Sing Out My Soul

“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.