Sing Out My Soul

Chapters

But My Voice Is Dead
Do I Die Unsung
With Tears Unshed
But I Can't Lose...
...What Was Never Mine.
Not Gonna Leave This World
Til I Watch It Burn
Like The Sun Won't Shine

But My Voice Is Dead

Author's Note

This tale is dark. There's no light in this tunnel. This will not end happily.

But My Voice Is Dead

It was snowing the day they buried Wallflower Blush.

The service was short and the gathering was small. It was just me and the girls, and of course Pastor Hope from the Ponyville Commons Church of Grace, and my therapist, Bright Eyes.

Nine people.

I wanted to feel offended that her passing warranted such a tiny procession, but at that precise moment—along with every other moment since I got the news—I was having a lot of difficulties feeling anything at all. It was like the instant that I’d been told she was gone, I got jarred a step outside of my body, and since then I’d been moving in lockstep with myself.

It wasn’t even me who found her, even though it should have been. I deserve to have that image of her burned into my mind forever but I guess I don’t even warrant that much.

It was a wellness check, of all things. I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her for a day and a half and I panicked. For good reason, apparently. All I could think, though, as I stood over her grave after the service was ended and the rest of the girls failed to pull me away from the freshly turned sod, was that I should have made the call earlier.

Or gone over there myself.

Or done anything but just sit on my thumbs for thirty-six hours.

I was the only one in her contact information and she had no listed family, so I ended up finding out first. I also ended up being responsible for taking care of her burial. The others tried to take some of the work, but I wouldn’t let them. I think if I did…if I’d given up that responsibility…I think I might’ve actually gone crazy.

Assuming I hadn’t already.

Despite hearing about her death first, I didn’t ask how she died, but I ended up finding out all the same. I saw her body once, and only once, and the bruises around her neck along with the odd, boneless way her head was settled told me everything I never needed to know.

The three days after that passed in the blink of an eye. Almost literally. I can’t remember any specific event from those days, but I know they happened and I apparently did things during them. I organized a whole-ass funeral, in fact.

The pressure of a hand settling on my shoulder jarred me, even as I only distantly registered it and turned my head unsteadily to look back over my shoulder.

“Sunset?”

Bright Eyes was looking down at me. There was grief in his dark, brown eyes—deep and mesmerizing grief—and I had to blink and work my jaw a few times to remember how to talk and speak, and even then it was stilted. Some part of me wasn’t really here, and I was starting to wonder if it would ever come back.

“Yeah?” I answered numbly. “What?”

“I’m going to take you home now, okay?” He said gently.

I shook my head.

“No that’s okay.” I turned back to look over Wallflower’s grave again.”I’ll stay here a little longer.”

“Sunset, the cemetery is closing,” he replied, still speaking in that curiously soft tone. “The funeral ended almost four hours ago.”

Frowning, I looked up and around. The snow was still falling but the meager light of day had been swallowed by the early dark of the Canterlot winter. When had that happened? I could have sworn I’d just finished saying goodbye to the girls.

“Oh,” I shook my head again and turned back to Bright Eyes, “sorry, I…I guess I…”

“It’s okay,” Bright Eyes said with a faint smile, “I just want to make sure you get home safe, that’s all, you’ve been running yourself ragged for days.”

“I feel fine.”

That’s what I said as I turned back to look down at the dark earth that was disappearing under a dusting of snow. I said it, even though I didn’t feel fine, although, in my defense, I didn’t feel bad either.

My whole world was dull light and a distant, buzzing tinnitus as I read and reread and re-reread the same two lines etched onto the gray tombstone in front of me.

Here Rests Wallflower Blush

Forever At Peace

Forever at peace.

That didn’t sound so bad.

“Sunset?”

I looked back over at Bright Eyes. His expression had become strangely pinched in a way I couldn’t really put my finger on. Maybe he was getting cold? I was probably cold too but, at that exact moment, I don’t think I could have confirmed or denied it if someone put a gun to my head.

“What?”

“We need to go home,” he said slowly.

Oh, right. We had been talking about that, hadn’t we? I suppose whoever pulls night duty here would just kick me out anyway even if I said no, but the look on Bright Eyes’ face told me in no uncertain terms both that he wasn’t leaving here without me and that he was definitely leaving here.

You wouldn’t think a rail-thin guy with mousey auburn hair and cat-eye glasses could pull that look off, but I guess he probably learned it from his husband.

“Yeah,” I said finally, ”okay.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets and turned away from the grave. It felt like pulling teeth, but it was such a distant sensation that I almost didn’t notice the pain.

Almost.

And then, just like that, I was back home at the door to my apartment.

I don’t know how I got here, but I can hazard a guess from the vague impression of leather seats and the faint scent of classy cigarettes which I happen to know that Sticky Note smokes now and again, both of which are lodged in my mind. One moment I was at the cemetery, then…I was walking with Bright Eyes…a car happened somewhere in there, and then…

“Sunset, I still don’t think you should be alone tonight.”

If I’d actually be anchored to my body properly instead of floating some half-a-meter outside of it, I probably would’ve leapt straight out of my skin. As it was, every inch of me went weirdly cold for a moment as third-hand shock rolled through me and I turned to look up at Bright Eyes who was, apparently, standing at my door beside me and had probably been there the whole time.

Maybe he was right about having been running myself ragged.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied once I figured out how to reactivate my tongue while I stalled by fishing for my keys.

Oh. They were already in my hand.

Funny.

I fit the key to the lock and opened the door, and Bright Eyes stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Breakfast tomorrow, okay?” He said gently, and I frowned back at him.

“What?”

“Promise me,” he said. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning with Sticky, and we’ll go to breakfast.”

“Why?”

“Because you shouldn’t be alone, Sunset,” he said firmly. “So promise me.”

There was no getting out of it without the promise, and even if I shut the door in his face I had the feeling he would be here tomorrow morning anyway.

“Fine,” I said after a moment. “I promise.”

He spends a long moment looking into my eyes. What he’s looking for, I’m not sure. Signs of life, maybe? He’ll probably be disappointed. Maybe he’s just trying to determine whether or not I’m lying. If I am, I’m not trying to. I don’t think I have the capacity to lie right now, but I guess by that same standard I don’t really have the capacity to tell the truth either.

I guess we’ll see where the coin falls tomorrow.

Truth or lies.

Whether he finds what he’s looking for or not, Bright Eyes eventually nods, gives my shoulder a last squeeze that I barely register, and says, “goodnight, Sunset, and I’m so sorry.”

What was I supposed to say to that? There isn’t anything to say, so instead I just gave a nod and retreated back to my apartment.

It was late and dark, but I didn't bother turning on the lights. I knew my way around, and right then I was pretty sure the light would hurt my eyes. Somewhere in the back of my head, I was sure that I was exhausted, but I couldn't register that any more than I could register anything else going on in my head or body. So instead, I went through the motions of making myself tea.

One mug of oolong. One mug of matcha.

I set both mugs down at the little table to the left of my kitchenette, then sat myself down and stared at the steam as it rose from both.

Matcha was her favorite. I used to joke that it was because it was green, and she would say ‘well at least I have something in common with it’ and that would kind of puncture the mood. Then she’d feel bad about making things awkward, and I’d laugh it off, and we’d keep talking. The funny thing is, we’d keep making the joke, even though it always ended weird and awkward. It was like the reverse of an inside joke. An inside cringe, if you will.

That’s strangely suitable for Wallflower, I think.

Was…Was strangely suitable.

Once—and only once—I made the matcha joke, and she made hers, and I almost said ‘because you’re both hot?’ because I can’t flirt worth beans so I rely on 'refuge in audacity' and my completely unwarranted reputation for self-confidence to carry me through.

I didn’t say it, because, like I said, my reputation was completely unwarranted.

Now I wondered if I should have. Where would it have lead?

Sometimes I would go over to Wally’s place, and she would make us both matcha tea. I never had the heart to tell her that I don’t like matcha. I only had it in my tea drawer the one time because it was in a grab bag that Rarity got me as a housewarming gift and I’d never used. I never told Wally that I kept buying it after that because I knew that she liked it.

Slowly, I set down the mug of oolong and reached out to pick up the mug of matcha. The earthy scent filtered up and across my nose. I never liked matcha because it smelled like I was about to drink broccoli and it was always a little too bitter, which was funny because I took my coffee black. But I guess it was the wrong kind of bitter, if that makes any sense. Either way, it smelled like compost and tasted like leaves—not tea leaves, just regular leaves—and so I never really understood the appeal.

I drank it anyway. It was bitter going down, but I could taste it, at least. It tasted like something and that’s not nothing, because for the past three days I don’t think remembered tasting anything at all.

Lowering the mug, I turned the still-warm ceramic over in my hands. This was Wally’s mug. Not that she bought it or anything. It was just the first mug I made her tea in and I guess I made a little tradition of using it for her after that. I always made sure it was clean when she came over, and eventually I stopped using it for myself entirely because in my head it became ‘Wally’s Mug’. It was old and off-white, with decorative vines twining up around it, and I knew that Wally liked it.

She used it every time she came over.

Every…time…

The mug clinked on the table when I set it down as a thought occurred to me. It wasn’t a good thought, but one could argue that very few of my thoughts fit that description, so at least it wasn’t out of the ordinary. It was certainly ‘a thought’, though.

Standing up sharply, I snatched up Wally’s mug and moved with more speed and purpose than I’d felt since the day I learned that Wallflower died. I raced up the steps to my bed and practically dove beneath it, scrabbling for the shoebox that I’d secreted away under the mattress.

I pulled it free and held it up in shaky hands as I swallowed convulsively. This was a bad idea. I could feel it in my bones with as much surety as I could feel that I was still going to do it.

Dropping down onto my bed, I set the mug beside me and pried the top off the shoebox, and pulled out the amber geode from within. I licked my suddenly dry lips as I tossed the box away and stared into the glinting necklace as it spun lazily in front of me.

There was almost no possible way this wasn’t a terrible idea and given that it was one of my ideas, I’d say the odds were even worse than usual.

So naturally, I was going to do it anyway.

Slipping the cord around my neck, I put one hand over the gem and picked up the mug in the other, and as I did, I laid down on my bed, pulled both close to my chest and I closed my eyes as amber fire ignited under my fingers, and my senses flooded with her.

The taste of matcha was sweet on my tongue instead of bitter, because she liked it. The smell of gardens and growing things filled my nose, and I could feel fresh sod under my fingers, and I could hear echoes of her voice and flickers of beautiful, morning-glory colored hair.

I chased those sensations far and deep. Further and deeper than I’ve ever gone. Maybe it’s because I was already so far outside of myself. Maybe it’s because I was just that desperate, but when darkness and sleep finally claimed me, I couldn’t have even told you where it claimed me from.

Do I Die Unsung

I dreamt of a small church on top of a mountain. It was old and the bell didn’t toll, it creaked. That creaking of iron weight dragging down from ancient rafters was so loud that it echoed off the summit where the church sat, lonely and forlorn, across the empty plains.

I dreamt that I climbed that mountain and that the air was still. There was no wind and no sound but the endless creak-creak from the church above me.

Hand over hand, I climbed. It wasn’t dark but it wasn’t light either. It was that curious sense of seeing without really knowing how you’re seeing that’s endemic to dreams. Like a muted, all-encompassing awareness that simultaneously feels totally natural and deeply wrong.

creak…

Time passes strangely in dreams. I feel like I’ve been climbing forever, one hand over another, again and again and again, always climbing to the tune of creaking timbers.

And then suddenly I’m at the summit.

Suddenly, the mountain simply ends, and I’m up and standing in front of the old decaying church and I can’t properly account for when I went from climbing to standing.

Dreams are funny like that.

The door was open and it beckoned me like an outstretched hand. My feet moved me forward, stepping in time to the creak-creak of the church’s wooden bones.

Into the church I walked, past rows of pews that seemed to go on for far too long for the size of the church I had entered. It felt like there were thousands of them, and somewhere in-between the door and the altar my brain dithered between deciding if I was alone or not.

The pews were empty, though. I’m confident of that.

creak…

I moved past the altar to a staircase that rose up and up and up to the high and narrow steeple where the creaking bell groaned its subtle rhapsody. Every step felt heavier. Every breath I drew in was more ragged. When I’d started at the base of the steps, I’d felt fine, despite having just climbed a mountain. Now, just climbing these steps felt more arduous than scaling the cliff.

creak…

Like the hall below me, the stairs seemed to stretch and stretch until I thought I had been climbing for hours until, just like the summit of the cliff, suddenly they ended.

creak…

My heart was thundering in my chest, beating a harsh tattoo against my ribcage until it felt as though it were about to slam right through. I swallowed hard as the creaking above me grew louder. I knew if I looked up, I’d see the churchbell. I’d see the creaking, groaning thing that echoed across the gray and empty landscape.

All I had to do was look up.

creak…

…

creak…

…slowly I raised my head, just enough to see the beginnings of a pair of scuffed and dirty converse heels and—

—my eyes snapped open with my heart beating a million times a minute. Cold sweat was soaking through my shirt and shirts, and I hissed as I forced my hands to unclench from around what they were clinging to.

The empty mug tipped against the mattress, and my geode fell from numb fingers. Pain lanced through my palm a moment later as I realized I’d been gripping the geode so hard that the rough edges of the stone had actually bitten through the skin and drawn blood.

“Ow, sh-shit.” I pulled my hand against my chest and held it there as I tried to get my breathing under control.

The pain was bracing, though. It was the most real thing I’d felt in days ever since…

I closed my eyes and forced that thought out of my head as I stared down at the empty, stained tea mug that held the last remnants of matcha. Given what I’d been doing right before I’d fallen asleep, it was no wonder I had such a fucked up dream. In fact, knowing me, I probably had a lot more of those to look forward to in the future.

Another hiss escaped me as I flexed my hand. The cut was shallow but painful, but the pain sharpened my senses and brought me back around to the world. At first, it was almost welcome. The world suddenly felt present and real again, however briefly.

That presence, though. That realness…that’s probably the only reason I noticed the sound at all. A slow, measured creaking like old timbers groaning beneath a pendulous weight.

creak…

My heart went from beating thunderously to nearly a dead stop.

When I was young—very young—I used to have what the human world calls ‘night terrors’. Back in Equestria it was called being moon-touched, after the infamous Nightmare Moon. I would have nightmares so vivid that I swore they followed me into the waking world for a little while. I would wake up, and for moments at a time I would still be there.

I would still be in my nightmare.

I guess if anything was going to bring them back, it would be this.

creak…

Closing my eyes, I turned back to my pillow, buried my face in it, and curled into ball as I waited out the terror that was crawling from my gut, up my spine, and into the back of my skull. A voice that was back there with it screamed at me to ignore it. Just ignore it. That it was just a bad dream and to let it to be and to keep my back turned, my head down, and to go. Back. To sleep.

creak…

It was just a nightmare. Just a bad, bad dream. Just close your eyes and it will go away.

creak…

cre—

…

I started to shiver violently. The sound had stopped, but it had stopped wrong. That’s not the way it should have stopped. That’s what my mind was screaming. Something was very, very wrong! The sound. It shouldn’t have been there at all but it certainly shouldn’t have cut off partway through.

I gathered up my geode and Wally’s mug and hugged it to my chest as panic clawed at the inside of my ribs as I waited. I don’t know what I was waiting for. Maybe for the creaking to start again. Maybe for something else. All I knew was that if I raised my head I would see something I didn’t want to see.

Some primal, neolithic part of my brain was certain of it.

…thump…

The corner of my bed drooped as if someone had sat on it, and my shivers turned into full-body shakes. A strangled sob escaped my throat as a sound like radio white noise washed over me.

…amshihshhillsshprshhcioushhshhtshou…

The bed shifted again as I clenched my eyes shut harder.

“Just a nightmare, just a nightmare, just a nightmare~” I muttered the words like a mantra over and over and over until eventually, the world faded away.

I woke with a sharp jolt as my heart briefly jumped into my throat. My sheets were clinging to me, the result of dried sweat and tears, and it took me a moment to grasp while I was so irrationally terrified.

The dream.

The creaking.

It all came back to me in a rush as I sat up and took several shaky breaths to steady my heart rate while reassuring myself that it was, in fact, just a dream.

Here and now, with the thin winter sunlight drifting in through the windows of my apartment, that was a much easier prospect to believe in. It had to have been a dream, although I wasn’t going to go so far as to say it wasn’t entirely self-inflicted.

I grimaced as I looked down at my hand, and instantly let out a quiet hiss as I realized that that much, at least, had not been a dream. I’d definitely gripped the geode hard enough to break skin, and although it had mostly scabbed over, it wasn’t pretty.

A soft knocking at my door echoed up to my loft bed, informing me in no uncertain terms what it was that had actually woken me up.

“Coming!” I shouted groggily as I forced myself to sit up, pull on some clothes, and stumble out of bed.

A traitorous part of my brain drew my eyes to the edge of my loft that overlooked the kitchenette, but I pushed that thought out of my head as I moved quickly down the steps. Thinking was overrated and probably would be for a good long time.

I hissed as I banged my hip against the counter in my rush to reach the door and ended up limping the rest of the way on the tail end of some colorful curses before getting my hands on the doorknob, throwing the latch, and pulling it open.

On the other side of the door was a face I could probably recite the stress lines of in my sleep considering I’m pretty sure I put most of them there. As far as social workers go, Sticky Note was, at least in my opinion, the best. He wasn’t the nicest nor the warmest, but all that meant in his case was that he didn’t let good intentions get in the way of actually helping people.

Normally, his expression was somewhere between bored and severe, but today his soft grey eyes were set low over shadows that darkened his already dark red complexion.

Carding his fingers through soot-colored hair, Sticky let out a quiet sigh as he looked me up and down, and then just said: “Sunset, how are you holding up?”

I opened my mouth to answer. To tell him that I’m managing or that I’m keeping busy, or maybe that I’m getting a little better, but none of that came out. Nothing came out at all. My throat just…locked up. I tried to pull in a breath and have another go at it, but in the end, all I could do was click my jaw shut, bite my lip as I tried not to fall apart, and raggedly shake my head.

Then, Sticky Note did something that I’d never seen him do to anyone else.

He nodded, stepped close, and pulled me into a hug.

Unsurprisingly, he smelled like an office. It was that curiously muted scent of carpets that were neither old nor new but saw regular cleaning with an industrial vacuum. Beneath that was an almost smoky scent. All of that passed through my mind in an instant before I let out a shaky sob and wrapped my arms around his middle before burying my face against his chest and letting out a brittle, painful cry.

“Sticky, is she—oh dear.” I heard Bright Eyes come up from behind him and felt him settle a hand on my shoulder. “It’s alright, just let it out.”

All in all, I ended up sobbing away almost a full minute against Sticky’s clean button-down and tie before I finally managed to get a hold of myself and step back.

Per usual, Bright Eyes was dressed in a tweed circa eighteen-fifty, and he patted my arm gently as I drew away from his partner.

“Ugh, I’m uh…wow, I’m sorry, I just…” I shook my head as I tried to catch my breath but Sticky Note spoke up before I could find the words I’d been flailing for.

“Don’t apologize for the tears, Sunset, please,” he said softly. “We’re all due our fair share of them when something like this happens.”

I nodded as I turned and stepped back into my apartment, gesturing for them to follow. “Grab a seat, I’ve just gotta throw on some clothes and stuff, and we can go.”

To be honest, I wasn’t hungry, but I knew myself well enough to know that the state I was in now combined the fact that I couldn’t really remember the last time I ate beyond the tea I drank last night meant I needed to eat something. I probably wouldn’t taste it, but it would keep me going. Right now, that’s all I could really ask for.

I grabbed a pair of jeans and a blouse from a pile of clean laundry and slipped into the bathroom. My head was pounding and my chest ached, and just past that, I was vaguely aware of the twinge of pain in my hand.

Running some warm water, I did my best to clean the cut before gritting my teeth and spraying some antibacterial on it before wrapping it up. My hands were shaking throughout the whole process, and I had to tie and retie the bandage three times before I managed it. I briefly considered taking a shower, but I’d already overslept, and I didn’t want to make Sticky and Bright wait, so I settled for wetting down my comb and dragging it through my hair to tame the worst of the snarls.

No one expected me to be looking my best anyway, and frankly, I didn’t have the energy to try it.

At least my brain felt almost centered now. The last few days were a blur, but today everything feels real again. At least to a certain extent. There’s still a malaise over everything, a kind of encroaching greyness, but I clench my fist, digging my fingers into the shallow cut on my hand. An ache jolts up my arm and chases away the grey, and I take a few steadying breaths before giving my hair one last pass with the comb and emerging to find Bright and Sticky chatting quietly.

“Sorry,” I said softly. “I’m ready.”

Bright Eyes looked up with a faint, sorrowful smile, and nodded.

It wasn’t a long drive, but the Commonplace Apartments were sort of in the middle of the bad side of downtown. Not the worst side. I didn’t live in the East End, at least. We arrived at a little cafe off the side of Balleymont street, and Bright Eyes parked up along the curb. I’d spent the whole drive silently stewing in the backseat, feeling like a kid in my parent’s car despite never having known my parents, and having grown up in a place where cars didn’t exist.

I stepped out into the cold morning air and took in a deep breath as Bright Eyes moved up alongside me with a small smile.

“Come on, everyone will be waiting by now,” he said, and I froze in my tracks.

“Everyone?” I echoed, and I heard Sticky let out a long-suffering groan.

“Bright, did you not tell her?” Sticky asked, and Bright winced.

“It…may have slipped my mind,” he admitted as he looked up at his husband who I turned to for answers.

“It’s not many,” Sticky assured, and despite the indignation that was welling up in my chest, I forced myself to stay quiet and let him speak. “What you have to understand, Sunset, is that this…” he gestured vaguely outward, “isn’t the first time that…that something like this has happened. It’s a peril of the job, I’m afraid, that sometimes we fight as hard as we can, do everything right, and we still…”

He trailed off, and Bright Eyes picked up the thread of his words. “…sometimes we still lose,” he said softly. “And we all made a promise that, when that happens, which is blessedly rare, we would meet, and talk, and…and try to hold each other up.”

It was a support group.

Not in so many words, but that had brought me to a support group. Or rather, to their support group.

I turned to look at the cafe window which bore the name ‘Near & Far’ and briefly considered turning my back on all of it and walking back to my apartment. I could probably use the fresh air.

Bright Eyes put a hand on my shoulder as if sensing my intentions.

“You don’t have to stay but at least come in and have a bite to eat,” he pleaded. “If you want to leave, that’s alright, but please…at least come in.”

And that’s how they get you. Just a taste. Just a little. Just come in and cry about it and throw down your frustrations and inadequacies. Come before me, ye miserable and contrite, and be forgiven. Even if there’s nothing to forgive. Or if there is, maybe I don’t want to be forgiven.

Maybe I don’t deserve to be.

I say yes anyway.

We walk inside with Bright Eyes and Sticky Note flanking me, and I can’t decide if I look like a sullen daughter with her two gay dads or a crime boss with two most nebbish enforcers in Canterlot.

The cafe was a quiet little place with a small counter leading down into a cozy dining area. It wasn’t the sort of place where families crammed in by the dozen to get at the early-bird special, but I could easily imagine Near & Far being somebody’s favorite little hole-in-the-wall. It’s warm and cozy, and probably has about eight too many doilies, but all of that adds to the charm.

Personally? I kind of hated it.

“It’s like someone barfed nostalgia onto the walls and didn’t mop up.”

“Charming,” Sticky said flatly while Bright chuckled, and he patted my shoulder. “Come on then, then others are waiting.”

I grimaced but followed along.

I’m not sure what I expected. I probably should have expected the obvious but for some reason, it didn’t hit me who exactly would be here until I saw the three of them sitting at the table. Vice Principal Luna was no surprise, obviously. She was the ringleader of sorts, and she looked up at me with a weary expression.

At least she was polite enough not to smile.

The other two caught me off-guard, though.

I barely recognized Witch Hazel out of her scrubs and white jacket. I hadn’t really kept in touch with her either, but I had a healthy respect for her all the same and that hadn’t diminished in the slightest. The final woman, though, I recognized with a barely contained flinch.

She towered over the other two despite the fact that she was leaning back in her chair with an odd, felid grace. Her long teal hair fell arrow-straight past her shoulders, framing wicked, harlequin-green eyes set into beetle-shell black skin, and they were fixed steadily onto me with a predator’s focus. My heart did an unsettling flip as my breath caught in my throat. It had been almost four years since I’d last seen the woman, and yet Chrysalis Hive still scared the sprinkles out of me.

“Morning, Lu,” Bright said as he leaned down and hugged Luna, giving her a chaste kiss on either cheek. “Hazel,” he repeated the process, “Chrys—”

“Touch me and lose the cats-eyes, Bright,” Chrysalis said dully.

“Lovely to see you too, as always, Chryssy,” Bright Eyes riposted without missing a beat.

To my surprise, Chrysalis’s lips actually twitched faintly.

Sticky Note’s greetings were more sober, but just as warm, andhe pulled out a chair for both myself and his husband before taking a seat.

“How are you holding up, Sunset?” Luna asked as we settled in.

“The last person who asked me that is still covered in tears and snot,” I replied, flicking my eyes over to Sticky Note, who pressed his lips to a thin line.

“Sunset.” Bright Eyes put a hand on mine. I hated that tone he got whenever he flipped his ‘therapist’ switch. It was a soft, warm tenor carefully modulated to put people at ease and despite knowing that, it still worked on me. “We talked about this…”

“I just put my f-friend…can…can you just…” I grit my teeth and let out a shaky breath as tears threatened the corners of my vision.

“Jesus Christ, Bright, would you give the girl a fucking pass on the talking therapy for today?” Chrysalis said, and her flat tone took on an edge as she raised her coffee to her lips and took a sip.

“Chrys…” Luna reached a hand out, only to draw back in silence at the death glare that got shot her way.

Of all the people to leap to my defense, I had not expected it to be Chrysalis.

“Burying and deflecting pain under the guise of jokes avoids processing them,” Bright replied, as he straightened to face Chrysalis, who snorted softly into her cappuccino.

“Yeah, and I’m saying maybe let the girl get some distance before you get her on the couch about this shit.” Chrysalis looked back at me and this time I didn’t flinch.

I met her gaze, eye to eye, and shivered at the cold soul I saw there. There was something deeply and fundamentally broken inside of Chrysalis Hive, but I’d never been able to put my finger on what that was. When I’d met her first, the idiot part of my brain could only think about how strikingly pretty she was, but the follow-up visits…they didn’t so much change that as modify it.

She was beautiful. Definitely. But she was cold and hard-edged, too.

I think I appreciate that look a little more today.

“Bright, it’s fine.” Sticky put a hand on his husband’s shoulder, and Bright Eyes let out a breath, then nodded, and relaxed back into his seat.

The mood at the table softened significantly after that, enough for one of the waitresses to inch in and take our drink orders; a black coffee for Sticky Note—surprise, surprise—and rosehip tea for Bright Eyes.

I ordered hot green tea.

“Sunset,” Luna started, “I just wanted to say how sorry I am, truly,” she put her hand over mine, and I had to force myself not to flinch back. “I know how close you two were, and I know how much Wallflower meant to you.”

Hearing her talked about in the past tense was, I decided, just about the worst thing in the world. It jammed my throat full of cotton and dried up my mouth, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe much less talk, so I settled for nodding raggedly as I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets.

I bit my lip to keep a yelp from escaping as I jammed my fingers on something cold and hard.

“Losing someone like that isn’t something anyone moves beyond easily.” Luna was still talking, but I was only half-listening as I tried to figure out what I’d just nearly lost a fingernail on that I’d left in my pocket. “But I want you to know that all of us know what you’re going through, truly…and that we’re here for you.”

Seriously, what the fuck did I—?

My hand closed around it and I instantly recognized the shape. My fingers found all the rough, familiar edges of the raw stone exterior that made up my geode. The geode that was supposed to be back in my apartment. I’d put it away, hadn’t I? Or at least…had I left in my bed? I couldn’t remember.

Maybe I’d had it in my hands when I’d been getting ready, and I put it in my pocket without thinking?

“Sunset?”

“What?” I looked up and found all five of them looking at me with odd expressions.

Luna furrowed her brow. “I asked if you’d like to stay with my sister and I for a little while, just so you aren’t alone.”

“I…no,” I shook my head, “no, I uhm, I’d rather be in my own place, you know?”

“Alright,” Luna said, although her eyes stayed on me for a moment longer, as if weighing my reply. “But at least let Bright or Sticky check in on you now and again? Please. Let them take you out for lunch sometimes, or just visit?”

“Just for a few months, until things settle a little,” Sticky said, picking up the thread. “Losses like this…it hits all of us.”

I took a deep breath that rattled its way down my throat before looking up at them.

“How many times have you done this?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I actually wanted an answer.

All of them looked pensive as the silence stretched out, but it was Witch Hazel who eventually spoke up.

“More times than I have the heart to say aloud,” she replied. Her lean features seemed a bit more sunken than the last time I’d seen her, and her auburn hair hung a little more lankly around her face. “Sufficed to say, it’s enough that we know how far one can spiral…these people we try to help? It’s the ones we fail that haunt each of us the most.”

The scrape of a chair echoes through the dining room as Chrysalis stands sharply and moves out from around the table.

“Chryssy?” Luna’s gaze followed her warily.

“Bathroom.”

Her voice was tight and angry as she vanished around the corner, following the signs, and I took a deep drink of my tea as I watched her go. It was bitter and hot, but the taste was familiar, and I needed that right now.

When I looked back at Luna and Doc Hazel, I gave them my answer. That I’d think about it, but that I needed some space. I needed time. They accepted it on the condition that I at least check in with one of them every couple of days. Bright even threatened repeated wellness checks over it.

Chrysalis spent longer in the bathroom than I think was strictly necessary for any manner of bodily function, only emerging just as our food made it out. I ordered the oatmeal with honey. I wasn’t hungry, but it was easy to eat, so I figured I’d be able to get it down my gullet at least.

The meal was quiet, interspersed with soft conversation mostly led by Luna or Bright Eyes. Sticky was his usual taciturn self, but he animated a little when he was talking to Hazel. I know the two of them shared a lot of cases.

Chrysalis stared at her eggs benedict in silence, and while I never caught her at it, anytime I wasn’t looking at her, I had the distinct impression that she was looking at me.

I was halfway through my oatmeal when she stood up. Her chair scraped deafeningly against the floor as pushed the remaining third of her breakfast away.

“I think I’m done,” she said tersely, before moving sharply around the table again, her heels clicking against the tile with every step. “Let me know when the next one drops.”

“Chrys!” Luna snapped.

She didn’t stop, or even flinch, she just kept walking, and, driven by some unnameable urge, I stood up and followed.

A hand caught my wrist, and I looked down to find Sticky Note giving me a worried look. It was strange, seeing that much emotion on the man’s face. He wasn’t the sort of emote easily or even very well, but when he did it was a stark difference.

“Sunset—”

“I want to talk to her,” I replied, pulling my hand from his grip.

For a moment, it looked like he wanted to take my hand again but, thankfully, he didn’t. If he had there might’ve been a fight to follow, but Sticky always seemed to know when my temper was near its edge, and backed off.

“Come back when you’re done?” He asked. “Just to drive you home, that’s all.”

I flattened my lips to a line but nodded. That was as much of a compromise as I was going to get out of him, and I was actually a bit grateful he didn’t make a bigger show of it. Undoubtedly, from the look Bright Eyes was giving us, there would be words had at this table after I left, but he was letting me go.

“Yeah, fine.”

Then I followed the sound clicking heels out into the cold, Canterlot air.

With Tears Unshed

I shivered as I stepped out of the Near & Far. The wind was flensing today, as it usually was in Canterlot. It blew down hard through from the north, across the lakes and into the city, howling between the multi-storied buildings with restless spite. Cars drifted by in either direction, their occupants moving towards one thing or another, and I watched them for a brief moment before scanning around.

Chrysalis was waiting for me, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. She was leaning against the wall of the building a quarter-block down. If I didn’t know she was a brilliant doctor I would say that she looked like a hooker pretending to be one. Her long, dark coat was open down the middle, and she was wearing a clean white blouse that hugged her lean curves. Her pencil skirt suggested more about her legs than they covered, to be honest, but that wasn’t a bad thing.

And she was smoking.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I closed the distance, stopped, and leaned back against the wall beside her.

“Mind if I bum one?” I asked, not looking up.

She drew a hand out of her pocket and held out the white package with a sharp purple square over the front, and flicked the top open before I could read the brand. They didn’t look local, though. I’d never seen that box in the bodegas.

I took one anyway and tucked it between my lips before pulling out a box of matches, taking a pair from the sleeve, and striking them alight. I watched them burn for a moment; I watched as the fire slow ate its way down the clean, pale wooden stem. I watched just long enough for the heat to reach my fingers before holding the flame up to the tip of the cigarette and light it with a few drags.

We smoked in silence for several moments, and the ash had crept nearly to my knuckles before I finally lowered the cigarette, put it out against the wall behind me, and said, “you’re angry at me, aren’t you?”

“Not everything is about you, kid,” Chrysalis said around her cigarette. The smoke drifted up lazily from the lit end, and her eyes were fixed on some unseen point in the distance.

I turned back towards the cafe, then looked back up at Chrysalis, who was taking a deep drag. Smoke spilled from between her lips, and it gave her a darkly draconic appearance for a moment before she blew it out in a thick, pungent stream.

“I told her, you know,” she said suddenly, and I looked up sharply. “I told her that if she spiraled, and it came back to the lot of us,” she nodded back towards the cafe without looking, “that I would make sure it came back to you, too.”

“You threatened…” I couldn’t get her name past my lips, but my blood was boiling anyway as I rounded on Chrysalis, but before I could get another word out she turned and nailed me down with that glare of hers.

Loathe as I was to admit it, but her glare was a lot better than mine.

“I told her that you’d bet everything on her and that if she fucked up I’d make sure you lost that bet.” Her expression was bitter and colder than the winds around us.

Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I squared up at her, tipping my chin up and giving her my best glare right back, and held my arms out wide. “So? Do it! I’m right here!”

That harlequin stare of hers was eerie in its intensity. It was drilling right into me like she was reaching into my head and dredging up everything that made me tick, and I knew in that moment that I was right. That there was something very wrong with Chrysalis Hive.

“Why bother?” She said, finally looking away and putting her cigarette out on the wall, leaving an ashen stain of her own right beside mine. “She did it for me.”

Rage wasn’t a word that could quantify how angry I was. Fucking volcanic got close. I was shaking. I wanted to hit. I wanted to drag her to the ground and beat her smug face in until it was nothing but paste!

“What,” I hissed, “the fuck is your problem?”

“You really want to know, kid?” Chrysalis asked.

I waited for a moment before realizing that wasn’t a rhetorical question. She was really asking if I wanted to know. The worst part of that realization was that I wasn’t actually sure that the answer was yes. Did I want to know? In that moment, I hated her. I hated her so much I really, actually might have wanted to kill her, but at the same time, I knew she was smart. Brilliant even. You don’t get to be one of the best medical diagnosticians in the nation by being a shithead.

So no. Honestly, I didn’t want to know, but I said yes anyway because I’m stubborn like that.

“My problem is that you think a million pounds of sweat and blood will solve everything,” Chrysalis said flatly. “My problem is that you think you’re so smart and so stubborn that shit just has to work out, but it doesn’t. Most of the time, it doesn’t, and better than half the time that it does it was because of luck and nothing else, and because of that, because of you,” Chrysalis jabbed a finger under my nose, “Wallflower floated through the system when she should have been sectioned.”

It would have hurt less if she’d just shot me, but at least I could have the satisfaction of know that I’d been right.

I really hadn’t wanted to know.

“Fuck you,” I whispered, but the invective came out weak and broken. “I…I did everything that I could!” My words were coming out wet and harsh, but I had to force them out. I had to make her understand! “I couldn’t just…just let her go! I couldn’t just fucking let her go back to the streets! And she would have! If I hadn’t been there, then she would have!”

“You stacked the deck to force my hand, kid,” Chrysalis replied as she pulled another cigarette out and casually lit it, took a drag, and blew out another stream of grey. “I stamped her approval because I liked you, because you had brains and moxie, and you reminded me of me.”

“I’m nothing like you,” I said.

“Sure you are,” Chrysalis took another drag and shrugged. “You’re just smart enough to get in over your head and dumb enough to not be able to get out. You’re good enough to know when to duck—” she drew a sharp line across her throat with her thumb— “but not fast enough to save anyone else.”

I opened my mouth to refute her but, to my horror, I realized I wasn’t sure how. Her description of me was…eerily on point.

“You win some, you lose some,” Chrysalis said after a moment of me goldfishing and trying like hell to scrape some semblance of my self-image back together. “Take this as a learning opportunity and a chance to get smarter and faster, or else,” she shrugged and put out her finished smoke, “someone else will lose their head the next time you duck.”

More than ever, I hated her. Now, though, it wasn’t just because of what she’d said about Wallflower. It wasn’t about what she’d done or the threats she’d made. I hated her because I couldn’t tell her she was wrong.

Because she wasn’t.

Chrysalis was right. At the end of the day, it was my fault.

I was the reason that Wallflower died.

But, Written’s Quill, I just wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt her because I was hurting and…fucking hell, she deserved it. I could feel it in my bones!

“Is that why you’re here?” I asked flatly.

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at my question. If we were as much alike as she thought, then I’m sure she knew what my change of tone meant. Volcanic anger was one thing. Red, fiery anger was stupid anger. It was the kind of anger that lead to me pitching myself headlong into a fight I couldn’t win.

Cold, blue anger was different. It was bitter and hateful and usually ended in blood, tears, or both.

“With them, I mean,” I nodded back at the Near & Far. “Are you here because you ducked?”

She gave me a flat, dagger-edged smile.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Then she brushed past me, and as she did, I decided she was right again.

I really would like to know.

Tightening my fingers around the geode that had ended up in my pocket, I gripped it hard enough that I felt the bite of pain as my scabbed hand reopened under the bandage, and dredged out the power buried in that stone. I dug it up, drank deep, and an amber fire bloomed between my fingers as I reached out my free hand and grabbed Chrysalis by the wrist.

Have you ever had a moment of real, true clarity? Like an epiphany? A moment where the truth of something fundamental was suddenly made known to you in such a jarringly blatant manner that you couldn’t help but confront the totality of it all at once?

Let me follow that up with another question.

Have you ever reached for something and been zapped by static electricity?

The moment I touched Chrysalis Hive’s skin with my fingers, I was hit with a static shock followed by the knife-sharp clarity that I had done something very wrong.

Every other time I’ve used my geode, it’s been like dropping into the deep end of a swimming pool. I go from freefall to total submersion. It’s a constant descent, going further and further into the corners of a person’s memories and experiences and what makes them who they are. In that very same way, though, it’s like swimming through still waters.

This was like getting hit by a surge tide of guilt, rage, pain, and hatred.

Be standing my ground. Feet are planted and she’s screaming at me. Accusing me.

Be smiling, bared teeth and naked anger. Not my fault. Not my responsibility. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I tell her. She screams at me. She hates me.

Be spitting in her face. Her sister was stupid. Stupid girl. Thought she was smart. Should’ve thought better. Should have—

—I staggered away from her, the intensity was pounding at my skull from all sides. Everything was jumbled and out of order. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t see straight.

“What did you do?!” Chrysalis’ mask of contempt and disdain was gone for the first time since I’d known her as she seized me by the collar of my jacket and heaved me off my feet. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

My head was spinning. I couldn’t make heads or tails. Up or do—

—be showing her the ropes. Tap-tap-tapping. Fingers dance across keys opening locks and cracking firewalls. Brush of a finger and the algorithm runs.

Be smiling as she sits beside me, her blue eyes are wide, her smile is wider.

Show me, Luna says. Show me how.

Be showing her how. Showing her shadows under shadows. Darkness under darkness. Places where faces don’t matter. Where ones and zeroes make and destroy lives. Where spiders spin webs of intricate code in dark places. Dark Webs.

Be showing her words and phrases. Cracks and passwords. Push this button. The lights go off. Push that button. Alarms go silent. Be who you want. Whoever you want. Anyone and everyone.

She pushes the buttons. She learns the ropes. I show her how and she—

—Chrysalis dropped me and I hit the ground hard with my stomach in knots. Coughing up a mouthful of bile, I tried to let go of the geode. It was chaos. It was a mess. I couldn’t—

—bang-bang goes the gavel. Be listening to the words of the man at the pulpit. Be staring into her eyes. Blue eyes. Pleading eyes. Help her. Celestia begs me.

Be ignoring the pleas. Ignoring the eyes. Not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault.

My program. My skills. My ropes.

Not my fault.

I finally let go of the geode. My mouth tastes like acid and oatmeal, and I wipe my lips clear as I looked up at Chrysalis. Finally, I understand that look she always has on her face. The look of total contempt. Like the person she’s looking at is lower than dirt. I understand because that’s the only way I’d be able to look at Chrysalis from that point on.

“You let her take the fall,” I said flatly.

“It wasn’t my—”

“—fault, yeah, I fucking got that part,” I snarled over her, and I saw real emotion cross her features. “Not your fault Luna got sent to juvie, right?”

Guilt—the kind of guilt that eats at your gut from the inside like acid—was plain as day on a face that was pallid despite her dark complexion. I stood on shaky legs, spitting another gobbet of phlegm and bile-flavored spit onto the ground.

“She was a minor! The record got sealed, and she was fine,” Chrysalis snapped.

Somehow, I doubted that.

“You and Celestia,” I said, rather than respond to her defense. “You were together back then, weren’t you?”

Chrysalis opened and closed her jaw several times, and I watched the war happen behind her eyes. The need to defend herself warred with the desire to be done with this conversation. I knew which one she would pick. I knew because she was right, she and I were too much alike. We were both too proud.

“It’s past and done,” Chrysalis bit out. “She and I are done, and no, she never forgave me.”

“But you want her to,” I said quietly, and she froze.

“I don’t—”

“That’s why you’re doing all this,” I gestured back to Near & Far. “That’s why you’re helping, and why you’re working shit hours in a shittier clinic in the shittiest part of town despite making more in an hour at your day job than what Bright and Sticky make in a week!”

I advance on her and to my surprise, she draws back. Maybe because she’s afraid I’ll drag something else out of her.

“And why?!” My temper is boiling but I don’t know why. Maybe because the geode leaves my emotions raw. Maybe for another reason altogether. “Because you think she’ll love you if you try hard enough?! That all you have to do is save enough kids from dying on the streets or in a padded cell to make your shitty excuse for a life mean something despite the fact that you couldn’t save the one that mattered most?! Is that it?!”

I was screaming by the end. My voice was as raw as my soul, and Chrysalis was looking down at me with a stricken expression. I could see the hate boiling behind her eyes. She hated me. Good. I hated her too.

“You’re right,” she said is a voice so soft that it put a chill down my spine. “Is that what you want to hear, Sunset?” Chrysalis straightened and flattened her blouse, then pulled out another cigarette and tucked it between her lips. “You’re right. I want her to love me again, and she probably never will, but I’ll keep trying even if it takes me the rest of my life—” she lit her smoke and took a drag— “because at least she’s still around to forgive me.”

She blew a stream of smoke into my face as I numbly registered her words, then she turned on her heels and I listened to them click-click-click away.

It took almost an hour for me to register that I’d promised to come back to the cafe to get a ride home from Sticky and Bright, and that that was probably why my phone had been blowing up after I left.

I bet it would still be blowing up if I hadn’t turned it off a half-hour ago.

As I walked, all I could think of was how much I hated her. How much I hated Chrysalis. I hated her because she was right about so much. About her and I being alike. About her still having the chance that I never would again. She was right about all of it and I hated that more than almost anything, even if it wasn’t quite as much as I hated myself.

She was right about me and right about Wallflower, and in the end there was nothing I could do about that. A numb, angry part of my brain wanted to curl up in an alley and die just so I could make it all stop.

Everything hurt so much, and…

And it would never stop hurting, because Wallflower was gone, because I wasn’t enough and couldn’t do enough and couldn’t save her.

I couldn’t stop her.

I only realized I was going somewhere specific when I got to Wallflower’s apartment, and as I came to a halt I realized it was a place that I had been both consciously and unconsciously avoiding coming to even though I knew I would have to at some point. Or at least, someone had to. Some should have, anyway. If this were someone else, it would have been a family member. Next of kin. Something like that. Wallflower didn’t have anything like that. All she had was a piss-poor excuse for a friend who literally couldn’t help her to save her life.

Even now, all Wallflower had was me, and wasn’t that a crying shame.

I’d been given her personal effects by the funeral director—what few she’d had on her, which amounted to nothing more than a broken cell phone and a keyring with a two keys and a little electronic fob on it. The fob got me through the locked door, and a few flights of stairs later I had the key held out to get me into the apartment itself.

I tell myself that I’m going there to tidy up. To make sure that nothing gets swept up by the apartment cleaners that should have been kept. It’s as poor a lie as I’ve ever come up with. My right hand holds the key while my left is laid over the pocket carrying my geode.

Surely there would be something left, right? Something that would have enough of an impression to…to see her. To feel her. Just a little bit.

Fitting the key to the lock, I turn it and push the door open.

It’s musty and smells vaguely of wilting foliage. There are plants in the window that are sagging and dying from lack of sunlight, fresh air, and water. If I had anything like the green thumb that Wallflower had, I might have tried to save them, but I was always better with machines than plants.

The apartment was so painfully small that it was almost claustrophobic. I carded my fingers through my hair, brushing through the slush and snow that had matted down the long strands as I looked around for something to gather things up in.

I spotted a stray grocery bag on the floor. That would do.

Stepping inside, I hip-checked the door closed and knelt to pick up the bag. I reached out and flicked the light on as I stood, and immediately my heart leapt into my throat.

Her apartment was a studio, so it was one room plus a bathroom. Nothing else. The bed was right there in the living room beside the kitchenette. It was a simple twin-size with messy sheets and blankets, and there was nothing at all important about it except for the severed length of rope that had been thrown over it, and which was still tied into a neat slipknot.

A sick, awful part of me was so, so tempted as I walked over, dropped the bag by the bed, and sat down beside the rope. I tightened my grip over the geode through the fabric of my pocket as I reached out with my free hand and scooped up the rough length.

It felt awful. Just physically awful. It had a terrible, scratchy texture that gave me rope burn just thinking it, and on the heels of that, I realized that this was the last thing that Wallflower had ever felt.

My stomach rolled and suddenly I was dropping the rope and sprinting for the bathroom. I shouldered my way in and collapsed in front of the bowl as I emptied out the rest of my breakfast.

Sobs ripped raw from my chest and past my lips as I bawled against the dirty porcelain. Clinging to the edges was the only thing keeping me upright. Soon even my fingers failed me, and I slowly slumped over as hollow, breathless cries wracked my body. I curled in on myself sobbing bitterly. I think her name spilled out of me a few times.

I wanted her back. I just wanted to have her back. I wanted to hold her and bury my face against her hair and tell her that I loved her and that she was everything to me. I wanted to tell her that she was the first thing I thought of every morning and the last thought on my mind when I went to bed, and that I would be there for her no matter how bad things got or how ugly life became. I wanted to but I couldn’t, and all because I was a coward who couldn’t tell the girl I loved more than life itself precisely those few words.

Maybe if I had, she would still be here.

If only I were better.

I don’t know how long I was lying on the bathroom floor, but it was long enough for my tears and my sick to dry up. When I finally came back to myself, it was to a feeling like someone had hollowed out the inside of my chest and dumped it in the cistern.

Everything hurt and I was exhausted, so for a few more minutes I let the world pass by while I laid on the floor in abject misery, and it was there that I saw something that seared itself into my mind forever

There was a small box behind the u-bend of the toilet.

Part of my brain told me not to pick it up. Don’t, it said. Just don’t. There’s nothing good in that box and if you pick it up you will regret it.

I reached out and I picked up the box.

Sitting up, I ran my hand over the brown surface. It was cheap metal and about half the six of an average shoebox, and for being where it was, it was surprisingly free of dust.

It had a simple latch lock which was, predictably, locked. I pulled her keyring from my pocket and eyed the smaller second key. It looked about right. The real question was, did I want to open it? Obviously not. I obviously didn’t want to open it?

Was I going to?

I fit the key to the lock and it turned with a light, oiled click.

This was the moment—the second between open and closed—where I could turn back. I could set it down, push it back behind the u-bend, and pretend I’d never seen it. It would be better, and I knew it, and that’s why I wasn’t going to do that.

Because I didn’t deserve ‘better’.

I flipped the lid open, and almost choked on the sob that rolled up my throat. If I were naive and stupid, I could pretend it was a first aid kit. First aid kits had bandages, after all. They also had cotton swabs and metal bandage clips and little bottles of rubbing alcohol.

They didn’t, however, have neat little boxes of single-edge razors. They wouldn't have single orphaned razor lying discarded amongst the otherwise tidy organization of the box.

A razor whose edge bore a faint patina of brown rust along its edge.

I couldn’t have said how long I sat there with that miserable little box in my lap, but I do know what I was thinking about that whole time.

Do I, or don’t I?

The question of should or shouldn’t was a given. Obviously, I shouldn’t. The problem was that that was also a given for everything I’d ever done in my entire life, apparently, and that hadn’t stopped me.

It’s not really a question, though, just like opening the box wasn’t really a question. It was a hesitation. All I was doing, then and now, was hesitating. Just like I hesitated with Wallflower. That hesitation cost the world the brightest, most perfect soul it had, and now…Written’s Quill, how dare I even think about hesitating?

How dare I.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered hollowly as I took the geode out of my pocket and rolled it around in my palm.

It was stained with blood again from where I’d gripped it painfully hard while ripping a vision from Chrysalis. There were rough abrasions on my fingers that I hadn’t even noticed during my walk. The scabs and rusty brown stains on my fingers were neatly mirrored by the ones on the edge of the razor that I pluck up out of the little bed of clean, white cotton and linen.

Closing my eyes, I gripped the geode and called up its power, with the rusty little razor held carefully between finger and thumb. It’s time I face what I should have long ago. No more hesitati—

—be numb. Be so, so numb.

Be burning and itching and screaming on the inside.

Be numb. Be so, so numb.

Be swallowed by the silent scream of the world—so loud and deafening and soundless that nothing else can fill the void, and it’s all coming from the gaping hole in my chest that’s so empty it’s choking me to death.

Pinhole vision. Grey and empty and tightening, tightening, tightening, until I can’t breathe and can’t think.

Bathroom. To the bathroom. Find the cure. Got to let it out. Let the quiet out. Let the pain out. Have to—

—the razor drops from my fingers, falling with a tinny clatter to the cheap tile below. My eyes were burning and my throat had constricted to the point that I couldn’t make a sound.

Not enough. It wasn’t enough. Not yet. I wasn’t done yet.

I scooped up the razor and—

—be shaking.

Be tired.

Be so, so numb.

Be pushing the metal to the soft, spongy flesh. Metal bites deep. Drinks deep. Let the quiet out. It lets the quiet out. It has to let the quiet out.

Why isn’t it letting the quiet out!?

Thunder. Pounding thunder hammers the walls. Voices. Laughter. Low bass and high treble. Happy voices. Cheering and laughing and jeering and—

—I spat a curse as I jerked my fist open. I’d gripped the razor so tight it had bitten straight into my palm.

“Shit!” I hold it up and let the blood drip from the blade.

My eyes were burning. My heart was trying to beat its way out of my ribcage.

More. I needed to see more. I needed to see everything because I wasn’t here to see it when it mattered most. She deserved to have someone see it—see her. One more time, just one more…I gripped the geode in one hand and it flared with ruddy, amber light, and held tight to the razor in the other.

And nothing happened.

“Come on,” I hissed. “Come on! Y-You were just working!” I brought the razor and the geode closer as if that would help. “Come on!”

The amber light flared brighter and angrier, and the lights in the apartment flickered spastically, and finally, something inside of me snapped. I screamed at it. At the geode and the razor and that whole damned room. I screamed out all of my rage and my anger and my sorrow and everything.

Amber fire exploded around me in a sharp and sudden wave, and every light bulb blossomed impossibly bright for a split second before they snapped with a whipcrack pop as their filaments burnt out, and the bathroom and all the rest of the apartment were plunged into darkness, and the only light was the geode which was burning low like a sullen ember at the back corner of a hearth.

And nothing happened.

Why?

Why couldn’t I feel her anymore?

I held the geode and the razor cupped in shaking hands as I stared down at them. Pleading with them. Was I that much of a failure? Was I so far gone that even the memory of her wanted nothing to do with me?

Was I—

creak…

Cold. I was suddenly so cold. I knew that sound. I knew it because I’d heard it in my nightmares. It was the creak of rough rope and old wood.

creak…

“Stop it,” I murmured the words as I clenched my eyes shut. “It’s not real, it’s…it’s not real.” It couldn’t be real. I was snapping. I was finally losing it completely.

creak…

cre—

…thump…

The sound came from the apartment just near the bed. A sound like two feet striking an old wooden floor. I didn’t look up. I wasn’t sure I could. I wanted to. An awful, twisted part of me wanted to and it was the same part that wanted to believe that it was real. That I wasn’t losing my mind.

Or maybe, it’s the part that was hoping that I was.

That was, actually, far more likely. Yeah, that had to be it. I was finally losing my mind. I wasn’t really hearing footsteps coming from the den outside the bathroom door. I wasn’t hearing the old doorknob creaking as it was turned. I certainly wasn’t hearing the door open as I stared down into the ruddy, dead-ember light of my geode.

“I tried,” I said hollowly, even though I knew that, rationally, there was no one there to hear my words. “I tried to help…I…I did everything I could.”

Everything was buzzing faintly. My fingers and toes were prickling with pins and needles as blood dripped from the shallow cut on my palm down to the bathroom tile. My ears were buzzing too. Static wash was all I could hear. Static, and…

…shshnshet…

“I miss you so much.” The words left my lips like fire, burning my throat and tongue on the way out. “I miss you with every inch of my heart, and I…Quill, I should have told you how I felt…I could have told you, but I…”

…amshihshhillsshprshhcioushhshhtshou…

“I know you’re not real,” I said quietly, “I know I’m losing it. I lost it and everything else that mattered the day you died.” I turned the razor over in my hand and stared down at the rusty edge. It was still sharp but… I set it down, then reached for the metal box.

I didn’t look up. There was nothing there, after all.

Tugging a fresh razor from the box, I admired the keen edge. It wouldn’t take much. Go deep, then a little deeper, then a little bit deeper, and that would be it. Carotid artery. Femoral artery. Both, maybe. Then wait

…shshnshet…

I wasn’t really hearing her. I wasn’t hearing her voice because she was dead and gone and it was my fault. It was my fault for not doing enough. Not being present enough. I could have done more. I should have done more!

…shunshet…

“I miss you,” I choked the word out past a throat that could barely drag in air.

My hand was shaking.

…amshishtillpreshioshhshstoyou?

“Always,” I sobbed dryly. “Always and forever.”

Carotid first. It was the easiest. It wouldn’t be fast, but it would work. This was my fault. Everything was my fault. It was all always my fault.

I raised the razor up and—

…am I still precious to you?

—a pale hand with a soft green complexion that was limned in a strange, static glow settled on mine, and slim, gentle fingers curled over the razor and around my hand and pushed it down.

I could feel it.

Under the wash of numbness and the prickle of pins and needles, I could feel her.

Impossible. This was impossible. Even by magic’s standards, this was impossible. Was this really happening? Or had I snapped even harder than I thought? Was I really staring at her hand? At her arm?

“Wall…Wally?” Her name passed my lips as I looked up and—

CRACK

Gone. The hand was gone. The vision—apparition— whatever it was, was gone with a gut-wrenching and heart-stopping snap of bone.

I blinked several times, trying to get the spots out of my eyes as I stared at the spot she would have been occupying a breath ago. I could still feel the warm tingle of her skin on mine. I could still hear her voice in my ears. Had it all been an illusion? Just my brain breaking down so badly under the weight of my sins that I hallucinated that whole encounter? It had to be that, right? It had to be.

Swallowing thickly, I tightened my grip on the geode, and in my other hand, I…

My fingers closed on nothing.

The brand new razor was gone. I stood up sharply, knocking the metal box away in a deafening clatter as I looked down and around myself. It had been right there! The razor had been right there in my hand! It couldn’t have—!

creak…

I snapped my head up like a bloodhound with a scent. That sound! I knew that sound. The sound from dreams and nightmares and febrile visions! I knew that sound!

Stumbling out of the bathroom. I held up my geode which was burning just barely as bright as a candle. It was enough to illuminate a small portion of the little studio apartment. Enough to glint off of something lying in the center of the noose’s loop I’d dropped it onto the bed.

A bright and shiny single-edged razor. Fresh from the box.

But I Can't Lose...

Once I’d gotten my wits together, I started packing up Wally’s apartment. Anything and everything I thought could reasonably come with me, did. The plastic bag I’d been planning to use got tossed in the garbage in favor of two duffle bags and a rolling suitcase that was still stuffed in the back of Wallflower’s closet. They were the same things we’d used to move her into her apartment, and now, if I was right and not just going completely off my fucking rocker…I might be using them to move her out of it.

That was nuts, of course. It was absolutely god damn insane.

It wouldn’t be the first insane thing that turned out to be true, though. From the perceptions of most of humanity, my very existence qualified as insane, so who was I to say that this wasn’t the same deal?

The subsequent bus ride and walk back to my apartment would have been miserable if I’d had enough presence of mind to be miserable. If the bus driver had any qualms about me practically moving house using his route, he was kind enough not to say anything. The looks the other passengers were giving me certainly suggested that I looked like some kind of bag lady, but thankfully this was Canterlot, and so long as I paid my fare and didn’t smell too bad, no one would bother to comment.

It was only as I approached my apartment with one duffle bag slung over either shoulder and the rolling suitcase behind me that I realized my phone was still off. I only realized it because I spotted Applejack posted up like a sentry outside of my apartment in the drifting snow.

She was wearing two layers of flannel and had her hands shoved into her pockets, but I’d recognize that stetson and the long, straw-blonde hair that fell out from under it anywhere.

Sticky Note or Bright Eyes must have told Luna I’d gone dark. No doubt Luna had passed on the information to my friends, and now I probably had all six of them on the lookout which would include whatever winter birds Fluttershy could wrangle, a genius telekine, and a girl who could hit point-five of the speed of sound.

Shit.

I hesitated for a moment, but there was no other way into my apartment, and I couldn’t just hang out in the nearby alley until she left. Aside from looking cagey as fuck, I had no guarantee Applejack would leave. Knowing her, she would stick to her post until dawn if she thought I was in trouble, which meant I was going to have to bluff my way past the Element of Honesty.

Well, no sense dragging it out. That would just make it more likely that one of the others would show up.

Squaring my shoulders, I adjusted the straps on the duffle bags, steadied my grip on the rolling suitcase, and pushed forward. The snow was light, but it was still freezing, and even under my jacket, hoodie, scarf, and beanie, I was just about numb, so my pace wasn’t great. That meant that Applejack spotted me fairly quickly as soon as she was, presumably, able to make out my hair color through the snow.

“SUNSET!” Applejack straightened up from where she’d been leaning against the wall and knocked her boots against the sidewalk to clear the snow from her treads. “Where the hell’ve ya been?!”

Panic warred with relief on her face as she jogged up to me, and I pushed the little voice that I tentatively identified as my conscience deeper into one of the less trodden corners of my mind.

“S-Sorry,” I said, and I didn’t need to fake the stutter. My teeth were chattering something fierce from the cold as I moved past her and nodded towards the door. “I was uhm…taking care of something I should’ve done a while ago, you mind if I get inside?”

“Well, o’course not, but you had us scared outta our minds, Shimmer!” Applejack said as she fell in step beside me. “Ah can take one’a those, if—”

“I’m fine.” I cut her off and she flinched back. That was too much. Reel it in. “Sorry, I…it’s Wally’s stuff, okay? I had to clean out her apartment, and I…”

“Aw…c’mon Sugarcube, y’all coulda let us help with that,” Applejack said softly as she lowered the hand she’d put out for the duffle on my left shoulder.

I shook my head. “I don’t think I could’ve done it at all if there had been anyone else there,” I said honestly.

Applejack looked pensive for a moment before nodding. “Ah getcha,” she replied as I swiped my fob against the e-reader by the door and let us into the lobby of the Commonplace. “You holdin’ up okay?”

I start to answer in the affirmative, to assure her that yes, I was fine, and that I didn’t need any help, but that was too much of a lie. That wouldn’t work. Not on Applejack. I had to give her something.

“No,” I said quietly, “not really.” I glanced over to Applejack who was giving me a pained look as she pressed her lips to a thin line before looking away and nodding.

“Yeah, guess that was a dumb question,” she said.

It was, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I just leaned in and nudged the call button for the elevator. It would take somewhere between an hour and the heat death of the universe to get down to us, but with how my legs were shaking I knew I wasn’t going to make it up the stairs.

Among Applejack’s many virtues was her ability to create companionable silence. She and Fluttershy both had that trait. There was something a little manic about the rest of our friends, even Twilight, but Applejack had a quiet soul. I was doubly thankful for that because she didn’t press me on anything, and wouldn’t so long as I treaded the next ten minutes or so worth of ground carefully enough.

Eventually, the elevator ground to a halt, the doors creaked open, and I dragged my burdens inside. Applejack followed without a word, but also without asking, just like I knew she would.

I waited for the doors to close and the cab to start creeping slowly upward to speak again. I couldn’t let her start to grill me. If I did, there was a real risk that I’d crack.

“Do you remember them well?” I asked softly, and Applejack turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “Your uhm…your parents, I mean.”

“Oh.” Applejack looked away, her expression suddenly more distant than it had been a moment ago. “Yeah…Ah remember’em. Well enough to miss’em, anyway.”

“This…I think this is the first time I’ve ever lost anyone,” I said.

Saying that cost me something, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t afford to care. I had to tell her the truth. Anything to keep her from asking about the bags. To keep her from asking what I brought home, and why. It didn’t matter how I did it, just that I did it, so c’mon, Shimmer, dig deep, open wounds. Bleed it all out if you have to.

Just tell her something true enough to for her to leave.

“I never knew my parents,” I continued grimly. “Princess Celestia is the closest thing to a mom I ever had, and she was always distant, plus, she’s immortal, so…” I shrugged, and let out a bitter laugh. “I’ll die before she does, just like everypony else.”

Applejack gave me a dark look, and I clammed up.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Bright Eyes says I bury and deflect pain under the guise of jokes to avoid processing it.”

A quiet snort left Applejack, and she nodded

“I have no family, and you all are my first actual friends, and I don’t…I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do,” I said, picking up the thread of my words and forcing them out through a clenched jaw.

“If ya figure it out, lemme know,” Applejack replied somberly. “S’been years and Ah still ain’t sure what t’do.”

“Can I ask what you did after your mom passed?” I asked softly.

That was a risk, but a calculated one. Bringing up Applejack’s mom in any circumstance was a coin flip. Either she clammed up or she got…terse. To my surprise, neither happened this time. Instead, she just got that distant look on her face again before shrugging.

“If Ah’m bein’ honest? Ah didn’t do a whole lot. It’s kinda like the whole world got all numb…almost like it weren’t even real, y’know?”

I could definitely relate to that.

“Day after her funeral, Ah got up, had breakfast, then did mah chores like nothin’ had changed,” she continued. “Momma’d been in the hospital so long it…it was almost like she weren’t even really gone. Like I could still go out’n see’er, y’know? Except then Ah’d…Ah’d remember.” She lowered her head and pulled her stetson down as the elevator came to a creaking stop and the doors rolled open.

Almost there. Just a little more.

“Is it horrible that that makes me feel a little better that the same sort of thing is happening to me?” I asked softly as we stepped out, and Applejack shook her head.

“Nah,” she looked up and her eyes were heavy with sorrow. “Ah figure it’s just how it always goes, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

And I did. I knew, now, what it meant to lose someone, and at the same time I wasn’t sure that I did. Maybe I hadn’t. It all depended on whether or not I was going crazy. The one thing I did know was that if anyone ever found out what I was trying to do, then they would decide that for me, and I couldn’t let that happen.

Not if there was even the slimmest possibility to see her again.

Which meant I had to end this.

“Hey AJ?” I started.

I had to be very, very careful about this.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?” I continued as we made our way down the hall. “And you don’t have to answer, or say anything about it because I know it’s a…it’s something no one has uhm, any right to ask but…but I kind of feel like I have to.”

Applejack eyed me cautiously as we walked side-by-side. The hallway was so silent, even our footsteps were muted by the old, dusty carpet. The only sounds were the faint susurrations of the city outside; car horns and traffic and all the little sounds of the asphalt life of the city.

“Shoot,” she said softly.

“You once said that your mom passed from a tumor, and your dad from a broken heart—” I hated myself for this. Of all the scummy things I’ve ever done this might be the worst— “so does that mean…did your dad…?”

We stopped in front of my door, and somehow the silence had grown even more oppressive.

“Sorry,” I said, lowering my head. “I shouldn’t have—”

“—s’okay, Sunset,” Applejack interrupted me hollowly. “But if it’s all the same t’you, Ah think Ah’m gonna take ya up on that offer t’not answer…though, Ah reckon me sayin’ that answers the particulars.”

I nodded. Of course, I already knew. ‘Died of a broken heart’ isn’t really a thing, objectively speaking. At the same time, though, I understood the impulse. My broken heart almost took me out a couple of hours ago, too.

“Still, it wasn’t my place,” I said, looking up at her. “I’m sorry, though…really. I feel stupid not realizing it until now.”

Applejack shook her head again. “Nah, like Ah said, s’okay. This is gonna be a rough time fer all’a us,” she reached out and took my hand, squeezing it gently as she did. “You need anything…anything at all, Sunset, you just tell me, a’right? If anyone knows how it is, it’s me, so Ah’ll be there for ya whenever ya need me.”

I squeezed her hand, smiled, and nodded. Thank the Scribe that, at the very least, I didn’t have to fake that. I appreciated every word. I really did. Applejack deserved so much better than me.

“Thanks.”

My shoulders were burning as I adjusted the straps again, shifting the weight on my shoulders to make room for the guilt as I went to unlock the door to my apartment. Now was where she would bow out—

“You alright from here, Sugarcube?”

—because for all her promises and words, Applejack never did deal with her emotions well, and between the elevator ride and the walk down the hall, I’d scraped her heart raw.

“Yeah,” I said as I threw the deadbolt, “I’m good, I just gotta go through this stuff,” I shrugged my shoulders again, “and I’d rather do it here than…than back there, y’know?”

“Ah get that.” Applejack gave a weak chuckle as she nodded. “Well, s’long as yer safe, Ah’m happy enough, just turn yer dang phone back on, will ya? Scared the bejeezus outta us.”

“I will.”

I pushed the door open and got a foot inside just as a hand settled on my shoulder. I looked back at Applejack—at those green eyes that expressed so much more than she had the words or the will to say.

“Hey, you’ll keep, right, Sugarcube?”

“Yeah, AJ, I’ll keep,” I replied, forcing a wan smile onto my face. “Drive safe.”

She nodded and finally turned to leave. I closed the door behind her and dropped the duffle bags on either side of the door, slumped against it, and slowly slid down until I was sitting on the floor with my hands pressed hard to my face.

I had to do it. She would understand, in the end, I’m sure. She’d understand why I had to say those things, and make her leave. Because I had to do it.

For Wallflower.

...What Was Never Mine.

My shoulders burned, my arms ached, and my legs were sore and shaking, but I still had work to do as I began sifting through the duffle bags once I’d dragged them into the living room.

To be honest, I’d taken everything I reasonably could and a few things that were probably a bit unreasonable. One of the duffle bags was stuffed with sheets, pillowcases, and a thin blanket, along with a few other knick-knacks that would fit. The other was stuff with the comforter from her, and wrapped inside of that was the sealed metal box from Wallflower’s bathroom.

In the rolling suitcase, I’d put in as much of her clothing as I could. Sweaters, shirts, socks, skirts, jeans, even her underwear. I didn’t leave anything behind. What very little wouldn’t fit in the suitcase was stuffed into the sidepockets of the duffle bags.

Most importantly, though, in the suitcase, was the coil of rope that I’d found on the bed. That, among other reasons, was why I couldn’t have anyone helping me. It would be difficult enough to explain why I’d bothered to grab so much stuff that even I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a reasonable enough lie. I definitely wouldn’t be able to give one that would satisfy someone like Applejack.

As I started sorting, I turned on my phone and finally checked it to find thirty-nine missed calls, seventy-seven missed messages…and fourteen new e-mails? Wow. They were really desperate.

Opening the call log, I tapped the callback for the latest missed call from Sticky Note, then set the phone down and put it on speakerphone.

It only rang once.

//Sunset?!//

His voice came over raw and sharp. It’s funny. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sticky Note emote that much in all the time I’ve known him.

“Hey, Sticky, I’m uhm…I’m really sorry about bailing on breakfast like that, I know I said I’d be back but—”

//Don’t be sorry, hon,// Bright Eyes voice cut through. //We talked to Chrysalis, we know what happened and we understand, we’re just worried. You scared us, that’s all.//

“I know,” I said as I cracked open the duffle bag and began pulling out sheets and pillow cases, folding them, and setting them off to the side. “But I still shouldn’t have just run off. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

//We know,// Sticky’s tone was back to its usual calm manner, although it was more brittle than I remember it being. //Are you safe? Where are you?//

I pulled the thin blanket out last, gathered it up, then held it up to my nose. It still smelled like her. Tears slipped down my cheeks and I couldn’t stop myself from taking another deep breath.

//Sunset? Are you there?//

“Yeah.” I lowered the blanket and folded that too. “I’m here, sorry, I’m back at my apartment, and yeah, I’m safe.”

//You’re sure?//

“I’m sure.”

It didn’t matter if they believed me so long as they let it drop. I know that they want to believe me and I’m banking on that being enough. People are willing to suspend a surprising amount of disbelief for the sake of the comforting status quo.

//You know you can talk to us if you ever need anything, right?// Bright Eyes said, although his voice was distant, as if he were speaking over his husband’s shoulder.

He probably was.

“I know,” I replied as I opened the other duffle bag, slid my hand into the center of the blanket, and pulled out the metal box. “I’ll call if I need you, and I’ll keep in touch.”

//Luna contacted your friends, have you let them know you’re alright?//

“I ran into Applejack on my way into my apartment, she was posted up like a royal guard pulling a backshift,” I said, forcing a small laugh. “We talked, and I’m sure she’s told everyone that they can go home by now.”

Clicking the box open, I scanned the contents. They didn’t hit me the gut like last time. This time, all I could think about was how much of this I could use. How much was new? How much still had an echo of her fingertips on it? The bandages, linens, and swabs were all fresh and new. The razors were still in their packages.

The box, though. That should be useable, at least. It was old. Clean, but old. Old enough to soak up a lot of imprints.

“Anyway, I’m going to try and get some chores done and eat something,” I said quietly as the silence over the phone line stretched out.

//Do you want us to bring you something?// Bright asked. //You shouldn’t be eating boxed and canned foods all the time. You need something more substantial sometimes.//

I sighed. They weren’t going to let this go. If I kept pushing, they would push back. I had to give a little ground. Just a little.

“Not tonight, but if…if you want to drop off something tomorrow morning, I promise I’ll eat it,” I said.

Hopefully that would be enough.

//I think we can manage that,// Sticky replied before his husband could say anything, and I was relieved to hear that he sounded at least a bit mollified.

It had been enough.

“See you tomorrow, then,” I said.”

As I reached out to push the end-call button, Bright Eyes’ voice came over the speaker. //Goodnight, Sunset, and…we love you, you know that, right?//

My finger froze, hovering over the red button, and suddenly I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. Don’t cry. Don’t sob. Don’t make a sound. Don’t let them hear it. If they hear it then it will all be a waste. They’ll come over and then…

I swallowed back my tears and forced a smile in the hope that they would hear it over the call.

“Yeah.” I was proud of how steady I sounded. “I know.”

I tapped the button, ending the call, and let out a ragged gasp as I stared down at the open box. Later. There would be time later.

Closing it, I set the box to the side and began sifting through her clothes. She was buried in a simple black dress that had been provided by the funeral home. It wasn’t hers and it never would be, not really. These clothes, though. These were hers.

I drew out a sweater, one of many. They were a bit big and kind of baggy, just the way she liked them, and I held it up. I ran my fingers along the soft contours of the sweater, it was striped with alternating brown and tan lines, and I’d probably seen her wear it a hundred times if not more.

“Okay, here we go.”” I muttered as I balled up the sweater in one hand and palmed my geode in the other.

I dipped into the power gradually at first, pulling the power out with a tentative tug as opposed to how I’d been using it lately. Part off me was scared that it wouldn’t respond at all after what had happened in Wally’s apartment.

My relief was palpable as the geode responded as readily as ever, with a warm, amber glow. It built up, then shone between my fingers as I held onto the sweater and buried my face in it.

Be lonely.

I opened my eyes and frowned. Was that it? It wasn’t a good feeling but…but it was something. Still, it wasn’t anywhere near as intense as I’d been expecting.

As I’d wanted.

“C’mon…” I muttered as I clutched the geode tighter and tried to dredge more out of it. “Just…I just want to feel her…” My tears stained Wallflower’s sweater as the amber shone more intensely and—

Be lonely…be tired. Tired of hurting. Tired of crying. Tired of being tired.

Sunset. Be missing Sunset. Wanting her.

Be quiet. Be too quiet. Need to let the quiet out. Need to—

The rest of it faded into static and I let out a snarl of frustration.

“Come on!” I shout.

I gripped the sweater tight in one hand and the geode in the other and focused. I poured every ounce of my drive, concentration, and not inconsiderable stubbornness into the impulse. More. I know there’s more! There was more in that teacup!

More loneliness. More tears. More quiet.

“FUCK!”

I let the sweater fall from my fingers. Why isn’t it enough? It worked when I was holding her cup. It worked when I was holding the razor. Why won’t it work again? Why…

Lowering my head, I shivered.

“You’re still precious to me,” I whispered. “You will always be precious to me.”

A thought occurred to me. A bad thought. Or maybe a brilliant one. I guess bad and brilliant aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. I’m probably the poster girl for that, actually.

Diving back into the suitcase, I dug out the noose I’d recovered and looked it over. Just holding it made me feel sick. Knowing that this was the last thing she had felt—that this was what had taken her away…no, it wasn’t the ropes’ fault. It wasn’t Wally’s fault either.

It was my fault.

Mine.

I gripped the rope tight and sat back down as I held up the geode, focused its power, and—

Be deaf, dumb, and blind.

Be hearing everything. Seeing everything. Be screaming so loud and so long that my throat tears and the blood drowns me out.

Be numb. Be burning. Everything and nothing all at once. Too much and nothing at all, all at once. It won’t stop. Won’t ever, ever stop. The pounding in the walls of my apartment and the walls of my skull. Won’t stop! Won’t—

—I gasp sharply as I surface, but immediately suck in another breathe and dive back in. I need to know. I need to feel her. I have to—

Be ready. Be prepared. Just in case.

Funny what you keep ‘just in case’. Keep candles and a box of matches ‘just in case’. Keep an extra twenty dollars in your dresser ‘just in case’. Keep a noose, tied and ready, in the closet.

‘Just in case’

Be holding it. It digs into my skin. Scrapes it raw. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything at all. Can’t feel it. Can’t remember how.

Wrap the coils around my hands. Should I? Could I? Can’t think. Can’t get the quiet out. Stop thinking. Do it.

Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

Black out. Choking. Crushing. Snapping. Biting.

Can’t breathe. Can’t see. Can’t feel. Can’t think. Can’t…C-Can’t! N-No! Stop! STOP IT! STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT! HELP ME!

HELP ME!

SUNSET! HELP ME!

The geode clattered to the ground, trailing tiny spatters of blood from where the rough surface had bitten into my skin again.

“I’m sorry.” The words came out raw and shaky as I clenched my eyes shut. “I…I’m so sorry…”

…shshnshet…

Tears were falling hot and fast as I clutched the coil of rope to my chest and curled over it.

“I tried, I swear I tried.”

…shnset…

“I should have been there, I should have done more, I should have—”

“—Sunset.”

I clamped my mouth shut as the static voice broke through with real clarity for the first time. Was I going crazy? Had I already gone crazy? Was this what going crazy felt like? If it was then maybe it wasn’t so bad, and if it wasn’t then…then maybe there was still time.

Still hope.

“Yes?” I spoke softly, silently begging the voice to answer. To react. To not be a figment of the worst sort of fever dreams.

“Am I still precious to you?”

Finally, I let myself look up, and I almost cried in relief. I’m wasn’t crazy. There’s no way I was crazy. It wasn’t possible. How did I know? Because if I was crazy, and I was hallucinating Wallflower Blush being in my apartment after she hung herself, I would be seeing her the way I remembered her. The way she was for most of our lives.

She wouldn’t have a dark, angry bruise around her neck that was pocked with harsh abrasions. Her eyes wouldn’t be saddled with dark bags and she wouldn’t be wrapping her arms around herself, badly trying to conceal that the sleeves of the sweater she’s wearing is stained almost black from the inside out. I know what’s under those sleeves. I’m not stupid. I know what was in that box and I know how desperate she was on that final night.

Now, though, she doesn’t look desperate. She just looks sad.

Wallflower’s body is limned in a pale, green, gravelight glow, and her hair hangs a lank over her face, but it’s still her. I can see it in her eyes and in those soft lips that never seemed far from a frown.

“Always,” I finally managed with a shaky sob. “Always.”

“I’m sorry.” Wallflower’s voice still had that strange, static hush lingering under every word. “What I did…I—”

“No, Wally, no,” I stood on legs that had gone partially numb, dropping the coil to my feet as I did. “It’s not your fault! I promise!”

She stepped back, her ghostly form flickering faintly, and the lights of my apartment flickered in time with her.

“You saw.”

I nodded.

“You saw everything.”

“And I don’t care!” I stepped closer, holding out my hands to her.

She lingered, flickering in and out, sharpening for a moment, then fading a moment later. I was vaguely aware of the clock radio by my bed emitting a low, static wash, and as she stepped forward, the television flicked on to a channel that was nothing but white noise.

I ignored it all. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was here.

Wallflower reached out and I almost jumped out of my skin as I felt her touch my hand that been holding the geode. Her hands were cold and left the oddest numbing sensation where her fingers passed. It was like a tiny dose of anesthesia wherever she touched my skin.

Turning my hand palm up, she examined the tiny knicks and cuts, a few of which were still bleeding, then looked back up at me with a plaintive gaze.

“Why?”

I swallowed thickly and wrapped my hands around hers. I didn’t care that it was freezing. I didn’t care that her touch left my fingers and palms simultaneously numb and buzzing with pins and needles. It was her. I was touching her. That’s all that mattered.

“Because,” I said softly. “You’re precious to me.”

Not Gonna Leave This World

“You’re sure there’s nothing else you need?” Bright Eyes lingered at the door to my apartment as he passed off a plate covered in foil. I had to admit, it smelled pretty good.

“I’m fine,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow at my tone.

Probably because I sounded like I meant it.

“You know, as much as I can be,” I continued as if I’d never paused. “I told Applejack that I’ll keep, and I will, okay?”

He looked pensive for a moment and I don’t blame him. He and Sticky were worried sick about me, and they had every right to be. I’d never heard Sticky sound the way did over the phone last night. He’d actually sounded afraid. I’m sure the only reason he wasn’t here right now is that he had work.

There were always more kids like me. Probably more kids like Wally, too.

Bright Eyes sighed quietly and nodded. At least he wasn’t pressing. This definitely went outside his remit as my therapist, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it constituted a massive conflict of interest, but like so many other things with the Canterlot Social Services system, it was largely ignored unless it actually became a problem.

Frankly speaking, the department didn’t have the funding or the manpower to pursue things like this. So in the end it really didn’t matter, and in a way I was grateful.

I’d always be grateful to Bright and Sticky.

“Just call if you need us, any of us,” Bright said softly. “Alright?”

I nodded, and, maybe accepting that that was the best he was going to get, Bright Eyes leaned in, and I gave him a hug. In a way, Sticky and Bright were the two weird, gay uncles I never had. They tried to look after me and I really did love them for it.

With Bright Eyes gone, I carried the plate into the kitchen and unwrapped it. It was a bacon, cheese, and spinach omelet with extra cheese melted on top, and it looked amazing.

First thing’s first though.

I moved up to my bed and slipped a hand under my pillow. The rough rope coil was right where I left it. She had faded hours ago, but I was confident I could get her back. I was tempted to pull her back right then, when she'd first vanished, but…something stopped me. I don’t know what. Guilt, maybe?

I'd needed time to process, and I got it. I slept—really slept—for the first time in days, and when I woke up I felt sure of what I needed to do.

Wrapping the coil around my arm, I secured it, then gripped the circle of the noose in my hand. In the other hand, I took up my geode. It only worked when the power draw was intense, but there was something else. Something that tapped into a reserve that I didn’t know I had.

Curling my fingers around the rough stone surface, I grit my teeth, and clutched hard. The cold stone bit into my hand, sending sparks of pain up my arm, but I ignored them. I ignored them until I felt the slick of blood warm my palm, and only then did I dredge power from the amber lit that was burning within the element.

The light exploded from my clenched fist and suddenly I was—

Choking. Crushing. Burning. Slicing.

Tight and breaking. Snapping and biting.

Can’t breathe. Can’t see. Can’t feel—

I knew it was coming but it didn’t matter. It struck me as hard as the first time. At the same time, though, I almost relished it. Magic isn’t free. Magic like this should come with a cost, and this cost?

It was one that I deserved to pay.

—ELP ME!

SUNSET! HELP ME!

I collapsed by the side of my bed with sweat dripping down my face and back. My hands ached, one from the shallow cuts of the stone, the other from the rope-burn abrasions that now lined my palm and wrapped around my wrist and down my forearm in a distinct, bruising coil.

…shnset?

I heard the distant voice echo out just as my clock radio started to hiss with white noise and static.

“Here,” I gasped out. “I’m right here, Wally.”

She resolved slowly. It was almost like she was walking through an invisible threshold or stepping out from around a corner I couldn’t quite see. That faint, gravelight glow preceded her. A pale green light that seemed to exist apart from any illumination in my apartment.

And then, like magic, she was there. Not quite solid, but real enough, and sitting on my bed in front of me as if she’d been there the whole time.

“Wally,” I said her name like a sigh of relief as I leaned forward and laid my forehead against her knees. “You’re back…thank the Scribe.”

“I heard you.”

Her voice had the tinny quality to it like it was coming from an old radio broadcast, but it was still her. Despite the prickling numbness, it was all still her.

Sitting up, I stood and shook my hands out, letting the coil of rope fall from my hand, and Wally’s face scrunched up in concern as it fell in graceless loops to the floor before she looked back up at me.

“Is that how you did it?!” She sounded worried. Angry, almost. “Sunset, that—!”

“It’s the only thing that I’m certain will work!” I said in a rush. “Wally, it’s fine! I promise! The visions,” I gestured down to the noose, “are just that! Visions! They can’t hurt me!”

“But they’re of me…me when I…” She lowered her head, but I caught her chin and brought her back up as I smiled at her.

“They’re just visions,” I insisted. “They’re not…not real, okay?”

She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded anyway. Good girl. I leaned in and pulled her into a hug as I buried my face against her crown of faded, morning glory hair, and she clutched desperately at me as she pressed herself against the crook of my neck. Painful prickles like pins and needles danced all over me wherever she touched. It didn’t matter if there was skin or clothing covering the spot, but I didn’t care.

I was holding her again.

That’s all that mattered.

I stroked her hair with numb fingers and took in a shaky breath as I held her tight. I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t. Nothing crazy could be this real.

“C’mon,” I said as I pulled back, brushing a few strands of hair from her face as I did. I ignored the bags beneath her eyes as I brushed my hand down her cheek.

She was still beautiful. She always would be.

“I’m gonna have breakfast, you want to join me?” I asked.

It was tentative, but after a moment Wally nodded and gave me a weak smile as she let me pull her up to her feet. She followed me downstairs to the kitchen, and I put the kettle on before setting out our cups.

“I know you probably can’t drink or eat anything,” I started as the kettle reached the right temperature, “but you can kind of feel and smell, right?”

Wally paused for a moment, then nodded silently as I poured hot water into the cup to start the green tea steeping before pouring my own cup of oolong. The lights began to flicker weakly as Wally moved under them, and the microwave spontaneously clicked on and began whirring before sputtering out.

Ignoring it all, I sat down and began to dig into my omelet. It had gotten a little cold, but it still tasted amazing.

Wally turned her mug around and around for several moments in silence while I ate, until finally, when I was halfway through, she asked, “How did you do this?”

Her voice buzzed softly and the lights buzzed with it, glowing brightly for a moment before fading back to their normal levels.

I swallowed my latest bite and washed it down with a tea before answering.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I did it by accident the first time. Believe it or not, that’s how a lot of magic happens the first time.”

She shook her head at my reply. “But you have to…to mean it,” she said.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The memory stone…to use it, I had to mean it,” she answered softly. “Using it—”

“Of course I meant it, I missed you,” I said quietly, cutting through her words.

Silence settled over us and the lights grew dim she flickered in and out of phase. Above us, the radio hissed and spat static, and the television flicked on with a harsh, electric snap.

“You missed me so much you…” She held up her hands and stared at—or more accurately through—them, then look back up at me.

“That I brought you back?” I asked hollowly, not looking at her. “Yeah, that’s exactly how much—” I cut myself off and shook my head. “No, that’s not even close to how much I missed you…” I forced myself to look up at her; at the dark bruising around her neck and black stains along the arms of her sweater, and said, “I would do anything for you, Wally. Okay? Anything.”

She stared at me for a long moment after that, but she’d stopped flickering. Her form had resolved. Sharpened even. Finally, when she did speak, it was a single word.

“Why?”

“Because…”

I started to say those words again. Those five damned words. A coward’s words and like any good coward I choked on them. Was I really doing this again? Was I really just…?

No.

Not again.

I swallowed the words and stood up, letting my fork fall from my fingers to clatter loudly against the plate that still had half an omelet on it, and moved around the kitchen island to Wally’s side. She stared up at me with those wide, beautiful brown eyes of hers. They were eyes that I saw in my dreams and, occasionally, in my nightmares.

If I couldn’t say it, then I could at least do this much. I reached up and laid my hands on her cheeks. They were a little hollow and sunken. She hadn’t been eating right before the end either, I was sure of it. She looked almost as bad as she had when I’d found her in the soup kitchen line down at Saint Easel’s, the girl’s shelter where I had, in my hubris, believed that I’d started the process to turn Wally’s life around.

Instead, I’d just dragged out her death.

But I could do better this time. I could…I could fix this.

“Sunset?”

Her voice was tinny and almost scared, but she wasn’t drawing away. She was holding on like I was the only thing keeping her stable. Who knows? Maybe I was.

For once, my words failed me, but actions were louder anyway, so I pulled Wallflower up, and I met her lips with mine.

Blues played softly across the diner. I tapped my feet impatiently on the cheap tile floors and tugged down on the edges of the black riding gloves that covered my hands for the hundredth time. I wanted to get home. I wanted to call up Wallflower again. I wanted to see her and hold her and…and I wanted to kiss her again.

My lips still recalled the pins-and-needles buzz of the contact, and part of me imagined that the sensation was still there, lingering just out of reach.

But no, instead of being home with her, where I ought to be, I was here, in this shitty little diner, waiting for my…my friends. Written’s Quill, I am such an asshole, but honestly, right now? I can’t help it. I want to get back to her. She needs me. Without me, she’s just…nowhere.

She needs me.

“Hey, Sunset!”

“AH!”

I practically leap out of the booth seat as Pinkie Pie’s fluffy mane of hair popped out from beneath the table. When the hell had she gotten under there?

The rest of her followed a moment later as she scooted in beside me.

“Pinkie, darling, I know you mean well, but…” Rarity trailed off quietly as she slipped into the booth seat across from us.

“It’s…It’s fine, Rares,” I said as I looked over at Pinkie whose blue eyes weren’t quite as wide and impish as they had been before the funeral two weeks ago.

And they were fixed on my hands for a moment, which put an itch down my spine. I couldn’t very well just show off all the scars, though. They wouldn’t let something like that go and they definitely wouldn’t understand.

“How ya doin’, Sunny?” Pinkie asked, her voice surprisingly mellow as she looked back up at me. “You eating okay?”

“Why is everyone worried about whether or not I’m eating,” I asked with maybe a little more acid and a bit less humor than I’d intended. I winced as I heard the words come out, then lowered my head. “Sorry…and yeah, I’m eating okay. Bright and Sticky are making sure of it.”

“That’s good,” Rarity’s smile was porcelain and forced. I kind of hated it. At least Pinkie sounded genuine. “And uhm…how’s university? Are you still going to classes?”

I kept my expression schooled carefully neutral and I shook my head. “No, the…the grief counselor suggested I take a leave of absence. Given the circumstances, they’re letting me take incompletes on my courses and defer til next semester.”

“And…and you agreed to?” Rarity eyed me in rank disbelief. “You actually took the leave and deferment?”

I nodded, and she looked stunned.

“Well, I…find myself at a bit of loss then,” she admitted. “I was planning on trying to talk you into it, but…” She trailed off with a weak shrug and a chuckle. “That’s…that’s good, though, Sunset, I think it’s the right choice.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’m fit to be around people for a while,” I said in a rare moment of complete honesty.

I forced a small smile as I looked over at Pinkie, but the smile withered at the look on her face. I couldn’t say exactly what it was. There was nothing specific, and maybe that was the problem. She seemed almost deflated, like whatever normally animated her had gone out for a moment as she stared at me and through me, and another shiver went up my spine as her eyes flicked momentarily back down to my gloves before she looked back at me.

“Pinks? You okay?” I asked, trying to head her off.

“Are you?” She replied flatly.

I wasn’t the only one to raise an eyebrow at that tone of voice. I’d heard Pinkie sound like a lot of things—her impression of Coach Iron Will is particularly top-notch—but flat? Toneless? Emotionless? I’d never heard that before, and clearly neither had Rarity which was impressive considering she’d known Pinkie since grade school.

“I’m—” I started to say fine, but I knew that was the wrong answer instantly and bit down on it. Instead, and blew out a slow breath and said, “I’m…keeping.”

Her face softened a little, as did Rarity’s.

“To be honest,” Rarity began in a small voice, “I expected you to be burying yourself in schoolwork or otherwise burning yourself out, as it were.” Oh if only she knew. “When things go badly, you tend to keep yourself busy and…and I was worried you might take it to an extreme in this case.”

“AJ said that the last time she saw you, you were carrying most of…of her stuff,” Pinkie added. “To go through it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, otherwise it would’ve just gone to the dump.”

That, at least, got small nods from them. Applejack understood, so did Rarity and Pinkie. That was good. All I needed was for them to feel like they understood because people don’t ask about things that they think they understand. It makes it easier on all of us.

The waitress came at that point. She was older, but in that uniquely ‘Inner City Diner’ manner meaning somewhere between thirty-five and sixty, with either a smoking habit, a day-drinking habit, or both. I ordered coffee, black, no cream or sugar, and a bowl of oatmeal, while Rarity ordered an egg-white omelet off the lite menu (light on the cheese, thank you, darling) and Pinkie got a stack of berry pancakes.

At least some things never change.

We ate in silence, and as we did I reflected silently on how Rarity’s uncharacteristic lack of conversation. She really came here with the sole intent of getting me to ease off my workload and nothing else, huh?

Halfway through my oatmeal, I set my spoon down.

I really wasn’t hungry. It was a mechanical action at this point, made worse by the fact that I was eating here and not at home where I could be with her. I needed to get back, and quickly. The longer I waited…

She…She needed me, and I had to get back.

“Sorry, but, I think I’m going to bail,” I said quietly, and I tried not to wince at the concerned looks that got turned my way.

“Are you alright, darling?” Rarity asked.

I shrugged. “I just…can’t really handle being out and about for long right now,” I looked up at them, pleading with them. “I’m sorry, but, I just…I can’t.”

“Sunny…” Pinkie reached out and I only barely suppressed a flinch.

The touch was harsh and heavy. Nothing like her. It wasn’t numbing. It wasn’t pins-and-needles. It was heavy and thick, and far too real, and I had to swallow back my gorge as I shrugged her hand off, tugged down on my gloves again, and moved past her. I dropped some money on the table, enough to cover myself and a little more, and looked down at them both in apologetic silence.

“Sorry.” I really meant it. I was sorry about a lot of things. “I just really want to go home right now, I’ll pop into the group chat later, alright?”

“Sunset—!”

Before Rarity could get a head of steam, I got out of there. I kept myself to a power-walk getting out of the diner, and made it all the way to the door and a few steps outside of it when I was stopped by a hand on my wrist, and I froze.

“Let me go, Pinkie,” I said quietly.

“Sunny, please,” Pinkie’s voice wasn’t bubbly, nor was it flat and toneless.

It was scared.

“Please tell us what’s wrong.”

“You know what’s wrong,” I said sharply without turning around. “You went to her funeral. You shouldn’t have to fucking ask what’s wrong.”

“There’s something else,” Pinkie insisted. “Something…please, just…we’re your friends, we can help!”

Help? No one could help. Pinkie couldn’t help. Rarity and Applejack wouldn’t be able to either. Nor would Rainbow or Fluttershy or either of the Twilights. The only one who could do anything about this was me and instead of doing that, I was here, at a shitty diner, wasting my time.

I jerked my arm out of Pinkie’s grasp and looked over my shoulder.

“I’ll keep, Pinkie,” I said coldly. “Now just…just leave me alone for a while, okay?”

For a moment, I almost thought she was going to accept my words and turn away. That she would go back into the diner and this would all be done.

She didn’t.

Instead, she asked, “Why are you wearing gloves, Sunny?”

I pressed my lips to a thin line and narrowed my eyes at her, and Pinkie drew back like I’d struck out at her.

“Because my hands are cold,” I bit out.

Then I turned, putting my back to her, and started the long walk back to my apartment. I needed to get home. I shouldn’t have left. I should never have left because that’s what I did before and look how it turned out.

I need to stay with her now. She needs me.

She called out for me.

That’s the part that always hits me hardest and isn’t that just the most selfishly on-brand, ‘Sunset Shimmer’, T—fucking—M behavior ever?

It’s not having to experience Wally’s last moments every single time I want to see her. It’s not the choking or the sickening claustrophobia or the feeling of snapping cartilage in my neck. It’s not even being crushed by the knowledge of my total and absolute failure to follow through on the one thing that might have made my life worthwhile.

It’s the fact the last thing Wallflower Blush ever did was call out for me to save her, and I didn’t.

So I don’t think about that.

I gasped raggedly as I lowered my hands, and this time the coils of rope and the geode fell numbly from my fingers onto the ground.

Immediately, the radio snapped on with a harsh, static hiss, and the television flickered to life and began playing an old black and white somewhere near the middle. The playtime juddered strangely, restarting several between jumping to random parts of the movie. I hedged all of that out as Wallflower resolved in front of me.

Her body filtered in like it always did, in that odd round-the-corner manner, right in the middle of my den.

This marked the fourth time I’ve called her and it hasn’t gotten any easier. In fact, it was getting harder, which was another thing I tried not to think about.

“Hey,” I said weakly as I struggled to my feet.

“Sunset, you’re…are you okay?” Wallflower’s static-wash voice soothed me, and I nodded as she knelt beside me and leaned my head against her chest.

There was a brass band doing jazz improv warmups somewhere in my skull, so I welcomed the numbing buzz of pins and needles this time. That and it was Wallflower. It didn’t matter if she felt warm or cold or if I could feel at all. At this point, the buzzing numbness just meant I was touching her, and that was enough.

“I’m fine,” I said, swallowing thickly as I relaxed against her. “Long day, that’s all.”

I didn’t tell her that it was a long day because I’d had to explain to my counselor that I wasn’t sure I would be coming back next semester. It had been a long talk. A lot of back and forth about incomplete degrees and loan liabilities. I tuned most of it out.

All I wanted was to get home and see her.

Wally didn’t look like she entirely believed me, but she didn’t argue the point, and I was grateful for that. Instead, she just ran her fingers through my hair a few times, then shifted and moved to sit down on the couch.

As always, she looked as tired as I felt, but unlike me that exhaustion didn’t seem to translate into anything more than her appearance. I wondered, for a moment, what it must feel like; having no body, no aching bones or muscles, no scarred hands and no pounding head. I wondered, and, in a small way, I also envied her.

I sat down beside her amid the buzz and hush of the electronics around us. My head was hurting worse than ever, and I pressed my fingers to my temples in a vain attempt to push away the pain.

All I succeeded in doing was smearing blood from the shallow cuts on my hands on my face, and Wallflower’s frown deepened as she pulled my hands down into hers.

“Sunset…these cuts…” She turned my hands palms up again and looked them over. It was always the first she did when I called her.

“They’re just knicks, and they’re shallow. I don’t even feel them,” I said before she could admonish me.

Besides, I wanted to say, you can’t really talk about stuff like that.

I didn’t say that, obviously. I would never. Still, the thought occurred to me anyway, I bit down on it hard enough that I tasted blood when I swallowed the words.

“Do you mind if I lay down?” I asked, instead.

Wallflower didn’t answer immediately. She continued to look over my hands and my left arm where the coils of rope had abraded the skin. As she did, I realized the bruised color might become permanent if I kept wrapped the ropes the same way. I was hard-pressed to decide if I cared, though. In fact, if anything, it was the other way around. The process of calling Wallflower up had already become almost a ritual, and just the process of wrapping the rope about my arm and hand had a calming effect.

Once Wally finished, she let a soft, buzzing sigh, and nodded.

My whole body hurt. The process of calling up Wallflower was taxing me more than I thought it should. Certainly more than it had the first and second times. So I laid down on the couch with my head resting on Wally’s lap, and let the buzzing numbness filter into me.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “I—” I choked on the words, as I usually did.

For some reason, I couldn’t say them. I couldn’t bring myself to.

Instead, I asked, “what’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“Being…like you are.”

“Dead?” Wallflower said the word with a strained weariness. Yet another word I avoided saying, and I winced when I heard it, but I nodded all the same.

“I don’t know…is that strange?” Wally continued to card her ephemeral fingers through my hair, sending pleasant tingles of numbness through me. “It’s like being mostly asleep, and then hearing someone calling your name, and then waking up, but…”

“But?” I prompted.

Wallflower shook her head. “Have you ever been so tired that the world just kind of swims? Like, if you try to focus on something, your eyes eventually slide off of it and you’re just sort of…staring into nothing for a while before you catch yourself?”

I nodded. Honestly, I’d been feeling that way pretty consistently. I didn’t want to say that though. There was no reason to worry her. It didn’t matter that I didn’t really sleep much anymore, no matter how hard I tried, or that lately, the only rest I got was when she was here. That would just make her worry. She’d done enough of that.

“That’s what it’s like when you’re here? Right now?” I asked, and Wallflower nodded.

“It’s…like lucid sleepwalking without actually being sleepy, I guess? If that makes any sense.”

That would explain why her behavior was a little off.

Now if only I had noticed her ‘off’ behavior back when I could have done something about it. Wouldn’t that have been nice?

I reached up and captured her hand as it neared my brow, and brought it down to my lips to brush a kiss across her knuckles before tightening my grip on it and pulling in a shaky breath. She was here. She was safe. Everything was fine.

“I…Sunset? Can I ask…?” She hesitated, but I could already hear the question forming. I guess I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t say it.

But she wanted to ask. If she wanted to know then…then I could tell her. Right? I could tell her because she wanted me to.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I do—and I did, I mean.”

She was silent, and I realized she was waiting for me to say it. To say the word she wanted to hear. She wanted to be sure, and I guess that was fair too. She deserved to hear it even if all it would do was damn me as a coward.

Well, damn me, then.

I pulled her hand back to my lips and whispered the words against the gravelight skin of her palm.

“I love you.”

She was quiet for a long time. The only noise in the apartment was the harsh buzz and crackle of the radio and the television, interspersed with disjointed voice lines from the movie that couldn’t decide what part of the runtime it wanted to stick to.

In that silence, I could hear all of her questions—her accusations—loud and clear in my mind. Why? Why didn’t you tell me? If you loved me then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you take care of me?!

Why didn’t you save me?!

Because I’m a coward, Wally. Because all I’ve ever been is a useless coward.

“I loved you, too,” Wally said, finally. “I really…really did.”

Those words should have made my heart soar, but for some reason, they didn’t. They just made the pain even worse.Forcing myself to sit up, I took her hands in my and pulled her a little closer.

“You…You still do, right?” I asked, doing my best to smile, even though the pins and needles that had settled into my scalp and face made it hard. “I still love you, Wally! Always! And…And you’re here now, so it’s okay! You—”

She shook her head, her face contorting with grief.

“No, I’m not!” Her voice crackled, the volume stolen by the eldritch distance of static wash. “I’m…I’m not here, Sunset. I’m somewhere, but it’s not…not here!”

“Yes! You are!” I pressed, gripping her hands tighter. “You’re right here! I can—I can feel you! I brought you here and I can keep bringing you here and it’s fine!” I lowered my head until the tips of her fingers brushed my forehead with their comforting numbness, and whispered, “everything will be fine.”

“Sunset…”

“Please, don’t,” I sobbed, the words coming out hard and harsh and bringing a swelter of tears with them. “Don’t…don’t go…and don’t say it.”

“But—”

“Just…Just stay with me? Please, Wally, I c-can’t…I love you so much.” I let go of her hands and sagged against her. “Please…stay tonight?”

Another sigh filtered out of her, and she nodded as she curled in closer to me.

“Stay forever?”

Her sigh became brittle.

Then she shook her head.

Another shuddering sob left me as I laid down on the couch and she laid down with me. My whole body was going numb and I didn’t care. I had to find a way to fix this. I would. I couldn’t let her go again. I couldn’t fail her again. She loved me and I loved her and I…I could fix this.

I could fix this.

Til I Watch It Burn

Some things never change.

If magic were water then this world would be a desert. Any magic that existed here had sunk deep into the earth a long time ago, and was, consequently, almost impossible to touch.

But the people? They still remember. Ancestral memory is a tough thing to kill off.

There are bits and pieces of true magical knowledge among humans, even if they don’t realize it. Certain things held just as true here as they did in Equestria.

Blood, for instance.

Every culture across every continent on Equus shared that native recognition that blood equals power. The sacrifice of blood—the representation of life spilled for a greater purpose—was one that every species on that world, and this one, accepted.

Maybe that’s why I wasn’t surprised when my blood turned out to be the catalyst for calling Wallflower back. Even just this much of her.

It had seemed so natural, that first time. It had just…made sense. When blood spilled as I was forcing power from the stone so desperately that it bit through flesh with my grip, I didn’t question it.

A few drops of blood called her up. It was a small price to pay. A worthy price even.

But I guess someone must have gotten the memo that Sunset Shimmer’s blood wasn’t worth much.

“FUCK!”

I collapsed in my den, falling hard on my knees and only avoiding slumping over fully by propping myself up on the coffee table. Sweat matted my hair to my scalp, neck, and shoulders in pallid streamers of red and gold. I felt sticky.

When was the last time I showered?

Fuck it. That’s irrelevant.

I stared balefully at both of my hands. Treacherous things. They weren’t obeying me lately. My right was curled in an arthritic claw around my geode, and spatters of blood occasionally dripped from between my fingers. My left ached abominably. The rope was digging into the skin bad enough to draw blood as well and the parts of the rope that were touching my arm had started to take on an unpleasantly brown tinge.

“Not working…why aren’t you working?” I growled at the geode as I blinked salty sweat from my eyes.

A month a half. Was that really all my magic was worth? All that my blood was worth? Shit, maybe that was my problem. My blood probably wasn’t worth squat except in bulk. Filthy, selfish blood from a filthy, selfish girl.

What was I doing again?

Right. I took a deep breath, and—

“WHY WON’T YOU WORK?!” I shrieked at the geode which, predictably, didn’t answer.

Nineteen times. Nineteen successful conjurings. I’d managed to call up Wallflower successfully nineteen times. Most of the time she was here for a day and a half. On the ninth conjuring, we managed to push it to forty-two hours. The longest streak, and one I’ve never managed to replicate. Probably a fluke or something. A confluence of stars. Alignment of leylines.

Shit, maybe the dense matter that made up my fucking skull was just in retrograde that day and that was enough.

Every time I called her up, I asked her—begged her to stay—and she always stayed with me for the night. Sometimes she’d stay through the next day. But no more. I asked her, every time, to stay forever.

She always said no.

But I’ll keep asking.

Staggering to my feet, I trudged towards the bathroom. It was hard to focus. When had I slept last? Actually slept, I mean?

Conjuring…sixteen? I think we took a nap together. Those few hours of real rest had been like clear water to a parched throat. I’d woken up feeling like I could take on the whole world, but all I ended up doing was cuddling with Wallflower for something like seven hours.

I shouldered the bathroom door open and dropped to my knees by the toilet. My hands were still curled uselessly around the geode and the length of rope that fit around my palm, respectively. The cramped, seizing muscles in them weren’t listening to me either.

“Fuck you,” I spat, and brought my hand up to my mouth, bit down, and pulled my grip open one blasted finger at a time.

The geode fell from my newly bloodied hand to hang loosely from its leather strap as I did the same to my left. Finger by finger, I freed the rope. I didn’t have much range of movement in my fingers, but I didn’t need much. I’d make do. Reaching behind the toil, I pulled out the little metal box. It seemed like the right place to keep it so I’d left it there. I’d made use of most of the bandages and swabs, I was running low though, and I had no idea when I’d find time to replace them.

Or money.

Did I have the money to? I couldn’t remember. Whatever. Irrelevant. It was all irrelevant.

Cracking open the box, I clawed the disinfectant spray out and went to work clumsily spraying down my wounds. I barely felt the sting anymore. I dropped the half-empty can back in the box, and went to grab the bandages only to stop as my eyes lingered on the little box of razor blades. I hadn’t opened them since Wallflower had stopped me in her bathroom. I hadn’t even wanted to. I still didn’t. It wasn’t about that.

“Blood.” I nudged a fresh razor from the box with shaky fingers.

It was a massive effort of will to get enough strength into my finger and thumb to clutch the blade and hold it up to my faltering vision. It was still sharp. Shiny and new. What a good little razor. It was all ready to go to work. Not like my stupid hands, the lazy bastards.

I frowned as I turned my hands over and scowled down at the ruin of my palms. My right hand was a network of a thousand tiny notches. There probably wasn’t an unmarked inch of skin left. I’m pretty sure the scar tissue killed any feeling I had in that hand even without Wallflower’s influence. I could still feel the pins and needle when I touched her though, so that was good. My running theory was that she affected my nerves in a similar way to the electrical wiring in my apartment up until most of it blew out.

My left hand wasn’t much better. From my forearm to my palm, then around the back of my hand and back down, there were long, rough, tracks of abrasion and raw, red skin. Scars barely had time to form before being rubbed away by the rope.

They did their job, though.

The rope rarely left my arm anymore. It was easier to leave it on, frankly, and besides, I wasn’t sure I trusted my right hand to tie it on properly anymore.

Moonlight from the window glinted off the razor and focused my wandering mind back on the task at hand. I needed to conjure her again. I needed to see her and feel her and kiss and touch her.

And she needed me, too.

She…She needed me. Wallflower needed me because she would always need me so I had to be there for her no matter what.

I eyed the blade and forced myself to stand and walk back into the den.

“No matter what,” I hissed.

Sucking in a hard breath through my teeth I braced my foot against the side of the coffee table that occupied the true middle of my den and kicked it hard away crashing it against the wall as I took its place and dropped to my knees. I stared down at my hands and at the blade clutched in my trembling fingers. That was no good. I’d just end up mauling myself.

Flipping it over, I gripped it by the blade, brought it up to my mouth, and took the razor between my teeth. My hands were shaking. They were no good for anything but cradling the necessary tools to bring her back. I had to bring her back. If a few drops could do it before, then I just needed more, right?

Blood equals power. Pain and life, laid on a sanguine altar and burned for a greater purpose.

I did my right hand first, putting my palm to my mouth and dragging the blade in a hot, red line across the flesh. Warmth spilled out, soaking the leather cord and the geode as I clenched my fingers closed. Now the left one. I was careful to aim around the rope but it took up a lot of space. There wasn’t as much surface area as my right, but I made do.

‘Mmph!” A pain grunt groaned my throat as I pushed the blade deep until the blood welled up.

I tasted iron that had nothing to do with the stainless steel I was biting down on.

“Now,” I spat as the bloody razor fell from my mouth, “come on…”

Raising my fists above my head, I let the blood run from my palms along the wells of my wrists, and down to soak into my rolled-up sleeves. My body is a temple and these arms are the pillars that hold up its rotting roof. Neglect may have robbed it of anything beautiful, but it was still standing. It was still useful. The timbers that bore its weight were bowing at the middle, but for now…yeah…for now it was still standing.

A rotting temple to a Scribe that had stopped writing my story a long time ago.

“Come on,” I repeated bitterly. “COME ON!”

This time, the light that spilled from my geode was stained an ugly red as the amber light shone through its drenched coating. It was like holding a wildfire in my hand, but I knew instinctively that it wasn’t enough. Not yet. More. It needed more, and I had plenty to give.

“COME ON!”

The light burst brighter, and yet, despite that light, I was sure that the den grew darker than before. The moonlight that I’d been working by was suddenly so much dimmer compared to the ruddy light I was calling up.

“Wally, please,” I sobbed. “I…I need you…”

I could barely hold up my arms up anymore. The strength was leaving them. My strength was bleeding out all over my arms. Would it be enough? Fuck it. It had to be enough. Even if it took all of it. It had to be enough!

“WALLY!”

Static hissed and spat from the little clock radio by my bed as it crackled to life. It was one of the few pieces of electronics in my apartment that still worked. Most of the outlets were dead by now. Nothing in the kitchen worked anymore and hadn’t for at least a week. My television hadn’t worked in twice that.

But that stupid radio.

It still worked!

I chased that static wash, pushing harder, gripping tighter. If this altar needed more, then more is what it would get!

A ragged sob wrenched its way out of my throat as the light of my geode erupted even more brightly and then suddenly flared out of existence as the static hiss began to settle, and when I looked up, it was with a breath of weary relief.

Pale green gravelight resolved in front of me, suddenly she was there, stepping out from around that invisible corner.

“Wally.”

Her name left my lips like a prayer as I smiled up at her. It didn’t even matter that her eyes were growing wide with horror, or that her mouth was falling open. I was past the point of caring how she looked at me. All that mattered was that she was here to look at me.

“Sunset…” Wally knelt in front of me and took my bloodstained hands in hers. “Oh…Sunset, what have you done?”

Her touch soothed the pain away in a wave of pins and needles, and I sighed in relief. The soreness was gone. The simple absence of pain of euphoria in and of itself. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to hers as she took me in her arms.

“I’ll be fine,” I muttered faintly. “Just…took a bit more this time to get you here, that’s all.”

She pushed me back a little and shook her head.

“You have to stop this, Sunset, please!” The radio above us crackled and snapped with every syllable she spoke.

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “If I stop, then…then you’ll be gone.”

“I’m already gone.”

“No! You’re not! You’re here!” My breathing was turning ragged as she cradled my cheek in her numbing palms. “You’re here…” I repeated weakly.

She shook her head again. “Stop this, Sunset, please,” she stroked my matted hair from my eyes and kissed my forehead gently. “You need to stop.”

“I can’t stop, Wally,” I replied quietly. “You need me.”

There was a flash of something that crossed her features in that moment. It happened so fast that I couldn’t make out what it was. Grief? Pain? Something adjacent? I don’t know. I saw in the widening of her eyes and in the way her teeth grit together for a moment. I saw it, too, in the way the muscles moved beneath her softly glowing skin, turning her gentle features granite-hard for a brief moment before it faded.

The expression that was left behind in the wake of that flash was something truly different. It was flat and almost…angry, and then—

“No,” she said flatly. “I don’t.”

The numbness that sluiced through me then had nothing to do with her touch. It didn’t even leave pins and needles behind. It was just a cold, hypothermic ache.

“Stop this, Sunset,” she said for the third time. “I don’t need you anymore.”

I worked my jaw a few times, trying to find the words I needed to change her mind. To make what she had just said not true. I just needed her to understand. To understand that…

“B-But...but what if I need you?” I sobbed.

She leaned in, then, and kissed me, and it was without a doubt the worst kiss of my life. It was soft, and even past the pins and needles it was still warm. Her hands cradled my cheeks, and her thumbs traced the lines I’d worn under my eyes as she held me close, and I couldn’t help but start crying.

Because it felt like a kiss goodbye.

I was inconsolable as she drew back, and no matter how many tears she brushed from my eyes, there were more to replace them, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there always would be.

“I need you,” I muttered.

“You won’t always.”

“Liar!” I hissed, and she flinched back. I regretted both the word and my tone instantly. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I just…I love you so much and I can’t just…not.”

Wally moved closer and pressed another kiss to my forehead.

“And you’ll love someone else just as much, one day.” Her words put a thorn in my heart.

The mere notion of that was revolting. The idea that I would, at any point, feel the way I felt about Wallflower towards someone else was so repellent that I almost gagged. It wasn’t even the base-level rejection of something I knew was impossible. The real bile-inducing horror was couched deep in the gangrenous bones of that suggestion that whispered faithlessly into my ear: What if she was right?

What if, one day, I did fall out of love with Wallflower, and in love with someone else? Someone different? Someone who didn’t have beautiful, morning-glory hair that fell over freckled cheeks and veiled warm brown eyes, and who didn’t have a smile that was a thousand times brighter than any other, because it always grew out from a little frown?

Could I really be that shallow?

I knew the answer to that question without voicing it.

My stomach twisted and I staggered to my feet as I felt its meager contents go into full-blown revolt. Wallflower cried out my name in a wash of static, but I didn’t even make it more than a few steps before my vision doubled, then tripled, then pitched and yawed violently as the blood loss finally hit.

I staggered another step, then another, then tried for a third but missed, twisting on my heel and sending the den spinning violently around me as I collapsed with a bruising thud to the floor.

“SUNSET!”

Wallflower was suddenly at my side, but I could barely focus on her, her body was fading in and out, and wondered if the difficulty of calling her had also shortened the duration of the conjuring.

Would she still be here when I came to?

Would I come to?

That last thought came on the heels of darkness, but before the depths of unconsciousness took me, I couldn’t help but wonder…

Would that really be so bad?

Like The Sun Won't Shine

She wasn’t moving.

Sunset wasn’t moving.

I knelt by her side and tried to shake her awake. I called her name, but I had no idea if it was reaching her. I could barely see her anymore. Her light was so, so dim. It had been growing dimmer and dimmer with every new day that I saw her and all that I had pretended that…that it wasn’t happening.

That it wasn’t my fault.

“Sunset!” I called out to her, but it was like screaming over a massive distance, and I was so tired.

I couldn’t focus here. Everything was so distant and numb and empty. I could barely feel anything but the faintest whisper of sensation as I grabbed at her arms to try and staunch the bleeding. What if she bled out?

No, the palms didn’t bleed that much. Not unless they were very, very deep.

I turned her palms over and if I’d had lungs I would have sighed in relief. Shallow. Superficial. They were bleeding, but slowly. Slowly enough that I might be able to wake her up.

But I could feel myself slipping. I could feel myself drifting out of this place and back to…to wherever it was I had been before. I couldn’t remember. Maybe there was nothing beyond that veil. I’d wondered that a few times, although I’d never said as much to Sunset.

I wondered, too, if I was even really Wallflower, or if I was just some…echo. A last, drawn-out whimper of a miserable existence made up of bad choices and missed chances.

Maybe, in a way, that made me the real Wallflower after all.

Just an echo of a person who was always meant to fade.

And I was fading. I needed to get Sunset help before I was gone. Before the magic keeping me here fell apart and took me with it. As much as I wanted to just let go—and I did, Sunset, forgive me, but I wish you’d never called me back—I had one last job to do.

But how?

I could cry out, but my voice wasn’t made for volume. Plus, there was no guarantee that anyone who did hear would care. Telephone? No…Sunset didn’t have a landline. She did have a smartphone, though.

I darted upstairs and, sure enough, it was right where it almost always was. Even after all these years she still kept it on her end table attached to the charger when she wasn’t using it. Now the hard part. I tried to pick it up but my fingers couldn’t find purchase on it. Touching living skin was one thing, but solid objects was…complicated. I wasn’t real enough right now. I was fading.

Come on, Wallflower, think. Use your stupid head for once!

And for once, I did.

Maybe it was being dead that freed up the last reserves of wit I had, but for once I had a thought that I would dare to call creative. I could affect electrical systems! That was why most of Sunset’s apartment was dark. But could I…?

Rather than try to grab the phone, I just focused and brushed a hand over it, and to my shock, the lock screen lit up! I did it again and the password entry popped up next. I didn’t need to guess the password. Knowing Sunset, there was only ever one option.

Delicately, I focused on brushing just the letters I was looking at. It took a couple of tries, and each one made me more frustrated, but eventually I got them in.

W-A-L-L-Y

The lock screen folded away and the home screen popped up. Now what? I almost hadn’t expected to get this far. Call someone? What if they couldn’t hear me? Moreover, what if I fried the phone? It would have to be a text but who—?

I slapped my palm dully to my face.

The group chat.

Even now, I remember their little group chat server, and the app was right there on Sunset’s main screen. Feeling hopeful, I swept a finger over it and concentrated, and almost cried out in relief in when it opened without incident.

The last message was seen and read by almost everyone less than two minutes ago. Including Rainbow Dash! If anyone could get here fast enough...

But what to send? She needed help! Help! That was it! I flicked my fingers across the board, trying to focus on just two simple words.

//HELP ME//

Again.

//HELP ME//

Again.

//HELP ME//

AGAIN!

//HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP HME! HELP HME! HELP HMR! HELP HMR! HELP HER! HELP HERHELPHERHELPHER—//

Something lashed out from behind me, smacked the phone hard, and sent it sailing off the edge of the loft bedroom, across the apartment, and down into the kitchen where it shattered with a lonely crash. I stared down at it for a long moment—at the scattered bits and pieces that were strewn about the cheap tile floor—and then turned and looked up to find Sunset standing, shaky and shadowed, with her arm still outstretched. Her eyes were hooded and dark, and her expression had a flat emptiness to it that terrified me.

“Sunset?” I said her name cautiously as I reached out a hand to lay it on her cheek. “Sunset, it’s okay,” I whispered. “Help is coming.”

I’d seen the little icons move down along my messages. They’d seen them. I was sure of it. Surely they were already worried about her, right? They must be. That message would get them over here in a hurry.

“You already sent messages, huh?” Sunset asked, her voice was stilted and grainy, like always. It was so hard to hear her sometimes, but for some reason, this time, she was almost starkly clear.

“Help is coming,” I repeated softly.

“Yeah…” She looked even more distant as she turned towards the bathroom, then nodded faintly more to herself than anything. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

She moved more quickly than I would have thought possible. Her earlier exhaustion seemed to have vanished and in its place, there was this…energy. It didn’t give me hope, though. In fact, it scared me even more.

There was a grim purpose to Sunset as she moved carefully down the stairs. She was still weak, and she took them slowly enough to ensure she could get to the bottom without tripping. She was blinking a lot too. I recognized that. Much like me, she was fading. Her focus was drifting.

But she kept going. Past the couch, past the den, past the television, and towards the bathroom door.

“Sunset, please, stop!” I followed her in a panic with dread clogging my throat. “Please! You’re going to be okay!” I reached the bathroom door moments after she did but she was already pulling her pajama bottoms off and tossing them away.

The world snapped and crackled around me as I watched her kneel and flip open a terribly familiar little box. That box should have been back at my apartment!

“I’m sorry, Wally,” Sunset said as she brushed away the bandages and cotton swabs, and plucked out the small box of razors. “I wish I’d told you how I felt back when it might have mattered,” she looked up at me with a wan smile as she dumped out the box, sending the blades clattering across the floor. “I wish I could have been then one who made you smile.”

“You did!” I sobbed. “Every single day! Every single smile! They were all because of you!”

I dropped to my knees by her side and tried to knock the blades away from her hand, but I couldn’t hold myself together long enough to affect them all, and she got one out from under me before I could stop her. I followed her hand as light glinted strangely off of the razor’s edge.

“They were all…all for you,” I finished feebly.

She smiled at me, and it was a heartbreaking expression. Then she kicked the door shut and locked it just as the sound of fists pounding on her door became audible. I heard voices calling Sunset’s name. Rainbow’s harsh rasp was easily recognizable, but I thought I heard Fluttershy’s surprisingly loud cries under there too.

“It will take them time to get through that door, and more time to get through this one,” Sunset said as she stumbled over to the corner of the bathroom and slumped down.

“Don’t do this, Sunset,” I pleaded quietly. “Please don’t do this.”

“Enough time, I think,” she said solemnly.

“Please…” I begged. “I know I’m…I’m just the worst. I know I d-don’t deserve to say this after what I did, but please,” I laid a hand on hers as she started to press the blade right over where I knew her femoral artery lay. “Please don’t.”

And she paused.

Just for a moment.

Then she shook her head and said, “You’re right. You don’t deserve to say that.”

The blade moved so fast that I couldn’t follow it, and suddenly red was spilling out across the bathroom floor. It was done. It was done. Oh, God. She really did it. When I finally looked up, it was to find her staring at me with a faint smile.

“You don’t have to stay,” Sunset said softly.

I looked back down at the ugly, open wound, then back up at her, and let out a shaky sob.

“I know,” I replied.

The pounding outside reached a crescendo. I imagined it was the sound of her door finally giving way under the sustained assault. The voices of her friends, the rasp of Rainbow, the gentle chime of Fluttershy, and the high, cultured cries of Rarity, who must have just arrived.

“I never want to love anyone else, Wally,” Sunset said, ignoring the noise outside. “You’re everything I ever wanted, and I just…can’t. And I don’t want to, even if I can.”

“I know,” I repeated as I knelt in the slowly pooling blood. It moved past me, rather than around me. I really was fading fast.

“Do you think we’ll be together after this?” Sunset asked.

It would have been easy to say yes.

“I don’t know,” was what I actually said.

“Best guess?”

“Probably not.”

Sunset let out a weak, shaky laugh as her head started to droop. Her heart was probably giving out. Her brain too. She would lose consciousness soon. I reached out and brushed my fingers over her cheeks.

“Why did you do it?” She asked, her voice suddenly sharpening in that odd way it had earlier, and her fiery blue eyes flicked up to mine, though they were duller than they had ever been. “Why did you have to die?”

She’d never asked me that before. I think she was scared to.

“Because I just wanted to stop,” I said softly. “Because I wanted…I wanted to be gone.” I lowered my head in shame. “I still do.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunset breathed the words like a woman falling into a deep slumber. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you sleep, but it’s over now…you can…can go.”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

Tears trickled down across Sunset’s cheeks to drop and disturb the crimson pool beneath her with odd ripples.

“You’ll…stay?” She asked. She didn’t raise her head. I’m not sure she could anymore, so I did it for her, so we could see each other.

“I’ll stay.”

“I’m…I’m scared, Wally,” Sunset sobbed.

“I know,” I said, and if I’d still been able to cry, I would have. “I am too.”

“I…l-love…you.”

“I love you, too!”

Her head bobbed down out of my grip. Or more accurately, through it. I tried to catch her, but couldn’t. My hands were gone. My arms were going. I was fading. Fading away for the very last time. There were fists pounding on the door behind me, but they were too late.

They were all too late.

Blue eyes turned dull as clouded quartz and darkness swallowed everything.

It was snowing the day they buried Sunset Shimmer.

Author's Note

We Have Come To Terms