Just An Average Trip to Equestria

Sunset walked slowly to the other end of the hall, where the other alicorns were standing. Cadence and her daughter Flurry Heart stood to the far left, next to Luna and Celestia. Shining Armour and Twilight were to Celestia's right. Music played. Sunset smiled at the ponies stood on either side of her. When she was in front of Celestia, she stopped and lowered her head a little. Celestia used her magic to guide a beautiful crown adorned with Sunset's cutie mark in jewels to her head. Sunset immediately felt its magic.

All of the alicorns except Sunset turned around and guided her out of the hall to the balcony. Thousands of ponies stood below, looking up at them. At me, thought Sunset.
"Fillies and gentlecolts," said Celestia, using magic to make her voice loud enough for everypony to hear, "today is a special day. Today, we have crowned a new princess. This is no ordinary princess, however. Sunset Shimmer is now the Princess of Independence, and the first to gain her alicorn magic outside of Equestria!" The crowds cheered. Celestia stopped using the spell on her voice and whispered to Sunset, "My independent little student. You have grown up so quickly." Celestia guided her forward.
"Hello, everypony," Sunset began, unsure of what to say. She thought of an idea and grasped at it. "It is an honour to be here, telling all of you about my magic and becoming a princess.

"I may be a princess now, but I am in no way comfortable with this." The crowd laughed. "Being independent doesn't mean that you do everything alone and refusing the help of others. It's about doing what you can on your own, and turning to others when you are struggling." She stopped smiling. "I wasn't a nice pony. I said and did things that I should not have done, and I lost friends over it. Then, when I needed help, I couldn't find anypony willing to help me. It was my fellow princess, Twilight Sparkle, who showed me how to live rather than survive.

"I have been living in another universe for a while now. It has its differences, like the creatures that inhabit these worlds, and its similarities, like how friendship makes all the difference in both of these places. Independence is knowing that you have friends to fall back on, and that they will always be there for you. I would like to credit this new journey to some friends, the Sirens. They had been treated badly, and turned to dark magic to fight their attackers. I treated them the same. They helped me overcome my greatest enemy - myself - and that is how I earned my wings. I helped them get back to Equestria, and they helped me overcome my fear of returning. I would not be here if they had not taught me that your greatest enemy is not turning to anypony when you need to." She smiled again as she said this. That felt so good.
The crowds of ponies cheered for their new princess. The alicorns made their way back into the hall, went back into the room behind the room full of ponies and closed the door, cutting off the cacophony.

Celestia hugged Sunset.
"Oh, Sunset Shimmer, I have missed you so much!" she cried.
"I've missed you too, Princess Celestia," was all Sunset could say.
"Good speech," said Twilight and Shining Armour, Cadence and Flurry Heart came over.
"That went a lot better than I thought it would," she replied. "I've tried very hard to avoid crown since the whole demon event, but I couldn't outrun them forever."
"Sunset!" said little Flurry Heart, flying around the new princess's head.
"Now now, Flurry Heart, don't get too excited," Cadence told the filly. She turned to Sunset and her voice dropped to a whisper. "She's heard a lot about you from her Auntie Twilight. They get on really well. Don't tell Flurry, but in three weeks' time we'll be going on holiday."
"I'm supposed to be on "holiday," but it's not very holidayish. I didn't realise that I would become Equestria's latest alicorn."

Later that day, Sunset and Twilight returned to Ponyville. There were ponies everywhere, congratulating Sunset on becoming a princess. She smiled and said thank you very much and sighed in relief when the doors to the Castle of Friendship closed.
"Whew, that was a day," she sighed.
"I know," came Twilight's reply as they walked into the hall. It was dark.
"Hey, who turned out the lights?" Sunset asked. She saw ponies trying to hide in the gloom. "Oh no, you ponies are throwing me a surprise party. I can see you," she told them, using her alicorn magic to light up the room.
"SURPRISE!!!" yelled everypony except Sunset.
"Not much of a surprise if you yell, "surprise" after I say that I've seen you!"
"Of COURSE it is!" shouted Pinkie Pie, bouncing over, "because you didn't know that there actually was a surprise party UNTIL we confirmed that there was by yelling, "SURPRISE." We could have been pretending to be statues. Well, we had to be as silent and still as statues to make sure you didn't guess that we were throwing a surprise party, so maybe we were pretending to be statues, but it didn't work because some smart alicorn called Princess Sunset Shimmer managed to guess because some ponies were not hiding well enough but that doesn't matter because you were always going to know that there was a party when we told you..."
"Er, Pinkie, take a breath."
"Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuh!" Pinkie gasped as she inhaled.
"Oh my, they even have a cake with my cutie mark on." Sunset didn't want everypony to make a huge fuss, but could not help grinning despite herself.

The party was a huge success and went on until midnight, when Sunset and Twilight started kicking ponies out so that they could get a good night's sleep. They had events planned, and only twelve days until Sunset had to return to Earth.