My hair had to look perfect.
I poked and prodded it as I peered at myself in the mirror, tried to get the wave at the end just right, ran my hoof along the jagged red and yellow stripes. The same colors as the flaring sun in my cutie mark, which only made me think of… of her.
A vibrant sun on her side as well, but hers lit up a whole room, a city, a world. I used to think I could rival her. Not anymore, though. Not now.
With a sigh, I trotted out the door and into the—her sunlight. I didn’t even bother with my saddlebags. Everything, left behind.
I’d walked the streets of Canterlot so many times that I didn’t even need to pay attention to where I went. Just… the look on her face. What would Celestia do? Smile down on her former student? Scowl and scream at me to get out? Whatever she chose, I’d repay it in kind: bask in her approval or slink back to what had become my home, if I even dared to fling some accusatory words at her first.
Her lips, pronouncing whatever judgment she saw fit, wrenching them from her throat or letting a honeyed sweetness glisten on them. It all played in my head in slow motion while I somehow avoided colliding with the vast crowds that never seemed to have anywhere to go. Did ponies just mill about this city for no reason?
“Name?”
My withers jerked as I blinked up at the guard, his wings half-spread.
“Um… Sunset Shimmer. I have an appointment.”
His clipboard whisked to the side, and he gaped at me. “Sunset? Is that really you?” He grabbed me by the shoulder and laughed as if somepony had told him an inside joke. “I haven’t seen you in ages! It’s me, Silver Spear! Do you remember?”
“Y-yeah,” I said, giving him a crooked smile. “It’s been a long time.” I had no idea who he was.
“Wow, you must have graduated years ago! What have you been up to?”
“Not much, just…” I couldn’t look him in the eye. It felt—it felt great, having him actually care about me like that. Like flitting a little above the ground. But lying to him… Normally I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Sometimes, that would be easier, but at least it gave me the little pick-me-up I’d need until I saw whether the Princess would supply the rest. “I shouldn’t keep Princess Celestia waiting.”
He only beamed back. “Of course, of course! I’ll escort you up and have you announced.”
“No, please,” I replied, staring harder at the cobblestones. “I don’t want to make a big deal about it.”
Like a scarecrow coming undone from its post, he slumped against the guard shack. “You sure? She’ll be happy to see you.”
“She will?” I couldn’t keep from meeting his gaze again, and he nodded as if imparting a solemn vow. That simplified things a bit. Not that I needed her forgiveness—I didn’t even want it. But if she found out why I was really here…
“Yeah. But if you’d rather keep it low-key, I can understand. Go on up,” he said, waving me past.
So I smiled at him, the crinkle in his eyes warming me. “Thanks, Silver Spear.”
I didn’t remember the castle that well, at least not the more out-of-the-way parts of it, but after a few false turns, I found the surprisingly plain oak door that Raven had mentioned in her return letter, thankfully not assuming I’d remember how to get there. Princess Celestia would receive me in her private study, at two o’clock sharp, and given the number of times she must have summoned any one of her personal students here to turn in an assignment, take on a task, or—a shudder ran down my back—endure a lecture, I should have been able to find it blindfolded.
The carillon across town rang out its second chime, and with the lengthy melody it played on every hour, it didn’t get to actually tolling until a few minutes after. I was late.
Just a simple door. I could easily knock, but my mind instantly wandered to all the ways I might dash out of here and forget this whole business. I didn’t need her. I didn’t.
So I knocked, quietly. She wouldn’t hear, and I’d leave, and I could say I’d tried. But the door creaked open, too soon, as if she’d stood waiting on the other side, tensed for any small cue.
Princess Celestia peered out at me, and her eyes danced, but she pursed her lips before beckoning me in. I’d made a terrible mistake! I shouldn’t be here, just turn and run and never come back!
But that way, I’d never know. I gritted my teeth.
I sat in the chair she offered me, and she passed by her desk to the sofa across a low table from me. And she watched. This stupid chair, old and wobbly and threadbare, and it likely hadn’t changed since I last disgraced this city with my presence. The short leg clunked against the floor with my trembling.
“I won’t hurt you,” she said, in such a level tone it was downright unnatural.
I could feel the worry lines cutting into my face like a dried-out mud flat, and why did she have to keep it so cold in here? At least I had my tail to curl around me, but still I shivered.
“Please.” She pointed at a tea service on the table. “Have something hot to drink.”
I had never liked tea, but I poured a mug and gathered it up by my face to feel the heat. A brown-tinted traitor stared back at me. “Thank you,” I muttered into the cup, ringing hollow. It had a nice scent of cinnamon, so I took a small taste.
She didn’t even bother picking up her tea, content to leave it on the table and swirl it around with her magic. Only the plate of cookies momentarily diverted her attention, but she wouldn’t take one. She was holding back. A blank slate, and I’d never called her that before. Always, her emotions blazed forth like the sun on her flank, on… on our flanks, but she remained locked in a dungeon of her own making.
My hooves shook again, and my head buzzed, worse and worse, until I thought I might pass out, and I staggered upright. I’d miscalculated, badly, and the wonderful love streaming off her… “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.” Something was wrong with it, off.
“No!” I’d never heard such a plaintive wail compressed into one tiny word before, but it slammed into my ears like a cannon shot. “Please. Don’t go.”
For a moment, I considered telling her the truth: that I hadn’t been feeling right for a while, and I couldn’t remember feeling right since the last time I’d come here. She was my best chance, she had the purest love.
Celestia smiled at me. “Whenever Twilight Sparkle comes back through the mirror, she tells me about all the good things you’ve done.”
But she didn’t know… No, what did she know? An argument, a disappointment, her promising student running away, returning as a common thief, and unleashing magic upon a world that didn’t know what to do with it. Honestly, I didn’t have a much better picture of events myself. So long ago, and that wasn’t me, not the real me.
A little sip of tea wouldn’t hurt, and if it set her at ease, I took a small swallow and gave a thin smile as if it tasted good, but the bitterness crept in. Not the tea, though.
Before I could move, she practically leapt at me, and she curled her wings around me. And the flood of—I gagged, shuddered, nearly retched. Those suffocating feathers, all over! I strained, pushed against her wings, scrabbled with my hooves until she let me go, then jumped toward the wall, slid down it to the floor.
Wrong, so wrong! She did love me, but… such guilt, such regret. My throat spasmed, and I sucked in a cold breath, my mouth agape and a line of drool running down my chin. I should have known better. The guilt was too much, it turned my stomach, it invaded me.
I swallowed down the bile threatening to spill out on the floor, and when I glanced up, she hung there like a rag doll, positively stricken. “I’m sorry,” I wheezed as I fought off another gag.
I’d hung around Twilight’s castle enough—Twilight. As much as any anger I’d had toward Celestia faded long ago, I still hated Twilight. Having to stay around her, learn as much as I could by eavesdropping.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I don’t blame you.” Why wouldn’t Celestia let go of this awful guilt? If I couldn’t get her to drop it, then I’d wasted my time. I’d wasted my time, and I’d better start thinking about how to get out of here.
“Nopony is ever completely right,” she answered. Her smile only radiated more. If I could live on that alone, I’d stay in this place forever. If she’d just take the damned absolution!
“Your little group: Secant, who could barely see through his tangles of mane, Lace Doily, who I’m not sure I ever heard speak, Ginkgo and his ability to dredge up the most useless and obscure facts about anything. You were inseparable that first year.” Celestia nearly coughed, and she stared intently at the wall.
“You grew impatient though, began chastising them. You made Lace Doily do your homework. I had faith that she’d stand up for herself, that you’d recognize the pain you’d caused her… but I’d misjudged more than one pony. And in the end, I’d failed you both by not acting to stop it.”
Not just bitter anymore—so sour. I wrenched my throat closed to hold it in. It wouldn’t do to get sick right here in her office!
She squeezed some tears out of her eyes. “I heard about Midnight Sparkle. I always knew you had that potential, but I never expected it to shine that brilliantly. I’m so proud of what you’ve become.”
No… no more! A ragged breath scraped its way out of my chest. I… I couldn’t do this to her. She gaped at me, her jaw trembling, as I stood by the doorway, but—
Her love, so stained with guilt! Hopelessly unpalatable, I had to get out of here, had to end this the best way I could, for her, and why did I even care what happened to her?
With my gut churning, a persistent itch at the back of my brain told me to throw her a bone. “I’m happy, I really am—” with any luck, I understood everypony well enough to speak the truth “—and it’s alright with me if Twilight shares the journal with you. Then you can keep up. Maybe I’ll write to you too.”
As I dashed out the door, I thought I heard a quiet “I love you.” I almost answered, but it wasn’t my place.
I ran, reluctantly at first, then faster, through the halls, past the guard at the gate, fortunately occupied with somepony else, and I raced through street after street until I found an alley with nopony around, and all that sourness finally broke free—I vomited into an open garbage can, over and over, and when the nausea had died down, the stink of it made my stomach clench again, until I’d purged all that foulness.
Such guilt Celestia carried.
Something like that, irrevocably woven into the love, ruined it, poisoned it. So strong, and I couldn’t help absorbing it, feeling it myself: what I’d done, the horrible things I’d done.
I lay there panting in a cold sweat until the sun had dipped low in the sky, and Celestia would be making it set and… I didn’t know why, but the image made me sad. On my own. It hadn’t come from anywhere. Things ending, her, thinking I’d gone, and let her mind be at ease.
Maybe I hadn’t retched out every trace of empathy—I forced a hoof down my throat, but I could barely even cough up a trickle of bile.
This hadn’t come from Celestia.
Hoofsteps. Some stallion, back at the alley’s entrance, eyed me coughing and spitting. “You poor dear!” he said, and he left some bread on a discarded box before pursing his lips and shaking his head.
For me?
Yes. The warmth—yes, for me. My nausea abated. A little. But I didn’t need his bread. He’d already fed me. Not like Celestia could have—what a powerful love she had! As someone she loved a great deal, whom few others would recognize, who would probably never come here, or so my surveillance said. The perfect target.
No, no, it wouldn’t have worked. I could have set myself for life, but it never would have worked, her love all tainted, far more than I could have expected. I couldn’t even force myself to be angry at Celestia anymore.
So it’d all end. Relegated to dredging up what little scraps of love I could. How royal.
I didn’t need the bread. I’d leave it for somepony who’d live another day because of it. Maybe I could help somepony.
My head hurt, all dizzy, and I wasn’t even thinking right—helping a pony?—so I retreated into the deeper shadows and shed my disguise, all of it. And as I stretched out my wings, they glittered, just a little, in the faint moonlight. Just like Thorax’s had when he started giving. I didn’t know what that meant.
I glanced at the bread again. Maybe I should throw it in the trash.
On filly’s legs, I darted out into the street to find some vagabond I could lead back to that bread, and he’d take pity on an orphaned child, offering to share it with me. I’d insist he eat it, and I’d have my fill anyway.
Somewhere nearby, Celestia would sleep well tonight. I shouldn’t have wanted her to.
Author's Note
Obviously, this would have to take place before Sunset and Celestia actually did meet up again in "Forgotten Friendship."
