci-fi boombox car?”

That . . . was a good question. Sunset had no idea about Vinyl Scratch.

“She’s not a Rainboom,” Trixie said, “and you saved the world together.”

“That does put her in the same category as Princess Purple Pony,” Wallflower said, though she seemed to be speaking primarily to herself.

That caught Sunset completely off guard, and she ended up laughing very hard.

⁂

Wallflower couldn’t remember the last time this many people actually noticed her, much less spoke to her.

Vinyl, it turned out, was receptive to offers of friendship, and wherever Vinyl went, Octavia Melody was sure to follow. Remembering Wallflower proved harder for them than it had for Trixie, but with Trixie and Sunset supporting her, Wallflower was able to do something that had always hurt too much before: engage directly with the fact that they’d completely forgotten she existed, work through it, and repeat until they did remember her.

That meant that four --four-- people were noticing, remembering, and talking to Wallflower. And Octavia and Vinyl both had tons of friends, once they figured out where those friends stood on Sunset, Wallflower would be on the path to being known by so many people it was nigh unthinkable.

So, that was good. It was absurdly good. Very fast too. It was like some kind of chain reaction. Trixie remembered Wallflower because Sunset had refused to let Trixie ignore her. Without Trixie and Sunset, Vinyl never would have remembered her. Without Vinyl and the others, Octavia wouldn’t.

It wasn’t a full solution. She was still as ignorable and forgettable to everyone else, and Vinyl and Octavia always seemed like they might be on the verge of losing track of Wallflower’s existence, but it was like nothing Wallflower had ever known.

Wallflower wasn’t reaching for the memory stone nearly as often, most of the times Sunset went to the roof it to actually enjoy the view. Wallflower went with her. And not just to make sure Sunset wasn’t going to jump, either; they’d watched Sunset’s namesake together.

So, again, absurdly good. But there were problems. Three problems really.

Problem one: none of this brought them any closer to making Wallflower rememberable or, more importantly, proving Sunset’s innocence.

Problem two was that some of the ways in which it was good flat out disturbed Wallflower.

Trixie, Vinyl, and possibly Octavia (it was too early to be completely sure with her), made Wallflower feel things that only Sunset had made her feel before. And, sure, friends were supposed to make you feel good. Wallflower had always heard that. At the same time, though, it was too much.

The way that seeing their faces or talking to them could turn Wallflower’s day around and make her feel wanted, important, and loved wasn’t supposed to . . . “Just” friends shouldn’t make her feel the same way her girlfriend did, she was quite sure of that.

And so she was afraid, terrified even, that she would turn out to be some sort of unfaithful . . . Wallflower didn’t actually know the right word, but it definitely wasn’t complimentary. What if all it took for her to fall in love was someone to notice and remember her? What if these feelings grew stronger and she . . . did something.

So, she had all of that going on.

That was problem two. Problem three was the fact that Trixie had a cute butt. It wasn’t helping matters in the least.

⁂

Things were good and bad. This Sunset knew. What she was less clear on was why.

The good was obvious. More friends. People who didn’t constantly shower her in hate and recrimination. The knowledge that Wallflower was both happy and safe at times they couldn’t be together. So on, and so forth.

It was the bad that Sunset didn’t understand.

Wallflower seemed to be perpetually on edge for reasons that she either wouldn’t share or didn’t understand herself. It could be that she just wasn’t used to being around this many people, but Sunset was rarely in a state of mind where she believed the least troubling explanation to be true.

Sunset herself was . . . feeling less . . . something. “Passionate” might be the word.

Being able to go up to the roof with Wallflower, for example, should be an unmitigated good thing. It let Wallflower know that she wasn’t going to jump while she was up there, it let her share an experience she’d loved for years --the view from the roof was always wonderful-- and it just . . . wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.

It was enjoyable --worth doing repeatedly in fact-- but it wasn’t quite right. There was some spark, or something, missing.

And the things that already had sparks? They’d gotten smaller. The things, the sparks, the everything.

Without the urgency of needing the relationship for the sake of her own physical safety and Wallflower’s continued existence as someone who could meaningfully be described as “Wallflower Blush”, Sunset couldn’t seem to hold things together.

The obvious answer was that she was still a monster, and had only been using Wallflower. As Wallflower became less necessary, Sunset gave fewer shits, and everything faded into nothingness. She refused to believe that.

Her relationship with Wallflower was nothing like her relationship with Flash had been. She genuinely loved Wallflower, she knew it, and that’s why it was so frustrating and incomprehensible that she couldn’t maintain the energy or enthusiasm from before.

Given that “before” being defined as a time when she’d had only one friend, frequently headed off with the intent to kill herself, and had a distinct lack of energy and enthusiasm regarding all aspects of life.

Or, to look at it an entirely different way, this was the most alive she’d felt in all the time since the Rainbooms abandoned her. Her relationship with Wallflower felt less alive. How and why were these two things happening concurrently? Sunset had no answers.

⁂

Wallflower was jolted from her thoughts by Trixie loudly saying, “Ok, the two of you have been stuck in your own heads for like a week and a half,” in her general direction.

“By which the Embellishing and Hyperbolic Trixie means,” Octavia said in a fairly good Trixie voice, “‘about three days’.”

Vinyl signed, basically, “What’s up with that?”

Wallflower said, “Uh,” while Sunset said, “Um.” They both drew out the words for long enough that Octavia could have played a concerto to accompany them. Ok, it wasn’t anywhere near that long, but it felt that way.

“Things made more sense when it was us against the world, I guess,” Sunset said. “Everything was simple and clear cut. Now . . . now things are complicated again.”

That was definitely true, but Wallflower decided to add, “I, uh, got used to Sunset being my only friend.”

“It certainly is a complicated world,” Octavia said, “but it’s the only one we have.”

Vinyl signed that it was good to have them back in that world.

Trixie said, “Provided you are, you know, in it, and not--”

“--stuck in our own heads,” Sunset finished.

Author's Note

I frequently end up publishing chapters I'm not satisfied with, simply so I can publish something. The charitable explanation is that it's the depression telling me they aren't good enough. The other explanation is that I frequently publish chapters that suck.

That's how I'm feeling about this. And if I weren't writing it for a competition that's ending in less than an hour, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't publish it.

The Daughters of Hope (pre-revision)

[The contest is over; I will revise the hell out of this.]
[For information on the real world things holding up revision, read here.]
[Be warned that this chapter, in its current form, kind of sucks]

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage;
anger at the way things are, and the courage needed to change it.
--Paraphrase of a quote incorrectly attributed to St. Augustine

One of the benefits of not being despondent all the time anymore was that Wallflower got to experience a whole host of other emotions. At the moment she was sampling the essence of seething rage.

It wasn’t directed at anything in particular, just CHS in general. The vast majority of them still thought, or said they thought, that Sunset was Anon-a-Miss. Anon-a-Miss was still publishing gossip, rumors, and things that had been spoken in confidence. Sunset, while significantly better now that she had more friends, was still suffering.

Before she had defaulted to the idea of using the memory stone to reach into the minds of everyone at CHS and tear out everything that might hurt Sunset, it was never something she could act on because Sunset wouldn’t approve. (The fact that wouldn’t approve either, and might not be able to handle the guilt afterward, was obviously a non-issue.)

That would be easy and require very little effort. Other approaches would be harder.

Anger, Wallflower was finding, was a powerful motivating force. A very powerful motivating force. It gave her direction, it gave her purpose, it gave her energy. All of which was why she had borrowed Sunset’s phone and come to the library, and why she was seeking out the shoo-in for “Most Likely to Invent Cold Fusion”.

In the early days of Anon-a-Miss, when it was just the Rainbooms being targeted, Micro Chips had followed it with just enough schadenfreude to earn Wallflower’s ire, which meant that she wasn’t overly worried about giving him unpleasant feelings. That was good, because she had no idea how to approach this; her plan basically amounted to letting the anger do the talking.

She found him at one of the computers.

“Hello,” Wallflower said. No reaction. “Hello,” she said more loudly. Nothing. “Hey!” she shouted. Not a damned thing.

Since she was in a library, Wallflower decided to look for a book that might help. Shortly afterward she slammed Weanling’s Dictionary - Unabridged --all twelve and a half pounds of the nearly four inch thick tome-- on the table next to Micro Chips.

He actually looked at her.

“Hi,” she said, “we’ve been in classes together since fifth grade, but you don’t remember me.” She pulled over the chair from the next computer. “Don’t worry, I’m used to it.” She sat down. “What matters right now is that I’m Sunset Shimmer’s girlfriend.”

“Sun-- Sunset Shimmer?” he asked. Good. Fear. Wallflower could probably work with that.

“Yes,” Wallflower said. “I’m sure you’re smart enough to know that she’s not Anon-a-Miss, but many of our fellow students aren’t. As you might imagine, that’s quite a blow to her, given all she’s done to make amends.”

Wallflower paused.

“Me, though?” she said, “I’ve never felt so alive.” That was true, and Wallflower had somehow failed to notice it until that moment. “All of this anger and outrage over how she’s been treated is, honestly, invigorating.

“I feel like I could tear this school apart brick by brick, burn the rubble, and still have energy left over to hand out specialized individual punishments to each and every person who’s wronged Sunset.”

“I . . . I haven’t--” Micro Chips said.

“Oh, I know,” Wallflower said. “You’re a good kid. You were mean when the sirens were here, sure, but ever since Sunset set you free, you’ve been good and nice and so forth, right?”

Mirco Chips nodded.

“And that’s why I’m here,” Wallflower said. “Since you’re so good and nice and helpful, I’m sure that you’ll be eager to help me clear Sunset’s name.” That got another nod. “Anon-a-Miss took pictures off of Sunset’s phone. I need to know how.” Wallflower held up Sunset’s phone. “This is her phone, if I give it to you and tell you when the pictures were taken, you’ll be able to tell me how it was done, right?”

“Well, I mean . . .” Mirco Chips said.

Wallflower gave an “I’m disappointed in you,” look.

Mirco Chips said, “It’s theoretically possible, but--”

“Good,” Wallflower announced, “I’ll wait.” She stood up to give him some space, but stayed in sight.

⁂

Sunset hadn’t asked why Wallflower had wanted her phone, she’d just said she’d trade it for the memory stone. While her original plan had been to show it to Maud Pie, ask her about it, and remember what Maud said, Maud proved too knowledgeable for that.

So she’d had Maud write it all down, thanked her profusely, and added that to all of the results of her own tests on the stone. Then told Twilight she wanted to visit.

If Sunset couldn’t be a good girlfriend, and she was beginning to think she couldn’t, she could at least be a good friend. She had the ability again, it was time for her to do something.

Wallflower gave Sunset her phone back, and asked to talk to Twilight; Sunset gave Wallflower the memory stone back. Then they’d headed to the portal.

It was finally time to go when Wallflower and Twilight were done talking. There was just one thing left to do.

Sunset handed Wallflower the journal that Celestia had given to her and said, “This is my most important, most valued, and most powerful possession.”

Wallflower looked it over and doubtless concluded that it looked like a book. They’d never really talked about how Sunset was able to contact Twilight, so this would all be new to her.

“I need you to keep it safe,” Sunset said, “it’s magically connected to an identical copy in Equestria --basically for the purpose of magical text messaging-- and that connection is the only thing that’s letting us open the portal right now.”

“So, if I don’t keep it safe, you don’t come back?” Wallflower asked.

Sunset nodded.

“It’ll be the safest book in the world,” Wallflower said. “Promise me you’ll come back.”

Sunset promised, and then she brought up her own fear. Something that absolutely terrified her. “You’ll still be you when I do, right?”

“I promise,” Wallflower said.

A kiss goodbye, a few steps to the portal, and sunset’s world became rainbows.

⁂

The phone had paid off. Mirco Chips seemed to think it was nothing short of a miracle that it did, and was appalled at how little Sunset had done to protect her digital privacy.

It turned out that the “How?” didn’t matter. Instead it was the exact answer to “When?” that made the difference. The pictures had definitely been stolen by a Rainboom or a family member; no one else could have gotten them off the phone in the time available.

That wasn’t enough, which was why Wallflower was sitting at her desk, in her currently Sunset-less room, scribbling random thoughts about incidents from another universe.

She’d asked Princess Twilight about similar incidents involving the counterparts of the Rainbooms and their families in Equestria. Unfortunately, the princess had shared three such incidents.

Within a single year, an anonymous individual using a three part name erased the status of someone who had recently become a hero and damaged her self-esteem, a pseudonymous school-based source released secrets and gossip that tore a community apart, and an impostor caused the Rainboom’s five counterparts to abandon the sixth member of their group.

The princess described the first as an attempt to teach a lesson via leading by example gone wrong. Like Sunset, pony Rainbow Dash had recently attained hero-status. Unlike Sunset, she was letting it go to her head.

The princess and her friends decided to show her that a hero could be humble by becoming a humble hero (all of them taking turns as the hero in question) but then they let their fame go to their heads, started singing their own praises, made everyone forget about Rainbow, damaged her self-esteem, and drove her to extremes.

A lot of that fit, but the things that didn’t were glaring. The Rainbooms were most emphatically not singing Anon-a-Miss’ praises. There was no lesson, well delivered or otherwise in Anon-a-Miss. Anon-a-Miss was, so very much, not a thing that could lead by example.

The second fit so very well at first blush, but it fell apart after that. “Anonymous source revealing secrets and sowing discord,” sounded like a perfect fit, but none of the details worked out.

The ones behind it, the pony versions of the Canterlot Movie Club, only resorted to gossip when the school paper’s editor demanded juicer fare than the legitimate stories they’d attempted to publish. MyStable didn’t have an editor.

They only used a pseudonym because they weren’t allowed space for three names in the byline. That problem didn’t exist on MyStable. They weren’t impersonating anyone. They weren’t targeting anyone in particular either.

Anon-a-Miss, by contrast, was very clearly all about Sunset Shimmer. It existed as a way to hurt her, and that was nothing like the pony-CMC’s foray into ill advised publishing.

The pony-Rainbooms didn’t blame and abandon one of their own, either.

The third incident seemed the most promising, but it also presented some of the largest problems.

There were plenty of differences. The princess had been quick to point out that, while her friends left her, it was a “We’re very disappointed in you right now,” kind of thing, not a, “We hate you and our friendship is over,” kind of thing. She emphasized that she was the one to make outlandish accusations, she appeared to be irrationally freaking out, and it was easy to see why she’d would do what they thought she’d been doing.

Also, the impostor wasn’t pretending to be her, she didn’t end up the target of abuse from the general population, and so forth.

What made it so promising wasn’t in the details. It was in the motive.

According to Princess Twilight, the impersonation served three purposes. Chrysalis, a love sucking shape shifting insect creature, was mostly likely to be detected by the Princess of Love. By capturing and replacing her, she neutralized that threat to her plans. Replacing said-princess also allowed her to suck love from two of the most powerful ponies in Equestria, which let her turn their own power against them. Finally, it put her in a position to neutralize the one pony most vital to the defense of canterlot.

Sunset was the individual most likely to detect a new magical threat. Anon-a-Miss turned her power (in the form of both her reputation and her tactics) against her. Sunset was absolutely vital when it came to defending CHS from magical problems.

By acting against Sunset the way that it did, Anon-a-Miss accomplished all of Chrysalis’ goals. It also implied that the problem was some new player on the scene.

The glaring problem was that, potential-Chrysalis wouldn’t have access to Sunset’s phone, and actual-Chrysalis never had enough power over the pony Rainbooms to suggest potential-Chrysalis could make one of them steal the photos.

The whole thing was a mess. Means said CMC, motive said unknown person working from the shadows, opportunity said the Rainbooms themselves.

Wallflower dropped her head to her desk, put her arms around it to block out light, and wished the world would leave her alone for a while.

⁂

Nothing scared Sunset as much as the possibility of something bad (self inflicted or otherwise) happening to Wallflower while she was away. There was one thing, though, that came close: seeing Princess Celestia.

It wasn't even that she'd committed treason. Or that she raised an army. Or that the army was of mind controlled innocents, which meant that a cornerstone of the plan basically amounted to saying, "You won't kill a bunch of innocent kids, I will if that's what it takes," meaning it, and leveraging that into keeping the guards, royal or otherwise, out of the fight.

Honestly, that was probably the part that she could justify most easily. Experience had shown that the only way to defeat the Elements of Harmony was to swarm the wielder before they could be brought to bear --why, for example, the Elements were useless in the face of the Changeling invasion-- so finding a way to make the hordes of low powered ponies out of the fight was the most important consideration, and --provided Celestia really wouldn't kill school children-- she'd found a way to do it without a single blow being struck.

Not that she was particularly proud of a plan involving mind control that she made while corrupted by dark magic, but once you got passed the whole "My morality had shut down" thing, it was something that she could explain.

It also wasn't that she'd tried to kill Twilight Sparkle, the Princess who was currently walking beside her.

Having constructed a partial list of things that it wasn't, Sunset finally got around to facing what it was.

Celestia had given Sunset everything she'd ever dreamed of and more, and as soon as Sunset got it, she responded with, "I want more!" Things sort of went downhill from there.

Sunset couldn't even remember if she'd ever thanked Celestia. One would think that she must have --there had been so many times she should have, so surely she said, "Thank you," at least once-- but no memories came to mind.

Sunset wasn't sure if it was her suicidal tendencies, or if she genuinely was that afraid of Celestia's actual response, which she was sure would be measure and merciful, she just knew that a swift execution sounded really nice right now, and the only reason she had to oppose it was that Wallflower still needed her help.

And so she walked on old familiar roads, and entered the Canterlot Castle as a petitioner for the first time.

She and Twilight had already agreed that she'd do the talking, so of course when the time came she froze up.

After what seemed like endless awkward silence, Sunset managed to say, "Princess . . ." and a while later she added, "I . . . I . . ." and at that point she froze up again.

Celestia spoke to herself, which was not an ordinary Celestia thing to do, and the words were probably as crushing as intangible things could ever be:

"I knew this was a mistake."

Sunset considered just letting her body go limp and dropping to the floor in whatever way gravity deemed best.

"Guards," Celestia said, and for a moment Sunset thought execution might be on the table, "clear the room. Raven, court is canceled."

"I'll see to making accommodations for the ponies inconvenienced by this development," Raven Inkwell said.

"Thank you," was how Celestia chose to communicate the message, 'You're dismissed; you should leave.'

Sunset was looking at the floor by now, and was caught completely off guard when she found herself wrapped in a hug. A hug that included white feathered wings.

Celestia said, "I'm sorry."

Sunset said, "What‽"

And suddenly things didn't feel so bad; just confusing.

Author's Note

So, the truly annoying thing is that I actually would have finished in time if my sister hadn't contacted me at the last minute and had me come to her farm in the middle of nowhere to watch her kids.

After it became absolutely clear that there was no chance of me finishing, I just sort of . . . kept writing for an hour in hopes that I'd be able to release something of what I'd been working on.

Wallflower's meeting with Micro Chips has been written for positively ages, and the desperately-in-need-of-trimming bit where she goes over the list of potential mirror Anon-a-Miss incidents has been written for almost as long.

As for the rest, at this point I'm so tired I'm surprised it's in recognizably English words and phrases.

⁂

One could, if they were so inclined, note that Wallflower and Sunset both respond to doubts about their relationship with "Now that I'm emotionally capable of doing things, I'm going to solve [other party]'s problem," which will only amplify the problems they've been noticing.

⁂

If you look at the word count, you can probably guess that the chapter after this was to be the conclusion. Of course, this chapter wasn't supposed to be written in a zombified sleep deprived state, (because I was supposed to have enough time to write this this story twice over)

I'll be overhauling some stuff, (by which I probably mean all the stuff) hopefully before I lose the momentum from coming close to getting the damned thing done.

⁂

In other news, the goat (Vivian) still has three legs, there are still evil roosters that one must protect small children from, the pony (Eliot) and the pig (Lola, but she's been called "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" of late) still don't get along, and my sister's farm is still far from my home.

Chapter 3: Encounters with Greatness and Authority

Wallflower saw Trixie in the hall and waved. She should have known better. Trixie showed no signs of recognition. After wallowing in that for a few moments, Wallflower started to walk away. Starting was basically all that she did. Something --something at the very edge of her peripheral vision-- was wrong.

When she turned to look, she saw Trixie. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Trixie was at her locker, seemed to be checking that she hadn’t forgotten anything, and generally looked quite normal.

Then she closed her locker, turned to walk away, turned back, opened her locker again, and ended up right back where she’d been: apparently checking to make sure that she’d retrieved everything she needed.

She did that three times.

Wallflower’s first thought, naturally, was that she had somehow inadvertently given Trixie some kind of brain damage, just by talking to her with Sunset. While she was weighing her options, such as running away and avoiding all human contact for the rest of her life, Trixie did something she barely noticed. Trixie looked at her.

That didn’t register until Trixie started walking toward her, but even then she wasn’t ready to believe that Trixie remembered her. She’d tried waving. It didn’t work.

“Wallflower,” Trixie said, and Wallflower’s brain stopped, “strange eldritch magic may delay recognition, but the Great and Powerful Trixie never forgets her friends.”

Wallflower had to force herself to breathe. After a few breaths, she even managed to speak, “You . . . you remember me?”

Trixie nodded.

Wallflower just stared.

Trixie said, “While she-- I . . . while I may not remember meeting you in third grade, I remember you telling me we met in--”

Trixie’s sentence was cut off by the force with which Wallflower hugged her, but it was pretty clear how it would have ended anyway, and that wasn’t the point. “You remember me!” Wallflower said. “No one but Sunset ever remembers me.”

Trixie said, “Yes, well, Trixie . . . um . . .” and that was about when Wallflower realized how awkward she was making things for Trixie.

Wallflower released Trixie, took a step back to give the other girl some space, and said, “Sorry, it’s just that . . . even when I get people to notice me, which isn’t all that often, the next time they see me they just . . . don’t . . .”

For about a second and a half, Trixie didn’t react at all. Then she smiled in a weird sort of way --Wallflower was pretty sure it was weird, at any rate-- and said, “Well, Trixie does.”

There were still classes to get to, so they had to part ways, but they agreed to meet after school before they did.

⁂

Wallflower’s day was a blur. That, in itself, was unremarkable. Every day was a blur. This time, though, it was a different kind of blur. Impossible to say exactly how it was different, but the why was obvious enough. This day was the day when she might be remembered.

Once could have been some kind of fluke or accident, but if Trixie actually met her after school to talk and hang out, that had to mean something.

And so, here she was: at the end of a differently blurred day, waiting.

And waiting.

It was too much to hope for. Sunset only cared about Wallflower because Sunset cared about everyone; Sunset only remembered Wallflower because she was a magical pony-girl.

The idea that someone else --anyone else-- would ever--

Wallflower gave a start when something touched her shoulder. She turned to find Trixie looking apologetic.

“Trixie didn’t mean to frighten you,” Trixie said. “She just wanted to get your attention, and you didn’t notice when she said your name.”

Wait, what?

Wallflower was lost in her head to the point that she was the one not noticing someone. That was bizarre beyond words, it--

And then it hit her. Twice isn’t an accident. Trixie remembered her. Someone other than Sunset remembered her. Not just remembered her, was actually spending time with her. Time that could be spent with literally anyone else.

It was almost like seeing Sunset; she felt like she mattered. Like she wasn’t useless or worthless. She had to make sure she got more of this in her life. Which, of course, meant responding to what Trixie had said.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Wallflower said, “it’s um . . .” how exactly did one explain such things? “I was just zoned out.”

Trixie nodded, looked relieved, and then . . . then she didn’t seem to know what to do any more than Wallflower. That could be a problem.

“So . . .” Wallflower said slowly, “I don’t actually have much experience hanging out with people.”

“Trixie,” Trixie said as though she were going to make a grand pronouncement, “doesn’t either,” she finished as though she were telling someone she too had lost a homework assignment.

“But . . . but you have friends,” Wallflower said. “The two girls from your--”

“Has Sunset ever told you what Trixie did to her and the Rainbooms during the Battle of the Bands?” Trixie asked.

Sunset hadn’t, so Wallflower shook her head. It was obvious that whatever it was, wasn’t good.

“After being unfairly denied our spot in the finals,” Trixie said, “we . . .” And then Trixie stopped.

“You, um, don’t have to tell me,” Wallflower offered.

“You should know,” Trixie said. “You should know who you’ve become friends with.” Trixie took a deep breath. “We trapped the Rainbooms under the stage . . . by opening the stage’s trap door.” Trixie closed her eyes, inhaled, then opened her eyes as she said, “The drop could have killed them.”

That sent a flurry of emotions through Wallflower. Rage and horror were included, but each only lasted a moment. The end result was actually that Wallflower wanted to help Trixie.

“You were under the Siren’s influence,” she said.

“That’s what they tell me,” Trixie said. “Lavender Lace and Fuschia Blush don’t blame Trixie for getting them to do that, but they can’t look at her without remembering the time they could have killed seven people.”

“That’s terrible,” Wallflower said put a hand on Trixie’s shoulder in the way she was pretty sure people did that when they wanted to comfort someone.

Trixie smiled. “The Great and Powerful Trixie isn’t depressed by such things!” she said in a way that almost sounded like she believed it.

A moment of silence passed between them.

“So . . .” Wallflower said. She didn’t really have anything beyond that to say, and really hoped that Trixie would take over.

“What do you do in your free time?” Trixie asked.

“I, um,” Wallflower said, “I garden.” She had expected some sort of statement about how gardening was beneath those who are great and powerful. Instead, Trixie seemed to be interested. “I’m the founder and sole member of the school’s gardening club. So everything about the school garden is basically my own creation.”

“The school has a garden?” Trixie asked.

Wallflower nodded.

“Perhaps you could show it to me,” Trixie said.

Wallflower very much wanted to do that, but something felt off. It took a few seconds for her pin it down. When she did, she asked, “Did you just say ‘me’?”

“I’ll have you know that the Great and Powerful Trixie says, ‘Me,’ all the time,” Trixie said. “My verbal repitaur, words such as ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘mine’, and ‘myself’.”

“Other than right now, you’ve used them like twice since Sunset and I met you,” Wallflower said.

“Well . . .” Trixie said, “I’ve sort of . . . um . . .” Trixie took an interest, both visual and tactile, in the hem of her shirt.

And then it was like . . . well, not magic --since that involved Rainbows, lengthy transformations, and ears with mobile pinnae-- but some sort of non-ordinary thing that involved instantaneous transmogrification, because awkward hem-interested Trixie was gone and confident smirking Trixie stood in her place.

Of course, confident Trixie was in the same position as awkward Trixie, so she needed to raise her gaze in order to smirk at Wallflower instead of the random spot on the floor she was smirking at when she appeared.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie most certainly does not have nervous tics,” Trixie said, “and she has never faced a situation with anything less than the utmost adroit aplomb--”

It wasn’t hard to see where this was going, so Wallflower said, “-but if she did . . .”

“--speaking exclusively in third person might number among her nervous tics,” Trixie said.

There was an obvious conclusion one could draw from this information, Wallflower stated it in the form of a question, “So, you’ve been nervous this whole time?”

“You have to admit, things haven’t gone the most smoothly,” Trixie said. “Sunset Shimmer was angry with me,” Trixie raised a finger, “immediately after Sunset Shimmer was apologetic to me,” another finger, “then I need to admit that I’d been a jerk too,” a third finger went up, “that left things generally weird,” finger four, “I almost didn’t remember you this morning,” the fingers were joined by a thumb, “I told you about that time I did something that could have killed your girlfriend,” she raised the first finger on her other hand, “and . . . I’ve completely forgotten why I was counting these,” she raised another finger on the second hand, then let her hands return to normal.

“Ok,” Wallflower said, “I can see why you haven’t been completely at ease. Would you like to be non-nervous at the school garden?”

“I would love to.”

⁂

Sunset left Celestia’s office and the only thing on her mind was, That could have been significantly more terrible.

In fact, it wasn’t terrible at all. Given that her trips to the roof and roof-preempting meetings with Wallflower resulted in her arriving to classes late, occasionally leaving them early, and sometimes missing them entirely, she’d expected a punishment-oriented discussion. Instead Celestia was focused on how she could help Sunset.

The bulk of the meeting had been regarding possible accommodations to make it easier for Sunset to attend school in a non-Hellish way.

Celestia even assured her that Luna felt the same way. In a very real way, the two of them were the school administration. They were the powers that be, unfortunately they were the wrong powers that be.

She needed law enforcement, or hackers, or very specific social media executives. She got educators.

Once, though, that would have meant the world to her. Celestia cared about her. Cared about her emotional health and general well being, and cared enough to overlook infractions. Technically, Sunset knew, there were probably policies and procedures in place for at risk students, and they were probably following those, but it felt like they cared.

They were as close as this world came to the mare who raised her and the rebel princess who bounced back from self inflicted dark magic corruption and a thousand years of solitary confinement. The approval of people like that once mattered to Sunset, each for very different reasons, and she’d felt . . . something.

The fact that Celestia had expanded her, “My door is always open,” thing to include, “Here’s my personal number,” in Sunset’s case --which definitely wasn’t a matter of school policy-- would have meant so much, in fact, that Sunset might have finally taken Celestia up on the offer.

Right now, though, it didn’t mean anything, and she didn’t feel anything.

She wasn’t even annoyed by the delay, not really. Provided, of course, that Wallflower’s planned meeting with Trixie hadn’t gone badly. Well, actually going badly wouldn’t be a problem. The danger was if it hadn’t gone at all.

A quick check of her messages showed that it had gone well and she should head to the garden. Probably one of their better days on the strength of that alone, all things considered.

Author's Note

I blame any and all problems with this chapter on my sister's children. I blame any problems with this author's note on the toddler who has taken an inordinate interest in my right boob. Grabbing, pushing, putting half her weight on it and bouncing. She's adorable, but that doesn't mean it's easy to work within a five mile radius of her.

⁂

In a longer work I probably would have shown Wallflower telling Sunset about Trixie over lunch. I definitely wasn't planning on this chapter having zero Wallflower-Sunset moments. (If memory serves, I also wasn't planning for it to be limited to a single day; I was thinking of Chapter 1 as the only one-day chapter.)

⁂

Canonical Trixie uses first person pronouns constantly. Trixie in my head uses them basically never. The way I'm reconciling those Trixies is twofold.

The first part is what Trixie says here. In the previous author's note I mentioned that I got that idea from BittyBug's story It takes a while.

The second part is why it's something she does when she's nervous, confused, surprised, or just plain awkward. It's more comfortable for her. She falls back on it because it's her default state. All of the "I"s and "me"s canon Trixie uses are a result of her not wanting to be laughed at.

(Which means that when she trusts Wallflower and Sunset enough to be herself without a filter, she'll go back third person.)