What We Variously Call Grace
Wallflower Blush
There are places in my mind that are comfortably dark. Not in an unpleasant way strictly speaking, I keep it dark there by choice.
Just dark.
My therapist, Bright Eyes, told me once that all the places in our mind are like the rooms of a large house, but that the house only has so much power. Turn on the lights in one room and it’s fine. Turn them on in two dozen, and they’ll all start to dim. Turn on a hundred lights in a single room, though… and the rest of the house will go pitch black.
So, he said, I should be careful what rooms I spend energy to light up. That if a room is better left with the lights off, then I should leave them comfortably dark.
Personally, I think the dark rooms in my house have motion sensors rather than light switches.
More importantly, some people have more rooms like that than others. I remember saying, and to my surprise, he agreed.
So I asked him: what happens when those are the only rooms in the house at all?
“Does Sunset live in those rooms?”
My jaw tightens at the remark, but I bite down on the words that were crawling up my throat. Bright Eyes wasn’t accusing Sunset of anything. To even imagine that she would have a place anywhere in those rooms is laughable.
Sunset is perfect. She’s kind, gentle, and patient, even with someone like me, who probably will never deserve the kind of overflowing affection she shows. Someone who’s terrified she’ll never be able to return that affection enough to make it worthwhile.
That’s not to say Sunset doesn’t make mistakes, but more to say that even when she messes up, she somehow manages to do it perfectly.
“Sunset… she has her own rooms,” I say after a moment.
“Tell me about them.” Bright Eyes smiles as he leans back in his chair.
He’s probably one of the very few people other than Sunset that I’m alright being in a room alone with. There’s something oddly distant about him. Something not-quite-there-ish, if that makes any sense. And if I had to describe his looks in one word, I’d say: unremarkable.
Maybe that’s why I’m comfortable with him. He’s actually a lot like me, in that sense.
Drab reddish-brown hair hangs over a pair of cats-eye glasses that rest in front of brown eyes that are a little tired no matter the time of day or season. He’s about Sunset’s height, but his voice is mellow and he always dresses about a century behind fashion, and yet somehow it kind of works.
“They’re along the edges of the house,” I start, fiddling with a small, antique silver spoon that Bright Eyes always has in his office. I picked it up one day to fidget with it, and since then he always has it out. “They have bay windows, and… no matter what side of the house they’re on, the sun is always streaming in.”
“So in other words-” Bright Eyes smiles around his words as he gesticulates with a pen- “it takes no energy from you to light up those rooms.”
I open my mouth to reply but nothing comes out.
“I… uhm, I guess so.” I hadn’t really meant it like that, I was just thinking of the window at the apartment. The one with all the flowers.
Going out. Doing things. Seeing people. They all sap me of what very little energy I manage to wake up with on any given day. Even on good days, I tire out easily if I’m forced to involve other people. If I had much choice I’d probably just live in the woods, dress like a goblin, and hiss at anyone who gets near me before scuttling back to my squalid lair.
“That can be risky though,” Bright Eyes says calmly. “Any spillover?”
Spillover. That’s what he calls it when light from one room spills into another. If you have two rooms side by side and turn on the light in one, it will shed at least of that light a little into the adjacent room.
Memories tie to other memories.
Even bright rooms can tie to dark ones.
“Sometimes,” I admit quietly. “Sunset goes out to get drinks with her friends once in a while, and she never gets drunk, but…”
“Is it the smell?”
I look up at him, blinking in surprise, but Bright Eyes just smiles.
“Generally speaking,” he says wanly. “Our sense of smell is the one most closely tied to memory.”
“Oh.” I card my fingers through my hair, and nod after a moment.
It is the smell. It’s not strong, but it’s definitely there. The smell of smoke and alcohol. The smell of a bar. The smell of ‘bad things’. Sunset has a few bad habits, or vices, I guess is the better word. Nothing major and nothing excessive, but they’re still there.
Smoking.
Drinking.
All things that…
I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and step out of the room before the lights come on. I already know what’s in that set of rooms. I spent most of my life sitting in them with every single light in the house illuminating those grime-encrusted walls. I know every inch of them, every piece of muck and tarnish.
“Have you asked her to stop?”
“No!” I snap my eyes open and stare at him. “That’s—! That’s completely unfair!”
He cocks his head curiously. It’s a habit of his, and an odd one. With his mop of hair, crooked nose, and glasses, the motion always gave me the impression of some kind of enormous cat or corvid.
After a moment, though, Bright Eyes nods. “Okay, may I ask why that is?”
“Why it’s… unfair?” I ask softly, and he nods again. “Well it’s… it just is! I’m living in her apartment! She’s basically taking care of me right now!”
My stomach twists as I think about the thing I really don’t like thinking about, which is how much of a drain I am on Sunset. How much of a burden I am.
“I… I only work one day a week at Green Arrangements, I don’t—” I barely make any money. Sunset has to pay for almost everything. “I can’t just tell her to stop doing things she enjoys on top of that.”
Even if they make my stomach twist every time she comes home after having gone out bar-hopping with Rainbow Dash or clubbing with Pinkie Pie. Even though I know she isn’t anything like he is.
Bright Eyes leans back in his chair, hums thoughtfully, then makes a few marks on the notepad in front of him, then smiles.
“Alright, well, we’re almost out of time for the week, but I’ll ask you to do something between now and our next appointment.” He sets his pen down and leans forward, weaving his fingers together as he rests his hands on his desk.
He always does this. It’s a little like getting homework, but it’s usually a lot simpler. Or it seems that way. Before I thought he might have just been messing with me, but now I realise that what he asks me to do is usually something that helps him get a better grasp of where I am in my head.
“Think about yourself,” he says. “Not selfishly, but structurally. Think about your house. There’s damage, mold, and quite a few things in need of repair.”
I chuckle weakly and nod. That’s just the tiniest bit of an understatement. Sunset has her own issues, but her house is in pretty good order. My house doesn’t have issues, it has federal code violations that can’t even be safely addressed until I can track down an old priest and a young priest.
“Think about how to repair it,” Bright Eyes continues. “And think about how you might do that, and we’ll talk about it next week.”
I nod and stand up from the easy chair in Bright Eyes’ small office, grab my coat and scarf from the narrow rack by his door, and pull them on as he steps out from behind his desk to see me out.
The building that Bright Eyes’ office is situated in is on the edge of the Commons near downtown, about a thirty-minute walk from Sunset’s apartment. She’s at work right now at Canterlot University.
She puts in a lot of extra hours as a paid tutor through the work-study program the University offers. Sunset’s intellect is more than just surface level, she knows how to explain things so that even someone like me can understand. It makes her a great tutor, but that also means she’s in high demand, so there are nights she isn’t able to drag herself home until close to ten at night.
I’m so proud of her.
So proud. And so guilty.
I know why she does it. I know that Sunset puts in more hours than she normally would because otherwise our budget would be tough to manage. She always puts a little in savings, and I try to contribute what I can, but I just…
I can’t push myself the way she does. She’s like pure iron, fire just makes her stronger.
Put me in that fire and all I’d do is burn.
“Take care of yourself, Miss Blush,” Bright Eyes says, holding out a small appointment card. I take it even though our appointments are always on the same day and time. Sometimes I still manage to lose track of things. “Say hello to Sunset for me, will you?”
“I will,” I say with a smile.
I settle my scarf around my shoulders and pull it comfortably taut until the majority of my face is buried in it before stepping outside. In the heart of spring, Canterlot really does get beautiful, even the places that are mostly glass, steel, asphalt, and concrete. I take a deep breath and smile beneath the folds of fabric.
This isn’t actually my scarf. It’s Sunset’s scarf, but I wear it when it’s cold because it smells like her. It always made me feel a little better and, thinking back to Eyes’ remarks on smell and memory, I guess that makes sense.
I move down the stone steps and onto the sidewalk, and the bustle of Canterlot fills my ears. It’s early evening and the sun hasn’t quite started to set properly, but the sky has begun to fade in the slightest manner towards orange.
Sunset.
A tiny well of laughter bubbles up from my chest. My Sunset won’t be getting home until well after dark, like most days that she works. I start to make my way into the Commons proper as I button up my coat. The sun is shining but the wind is still chilly. It’s such a cold city, Canterlot.
I used to hate the cold. When I lived with my parents, the icy chill felt bitter and unpleasant. It felt like the city was constantly doing it’s utmost to remind me that I was alone.
Now, though, I’m not so sure.
The cold is so much more bearable when I’m next to Sunset, and actually, I think the contrast is what makes lying next to her in bed, and curling up in her arms during movie nights at home, that much nicer.
I reach the street that I would normally turn down to return to Sunset’s— no, to our— apartment, but I keep walking. There’s nothing waiting for me there except an empty home, and I don’t really want to sit alone for hours on end while I wait like a lump for Sunset to come home.
This won’t be the first time I’ve wandered the streets of the Ponyville Commons, and I’m certain it won’t be the last. It’s been a long time since I’ve just walked around in the middle of the night, and I think that’s for the best, but I still like to wander now and then. I feel better walking in the daytime now at least, which I take as a good change.
It’s a step in the right direction, at least.
It’s times like this that I’m thankful that no one seems to notice me too clearly. I can walk through a crowd, and no one will even see me. They certainly won’t remember me. That’s a comfort after a certain fashion, although I’m not sure I can describe why that is.
Only that it is.
My feet carry me around the Commons for the better part of three hours. I stop here and there to watch people pass, but never for long.
A few minutes are spent at a small park where there’s a little extra greenery to appreciate, and a little while longer at Cuppa’s, the local cafe, which I spend people-watching.
Once upon a time, this was all I ever did, especially when I was still going to CHS. Most especially when I was still holding on to the Memory Stone. I was always sitting and watching and waiting, holding on to that magic rock and convinced that all I needed was one more chance. One more first impression. One more forgotten mistake.
Just… just one more and I could finally… finally…
I could finally matter.
I chuckle softly into the scarf at that memory. It wasn’t even all that long ago but it feels like a whole other life. A life where I was still alone. Still… stuck.
In a way, I still am a little stuck. It’s why I always end up walking down this street at least once,
It’s a cramped and narrow street, part of Old Town that skirts the northern edge of the East End about ten blocks from my little single-room apartment I gave up a while ago when I decided to live with Sunset for certain. I pass the familiar alley that always stinks of trash no matter the time of year or how recently the trash was actually collected. The smell would always drift up to a certain and familiar window a floor and a half up, which is why that window was almost never opened.
“I’m telling you, Ivy, you’re better off now!”
The door to the small, squat brick home I’d paused briefly in front of slams open and the shouting voices get clearer and sharper.
“OUT!” A familiar voice snarls. “Out! Get OUT!”
An older woman in a long, wine-coloured coat with a tumbling mane of blue hair shot through with shocks of silver sweeps out of the home and down the stairs, but her head is cranked around so she can continue yelling at the home’s occupant.
“Fine! But you’re not getting rid of me that easily!” She reaches the bottom of the steps and turns fully as the person she’s been shouting at steps out of the dim home and into the fading evening light.
“Get. Out!”
She’s not a tall woman, nor particularly stout. She small and willowy, such that even I managed to grow an inch or so over her. Her hair hangs in ragged, coiled ringlets around a face that’s lined with stress and misery, and her oakmoss eyes are puffy and red and narrowed with rage.
“Consider yourself uninvited!” She snaps before turning on her heel, storming back inside the house, and slamming the door closed.
I’ve never seen her like that, and an ugly snarl of bitterness clenches in my chest.
“Pff… as if I’d go to that ba— Oh!”
The woman with silver-blue hair stumbles back from me, and I realise I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs and had been staring up at the exchange.
Rosary Wise winces when she sees me, and lets out a weak, sheepish chuckle as she clears the last step and moves around me.
“Oh, wow, I am so sorry you had to see that,” Rosary says with a dry, ragged laugh. “How embarrassing.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay, Au—...”
I choke back my words. I was about to say ‘Aunt Rosary’, but that would just be confusing. She’s not my aunt, and she never was, actually. She’s my mother’s closest friend, and my father absolutely loathes her because she’s a woman who doesn’t ‘know how to act properly’ which basically just means she never sucked up to him.
Growing up, some of my only good memories were of ‘Aunt’ Rosary. She’s weird in a lot of fun ways. She’d tell me stories about going to Catholic school, and stories about getting kicked out of Catholic school. The funniest one was about how she snuck back in to Catholic school to knock boots with the Head Girl three weeks later.
Aunt Rosary has some pretty hilarious, and awful, stories.
When I knew her she was some odd combination of pagan, wicca, and anarchist, or something like that. Or maybe she was just a nice person who cared about people, but my father always just called her a crazy old witch.
She might’ve been the last good influence my mom had in her life, but I guess it wasn’t enough.
“You okay, kid?” Rosary asks with a wry smile. It’s lopsided, and her lips always pull the left when she does it. “Guess that was kind of a slap, huh?”
She jerks her thumb back towards the house.
“O-Oh, no, it’s okay,” I say, shaking my head. “I just… are uhm, are you okay?”
Rosary frowns. If there was one person I actually regret erasing myself from the memories of, it's Rosary Wise, but at the time I’d felt like everything would just be easier if the whole world forgot I existed. If I just had a clean, empty slate, then no one could pull me back to the place I got away from.
Now I know better, but it’s too late.
“Eh, I’m fine,” Rosary shrugs and chuckles as she turns and nods. “You goin’ my way?”
“Uhm, I guess so.” I fall into step beside her as she starts walking down along the street, occasionally skipping and kicking a pebble into a storm grate.
I watch her as she walks. There’s something almost otherworldly about Rosary. If someone had come to me and told me that Rosary Wise was actually a magical being from another dimension I would have believed it on the spot. I think it might have been her influence that made me more willing to believe in the Memory Stone’s powers.
Much good that did me.
There’s just something very fae about her. Something inexplicable and good.
Which is why I’m wondering why it is that she got thrown out. She never did stay for long, but momma was always polite about asking her to leave, either because my father was about to get home, or because he was waking up. Either way, it was never a good idea for anyone involved for Rosary and my father to be in any kind of proximity.
“I uhm… I know it’s none of my business, but…” I trail off, trying to decide how to phrase it, but as usual, Rosary beats me to the punch with a smirk.
“Don’t blame ya, kid,” Rosary says, chuckling. “I’d be curious, too. But then, I’m curious about everything.”
Her smile fades to a more solemn expression. “Look, long story short, me’n Ivy, the lady ya saw back there, we used to be real close, but she married the wrong type’a guy and he treated her… we’ll call it ‘bad’.”
That was an understatement. My father is a violent, misogynistic monster. Momma wasn’t much better, honestly. She never laid a hand on me but she also never said a word about his actions except to defend him. She just ignored what was happening when it was happening, and pretended she couldn’t see the results. Her best trick was just acting like nothing happened at all and going about her day.
I hated it then, and I hate it now
Rosary shakes her head and sighs.
“Bad… yeah,” Rosary repeats quietly. “Real bad… the guy drank like a fish, had a temper like a tropical storm, and dumb as a sack of rocks, to boot. I never understood what Ivy saw in that bastard.”
“Mm…” I don’t know what to say.
‘I know?’ That’s stupid. Obviously I know, but how could I say that? So instead I just give a quiet grunt of agreement and nod.
“Anyway, the bastard finally found the bottom of that damn bottle he was always losing himself in—” I almost choke on my own tongue— “and Ivy is finally free, and what does she do? She organises a funeral and invites people to ‘pay their respects’! HA! That man didn’t earn an ounce of respect in his entire life!”
Rosary is ranting while my whole world is narrowing to a constricted band of silent, gray fog.
Dead.
He’s dead.
“—and she wanted me to go! I couldn’t give a damn about him when he was alive, why should I pay his miserable carcass any respect now that he's finally rotting in He— Kid?” Rosary turns and I realise I’ve stopped moving. I’m just staring straight forward and shaking.
My father is—
He’s dead.
“Hey, kiddo, you okay?”
Canterlot rocks around me with the wild roil of a silent earthquake, and the blue sky above spirals as the gray band of my vision tightens. Constricts.
And all the lights go out in the House.
What We Variously Call Grace
Sunset Shimmer
If someone yesterday had asked me what it felt like to have my entire world crash down on my head, I would have cited the moment I was struck by the Elements of Harmony.
I never told anyone what it was like but suffice to say the phrase is apt.
Today that moment may as well be erased. After today I’ll say that hearing that Wallflower Blush is in the Canterlot General Hospital Emergency Room is what it feels like for me. Hearing that she’s unresponsive though?
That’s what my whole world dying feels like.
The automatic doors to the Emergency Department at Canterlot General hiss open and I step through them in a daze. I feel like I should be doing something more right now but I don’t know what.
Should I scream and cry? Shout her name to the heavens and demand I be taken to her bedside?
That won’t do any good. If anything, I’d just get in the way.
So instead I just stumble up to the front admission desk and stare dumbly at the confused-looking nurse on the other side.
“Can I help you?” She asks cautiously.
“Uh… I’m…” I swallow thickly and tangle my fingers through my hair, taking a firm grip as I try to get my shaking limbs under control. “Sorry, sorry, I’m… my name is Sunset Shimmer? I’m uhm, Wallflower Blush’s emergency contact?”
The nurse nods and starts tapping away at her computer. I rattle off Wallflower’s date of birth and few other details to verify her, and my, identity, and the whole thing seems like it’s taking an agonisingly long time to manage. All of this is just keeping me from seeing Wallflower and I need to see her.
All of a sudden it is absolutely, cataclysmically important that I see her.
“Please can you just… can you tell me what room she’s in?” I ask quickly. “I was at work and I didn’t— please! I just need to see her!”
“Miss, please.” Somehow the nurse manages to pack about 12 hours of exhaustion into those two words, and I immediately wilt back as guilt seeds into me.
“S-Sorry, I’m…” I’m breathing too fast. My vision is starting to swim, and I lean on the counter as I try not to fall apart.
“Sunset?”
I look up at the sound of my name. An older woman in loose jeans woven with vaguely tribal patterns, and a striped black and blue topis walking towards me. Her blue and silver hair hangs loosely around a face worn with wind and care, and she’s smiling at me like she knows me, and I’m positive that I’ve never seen this woman in my life.
“There you are,” she says with a chuckle, stepping closer and leaning in to pull me into an almost familial hug.
For a moment I tense. Panic and violence surge through my limbs, but all of it cuts off at the sound of the woman’s words being whispered softly at my ear.
“Rosary Wise. Play along.”
She pulls back with no hint of mischief or malice on her features, still smiling that same, overly-familiar smile.
“I’m so sorry Sunset, I should have called you the instant it happened,” she continues as if this was completely natural. “Wallflower just dropped all of a sudden and I… well, I panicked. I thought they’d call you right away, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s… it’s fine,” I say, recovering my balance as smoothly as I’m able. “How is she?”
The nurse looks between the two of us with a raised eyebrow, and the woman whom I assume is called Rosary shrugs and sighs quietly.
“I’m not sure, she hasn’t come out of it yet,” she says, before looking back at the nurse. “I’m sorry, can we go back? I’m sure Wallflower’s girlfriend warrants some kind of visit, doesn’t she?”
“Alright, go head,” the nurse waves us past. Rosary gives her a thankful nod before looping my arm into hers and turning to head back towards the hallway leading deeper into the ED.
We walk slowly and in silence, and I watch as the expression on Rosary’s face drops from warm and amiable, to calm and collected, and I raise an eyebrow at her as she nods towards the end of the hall.
“Who the hell are you?” I ask sotto voce, keeping my eyes straight ahead.
“Today? I’m Wallflower’s Aunt Rosary, visiting from out of town,” she says cooly. “It’s an oddball story how this came about but the short of it is I really do mean no harm.”
“Wallflower doesn’t have any family,” I say, glancing over at her with narrowed eyes. “And how did you know her name? Or mine, come to that?”
“You’d be surprised how many of a persons’ intimate details are kept tucked away in their wallet,” Rosary says with a slight laugh. “Her I.D. card is in there, for one, as well as this.”
Rosary passes me a little folded scrap of a photograph. It’s worn and creased, but well-cared for, and I take it gingerly. It’s so thin and fragile it feels like I could put my fingers right through it, and I open with as much care as possible.
“Oh… that’s…” Tears spring up at the corners of my eyes as I run my fingers over the two smiling figures. “That’s our first date… Quill, what a disaster… but it started okay.”
Senior Prom.
The picture was taken at the very beginning of the night. I was there in my tuxedo, the black and red color along with the gold accents had me looking like a villain out of a spaghetti western. Even the silk gloves were a particularly vibrant shade of arterial crimson.
Wallflower is gorgeous. Rarity went all out for Wallie’s very first dance. Her dress was loose layers of soft silk and lace in alternating shades of green and white with patterns of foliage and flora that made her look like some kind of faerie forest nymph.
In the photo she’s practically clinging to me. I have one hand on her waist and another cradling her, and I remember resting my head on hers and smiling like a complete jackass because I was so happy.
Looking at it now, I can see how happy she was too, even given everything that happened.
“Did you read the back?” Rosary asks, and I glance up at her for a moment before flipping the photograph over.
There, scratched in Wallflower’s crabbed, flowing script are the words:
‘The first day of my life’
I don’t know how long I spend staring at those six words. All I know is I spend the entire time crying quietly while trying not to get the photo wet. Eventually I just fold it up with shaky hands and clutch it to my chest while I shake and sob as silently as I’m able to.
“They asked me if I was you when I brought her in,” Rosary explains as I slowly grapple with my tears and get a hold of myself. “It didn’t take a Holmesian leap of deductive reasoning to put that name to the girl with red and gold hair in the photograph.”
“Y-Yeah,” I rub at my eyes, taking several deep breaths before looking back up at her. “Uhm, I’m uh… she’s kind of my whole world.”
“Sure that’s healthy, kid?” Rosary asks with a wry, raised eyebrow, and I shake my head.
“No,” I say honestly. “But it’s the best I’ve got.”
“Hm, fair enough.” Rosary pats me on the shoulder, then nods to me to keep following.
We walk to the end of the hall, and Rosary pushes the door open. Inside, laying supine on the exam bed, is Wallflower Blush. My world just slows down for a moment, and I stumble through the door to the bedside and settle onto the small stool beside it.
Her hand is cool, and soft. I weave our fingers together, and bring her hand to my lips, laying a kiss along the knuckle of her ring finger.
The bromeliad ring is gone. It’s been gone for a while, but in a way it wasn’t such a bad thing. We started to make a little game out of it.
“H-Hey, Wallie,” I say quietly, hating how my voice croaks around my tears. “I uh… I had lunch out in the quad today, and there was this big flower someone had knocked over.”
I fish through my pocket carefully before finding the little white envelope I’d tucked my prize for the day away in. It’s not even really an envelope, just a normal sheet of printer paper folded to make a little pouch that kind of self-seals.
Popping it open, I shake out the two, small green loops I’d spent my lunch hour weaving together. It had taken about a dozen tries. I just wasn’t as good at it as Wallflower, but I eventually managed two semi-decent ones. Wallie’s were always a lot cleaner though, but it was my turn to make this pair.
“See?” I hold them up in a shaky hand. “Here, let me just…”
I reach over her to lift her right hand and slip the new loop onto her finger.
I put the other one on my hand where it belongs.
“Those're pretty,” Rosary says, putting a hand gently onto my shoulder and squeezing. “So you two are really—?”
“I lied to her.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them.
I look up at Rosary who’s watching me with cautious interest. No judgment, it’s more like she’s just waiting, and a sudden rush of inexplicable gratitude surges through me.
“A… About money,” I clarify before looking back at Wallflower. “I told her I was working some extra hours to balance the budget a little. It wasn’t a big deal, but… a-actually we’re kind of okay.”
It’s stupid that I can’t stop crying. They’re not big tears, but they keep sliding down my cheeks all the same.
“I found this… this absolutely perfect ring, but it’s like, almost a thousand fucking dollars,” I sob. “But I’m making payments on it, it’s probably going to take me months to pay off and actually pick up, but I… it’s… it’s perfect, okay?”
I turn back to Rosary.
“It’s… she deserves perfect.”
Rosary nods. There are silent tears in her eyes as she pats my shoulder again.
“Please,” I beg. “What happened?”
It takes almost an hour for Rosary to tell the story. Mostly because we have to be quiet but partially because the way she talks is less a coherent narrative and more of a ramble. It only takes me about half that time to realise exactly who Rosary had been talking to, and shortly after that, exactly what it was that had triggered a panic attack so severe it put Wallflower in a state of catatonia.
Her father is dead.
From what very little I know of him— what little Wallflower was willing to share even to me— I say good riddance.
I know he was violent.
I know that he hurt Wallflower consistently, and that alone is enough for me to want him dead in the worst possible way. Now that he is though, I have no idea what that means to Wallflower. Shouldn’t she be relieved?
Shouldn’t she be glad?
Except… he was her father.
“Wish I had some advice here, kid, but I’m stumped,” Rosary says before taking a drink of water from a small paper cup. “I mentioned the old goobers death and she just dropped.”
Chances are that this is someone Wallflower knows. Maybe even knows well. Hell, from my limited interactions with her, she might even be Wallflower’s actual Aunt, and she wouldn’t even know it. All I know is that if she is related to Wallflower, family or otherwise, then she’s probably one of the very few good ones.
A quiet knock disrupts the silence and., before I can say anything, a tall, stern-looking woman with a mop of pink hair tied back in a bun wearing a severely cut white blouse and long skirt in a doctor’s white jacket steps inside holding a clipboard.
She pauses and glances between us, sharp blue eyes like slivers of ice warm marginally as they pass over us, then she nods as if deciding something, and nudges the door shut.
“Sunset Shimmer, I presume?” The doctor says crisply to me, and I nod. She turns to Rosary and raises an eyebrow. “And you are…?”
“Rosary Wise,” she stands and bobs her head before holding out a hand. “Wallflower’s Aunt, in from Manehattan for a few days. She collapsed while we were out on a walk.”
“I read the report.” The doctor looks down at her chart and flips through it, then sighs, and looks back up. “My name is Director Redheart, and frankly speaking, I have too many patients to beat around the bush so forgive my bedside manner.”
“Get to the skinny, dear, I’ll take that over sugarcoating any day,” Rosary says briskly, and Redheart gives her a dry, humorless smile that’s more a slash of her lips than anything.
“Acute Psychogenic Catalepsy, is my guess,” Redheart says after a moment. “And it is that… largely a guess, based on what evidence her records show. Possibly it’s an extreme state of dissociation, although the differences in the practical term are mostly academic at this severity.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, standing, but not letting go of Wallflower’s hand. “Will she be okay?”
Redheart grimaces. “Probably… this kind of thing is a mental health speciality, which is not mine, but believe me when I say that I see her kind come through my doors every other day, so I know the look. This is someone who has suffered a pattern of trauma, and…”
Sighing, Redheart leans against the door and pinches the bridge of her nose. She looks exhausted. It’s late, and I imagine her shift must be near the end.
“Can you tell me if she was a victim of abuse, Miss Sunset?” Redheart asks once she looks up.
I glance over at Rosary, who’s looking at me with something akin to honest worry. I can’t really give any details because the reality is that I don’t have them. I have the vaguest understanding of what she went through, and nothing more. I never pressed because I figured that either Wallflower would tell me when she was ready, or she wouldn’t because she decided to leave that part of her past behind her along with everything else she erased.
Either way, it wasn’t my decision to make, it was hers, and I respected that. Now I’m concerned that I may have made a mistake somewhere in there.
I do, unfortunately, know the answer to that.
“Yeah,” I say after a long moment. “Her dad.”
Rosary grimaces, then sighs, and turns to Redheart. “This may have been my fault then. We were talking, I said something that may have… have triggered this.”
Redheart frowns. “If you’re her Aunt, then were you aware of her father’s actions?”
For the first time, Rosary freezes, but before Redheart can get a read on it, I slip past her, whispering - play along - as I start talking.
“Director, that’s why she’s here,” I say, falling back into my old habits of lying through my teeth with a smile as easily as if I’d never stopped. “Her father just died.”
The expression on Redheart’s face goes unreadable for a moment, then she glances at Rosary, who gives a short, stilted nod, then looks back at me and sighs heavily.
“Well, that might do it, I suppose,” Redheart says softly. “In that case, hopefully she’ll come out of it on her own, but we’ll keep her here overnight for observation just in case.” Glancing between us, she grimaces, and then shrugs. “Normally we only allow one to stay overnight, but given the unique circumstances, and assuming you don’t mind the accommodations, I’ll let the both of you stay if you’d like.”
“I’d like that,” Rosary says in a raw voice. “I’ll just probably have to step out to get some food, but other than that, yes, I’d like to stay with my— my niece.”
“Alright, we will have to admit her and move her to a room, so you’ll have to clear out,” Redheart says as she steps out into the hall and beckons us to follow. “I’ll have a nurse come get you when she’s settled.”
“Thank you,” I say as I step outside.
Rosary and I both clear out of the hall, head back to the ED Lobby, and then make our way outside. Neither of us say a word, or look at each other, we’re going to the same place and we both know it.
We stop under the smoking section awning, and reach into my bag to pull out my smokes, and she does the same, although I note that hers are hand-rolled. That fits, somehow. Something about the bohemian aspect of it, I think. We both also pull out little books of matches, although mine is one of the small pushboxes, while hers are a foldover pack you get from motels, and we share a smirk.
“Can’t stand lighters?” I ask as I light mine.
Rosary shakes her head. “Nah, I can—”
“—taste the butane.” We both say it simultaneously.
We share a quiet laugh, and she nods. The silence is a companionable sort. Something is eating at me though, and I get halfway through my cigarette before pulling it out of my mouth and scowling down at it.
“Something wrong?” Rosary asks.
My hand is shaking. Tears are spilling down my cheeks, and suddenly the taste of tobacco smoke on my tongue makes me want to vomit. I know Wallie doesn’t like me smoking, it’s why I do it so seldom and why I’m so careful not to smoke before coming home to her. The last thing I want is for her to taste ash on my lips.
“Hon?”
But that’s the kind of person I am. I always have to have my cake and eat it too! Because I’m Sunset god-damn Shimmer! I’m never satisfied with having one when she can have both and fuck whoever gets hurt by it!
“FUCK!” I crush the lit cigarette in my hand, hissing as the ember burns my palm, before stomping over to the trash can with the ashtray in its lid, wrenching the top off, and throwing the mashed remains inside.
Then I cram my hand into my pocket, rip the half-full pack of cigarettes out, stare down at it for a long moment, swear viciously one more time then crush the damn thing in my fist before throwing it down to join the rest of the garbage.
I push the lid down and wipe my sore hand on my shirt as I stomp back over to join Rosary and wrap my arms around myself miserably. Rosary just stares at me in stunned silence for a while, looking between me and the trash can before finally lowering the spent cigarette from her lips and tossing it into the ashtray.
“Sunset?”
“That was it.” I spit the words out before she can say anything else. “That was my last one… I quit.”
Rosary stares at me for a long moment before slowly smiling, shaking her head, and starting to chuckle.
“Damn, kid,” Her laugh is a tired one as she pulls out her pack, a little leather pouch, actually, and stares down at it. “Well, guess it’d be crass to have another.”
She tucks it back. I want to tell her to go ahead, but honestly I’m thankful. I don’t want to admit just how badly I want another. I’m afraid if she smokes again, that I’ll ask to bum one. Instead we just stand under the awning as it rains in spits and sputters over the streets.
It’s late evening now, closing on eight at night and I’m more scared than I think I’ve ever been. Wallflower… I want to think she’ll be fine. I want to believe that she’ll wake up shaken but okay, and that everything will be fine, but there’s a tiny bead of terrible worry in my heart that she won’t.
Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe it’s just my nerves, but now that I’m suddenly faced with the possibility, even just the faintest one, that…
“So… your girl’s dad, huh?” Rosary says more than asks.
I look over at her. She’s staring down at the ground thoughtfully, her hands linked behind her back.
“Yeah.” I say, after a moment.
“Tch, qué lío.”
I raise an eyebrow, and Rosary just grins wearily at me.
“It means ‘what a mess’, see?” Rosary says before turning back to stare out at the streets of Canterlot. “A couple friends of mine own an auto garage in the Commons. This crazy old Marexican guy and his brother. He says it a lot.”
“Qué lío,” I repeat the words, roll them over on my tongue a few times, then nod. “Yeah, what a mess.”
Everything is a mess. I’m a mess. Wallflower is a mess. Our lives are a mess. I’m doing my best to keep everything tidy. To clean up. But there’s only so much I can do in a single day. Some of this just… has to be fixed over time, and that’s if it can be fixed at all.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Rosary says, and her voice is grim and tight as I glance over her. The look of relaxed calm on her face is gone, and in its place is a strained, grief-ridden expression.
“For what?”
“My big mouth.” Rosary lets out a huffing bark of a laugh. “I always did talk too damn much. Never saw the reason not to talk to anyone and everyone, guess it’s true what they say: you’re never too old to learn.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I say, reaching out and putting a hand on her arm.
Literally. She literally couldn’t have known.
One way or another, Wallflower had made sure of that. As much as I wanted someone to blame for all of this, there wasn’t anyone to blame. Or if there was, he was already dead.
“Miss Shimmer? Miss Wise?” A voice from the side draws us over to a nurse standing at the entrance to the ED. “Miss Blush is in her room now, Two-West, room fifty-one.”
“Two west, fifty one, got it,” I say, looking back at Rosary who nods. “Can you… I need to go get something from our apartment, can you go stay with her?”
“Sure thing, kid,” Rosary says with a wan smile. “Gimme your contact, I’ll give you a call if anything changes.
I exchange numbers with Rosary gratefully, and then I’m gone.
I hail a cab, and as I’m going back to the apartment, I’m thinking hard about what I’m about to do. About what I might have to do. What little I know about being comatose is pretty bad. She can’t eat or drink, can’t function. If she’s like that for more than a day, they'll basically have to hook her up to the entire hospital.
IV feeds for water and nutrients. A catheter. It wouldn’t take long for her to waste away. She’s already so…
Before I know it we’re there. I pay the man, a young man who still looks relatively upbeat, and tip him. I hate that the cynic in me is wondering how long that will last.
I go up the stairs, skipping the elevator. It’s only marginally slower, and it won’t matter one way or the other, and I need the time to think. I have an option. I have a way to go in and find her, but…
There was a reason I set it aside.
The door to our apartment clicks and thunks as I turn the key, and I shoulder the door open a little more harshly than I probably needed to and head up to the loft. I get underneath the end table and fish around for the hidden latch. Applejack’s brother made me this table, he’s pretty handy when it comes to things like carpentry, so a table with a false bottom turned out to be pretty easy.
I slide the compartment out, reach inside, and draw out the contents.
A geode that glimmers with faint orange light tied to a thin strap of leather hangs loosely from my fingers. The power within still hums at my fingertips, as ready, willing, and able to be used as the day I put it down. It’s strange, a part of me expected it to have faltered or faded. Or maybe I expected it to reject me after I had rejected it.
But no.
I close my hand in a fist around the geode, nod, then pocket it. If I’m going to do it, I have to do it tonight. Either that, or I may as well just wait and see what human medicine can produce.
I pocket the geode and leave the apartment. Next time I come back, one way or the other, it will be with Wallflower Blush beside me.
The cab ride back is quiet, and thankfully short. I get out at the ED entrance and make my way up to the main hospital. Two west, fifty-one. I repeat the room and floor in my mind over and over as I take the elevator up, step out, and count my way down to room fifty-one.
The sound of humming almost stops my heart. The tune is a little atonal, but it’s so familiar. Wallflower hums whenever she’s watering plants, and it’s a tune I’ve never heard before, or at least one I can’t identify, but this… it’s the same tune. I cross the remaining distance in a stumbling sprint and look inside to see—
Rosary is sitting next to Wallflower, holding her hand and humming softly. Her eyes, like seastorm green waves, are settled on the unconscious girl as she runs her thumb back and forth over Wallflower’s knuckles.
For a long moment, I just stare. I’m disappointed, sure, but at the same time I feel like I understand something a little better.
“You garden, don’t you?” I say quietly.
Rosary looks up at me, her humming cutting off, and she smiles.
“I do, why?” Rosary says.
Move to Wallflower’s right and sit down beside her, taking her hand in mine and brushing a finger over the little green, woven loop on her finger.
“Wallflower does too,” I say. “Our apartment… it’s filled with flowers and plants that she takes care of.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Rosary replies with an honest grin. “I knew I liked this girl from the moment I saw her.”
“I always wondered where she picked up gardening from,” I continue, as if Rosary hadn’t said anything. “She rarely ever talked about her parents, but it was never with anything but bitterness or sometimes grief… and I think I eventually decided she must have just developed the interest on her own.”
Rosary gives me a curious look as I raise my head from Wallflower, take a deep breath, and steady myself.
“But she didn’t…” I say finally. “She got it from you.”
“Me?” Rosary laughs weakly and shakes her head. “I’ve never seen this girl in my life before today, I’m afraid.”
“That’s not true.” I nod down at Wallflower, then look back up at Rosary. “You knew her when you saw her, even if you didn’t realise it. Even now, I’d bet my savings account that you still feel responsible for her, and that’s why you haven’t left.”
“I…” Rosary works her jaw a few times, then looks back at Wallflower with the oddest expression of frustration and grief on her face before looking back at me. “I don’t know her!”
“No, you don’t,” I agree. “But you did… so tell me something, Rosary Wise, do you believe in magic?”
Hours pass after that.
It’s almost midnight by the time I finish telling her my story, and the story of Wallflower Blush and about the Memory Stone, and my own suspicions about who Rosary is to Wallflower, and by that token who Ivy is and who her dead husband was.
This was a risk, but it’s a calculated one. I know Wallflower, and if I had to guess, I would say that she erased Rosary’s memory out of self-hatred and guilt. I don’t think she wanted to. Getting to know Rosary now, I’m even more certain that she was one of the very few bright spots in Wallflower’s young life.
I can never give back what the Memory Stone took, but maybe… maybe I give some context.
“I want to make you an offer,” I say finally, after a long stint of silence as Rosary digests my tale. I reach into my pocket, draw out my geode, and show it to her. “This little jewel lets me go into other people’s heads and experience bits and pieces of their lives. Worries, pains, fears… that kind of thing.”
The dots being connected in Rosary’s head are painted over her face as she stares down at the jewel, then looks over at Wallflower, then back to me with narrowed eyes.
“I’m not asking you to take my fairy tale on faith, here, Rosary,” I say firmly. “If you want. I can take you with me. I can show you magic, but let me warn you before you answer… it won’t be pretty, and it will leave scars.”
“Not much of a saleswoman, are you?” Rosary remarks weakly.
“If I were trying to sell you something, you’d think different,” I reply. Then I frown, and turn to Wallflower. “I have no idea if she’ll wake up the old fashioned way… maybe I’m jumping the gun, but on the off-chance I’m not, and I have the ability to make sure she wakes up safe and sound… what kind of person am I if I don’t?”
“Will it hurt her?” Rosary asks, her voice a faint, cold-edged whisper.
I shake my head. “No, the only one who might suffer some backlash is me. And maybe you, if you join me. I’ve never done this with a normal person before, only other users like me.”
“Magic, huh?” Rosary stares at the gem, and laughs quietly, shaking her head. “Real… honest to gods, magic… so it does exist?”
“I’ll prove it, if you want the proof,” I say as I close my fist and look her in the eyes. “But look at me, and answer me one question… do you really want to know? Because trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
She takes a long, deep breath, tilts her head up, and closes her eyes. For a moment, I think Rosary might be praying, but I recognise the look after another second. She’s meditating… finding a center in herself. A calm point in the storm.
Then she opens her eyes, and smiles.
“If it were just me, I might hesitate,” Rosary says finally. “But you’re right, something about that girl keeps me here, so for her? Yeah, I’m in.”
“Okay.” I palm the geode, it’s faint amber-orange light glinting in the city-light of Canterlot as I turn to Rosary. No more time to waste. Now it’s time to act. “You ready?”
“Am I ready for magic?” Rosary’s hesitancy is gone, and now she’s grinning like a kid being asked if they’re cool with getting ice cream for dinner. “Shoot, kiddo, let’s do this.”
I stare down at the small stone and grimace at her gleeful tone. She doesn’t know. She can’t know until I do it, but I’ve already tried to warn her.
“I’m telling you, this is going to be rough.” I press the point, but she just nods.
“I’m a tough bird, bring it on.”
I snort, then nod.
“Fine.” I put on the geode and take a deep breath, centering myself as I find the gleam of magic inside of me and let it resonate with the power in the geode.
Its powers are many and manifold, At first, I thought it just let me see other people’s thoughts. I quickly realised how wrong that was. I wasn’t seeing thoughts, I was seeing their experiences. A subtle but powerful difference. It’s so much more chaotic. Thoughts have some order to them, but the process by which we experience the world?
That’s total chaos.
Everyone sees the world differently. Experiences it differently. Understanding that is, I think, the crux of empathy.
More importantly and more relevant, however… I eventually realised I could share the power, which I suppose makes sense thematically. Empathy is all about sharing, linking, and bringing down barriers.
Rosary wants to know who Wallflower is. She needs to know because, even beyond what I told her, I think some part of her knows that her mind isn’t quite her own. She’s too self-aware for that. Magic isn’t perfect, not even in an artifact as powerful as the Memory Stone was. The memories of someone older and stronger of soul, someone like Rosary, can’t just be erased. Not entirely. There’s bound to be something left.
She deserves to know.
“Take my hand.”
I reach out, and Rosary nods, putting her palm down on mine. The instant she does I feel the spark of a connection but I don’t let the circuit close. If I do, I’ll just be experiencing Rosary’s memories. No, the flow has to start with Wallflower. From Wallie, to me, then… to Rosary.
Hopefully, I can buffer the worst of the impact.
I reach out for Wallflower’s hand. I hate doing this to her, but if there’s even a chance I can stir her awake and pull her from the mire she’s found herself in, I have to take it.
Before taking Wallie’s hand I glance back to Rosary.
“Just warning you,” I start. “This might… tickle. And then it’s going to get really intense, but you’re safe, alright? Just, whatever you do? Don’t let go of my hand.”
Rosary nods.
“Okay, here we g—
—be nine years old and scared, crouching in the dark place that’s small and crammed with too many meaningless things. Clothes hang ragged and worn from cheap metal hangers brushing the top of my head. The only light that shines is from beneath the door. The only sound is the shouts of noise and hate and—
“Crap!” Sweat drips from my brow as I let go of Wallie’s hand. My breath is coming in shallow heaves. Rosary looks shaken but determined. “Sorry, it’s uhm… it’s been a while, I just need… need a breather, then… okay, lets—
—be afraid. The halls are long and empty and there’s no one looking at me. Why won’t they look at me? I don’t exist. That’s why. Meaningless. Invisible. Pointless. Be bumped and knocked around in the halls. Be dross and garbage, too little to even acknowledge. The bruises on my arms flare with each impact. I was too slow this morning. Too slow to get out of his way. Slow of foot and hand and head. Slow and stupid. I—
“FUCK!” I back out, this time because I need to pull myself out of her memories. They’re so dark, so grim and hateful. Tears are rolling down my cheeks uncontrolled as sympathetic pain and trauma rolls through my soul.
“Gods, I never knew,” Rosary whispers hoarsely. She sounds haunted, but she still has a deathgrip on my hand.
“Ready?” I ask, gripping her hand even tighter as I look at her. I wouldn’t blame her if she tapped out, but she doesn’t. She just nods grimly.
“Alright, brace yourself, we’re going deeper and it’s probably going to get ug—
—be terrified. Be too big for the closet. It’s cramped and closed around me, biting at my arms and shoulders and knees like a bad dog. Be surrounded by thunder. Not thunder. Shouts and yells and the hammer of fists on the door. Pound. Pound. Pound. Like a metronome. Hear the door splinter and the cheap lock crack. Hear the voice and the stink of cheap, fermented bread and poison on his breath as the closet door tears open. Be grabbed by the hair and dragged.
It hurts! IT HURTS!
The world spins as I’m thrown against the wall, and his palm follows me quickly. My world spins again, this time with the tilting vertigo of agony. My face is on fire where palm crossed jaw. Spikes of pain bloom on my arms and chest. He’s saying words. Awful words with kicks like commas and punches like periods to jab every word deeper.
Stupid. Idiot. Useless. Always useless. Never does anything. Fucking pointless—
“—god dammit!” I can’t. I can’t stay there for that long. It hurts too much.
“I saw him.” Rosary’s voice is pale and wan. “Ivy’s husband… he was… he was right there in her memories.”
“We’re getting to the end, I think.” I cradle Rosary’s hand in mine and look between her and Wallflower. “It’s a jumble… her mind is a rat’s nest, but I’m not surprised. Especially since she’s like this.”
“Can you wake her up?” Rosary asks, brittle hope in her voice.
“I…” I look over at Wallflower, and take a deep breath, then nod as I turn back to Rosary. “Yeah… I can do it. I can wake her up.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Okay, one more time,” I take another steadying breath, finding my center. “One more t—
—be quiet and distant. My mind is so far away and too close at the same time. I would be suffocating if I even felt real. Cold stone, smooth in places and rough in others, rests heavy in my palm.
Be sitting on my bed. It’s cold and stiff and hard.
Be tightening my grip.
Be waiting.
Screams of outrage strike my ears like a brass gong. Shouts and accusations. Demands to know who poured the poison and fermented bread down the drain. Cries and pleading. Momma pleading but never seeing. Never watching. Always acting. Sound of impact. Sound of pain. I grit my teeth and my hand tightens around stone so hard it draws blood. Stomping footsteps thunder down the hall. Broken door is broken again. Broken open, but it was never really closed. No closed doors in His house. No closed doors.
Palm crosses cheek. Pain explodes behind my eyes. Be coughing and spluttering on the floor. Fingers grip hair and drag me up. Frail and thin, my body hangs like a puppet and I stare into the ruddy angry face of Him.
Hand tightens on stone. Light explodes around me.
Be dropped to the ground. I see him. Slack-jawed and vacant. I’m gone from him. I move around him. Move to the hallway. Move to the house. Move to the crying.
Flash of light. Gone from momma.
Erase me from the house. Gone. Gone. Gone. Pictures and letters and books. Make it all go away until.
Knock at the door. Be afraid and be guilty. Can’t be seen. Can’t be caught. I grip the stone and walk to the door and open it.
Why?! Be confused. Be scared. Rosary sees. Rosary is wise. Rosary Wise. Stares at me. Eyes like seastorm. Be sorry! Be so, so sorry!
Light flashes. Gone from Rosary. Gone from Home. Take her memories. Take her pictures.
Gone. Find others. Be gone from them too.
Finally, just be gone.
…
Light…
Light like amber.
Light like gold.
Light like Fire.
Light like… Sunset.
Come back to me.
What We Variously Call Grace
Wallflower Blush
I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in all my life, and when I pry my eyes open, my first thought is not only am I tired but everything hurts.
No extreme pain or anything like that.
Just… sore.
I’m so sore.
“Wallie?”
I force my eyes open. It feels like I’ve been awake for three days straight. The faint burn behind my eyelids, and their weight, is almost overwhelming. The lights above me are harsh and pale, and the bed beneath me is hard and uncomfortable.
A soft hand settles on my cheek, and I turn my head to…
“Sunset?” I narrow my eyes. “You look awful.”
She laughs, raggedly but happily. She really does look awful, though. Sunset’s features are pale and drawn, and her hair is matted against her head and face like she just sweated her way through a marathon in the heart of summer. There are bags under her eyes too, and her shoulders are sagging with the weight of a world.
“Hey, baby,” Sunset drags herself forward and cradles me close, alternately laughing and crying as she presses soft, slow kisses against my forehead and cheeks. “You’re okay… you’re okay.”
She’s repeating the words like she’s saying them to herself, more than to me.
My brain is working slowly, creeping forward out of an odd, cloying murk, and as it does the memories start to drift sullenly back into view. Memories of my old street. My old house. An argument.
Momma.
Rosary.
And…
My breathing starts to stutter as I remember.
‘...finally found the bottom of that damn bottle he was always losing himself in…’
“Dead.” I almost bark the word out. “He’s… He’s—”
“I know,” Sunset pulls me closer, wrapping her arms around me, and I cling to her and bury my face in her shoulder as the import of everything hits me all at once. “I know, Wallie, it’s okay.”
“IT’S NOT OKAY!” I scream the words, but they’re muffled against her top. “You don’t know! You don’t know what it… what he…”
“I know.” Her tone becomes hard and flinty, and I can feel her hand curling into a fist behind me.
Sunset is shaking.
I pull back from her, my panic forgotten for a moment as I stare at the woman I love most in the whole wide world.
Her head is drooping and sagging along with her shoulders. She’s holding on to me as much as I’m holding on to her. Sunset’s breathing is almost as ragged as mine and… and hanging from her neck, dangling from a thin leather strap, is a gleaming, orange geode, and my whole world tightens to a pinprick focused on that small stone.
“Sun… Sunset?”
She raises her head, and her face is twisted in grief and guilt. “I’m sorry… I… it was the only way, Wallie. I had to get you back, I… I had to go in after you, okay? I had to.”
“Did you see—?” She nods before I can finish, and a cold, hard knot forms in my stomach. She saw everything.
“Forgive me.”
Those words, so softly spoken, deafen me. Forgive… her? Sunset is bowing her head, her hands are bunched into tight fists, and she’s clenching the sheets around the hospital bed I’m lying in tightly enough that her knuckles are turning white. Her head is pressed to the rough scratchy fabric, and dark spots are trickling down beneath a face hidden by sweat-sodden locks of red and gold.
“I’m sorry,” Sunset voice is pain-wracked and raw. “I kn-know you didn’t want me to see. I… I never would have if I… p-please… forgive me.”
I reach out, shakily, for her, but something green catches my eye before I can.
A loop of woven flora is settled on my finger. There’s a matching one on Sunset’s hand.
That’s right. It was her turn to make them this time. The last ones turned brittle yesterday and came off. They lasted almost three days this time. Sunset promised she would find some time to make new ones between her classes but I told her it was okay.
That there was no rush.
I didn’t tell her that my hand didn’t feel right without something on it anymore. I didn’t want her to worry about me, or feel bad about being so busy.
She did it anyway, though. Somehow, between her course load and all of her tutoring, she found time to weave a couple of loops, even though she’s not very good at it yet and it takes her a lot of tries.
I lower my hand to rest it on Sunset’s head. She’s shaking, and her shoulders jerk and heave every now and again with choked-back whimpers. She’s begging me to forgive her for looking into my head.
She’s begging me to forgive her for going looking for me.
“Why?” I say, and the words come out a little wet. “Why did you— you hate that thing!” I nod down at the geode. “You hate what it can do, and what… why would you use it?”
Sunset’s shaking slowly ebbs as she lifts her head. Her eyes are puffy, and she swallows hard a few times before answering.
“Because you’re my whole world, Wallie,” Sunset sobs. “I’d do anything— anything— for you.”
My mouth dries as she pushes herself up by her elbows like Sisyphus getting ready to roll that damn boulder up the hill one more time, and just shakes her head with a bone-weary smile.
“I saw what they did to you, what he did to you,” Sunset says. “I… I know I had no right, but if it’s between that and even the tiniest chance of losing you, or you being hurt, then I’d do it again, and again, and a thousand more times.”
She witnessed everything. Or as good as. She felt what I felt. The pain and trauma. The neglect and the beatings. The shame and the loneliness and the total, all-consuming isolation. Sunset endured it because I got all swallowed up in it and couldn’t get back out.
“Why?!”
Sunset looks confused. She looks around herself like she’s trying to find an answer but eventually just sags, shrugs, and says:
“I… I told you, you’re my whole world.”
Sunset reaches out with trembling hands, and I almost lunge to grab onto them with mine. It’s clumsy, we’re both exhausted, but finally, we manage to link our fingers together, and Sunset lets out a harsh, ragged laugh.
As she holds me, a memory rises up from the depths. A good one this time. A memory of years ago when Sunset held on to me in this same hospital, and told me…
Because you’re precious to me.
“So… don’t hate me?” She pleads softly. “I’m just really crazy for you, Wallie… really, really crazy.”
All I can do is nod and try not to bawl as I agree.
“T-Totally insane.”
“Yup!” Sunset agrees brightly, smiling through a veil of tears. “But that’s me… I’m just completely useless without you, okay?”
And she laughs. Her laughter is so bright and beautiful. It’s like dawn breaking, and I can’t help but start laughing with her as we all but fall against each other. I’m so tired, but she looks even more exhausted than me. I cradle her as she laughs and sobs. She’s coming apart at the seams and for the first time in maybe ever, I’m the one holding Sunset together as she clings to me and bawls like a child.
So I run my fingers through her hair like how she does for me when the world has gotten to be too big or too much, and I sit up so she can rest beside me and lay against my side, and it’s like the moment the tears run out, so does everything else. Sunset goes from panic and crying to sleeping the sleep of the totally and utterly drained.
A soft knock comes at the door a little less than an hour after Sunset falls asleep, and I look up.
Aunt Rosary is standing at the door looking almost as worn as Sunset.
“Wallflower?” She says quietly, and my heart skips a beat. “That’s… you’re Ivy’s girl, aren’t you?”
My mouth dries, and I look down at Sunset briefly.
“I saw it, too,” Rosary confirms. “I saw what my friend and her monster of a husband did… I…”
She takes a long, deep breath, folds her hands in front of herself, a slight but visible tremor passes through.
“You… I erased myself from you,” I say quietly. “How did you remember? Did—?”
I look down at Sunset.
“I don’t remember,” Rosary says quickly. “In my mind, I know that I’ve never seen you before this afternoon in front of Ivy’s.” She takes a deep breath and moves beside the bed, sitting down and reaching out to take my hand. “But in my heart… I know you.”
Now, tears start to form, and her narrow, worn hands grip mine tightly.
“There’s an… an ache in my heart when I look at you that I have no way to explain,” she continues. “When I look at you I just… I feel something I don’t have a word for.”
“I’m sorry,” I cry quietly. “I was just… I was scared. I… I just wanted to disappear, and… I’m sorry, Aunt Rosary, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s alright, kiddo,” Rosary says, wiping at her eyes with her wrists as she does. “No judgment here. You got out! Not everyone does. And you found a great girl.”
“Yeah, I did,” I laugh, nodding. “I really lucked out!”
“I’m proud of you.” Rosary reaches out and brushes a few stray strands from my face. “I saw what you lived through. I saw the shadows that are in there,” she taps my head with her finger. “Living with that every day? Waking up to that every day? You’ve got iron in your spine, kiddo, and I think if I had a daughter, I’d want her to be just like you.”
That does it.
I can’t hold it in anymore. I sag forward and Aunt Rosary catches me, humming that soft, familiar tune as she rocks me back and forth.
Part of me wishes my life had been different. That I could have been Rosary’s daughter. That I could have grown up safe and loved and being sung to sleep and learning about gardening without worrying.
Would it be worth maybe never meeting Sunset, though?
It’s hard to answer that, but I don’t think it would be. I think that, no matter how hard my beginning was, where I’m going matters a lot more, and I think that going there with Sunset is probably the most important part of all.
A quiet song plays on the radio, and I hum along to it as I water the daffodils, bluebells, and violets at the window.
I haven’t picked out the new flowers for the shelf yet. I’m still thinking about peonies and forget-me-nots.
Definitely that last one, at least.
“Hey.”
A pair of slender hands slip past my waist and around my middle, and suddenly Sunset is resting her chin on my shoulder and nuzzling against me. I lean against her too, return the gentle affection as she brushes a kiss across my cheek.
“You okay?” She asks softly.
I sigh and shrug.
Today is the day.
He’s going to be buried in the common grounds of the Ponyville Church of Grace. The service will be short and small, and probably sparsely attended.
Even now, it doesn’t feel real. I think because, in my nightmares, it's not, and I resent him for that. I resent him even more for being in Sunset’s nightmares now too.
“We can still make it,” she offers as she pulls me into a hug from behind. “If seeing him go into the ground will help, I mean.”
“Would it help you?” I ask pointedly.
Sunset frowns, looks pensive, then sighs and shakes her head.
I shrug and turn to face her, wiggling in her arms until I’m the right way ‘round, and I loop my arms over her shoulders and rest my head against her chest.
Sunset brushes her hands through my hair, weaving her fingers through the curls as she sighs quietly.
“I love you, Wallie,” Sunset says, nuzzling the top of my head as she does. “You’re everything to me.”
“I know.” Once upon a time, I don’t think I’d ever have been able to say those words with confidence to anyone.
Even now, I’m not entirely sure I believe them. But I can say them, and that’s a good step.
“I love you, too.”
I let out a quiet hum of delight as Sunset hugs me a little harder for a moment before letting go.
“Rosary said she’s free if we don’t mind having an old lady hanging around,” Sunset says with a slightly happier tone. “I told her I don’t think she’s been old a day in her life.”
“She’s definitely not going either?” I ask.
“Nah.” Sunset waves a hand dismissively as she walks over to the couches and drops down onto it. “She said that, and I quote, 'worthless ass doesn’t even deserve having a grave to be pissed on’ and then started talking about knitting.”
I can’t help but laugh as I walk over to join her, settling myself squarely in Sunset’s lap.
“That sounds like Aunt Rosary,” I say with a smile.
“I uhm, I have something else to tell you,” Sunset starts in a smaller voice.
“Hm?”
“I quit smoking.”
My eyes go wide as my stomach drops. The look of guilt must’ve shown on my face though because Sunset shakes her head.
“Don’t… it’s not…” Sunset trails off, then takes a breath and starts again. “I… I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Wallflower Blush.” She brushes my cheek with her fingers. “I want to grow old with you. Smoking and drinking are not going to help that, okay? I’m not just quitting for you. I’m quitting for me, and for us.”
“Smoking… and drinking?” I echo hesitantly.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding, then frowns. “Although that last one might be partially because of the sympathetic psychic shock from the geode. The smell makes me yak now.”
“Sorry…” I grimace, but Sunset just shakes her head.
“Don’t be,” she says firmly. “It’s long past due anyway, and it makes it easier.”
Then she leans in and presses her lips to mine, and I melt against like I always do. Tonight will be a little rough, I think.
For both of us.
“So… invite Rosary over?” Sunset offers.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I think I owe all of us some good memories.”