Upon an uncharted airborne island at the edge of orbit sat Sunset Shimmer, a mug upon her hand with whirling gears and gizmos and thick glowing green liquid in it. Even as she held it like a mug, she knew that it was not a mug. It was the heart core of the Gulp Leviathan, an artifact to target whichever city it was on.
Upon the horizon lay the Floating City of Canterlot, helpless under the gaping maw of a celestial gulp fish. As the leviathan closed its jaws and ate the city whole, it dived into the ground like it was water and jumped from below the Floating City of Trottingham, swallowing it before it could maneuver.
Sunset Shimmer waved the mug around. “I did that.”
“It was an accident,” a nondescript young woman by her side said.
“Still, it’s my fault.”
The young woman gazed upon the horizon, watching the feeding Gulp Leviathan with morbid fascination.
Sunset turned her head to her, and their gazes met. She felt a thump on her chest as her glistening eyes bored into her and planted a message that she understood too well: the world is ending.
The young woman leaned into her, and she obliged and locked their lips together. Their hands gripped with one another and their tongues danced inside one another’s. To Sunset it felt weird, but who cares for nothing more will she see after the apocalypse has done its course?
Sunset woke up with butterflies on her stomach. Her alarm hadn’t gone off and the sun was yet to rise. She quickly set aside her blanket and thought, What a strange dream.
She felt that she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep again, and so she got up and took a bath. She made breakfast too, a leftover pizza thrown inside the microwave and a cup of cheap tea.
She ate her pizza with one hand and idly held the cup with another, enjoying the warmth it brought upon her cold fingers.
Her mind wandered to the woman in her dream. She couldn’t make out what she looked like, but there was a lingering sense of lust as her mind refused to think about anything else. She knew in her mind that the woman was no more than a creation of her own brain, but her heart fluttered as she thought about her again and again.
Breakfast done and the sun not yet over the horizon, Sunset decided that it was better for her to do the dishes then than after school. The plate for the pizza went quickly enough to the rack to dry, but her hand lingered by her cup.
It was white, plain, and simple. She bought it for quite a fortune. It reminded her of the cup she had always used in her afternoon tea sessions with Princess Celestia. It was glaringly simplistic among the princess’ other ornate collections, and Sunset Shimmer loved it for its oddity.
And yet the cup was exquisitely crafted, made of porcelain, walls no thicker than three millimeters, and the handle thin and curved perfectly to be held either fancily with a raised pinkie finger or casually with the middle finger holding it upright from below the ring. Like the woman’s fingers, Sunset thought. And her arms, she added as she curled her fingers around the cup and slipped her forefinger inside the ring.
She remembered now, how the woman’s arms felt like between her fingers and how gently yet bold the woman gripped her back. Sunset idly toyed with the cup longer until the sun rose and blathered her room with her radiance, working her mind around how ridiculous it was for her to fall madly in love with a figure from her dream that she couldn’t even remember the appearance of.
It was a month after the Friendship Games. Princess Twilight’s doppelganger had finally opened up enough to join a sleepover with the rest of the gang, and was currently being measured by Rarity for “a surprise”.
The night had been young, but now it started to feel its age. One by one the girls succumbed to the realm of dreams, never to be seen again until the light of the sun brought them back to reality.
But not Sunset Shimmer, for her mind lingered on nothing in particular. She lay restless on the couch of Carousel Boutique, counting sheep and lamb and the strands of cotton candy. Eventually, she rose, scanning the room for anything to do to get her mind off of any phantom worries that were bothering her.
Her eyes fell upon the empty mugs and plates, formerly filled with hot chocolate and random snacks. She gathered them up, avoiding her friends’ bodies and expertly maneuvering between sprawled limbs and sleeping bags. She eventually had all the dirty dishes by her arms, four stacks of plates of different shapes and sizes lining each segment of her upper limb while her fingers clasped on the handles of seven mugs.
She walked in perfect balance to the kitchen and put the dishes down on the sink. She rolled up her pajamas and let cold water flow down the tap, executing delicious leftover bits from the plates and dissolving any remaining liquid happiness from the mugs.
The mugs came rolling in quickly down the list, slapped with soap and scrubbed with a sponge and cleansed of evil miasma, reborn again as a clean, drippy mug. Seven identical mugs soon hang above the rack, staring thankfully at their savior, Sunset Shimmer.
Sunset giggled as she let the water run again, this time scrubbing the plates and half-bowls from the corruption of cholesterol and sugar. She toyed a bit with the plates, making heroic monologues in her mind should she ever needed to save the world from such things.
Fear not, o plate of Dash! You may not remember who I am now, but I will banish those clinging cheese butter away! You will soon remember who your friends really are!
Fight back, bowl of Rarity! Look at me, remember who you really are! Don’t let the molten ice cream take your generosity away!
Sunset giggled a little more as she thought of different villains from this world’s myths and legends. Maybe the mastermind for this all was the witch with a gingerbread house? Or maybe it was some gluttonous internet dude that somehow found out how to use food magic, and all he needed was a friend who understands?
Her mind skidded to a halt as her fingers brushed against a flat-white porcelain plate. It was shaped rounded-rectangle with the edges curved upward, like fingers trying to grasp a really big ball. Sunset picked it up and wiped the smudges of ketchup from it, staring at her reflection on the wet surface.
She stared at it for a few moments before realizing that Twilight was the one eating fries with ketchup. She gently put her palm on it, feeling the smooth, cold texture on her skin.
She remembered again the woman from her dreams, how so long ago she fell in love with an imaginary figure. She remembered how the woman’s cheek felt under her palm, smooth and cold yet wet with tears. She remembered the curves on her chin reversed upon the plate and her thin earlobe reminiscent of the curved edges. She put the plate on her cheek and remembered the moment she shared after they kissed, silently leaning on each other’s heads as they watched the apocalypse unfold upon each other’s shoulders.
She held the plate back in front of her like a mirror. In it was her face, tired and restless. A second later, Twilight’s face was there.
“You’re still up.”
Sunset spun and faced Twilight. “You as well.”
Twilight scrubbed her glasses-less eyes, droopy with bags underneath. “I can’t sleep.”
Sunset put the plate on the drying rack. “Neither can I.”
Twilight shuffled about.
Without much thought, Sunset blurted, “Want to play chess?”
“Sure,” she answered quickly.
Calling it a house would make one look boastful instead of humble. Even from the outside, it described a mansion very well. The inside was a redundant reminder of it, complete with a basement full of unimaginable science-fiction stuff that randomly sparked electrical discharges and somehow did not disrupt nearby electronics.
That was because Twilight had made everything inside the building EMP-proof. She had told Sunset that she wouldn’t want her entire equipment rendered useless for decades just because the sun decided to fart at the wrong time at the wrong angle.
Still, Twilight’s house provided a familiar atmosphere for Sunset. The ambient smell reminded her of the Canterlot Archives, while the aesthetic reminded her of her times with Princess Celestia. Luckily there weren't any maids around, otherwise, it would be even harder for her to convince Twilight’s parents that doing the dishes was a hobby of hers.
They had had a delicious feast before, resulting in quite a number of dirty dishes. It was supposed to be Twilight’s turn to do it, but Sunset insisted that she did instead because she was the guest. Not very convincing, but eventually she won.
Bowls and pans and kettles go by her professional dishwashing hands like enemies down the face of a heavy machine gun. Scrubbing went all over the nooks and crannies like angry mobs mercilessly raiding a convenience store. Her hands danced about the spoons and glasses and knives like a Blademaster would an army of low-level goons.
Her orchestra stopped by a flat white round plate. Boringly undecorated, its perfectly flat surface was only interrupted at the edges on an obtuse angle. She saw her face in it and, tilting it slightly, she saw Twilight’s face.
“What is it with you and seeing people through reflections?” Twilight asked jokingly.
“Reflections are a curious thing, Twilight.”
“Oh, really?”
“You know when you take a selfie and the result is flipped and you go, ‘Why do I look weird?’ Even if you know that that’s how people see you every day? It’s because you’re used to you in the mirror. It’s the only way you can see yourself unless you’re fancy enough to use a ninety-degree mirror that doesn't flip your face.” Sunset tilted the plate to take a better look at Twilight. “When you see someone else through their reflection, you see what they look like to themselves. What they dream about in the mirror when they prepare themselves in the morning to greet others.”
Twilight laughed. “You’re looking too deep into this.”
Sunset shrugged. “I’m looking deep enough to see that you look beautiful to yourself.”
From her reflection on the plate, Sunset could see Twilight’s mouth opening and closing, unable to push any words out of her tongue.
Sunset turned around and saw again the Twilight that she saw every day, the one that Twilight scarcely saw herself. A vague face coalesced inside her thought, and suddenly Sunset remembered the face she once saw in her dream, a face she fell madly in love with and had helplessly tried to remember for so long. “And you’re beautiful to me as well.”
Author's Note
Blame the dish soap brand.
