Together from Canterlot to Canterlot

Chapters

Prologue: A Crystalline Proposition
Act 1, Chapter 1: Fundraisers and Families
Act 1, Chapter 2: Facing a Stranger
Act 1, Chapter 3: Bravery
Act 1, Chapter 4: Comforter
Interlude: A Dream of Manes and Hooves

Prologue: A Crystalline Proposition

Twilight wasn’t looking at Sunset.

In the present tense, the reason for that was obvious – Sunset wasn’t in the tent. She was out in Camp Everfree's bath facilities; at this point, she must have finished showering and was probably brushing her teeth. Twilight had returned from doing likewise around 20 (25?) minutes earlier, just as Sunset had finally made it back to camp in the dim evening light, having been helping to renovate the crystal cavern they’d discovered into somewhere suitable for a charity ball. She’d given Twilight a few updates, but broke for the showers as quickly as possible, needing to clean up before going to sleep.

Twilight fully understood why; it had been a long, long day, and a part of her wanted to simply flop over and get some well-earned rest. Especially since she knew that, for the first time in a long time, a certain somedemon wouldn’t be waiting for her in the dreamscape.

But that wasn’t going to happen, because she was now very conscious of the fact that she’d completely failed to look at Sunset directly at any point just then. Maybe Sunset hadn’t noticed – she’d been in a hurry – but Twilight had.

And as she sat in her pajamas atop the deep purple covers of her bed, legs dangling over the side as she stared into the wooden floorboards, she was pondering why it was suddenly so hard to meet Sunset’s eyes. Which was a perplexing thing to wonder about, given she knew the answer.

Within the confines of the tent – confines being a loose term, given the rather massive size of the well-furnished and quite polished structure, which had been much to the chagrin of Applejack and her “roughing it” plans; her friend had asked if these things could even be called tents at all, and in all honesty Twilight couldn’t help but agree, even if she was simultaneously extremely grateful–

She caught herself mid-mental tangent and refocused.

Within the confines of the tent, looking at Sunset shouldn’t have reasonably presented any difficulty. It’d be perfectly normal, at any rate. Not like it’s weird at all to look at your tentmate, especially when they’re your best friend and you’re talking to them. Besides, there’s not that much else interesting to look at, especially in the low lighting. Spike was already asleep on his bed, and after the day they’d had, he’d probably be out for a while.

So it’d just be the two of them. That should make it easy, right?

Besides, she’d been doing it the whole trip up to now. Well, kinda. When everything from surprise magic powers to surprise attempts at relationships to the not-so-surprise monster in her brain to the surprise attack from a different monster not even twelve hours earlier was commanding her attention. It had been easy to look at Sunset then, when the weight of an uncountable number of heavy short-term stressors were pushing any other concerns to the back of her mind.

But all of those were gone. The only things left were her and Sunset.

And also The Plan.

Was that what was making it hard to look at her? Well, naturally. It was obvious, really. The answer she’d already known.

Granted, it wasn’t unusual for Twilight to have a bit of trouble looking people in the eyes – and that’s just when you’re wearing your glasses, joked the little part of her mind that apparently wanted to be a stand-up comedian, which she promptly silenced out of sheer annoyance – but she’d reached a point of familiarity and trust with Sunset and her friends over the past month-and-a-half to not have that be a constant problem. And besides, she normally didn’t notice those eye-contact failures until they were pointed out to her. This wasn’t that.

But now she had to deal with what it actually was, which meant–

The train of thought explosively derailed as she heard the sound of a light tromping outside, her head snapping up to attention. She quickly pulled her legs up and slumped her body sideways onto the bed, then rolled over to face the tent wall as she heard someone step onto the platform.

Sure enough, a familiarly entrancing, melodically harsh voice greeted Twilight Sparkle as Sunset Shimmer stepped inside.

“Hey, I’m back!”

Twilight didn’t budge. “Spike’s sleeping.”

A pause, then a softer tone of voice. “Oh, sorry. I, uh, totally get if you just want to go to sleep now. I mean, we did just have one of the wildest days of our lives.”

As she heard Sunset step over to her bed and stop in front of it, the surviving remnants of her previous thought process started shooting up signal flares and screaming in chorus to remind her exactly what she’d been lost in contemplation about before, and how she was about to let The Plan go down in flames larger than the ones she’d accidentally started in her lab in eighth grade.

She lurched up and looked towards Sunset, though not quite at Sunset, whose back was turned as she pulled up some of her covers. “No, no, I didn’t mean that!”

Sunset turned to face her and put a teasing finger to her lips, making a shushing sound as she pointed towards Spike.

“Oh, right, sorry, I’ll be quieter,” Twilight giggled nervously as she got back into a sitting position. “I just meant that I…”

She became conscious of the fact that she now really was looking at Sunset. Like, right at her. The rich amber of her face, the lovely cyan of her eyes, the fiery crimson of her hair, that kind, inviting warmth that radiated from her, a gaze that somehow felt as piercing as it was inviting.

Twilight’s eyes quickly darted away, only for her mind to rebel with angry reminders of what needed to be done. She then forced them, with all the effort of dragging a couch across a room – something she wouldn’t have to worry about very much, she noted as she glimpsed the new necklace Sunset still wore and momentarily considered her own – back to Sunset’s.

“I just meant that, um…” she stammered. “I wanted to talk a little bit, before bed.”

“Oh, good,” Sunset said, placing her necklace on the footstool beside her bed. She then plopped down on top of the covers and flashed a bright smile at Twilight. “I do too. There’s just so much to process from the whole day, like our powers, the camp stuff, the whole Gaea Everfree thing, and…” She paused for a moment, smile becoming a mild frown. “Is it something about Midnight?”

“Huh? Oh, um, not really? It’s kinda weird, I should be thinking all about that, probably, and being excited that she’s gone and I don’t have to worry about where my magic is coming from and stuff, but, um, I honestly haven’t really at all since it happened. It’s just been…”

“Hectic,” Sunset said with a nod, smile returning. Twilight returned it.

“Yeah, that’s, um, probably a good word for it. But I was thinking– well, that is, I’ve been thinking, and, uh…”

And now keeping her eyes on Sunset’s was outright impossible, with them glancing away the second connection was made.

Sunset leaned forward curiously. “You can take your time, but… is it about Timber?”

That jerked Twilight’s eyes right back to Sunset’s without a moment’s hesitation. “What?”

“Well, I mean, I figured when I got back you’d probably be telling me all about how he asked you to the Ball, or maybe you got bold and asked him to the Ball, and how you were really excited to have your first dance and stuff,” Sunset said, smiling at what must have been an image of that theoretical excited version of Twilight, even as the real one could do little more than blink as she mentally sorted through possible responses. The smile waned as she looked back at said real-Twilight. “But… you seem like something’s bothering you.”

“Me?” Twilight stammered. “I just, uh, um, I, well–”

“Are you two going to the dance together? I-Is it too early? I didn’t mean to pressure–”

“We’re not.”

The higher-order processes in Twilight’s mind were clearly failing her, so the basic instincts had forcibly wrested control. Which was always a disaster that would leave said higher functions to clean up the huge mess the lower ones would inevitably leave behind. And yet it kept happening.

Sunset slowly nodded. “Oh.” She looked away, which made Twilight deeply conscious of how long her gaze had been fixed on Sunset’s, and thus she did likewise. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Twilight replied. “It is, really. We just, um, when Timber and I were making the invitations for the Ball earlier, um, we… we did talk about it. Not just the dance, but also how fast we’d kinda tried getting into this whole thing, when all this stuff’s been happening around us and how it’s been hard to think when we’ve had so much on our minds, and also– well, what things would look like for us after camp. And now with all these big clouds that were over our heads and stuff gone, I think we both, um, kinda agreed that it just didn’t feel right for us. Plus it wouldn’t really reflect well on him suddenly dating me when, well, he’s the camp counselor and I’m a camper.”

She could hear Sunset shifting on the side of the bed. “I hadn’t really thought of it like that, I guess. Probably right. But I was just excited to see you, well, excited. Sure, maybe it was a bit of a whirlwind, but… maybe after everything, that was what you deserved. Finding someone to make you happy, just like that.”

Twilight laughed softly. “I think we were both leaning into the idea of it being a relationship relationship too hard. Especially me. I mean I’ve never really been in one before, but, well, I’ve also never really been that much into guys either.”

“Oh, right. I remember you said that once, but I figured maybe Timber was that perfect little bi sweet spot for you.”

“Bi sweet–” Twilight snorted, and looked back over to see Sunset grinning.

They both burst into little giggles.

“Oh, I love that, bi sweet spot. There’s just something intangibly hilarious about that as a phrase and as a concept. You have a lot of those?”

“Twi, not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’ma walking bi sweet spot.”

Had Twilight happened to have taken a swig from her water bottle at that moment – impossible, given its location on the other side of the bed – the resulting spit take would have been so perfect it would have made Pinkie jealous. As it was, she simply gave a peal of ridiculous laughter, which Sunset echoed.

There was a mumble from across the tent. “Hey…”

Twilight seized up and put a hand to her mouth, which Sunset also imitated, and looked over toward the far end of her bed. “Sorry, Spike!” she whispered. “We’ll keep it down.”

There was a heavy sigh, followed by silence. After a moment, the sound of light doggy breathing became audible, and Twilight relaxed.

Before she could turn back, she heard Sunset’s voice, now much quieter. “Do you want to come sit over here? So we don’t have to talk so loud?”

That briefly-acquired relaxation was gone in an instant as Twilight whirled around. “Do I… um… uh…”

Sitting by Sunset, of course, would be perfect for The Plan. But those higher-order mental processes were still fully in Panic Mode, so instead of a sensible reply like Oh, definitely, I should sit next to you as you suggested, the way a normal human being would, it was more of a mumbled “shyuuurrrrr?”

Before any other part of her could protest, her lizard brain then proceeded to puppet her onto her feet and shamble her across to the other bed. It dropped her down entirely too close to Sunset for comfort and refused to let her scooch away. The damned thing even fixed her gazeon Sunset, in what seemed to be a major defiance of all previously defined instincts. It didn’t seem especially concerned that these actions would constitute a charge of high treason at the inevitable internal tribunal that would be held once this was over.

Sunset didn’t seem to notice the coup happening in Twilight’s head as she flashed her a smile, then picked up where things had left off before the gigglefest. “So, um, like I was starting to say before all that, I just wanted to make sure things were okay. Especially since it felt like Timber was your one bright spot this weekend.”

The need to concretely reply was a nice social impetus that forced an armistice in Twilight’s mindscape as she quickly extracted a response. “We’re okay. We just kinda broke things off before they really got started, but we did exchange phone numbers after, so I think… I think we’ll be friends after this.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.”

Twilight shifted forward slightly, resting her hands at the edge of the bed. A thought occurred. “Wait, you said you thought he was my only bright spot?”

“Um-” Sunset froze for a moment. “Un… until today, obviously. And, well, he was the only one you seemed comfortable around earlier, when you were thinking that, um, all the magic stuff was coming from you.”

“Oh.” Twilight nodded, still somehow not looking away. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. It wasn’t very rational of me to think that way.”

“Well, like you said, this wasn’t really a weekend filled with a lot of rational thought. But I guess things have worked out mostly for the best, right?”

A sudden shock ran through Twilight’s body as she felt Sunset’s right hand close over her left.

Somehow, she found that she wasn’t fleeing the tent in immediate panic, in what must have been an immense exercise of unconscious restraint. But she couldn’t control the violent jolt that occurred as her body’s red-alert message of Sunset is holding my hand shot through her nervous system and turned Panic Mode into a full-blown nuclear meltdown.

This time, Sunset definitely noticed. And Twilight could only watch in horror as she pulled her legs up onto the bed and shifted sideways into a cross-legged position, to see her more fully.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” she asked. After a moment of silence, her eyes widened, and she motioned to the geode she wasn’t wearing. “Oh, um, I didn’t see anything in your mind, if that’s what–”

“No, it’s not that.” She hadn’t even considered that initially, which was extremely fortunate for her blood pressure.

“Then what?”

Unable to bear her gaze, Twilight turned away, eyes looking down at the floorboards once again. The remnants of rational thought within were scrabbling for something, anything she could say to defuse the situation. There were probably lots of things she could choose from to explain herself, especially after everything that had happened that day, that week, the whole month-plus since the Friendship Games, maybe even something from beforehand.

“Ummmm… well…”

And yet there was one thing that was blocking her ability to access anything that could have been useful, could have saved her.

The truth.

At that moment, Twilight deeply sympathized with Applejack. Why couldn’t devising effective lies be as simple as proving formulas?

She sighed as she tried to dig through the rubble of her mind, try and find The Plan, see if there was still a chance to salvage it. But her lower brain, taking advantage of the loosened barriers to the rest of the mental landscape, began to seize that critical information in yet another brazen betrayal, and began processing it into linguistic form to spew out of her vocal chords.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Silence.

“And I’m a little, um, a lot scared, actually. But I need to say it, because right now it’s just making me feel really, really stressed, and I don’t know when I’d ever be able to just bring it up when it makes sense, because it doesn’t make sense… It’s dumb. It’s so dumb.”

“It’s not, Twi. I promise. Whatever it is, I’ll listen.”

Against her better judgment, Twilight slowly turned to look at Sunset. She could see there was definite concern on her face, but… there was also a smile. Not a big smile, but Twilight had taught herself to read smiles well enough – particularly Sunset’s – to get at least a semblance of what they meant.

This one roughly translated to an earnest “please don’t be afraid.”

As she looked away once more, she hoped she could heed the smile’s advice.

“Well,” she began, “part of why I tried getting together with Timber this past weekend was because of a promise I made to myself. After the Spring Fling, you see. I really did appreciate getting to go with all of you as a group like that, barely over a week after I switched schools. But, I mean… I’m not the best with crowds, and stuff. And maybe this is a really silly reason to want to be in a relationship, but I thought, well, if I was there as someone’s date, then maybe it might be easier to be somewhere like that, you know? To have just one person to kinda talk to, cling to, be with so it’s not just you vs. the crowd? Maybe that’s nuts, or maybe that’s some kind of weird philosophy of relationships I accidentally nailed. I don’t really know.

“Anyway, um, the point was that I made this little vow to myself that the next dance I went to, I would go as someone’s date. Even if that meant asking them myself. It was… I know it’s a weird promise for me to make, when I probably could just, well, not go to the dance if it was making me feel like that. But, then again, I was – I am – really trying to, y’know, put myself out there and be more social! I mean, I have years of that to make up for! Sure, I probably won’t like everything I try, but, well, at least I can say I tried.”

She paused for a deep breath, briefly sneaking a glance over. Sunset didn’t try to cut in. She just sat, patiently waiting.

“I thought I’d have until the next Fall Formal before that happened,” Twilight reluctantly resumed, “but it was still something I hadn’t forgotten when Timber first started talking to me. And I decided maybe I should go for it, especially when it seemed like all of you were pretty excited for me. But when everything was over, and Midnight was gone and all this fog I was trying to see through was lifted, I just… I had this… clarity, I’d say. And when I was talking things over with Timber afterwards… it’s weird, really. Suddenly the next dance I’m going to isn’t months away, it’s tomorrow. I should be more committed to doing this with Timber, even if I wasn’t really finding him all that personally attractive, and maybe even if it would be just for one more night.

“But when that clarity hit, I… I just suddenly knew who I’d want to go with. To be with. Like I’d known already, somehow. And it wasn’t Timber, it…”

As much as she didn’t want to, she had to see precisely how Sunset would react to what was next. So she turned her head and met Sunset’s eyes directly, and said the words that would make or break everything.

“It was you.”

And with that, The Plan was gone for good, replaced fully by The Unhinged Whim.

She watched silently as a parade of expressions marched across Sunset’s face, adamant that she witness them all. First, there was the expected surprise and alarm. Then what seemed like concern. Then a bit of harder-to-read pondering. And then clear hesitation as she briefly opened her mouth, then shut it without saying anything.

And then Sunset looked away, eyes moving past her towards the floor off the side of the bed. Just staring.

It took willpower Twilight had no idea she possessed to not run crying out of the tent right then and there.

After a few agonizing seconds, Sunset looked back up, looking almost somber. Fearful, even. And Twilight’s breath hitched as Sunset began to speak.

“I… need to ask you something, Twilight.”

The gulp that followed was involuntary, and the word that followed was essentially a reflex as well. “Okay.”

“I don’t really know… exactly what we’re gonna say next. But I really, really don’t want you to be afraid. I want you to know that… that we’ll still be friends at the end of this conversation, no matter what. I’m not going to punish you for opening up to me. Please believe that.”

Some of that felt reassuring. Other parts felt doubly horrifying. But Twilight responded with merely a nod and that same word. “Okay.”

Sunset waited for a moment before taking a deep breath and speaking. “So you like me like me?”

“I really think I do.”

“And you figured this out today?”

“...yes and no. I’ve had kinda, um, odd feelings around you for a while. Maybe the whole time, since the Games. But everything else just made it hard to see them for what they were until now. To see that you’re pretty, and smart, and wonderful, and caring, and everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner, and–” Twilight’s eyes widened as she realized what she was saying, and she clamped her mouth shut.

“...Oh.” Sunset’s eyes trailed off, and for a few moments, things were silent.

Twilight began to speak in a whisper-soft voice. “I–”

Too soft, clearly, as Sunset spoke again, and she immediately clamped her mouth shut. “Would… would you be asking me this without the dance?”

“Um–” Twilight stopped, pondering. “I don’t know. The dance and talking about it was what made me think about all those things I’d felt before, but… it’s not like that wouldn’t have happened just from being around you again later, right? Maybe? I don’t know. Maybe I just let things get to me. Maybe after everything I’m still just as dumb and thoughtless as I’ve been all week. I just can’t blame it on Midnight anymore. Oh no…”

At that, the hesitation on Sunset’s face melted away, and she reached a worried hand out toward Twilight’s shoulder. “Hey–”

Twilight drew back, looking away, and Sunset retracted her arm in kind. “No, you’re right. This is dumb and stupid and horrible. I’m probably just being weird and trying to rush into something stupid, same as I was with Timber, but worse because it’s you and I’m still trying to process how grateful I am to you for saving me from Midnight at the Games and now again today… oh no. Why didn’t I think about this? Why? One of the biggest days of our lives, and now I’m doing this to you! It’s just…” She dropped her face into her hands, sliding them awkwardly underneath her glasses. “I’m just being selfish and horrible. I’m so sorry–”

“Twilight.”

It was a simple word, and yet it arrested the stream-of-consciousness rant. Twilight peeked out from between her fingers.

“I haven’t said no.”

And at that, all of Twilight’s blood turned to ice.

With the heaviest of effort, she withdrew her hands and brought her gaze back to meet Sunset’s. And she saw the expression on her face, while not outright joyful or excited, didn’t have any trace of fearanymore.

A million questions at once were expressed in a singular term. “...What?”

And Sunset’s answer came in the form of another question. “Can I sit next to you?”

Twilight blinked. And watched unmoving as Sunset shifted her body, turning to face Twilight’s bed on the other side of the tent. Her legs unfurled and draped over the edge, and she scooted over to Twilight, stopping right at her crossed knees. Then she looked at her again, eyes wide, expression warm.

“Please?”

Twilight absentmindedly nodded, mimicking Sunset’s change in position, and the two of them sat side by side once again on the bed. Though Twilight left a modicum of space between them, Sunset moved down to fill the gap, pressing her right arm to Twilight’s left.

“Is this okay?” Sunset asked.

It wasn’t, but Twilight had already dug a deep enough grave for herself by that point. She simply nodded once more, without facing her.

She heard Sunset softly sigh before she began. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I just… I wasn’t expecting that, and that’s not your fault. I needed a moment to really think about what you were telling me. I didn’t mean for you to think I was judging your feelings.”

“Oh.” Twilight still kept her eyes forward, though their angle slid down from the tent wall to her bed.

“I did want to know if there was something I did to make you feel this way,” Sunset added, “but hearing what you were saying, I don’t know if it matters. This seems like it’s hard enough for you without me making you think it’s for the wrong reason.

“And the truth is that I do kinda want this for you. Like I said before, I want you to be happy, and to find that person that you can be happy with. And if you really think that person is me, then, well, I’m open to exploring that. To try making that real for you.”

Somewhere in the melted pile of slop that currently composed Twilight Sparkle’s brain, a surge of electricity sent bubbles rippling along the surface. First in the ooze regulating surprise and excitement, and then eventually in the sludge that was formerly the center of critical thinking. (It didn’t seem to affect anything controlling facial expressions, however.)

“I… I’m sorry,” Twilight stammered, “I know this should be really amazing, but, um… I really want to know what you mean by try. I mean, it doesn’t really sound like you like me like me.”

“…Um–”

“And I really don’t want you to play pretend. That won’t make either of us happy.”

She finally turned her head to look at Sunset, and saw her head beginning to droop, the fiery hair partially obscuring her face.

“Sunset? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“No, it’s okay. I said it wrong, that wasn’t what I meant. Really. I’m just trying to be open with you, because, well, you deserve my honesty. And the truth is I think any relationship with me is gonna be a bit of an experiment, because I’ve got kinda, um, unique issues when it comes to relationships with people. Or not exactly people. Human people.”

The words bubbled in the mental goo for a solid few seconds before a meaning was finally deciphered. “You… you’re only into ponies…”

Sunset didn’t move, but sighed deeply. “Not exactly. I have a human body, and human hormones, so I have had times where I’ve noticed something that… feels like attraction? But there’s just this disconnect inside me. I’m used to human shapes, both other people’s and my own. But it still doesn't feel like I react to them the way people born in this world do. Like even if maybe I notice I might like someone physically, my head just can’t reconcile that idea at all. And that’s if it actually is what I think it is, and I’ve never really managed to figure it out. Sometimes if I think I might be feeling that way, I’ll try to picture that person as a pony, but it doesn’t help me make sense of it. It’s really confusing, and it’s hard to describe even to myself.

“And when I said I know I’m a walking bi sweet spot, that’s from people basically telling me that. I’ve definitely had a few people hit on me, girls and guys, some of whom definitely aren’t exclusively into girls. But I haven’t had a relationship like that of my own. In Equestria I was too young and too distracted for that, and here… Flash is a great guy, and what we had was special in its own way. But it was mostly just a friendship, and then less-than-friendship, that I let people call a relationship because it would help me stand out if I did. I… owe him a lot, but that’s getting off-topic.

“But the point is that when I say I don’t know if I’m attracted to you… I mean it. I literally don’t know. And the fact that I already have all these other feelings about you just from knowing you, from being your friend, from caring for you… that just makes it even harder for me to recognize something like that. And I’m really sorry I can’t give you a more useful answer, but that’s the truth.”

Before Twilight could respond, she suddenly felt Sunset’s hand grasping hers once again. She flinched, but not as dramatically this time. And Sunset, seemingly anticipating it, turned and gave a soft smile.

“But those other feelings… they are real. I know that. They make you special to me, even more than our other friends. I’ve only known you a month and a half, and yet it feels like a lifetime. There’s something between us, something I’ve never felt with anyone. And as someone who’s gained so much from embracing everything friendship has to offer, I think that that something is worth exploring.”

Twilight stared into her as she vainly tried to coax understanding from her liquified mental faculties. “Sunset… what are you saying?”

Sunset suddenly clasped her other hand around Twilight’s, cupping it between both of hers and lifting it up between them. “I’m saying yes, Twilight. Yes. I want to be your date to the Crystal Ball, and more. I want to know what we could be together, and I want to give you that partner I told you you deserve. I don’t know if I’m up to the challenge, but you have my word I’ll try my hardest. Will there be stuff about this that will still be a bit of an experiment to me, that maybe I don’t really get? Definitely. But if I’ve figured out one thing from talking about this with you, it’s that there’s no one better to conduct that experiment with than the smartest scientist I’ve ever met.

“And when the worst-case scenario is simply that it doesn’t work and we’re just friends again… that sounds perfectly fine to me. At least we can say we tried.

“So yeah, my answer is yes.”

And for a moment that lasted forever, Twilight just kept staring into Sunset’s joyous face, while the inside of her emptied skull lit up with deafening, cacophonous fireworks.

Forever began to stretch out too long, though, and Sunset tapped her on the shoulder. “You okay?”

And in that moment, Twilight found the last bit of brain left functional was that bizarre chunk that insisted she had a future in comedy.

“Oh, um, I was just thinking that… I mean, that’s nice and all, but I didn’t actually ask you to the dance yet.”

Sunset looked wide-eyed at her for a moment. Then she suddenly snorted, before bursting into an uproarious cackle, letting go of Twilight’s hand and lurching forward towards her. She wrapped her in a deep, amazing embrace that Twilight reciprocated without a second’s thought. She could feel herself absorbing the laughter through contact, beginning to giggle herself as she felt tears begin to slip from her eyes.

“Oh, Twi…” Sunset said through gasping breaths.

“Sunset, you’ll wake Spike–”

“Oh, the ship already sailed on that one a while ago,” said definitely-not-Sunset. “Also, that was barely even a joke.”

The guffaws died down as they both looked over to see Spike, who had apparently hopped onto Twilight’s bed while neither of them were looking and was now sitting and staring.

“H-hey, Sp-Spike,” Twilight mumbled through continued snickers. “S-s-sorry to w-wake you…”

The dog relaxed his front shoulders in a way that seemed to be a shrug. “Seemed cruel to interrupt. I figured all I could really do was wait it out.”

“And we’re both grateful,” Sunset added from her position behind Twilight’s head.

“How long have you been listening?” Twilight asked.

“Umm…” Spike pondered, scratching his chin with a hind leg. “Somewhere around when you were calling yourself dumb and thoughtless.”

Twilight felt the shudder of a snort against her shoulder as she let out a pained exhale.

“Great,” she mumbled. “So you get to hear her whole amazing romantic speech, but only hear the part where I was a big sadsack.”

“Pretty much,” Spike replied with no hesitation.

“Aw,” Sunset said as she finally let go and pulled back from Twilight. “Don’t worry about that. You did great.”

“If you say so,” she said with a softer sigh.

She was caught off guard when Sunset leaned forward once more and touched their lips together – just for a second, but long enough to send Twilight’s heart pounding in her chest as seemingly all blood in her system was suddenly rerouted directly to her face.

Once she’d pulled back, Sunset looked bemusedly at Twilight’s expression and grinned. “I do say so.”

“Yechh,” Spike’s voice cut in from across the room.

Twilight seized the moment to get up and walk back over to her bed, leering down at her vocal pup, trying her hardest not to show the giddiness coursing through her system. “Oh, grow up.”

“Hey, you two ruined a perfectly good little nap. I think I’m entitled to a few reactions.”

Twilight turned around and sat down on the bed beside the dog. “You seem to think you’re entitled to quite a lot these days. I still can’t believe you talked me into taking you here.”

“Meh,” was all Spike had to say before rolling over onto his back. Twilight rolled her eyes, curled her left hand into a fist and began to rub the fuzzy tummy.

“Awww,” the other voice in the room interjected.

Without stopping, Twilight shifted her gaze over to Sunset, who’d been watching all the while, still with that grin on her face. Up until the grin was broken by a yawn, anyway.

“Think we both need to turn in for the night,” Sunset said, rubbing her eyes. “And here I thought stopping a mad sorta-goddess, defeating a dream demon, and getting magical superhero outfits would be the end of the craziness today.”

Twilight smiled back. “Same. And, well, thank you. I guess I kinda forgot to actually thank you for saying yes.”

“Trust me, you didn’t have to. I could see it.”

“Bleeeeeeeeghh…”

They both ignored the dog’s feigned moaning as Twilight pondered. “So… how do you think we should tell everyone? Wait, do you think we should tell people?”

“I mean, it’d be weird if I’m your date and can’t tell anyone. But Rainbow and Applejack want to have a rehearsal around 11 in the morning, I think. It’ll just be the seven of us, so we can tell them then.”

Twilight stopped rubbing as Spike rolled over and stretched out beside her. “How do you think they’ll take it?” she asked.

“Umm…” Sunset scratched her chin. “Fluttershy and Rarity will both fawn over us, if Rarity isn’t too annoyed at having to redesign our dresses to better synchronize with each other. Pinkie will find the party cannon she didn’t bring and shower the whole cave in confetti. Applejack will give us proud simultaneous slaps on the backs that will probably break our spines, while Rainbow will get jealous and try to cite some rule she made up on the spot that says bandmates can’t date. Sound about right?”

Twilight let out an awkward hah noise. “I think you know our friends too well.”

“No such thing. Oh, and I won’t go into anything we said just now. All I need to say is that you asked, and I said yes, and now we’re a thing.”

“A thing?” Spike exclaimed as he hopped off the bed and began to trot over to his own place of slumber. “Please. Twilight’s gonna need a way more technical term than that. This relationship is doomed already.”

That earned the dog a glare that no glasses could obscure. “Cool it. And thing works for me. Especially since we’re still figuring out what we are, exactly, so I guess it fits that lack of precise definition? Plus it’s cute.”

“Who even are you anymore?”

“Someone who’s going to be very stingy with dog treats tomorrow if you don’t go back to sleep.”

“Fiiiine…” There was a soft bit of grumbling as Spike disappeared from sight as he settled onto his cushion.

With that, Twilight stood up to put her glasses by the window. Before doing that, though, she diverted over to Sunset, and wrapped the sitting girl in a tight hug of her own, planting a little kiss on Sunset’s forehead.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Thank you, too” was the reply.

Twilight wasn’t fully conscious of the next few minutes as she eventually broke away from the hug, put up her glasses, and made her way back to bed as she heard Sunset get under her covers. She mirrored the latter act, resting her head onto her pillow and rolling onto her right side, facing the other bed. She heard a little goodnight from Sunset and could tell when the lights had gone out, and she subconsciously began the little breathing exercises she’d learned to help her fall asleep–ones she’d been avoiding using in recent weeks, in fear of what awaited her in her dreams.

There was no such fear tonight. Everything had changed. So, so much.

And so, as her eyelids slowly began to close, Twilight was looking at Sunset.

Act 1, Chapter 1: Fundraisers and Families

“You know, you don’t have to follow me back to my place.”

“Eh, it’s not like it’s that far out of the way from where I’m going. And I could always use the extra exercise.”

Sunset shrugged as she walked at a smooth pace down the sidewalk, Rainbow Dash just behind her to the left. Behind the two of them, Canterlot High School faded into the background as the two headed into town, past the scattered houses that reflected the city’s odd urban planning choices.

It was a bright and warm, but not sweltering, sunny afternoon, though they hadn’t had much chance to enjoy it. The longest, craziest school year of their lives – filled with magic pony princesses, mystically-enraging band competitions, carnivorous plant-filled motorcycle races, and sudden superpower acquisitions – had come to a close the previous week, and yet Sunset and Rainbow had managed to spend most of the day at CHS anyway, helping execute one fundraiser event while casually planning another for the next day.

Though Sunset had to admit the motorcycle race sounded outright relaxing compared to trying to manage one of Pinkie’s (in)famous one-woman bake sales. Pinkie may have kept the same perky attitude as usual, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t extremely efficient at keeping track of what had been accomplished and what still needed to be done. Understandably so, granted – it was her treats they were selling and her image as an aspiring baker on the line, and Pinkie lived to ensure all her patrons/future partygoers were satisfied with her work – but that didn’t make three people trying to run essentially four food stands (pretzels, cupcakes & brownies, cookies, and fresh-baked bread) at once any easier. Rainbow Dash’s speed powers helped, but there had been only a few lulls during the whole four hours, which they’d mostly spent talking about the next day’s car wash event.

It didn’t help that a typographical error, which Pinkie refused to correct on principle, meant that they were severely undercharging for the cupcakes, which naturally became the most popular item. So the “fundraiser” aspect of the sale had been rather disappointing, though certainly not a total failure.

Regardless, the whole ordeal was already fading fast from Sunset’s mind as she walked toward her apartment, her evening plans looming over her mind.

“I mean, unless you don’t want me to go with you.”

“Huh?” Sunset snapped back to reality, looking at Rainbow. “Oh, no, sorry, you’re fine. I’m just kinda surprised you’re walking at normal speed.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said. “I mean, I was already zipping around during the whole bake sale and stuff, and I don’t like doing that all the time, y’know? Time kinda gets all weird and messy after a while. Best just to use it when it matters.”

Sunset laughed softly as she looked toward the ground, carefully navigating some uneven pavement. “Didn’t you use the geode to shoot home and back because the vending machine was out of your favorite jerky?”

“That was an emergency!” Rainbow huffed. “How can I be an effective softball team captain when I haven’t had my protein fix that happens to have the right balance of flavor?”

“I’m pretty sure that you were already drinking one of your fancy protein shakes.”

“They’re not fancy, they're useful! And you can’t just rely on one kind of protein, Sunset!”

“Alright, alright, I believe you,” Sunset replied, not believing her. She looked up, and saw the midtown buildings coming into view ahead. She glanced over toward Rainbow Dash. “Besides, I could definitely use the company.”

Rainbow tilted her head. “Why? Something wrong?”

“Um–” Sunset and Rainbow both stepped off the pavement to their respective sides to let a set of younger children playing a game pass through, then stepped back together. “Not exactly wrong, just, uh, nervous, I guess.”

She could feel the smirk that emerged on Rainbow’s face. “Oh, is Sunset worried about doing something with her girrrrlfriend again?”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Cute. And she’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Oh, so it’s a coincidence that you helped with this fundraiser and not the one Twilight was part of?”

“Yes, it was a coincidence,” Sunset said, emphatically flatly. “Pinkie asked me to help at the bake sale, Fluttershy asked Twilight to plan the doggy day-care with her, and we didn’t know they were at the same time until later. Besides, we aren’t joined at the hip.”

“Alright, alright,” Rainbow replied, holding up her hands defensively as Sunset glanced over. “Just teasing, sheesh. So what’s the problem?”

It was a very flippant way to ask a ridiculously loaded question – and really, how else could Sunset have expected Rainbow Dash to ask it?

“Well,” Sunset slowly began as they both turned to face forward, “we’re having dinner together with her brother. Well, her brother and, um, his fianceé.”

“Woah,” Rainbow replied. “Meeting the family already? Hasn’t it only been two weeks?”

“Three tomorrow, actually,” Sunset said as she nonchalantly kicked a branch off the sidewalk. “But, I mean, at this point it’s kinda weird I haven’t met all of them already, given everything that we’ve – well, that Twilight and I’ve been through.”

“Her parents gonna be there too?”

Sunset shook her head. Those two Sunset had met before, albeit briefly, just a few days after the Friendship Games; Twilight’s brother hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen them since the start of the relationship, however.

“So what’s the problem? Her brother can’t be that bad. I mean I guess maybe he could be super-defensive or something, but I mean he probably can’t get too weird with everyone else there.”

“Oh, um…” Sunset swallowed. “He’s actually not what I’m worried about.”

Rainbow looked over at Sunset. “What, the Crystal Prep dean? Isn’t she, like, the one Shadowbolt who wasn’t a complete peer-pressure weirdo to Twilight? I mean they gotta get along at least kindawell if she’s marrying her brother, right?”

Sunset turned her head as well. “I know, and they’re fine. Everything Twilight says about her sounds really nice and stuff. But, well… I guess it’s not really about her. It’s just really hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

Sunset blinked. “What?”

Rainbow hopped over in front of Sunset to avoid someone walking in the other direction, and they both paused their stride.

They’d gone quite a ways by then, and were barely two meters away from the stoplight that marked the dividing line between Canterlot’s semi-suburbia and its midtown district. But Sunset wasn’t processing more than the bare minimum of visual input into her eyes at the moment; she was still preoccupied with the concept of Rainbow Dash wanting to listen.

“It can’t really be that weird for me to ask that, right?” Rainbow asked, clearly reading her mind.

“Um… kinda…?”

Rainbow huffed. “Look, you’re not the only one who’s learned a few things the past year, y’know. I know I gotta get a little bit better at listening to everyone else after it bit me in the ass, like, definitely at least twice this year. So I’m, like, trying to start.”

Sunset slowly nodded in lieu of reply.

Rainbow stepped back to Sunset’s left, and they resumed walking. “Okay, so…”

“It’s a little weird. It gets into, uh, Equestria.”

“That does sound weird when we’re talking about someone not from Equestria. I think. Buuuut keep going.”

And as they reached the stoplight, Sunset began.

There was a surprising modesty to Twilight’s brother’s home – well, his and her home.

The first time Sunset had seen Twilight’s place of residence, she’d been taken sharply aback. Not that it hadn’t made sense that the girl who had easy access to advanced lab equipment and technological materials, not to mention had a family carrying a proud association with an elite private school, came from a place of wealth, but… well, really, it shouldn’t have taken her aback. But it had anyway, as tends to happen when one sees a friend’s higher status made manifest in a way that doesn’t show at all in the equalized world of schooling and most other social situations.

It was a point of local pride, Sunset had come to learn, that housing in Canterlot City was affordable and plentiful, the former to the point where even those functioning primarily off the nation’s basic income could conceivably be a homeowner. It had made the town an attractive spot for new families to move to, and indeed Sunset was the only one in her friend group living in an apartment, of which Canterlot had comparatively few. And even her place, which she’d acquired through the surprisingly high value she’d managed to exchange her golden Equestrian bits for those few years earlier, was quite expansive and roomy, and even had a partial second floor that served as a bedroom.

But even with the almost deceptively high-class look of the city at large, Twilight’s home stood out. Not merely in its size – Rarity’s home was big as well, owing to, among other things, her father’s storied history in the athletic world – but its strangely customized ornateness. Twilight had mentioned the house had been in her family for some time, and yet it looked practically tailored to her; not her parents, not her brother, but her. It was painted in pinks and lavenders that screamed Twilight Sparkle, and bore the image of her icon – the world’s equivalent to cutie marks, which people rarely seemed to notice despite them always manifesting on clothing or items – splashed across the windows and front door. In a world that often felt like it deemphasized the personal and individual touches that had been commonplace in Equestria, it stood out sharply, even moreso for someone as shy as Twilight.

One day she’d ask more directly about what it all meant. Even if it meant braving the awkwardness that usually came with asking about icons. (People – even her friends – seemed a lot more touchy talking about icons than ponies were with cutie marks.)

But in the back of Sunset’s mind, she’d almost expected the rest of Twilight’s family to follow suit, and that her brother’s recently acquired home would reflect his icon, or perhaps – as Sunset had feared – hers. But no, it was perfectly plain, and surprisingly small, featuring only a single floor and without much in the way of a yard besides a small patch adjacent to the driveway.

Perhaps that made sense, she mused as she stepped off the walkway and onto the welcome mat, reflexively ringing the doorbell and setting her motorcycle helmet down as her mind wandered. After all, she would have–

Suddenly the door was open, and there was Twilight.

A quick “You made it!” was all the warning Sunset got before she was wrapped in a tight hug, one so swift she didn’t quite figure out how to properly react to it. Especially when her gaze went inside the doorway and alighted upon a tall, broad-shouldered figure watching.

“Hey, Twi,” Sunset said, slowly raising up her arms and closing them around Twilight’s torso. Feeling Twilight’s head beside her own, she frantically weighed whether it’d be more weird to kiss her or to not kiss her. Without any external pressure, of course, she probably wouldn’t have; she wasn’t the type to greet with a kiss. At least, she didn’t think so. Maybe. But with her actions implicitly being evaluated? That complicated things. Not kissing Twilight might give the impression they weren’t serious, which seemed like a bad thing for her brother to think. But kissing her, even on the cheek, might be read as too forward. Plus, would he be able to tell it was forced? Her mind was agonizing over the decision when Twilight pulled back and took the decision out of her hands with a cheek kiss of her own.

Phew.

She could feel heat spreading on her cheeks as Twilight met her eyes. Both of them smiled. Over the past two weeks, Sunset’s efforts to analyze her capacity for physical attraction toward humans were still as much a struggle as ever. But she had begun to figure out the meaning of the expression “hearts aflutter”, and seeing joy on Twilight’s face was already having a tendency to do that to her – in a mercifully metaphorical sense, anyway.

So… some progress there had been made, at least.

“I’m really sorry we weren’t able to pick you up,” Twilight spoke after a moment. “Fluttershy dropped me off at my place, and I only barely had time to shower before Shining came and got me! And believe me, I really needed it after all those dogs were crawling over me all day.”

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize. I told you I’d make it over.”

“Where’d you park?”

“Just on the side of the road there.” She picked up her helmet. “Can I come in?”

Now it was Twilight blushing. “Oh, right, of course.” She stepped back, and Sunset crossed the threshold, bringing the tall figure into more focus. Twilight’s brother, freshly graduated from college, hair a bit shorter than she’d seen in pictures but wearing the same icon-embroidered v-neck sweater over a collared shirt with tie. She really ought to have remembered his name at this point, but was regrettably coming up blank. He eyed her curiously, and she avoided meeting the gaze, instead looking around to find where to put–

“You can just leave your shoes next to the door there,” he said. “And the helmet too, I guess.”

She looked over towards him again, then followed to where he was motioning. She nodded, then followed his advice. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said as Sunset looked up and finally made eye contact. “It looks cool, too, by the way. The helmet, I mean.” He shrugged. “Glad you could come by.”

“Same.” With Twilight now to her right, she walked past her and held out an arm. “Sunset Shimmer.”

He grasped her hand firmly. “Shining Armor,” he said, Sunset mentally memorizing the name. “Nice to meet you in person. Twily’s talked about you a lot.”

Sunset didn’t have to check to see if Twilight’s blush had exponentially increased; she knew. And she also knew the redness in her girlfriend’s face would only deepen after she asked the follow-up question. “Twily?”

Indeed, there was an embarrassed noise from behind.

“Just a sibling name. Really, she’s the one who started it. She always called me Shiny when she was little. Still does, sometimes.”

“No one made you keep it up, you know,” Twilight’s voice piped in. Sunset looked over to see the blush starting to drain from Twilight’s face as she looked more sharply – though not outright glaring – at Shining.

“Eh, it’s fun to say,” he replied as Twilight walked up beside her.

Sunset was trying to think of something interesting, useful, or at least comprehensible to add when Twilight bailed her out again without even trying. “So how was the bake sale?” she asked with a slight nudge.

“Bake sale?” Shining asked.

“Oh,” Sunset said, “it was where I was today. Well, obviously, I guess, that was probably pretty obvious. And redundant. But anyway, it’s one of the fundraisers we’re running to try and help Camp Everfree repair some of its older buildings, now that they’ve bought themselves back from RBB Enterprises. I was helping out with that one, and the doggy day-care Twilight was at was another one. And we’ll be running a car wash at the CHS parking lot tomorrow if you want to stop by then at all.”

Shining chuckled. “Probably not a great idea. Last time I was at CHS, some Crystal Preppers and I were dressing the Wondercolt statue in a clown outfit with super-adhesive glue. And since I’m the one who drove everyone there, I’m a little paranoid my car’ll get keyed if I pull up anywhere near there, even after everything since then.”

That should have seemed kinda ridiculous, but Sunset did recall overhearing Rainbow and Lyra talking about particular Shadowbolt cars to egg if they showed up on campus, so maybe the information had been obsessively passed down over the years. Regardless, she’d noticed Twilight flinching at the mention of the recently-demolished statue, so she pulled the conversation back to the bake sale.

“Well, anyway, everything today went pretty, um… nuts, honestly,” she said as she turned to face Twilight. “It was really exhausting, there were only three of us managing all these people, and Pinkie was gone half the time actually making some stuff like the fresh bread, and when she was there, she was… yeah. Business Mode Pinkie, not super fun. But how was your thing?”

“Kinda the same,” Twilight said with a shrug. “Thought it’d be a lot more fun too, but, uh, it turns out a lot of dogs don’t really like each other? And I mean I know that, but just kinda forgot about it, and then suddenly there’s all these angry dogs that Fluttershy and I were having to try and keep away from each other and it was just a mess, even with her powers. I mean thankfully it was mostly the little dogs that were being mean and the big ones were basically ignoring them, but still. And I was definitely glad Spike convinced me not to bring him along like I’d wanted.”

Sunset nodded. She finally took a moment to glance around the room, which was minimally decorated; the eggshell walls bore little more than a clock and a few framed photos. She took special note of one that seemed to be her with a much younger Twilight; probably good to have a backup conversation starter on standby, and it’s not as though she wouldn’t be interested in knowing the story behind it. Of course, that would mean having to–

Her eyes darted back to Twilight. “Did you at least get some money out of it?”

“Not really, offering discounts for people bringing more than one pet was a big mistake. Probably took in less than a quarter of the overall goal. Really hope the car wash goes well.”

There was a distant sound of a plate clattering against a table, and Shining spoke. “Hate to interrupt,” he said as the two shifted to face him again, “but it sounds like we might be almost ready to go.”

Sunset blinked. “Dinner already?”

Shining grinned. “Hope you’re in the mood for Oleandrite cuisine. I made the pasta and salad, but she insisted on handling the meatballs and garlic bread. Family recipes, and Twilight can tell you they really are that good.”

Pushing aside the weight of the words family recipes, Sunset started to raise a hand. “Um-”

“Don’t worry. This isn’t her first time making a vegetarian version, either.”

“Oh, thanks.” The hand lowered, and she valiantly suppressed the thought of her eating meat.

“No problem, Twily warned us. If you’re not vegan, everything else should be fine. Anyway, I think we can go and head in now.”

He turned and walked through an archway into a short hall. Sunset turned and flashed a smile at Twilight, which must have been more awkward than she’d hoped because Twilight’s response was a quizzical stare.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Oh, um, yeah, no, I’m fine,” Sunset lied.

Twilight gave her a quick pat on the back. “Hey, it’s alright, Sunset. They both already like you, so nothing to worry about, right?”

“I, um, guess not.”

Twilight’s hand moved from Sunset’s back to her right wrist, then onto her open palm, clasping it. “C’mon, let’s go. You gotta be hungry, right?”

“Definitely,” Sunset said. That was certainly true, at least, she mused as her belly grumbled.

Twilight tugged, and Sunset followed her down the hall to where the fateful dining table lay.

Rainbow hadn’t been lying about her efforts to improve her listening skills. She’d done an admirable job of paying attention as Sunset had gone into detail that surprised even herself on what was bothering her. On the way over to the house, Sunset had been questioning how she could have been that open with Rainbow, of all her friends, but still not have told Twilight.

It wasn’t an intentional omission, of course. But it wasn’t a particularly excusable one, either. She’d had plenty of points where she could have brought it up, or at least made a note to do so later that wasn't just of the disposable mental variety. But it seemed every time she’d come up in the months Sunset had known Twilight, it had been in the context of a painful Crystal Prep memory, or a surprise happy announcement, or just such a quick mention that interrupting would have inevitably felt uncomfortable. Even her getting roped into this dinner had been too much of a whirlwind for her to really say anything beforehand, she told herself.

Of course, the fact was that it would have felt uncomfortable in almost any instance, but Sunset chose not to acknowledge that.

Not that it stopped the regret from filling up in her as she stood in front of the table, slowly pulling out a chair as she glimpsed the image of a living phantom before her.

It would’ve been really, really good to have one person in the know with her at the table. Someone to provide cover, to recognize and deflect from awkward topics, to divert the storm away from the floodgates. A part of her wondered if it wasn’t still too late to invite Rainbow Dash – heck, even if Sunset hadn’t just made her a confidante, she still would’ve been nice as a handy way to derail conversations and reroute them into something at least tangentially about herself.

But of course, the person it should have been was Twilight, and the fact that she was now going to have to explain this to Twilight after having gone through the entire dinner with her unawares was inevitably going to end with frustration and disappointment Sunset should have been able to avoid.

Dating for not even two weeks, and Sunset was already giving Twilight reasons not to trust her. Outstanding.

She sat down on the chair and scooted in. The food that had been prepared indeed looked exquisite; Twilight had hyped up Shining’s cooking skills, and the smell of the baked rigatoni alone made it clear she hadn’t been exaggerating. Her vegetarian meatballs also looked quite impressive. She hoped she’d be able to fully appreciate it all.

Twilight was sitting to her right, Shining diagonally across from her. And as Sunset’s gaze moved from her plate upwards, she noted that, while Rainbow’s listening had indeed improved, the jury was still out on her advice-giving.

Just, like, don’t stress about it that much. Cause, well, it’s obviously not really her, right? You didn’t try to ask her all this at the Games or anything. Just try to think of her as a different person, or pony, or whatever. I mean, clearly you know the two Twilights are different people, cause otherwise you’d be trying to date them both!”

Some solid points had been raised in a very Rainbow-ish manner. But the athlete’s plan of action was proving very difficult to put into practice as Sunset looked across the table, into the face of Cadance.

The face of her sister.

Act 1, Chapter 2: Facing a Stranger

The first time Sunset saw this world’s Cadance, she almost hadn’t noticed.

In fairness, there had been a lot going on at the time. She had just discovered the existence of a new Twilight, before witnessing said Twilight drain the magic from the statue portal, the suction heating the pedestal and nearly scalding Sunset’s hand as she struggled to pull it away. In the immediate aftermath of the whole ordeal, amid seeing Twilight flee and discovering the portal was gone, she hadn’t fully registered just who it was by the bus that had told Twilight to go check in with the rest of the Crystal Prep team – until she’d looked over once more and noticed a very familiar set of hair colors on the figure walking away.

It had been a shock, to put it mildly.

Through the Friendship Games event schedule, she’d been able to determine that this Cadance was Crystal Prep’s dean of students; unfortunately, it offered precious little beyond that. There was so much more Sunset wanted to know, had to know, but couldn’t afford to spend time investigating, as Twilight’s actions had made her the absolute priority. Thus, as the Games proceeded, Sunset had simply done her best to keep a straight face whenever the visage she’d once been so familiar with stood before her, holding a clipboard and a pen, displaying no recognition whatsoever.

Yet the questions were there, and they were there still.

Who are you here?

What was your life like?

What is your life like?

Is this what her life is now?

Celestia, in one world, was the ruler of all things, controller of sun and of moon, ageless alicorn who alone knew the deepest magic in existence. Or at least, she’d been alone; recently, Princess Twilight had mentioned that the Mare in the Moon, Vice Principal Luna’s counterpart, had returned to rule by her sister’s side, which was its own can of worms Sunset hadn’t felt like delving into at the time. (Or now. Like most such cans of worms.) But in this world, Celestia was only a high school principal, with her long-feared sibling of legend simply her deputy. Not even the top of the school district’s food chain, much less that of the planet.

So what did that mean for Cadance? Dean of students at a local preparatory school in this world – how did that translate? Royal governor of an Equestrian territory? Mayor of Canterlot? President of the Capitol District? Leader of the Equestrian Senate?

…Dean of students at the School for Gifted Unicorns?

That last one didn’t make any sense, she’d been a pegasus before her ascension. Sunset herself had been the one to teach her so much about unicorn magic–

At any rate, why had it been so hard to simply ask Princess Twilight about some of this stuff? There were so many things she could have written down in her journal, and just… had never done it. Which was crazy. Didn’t she want to know the answers? Didn’t she want to find out what had become of the ponies she’d known?

Didn’t she?

Did she?

She shuddered as the memory flooded back in, the few fieldwritten words that had manifested in her journal and changed so, so much with so little.

And then she pushed it aside as she remembered where she was, and that she’d been dangling her fork in midair for long enough that the food had fallen back onto her plate.

Her eyes gradually shifted from the silverware down to the rigatoni, then back up when she heard a cough. She glanced to her right, finding Twilight shooting her a mildly concerned look.

Oh, right. Figures she’d be thinking about asking questions when she was supposed to be answering them.

“Sorry, what was that?” Sunset asked, eyes moving back to Cadance. Human Cadance, who wore a two-toned blue dress bearing the all-too memorable icon of a crystalline heart. Other Cadance, who looked at her with a face that was recognizable, yet not. Stranger Cadance, who was asking questions because she didn’t know her, give or take as the shiny magical girl with golden wings from the night the world cracked open.

She could be normal about this, right?

(Sunset wasn’t entirely sure who she meant by she.)

Stranger Cadance gave her a bit of an odd expression, and Sunset, noticing her own awkward position, quickly stuck the fork back onto the plate. “I was just a bit distracted. From the, um, food and dinner and stuff. It is really good, by the way,” she said as she stabbed into the “meat”-ball.

The last sentence eked a smile from Cadance. “I’m glad. It’s been a while since I’ve broken out the vegetarian recipe. Gave me a chance to try some new seasonings; maybe I’ll write them in and make them official.”

Sunset nodded, lifting up the fork and taking a bite.

“But anyway,” Cadance went on, “I just wanted to know a little bit more about how you two got together. I mean, I hoped things would be different after changing schools, but this is still pretty surprising and exciting. It’s just so wonderful to see Twilight blossom like this!”

“Phrasing,” Twilight muttered.

Off to the right, Sunset noticed Shining Armor roll his eyes and sigh. “Not what she meant, sis.”

“It’s a loaded term.”

“I can’t believe you’re still on about that.”

Finishing the last bite of meatball, Sunset spoke up, head turning towards the other side of the table. “Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“Twily insists the word blossom is a puberty thing,” Shining said with a scoff.

“It is a puberty thing, it’s literally defined as when seed plants begin to bear flowers–”

“Okay, okay, you’re right, sorry,” Cadance interjected, raising a hand in defeat. “I should’ve remembered.”

“Aw, Cady, don’t let her win!” Shining said in an artificially nasally voice, and he smirked as the two girls across from him laughed.

“Oh, tough luck,” Sunset jeered. “Even your fianceé ruled against you!”

That got an equally performative folding of the arms against Shining’s chest, followed by a sly grin in Twilight’s direction. “Y’know, I went to school with a Blossomforth. Should I tell her her name offends you?”

Twilight shrugged. “Probably. Make sure she knows it’s your little sister you’re humiliating yourself over, though.”

Shining snorted. After a moment, the giggles started to die down as Shining relaxed his posture. Cadance, meanwhile, pointedly ignored the whole exchange, speaking again once the siblings had quieted.

“The point is, I want the inside scoop. How did, well, Twilight and Sunset come to be? Especially in so little time? I mean, it’s just been two months, right? A long two months for me, and probably for you both as well, but… still…”

She set her utensils down, then placed her elbows on the table, put the backs of her hands together and, leaning slightly forward, sat her chin on them, looking at them closely with an expectant smile.

An image Sunset probably would have found uncomfortable if it wasn’t reminding her of something from a long time ago. Which did make it uncomfortable, granted, but in a different way.

There was no doubt about it, though; Cadance was the one in command of where tonight’s conversation went, and any questions of Sunset’s own would have to wait. After all, it wasn’t that surprising that Cadance of all people would be interested to know how a relationship had started.

A shame Sunset only had a vague concept of how to explain it herself.

Before she could even try, though, Twilight cut in. “What’s there even to tell? It can't seriously be that weird I’m dating someone, right?”

(Sunset smirked at the recognition of how similar that was to what Rainbow Dash had said earlier that afternoon.)

Something Shining Armor did in response to that statement clearly caught Twilight’s attention, though Sunset wasn’t sure exactly what. But as she was shifting her gaze in his direction, she definitely noticed Twilight’s sharp response of “Don’t you say anything.”

Shining threw up his hands in pleading innocence. “I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you’ve made jokes before, as if you were ever the height of the dating scene.”

“I’m getting married, aren’t I?”

Before the siblings could bicker further, Sunset raised a hand. “Wait.” She turned back toward Cadance. “You’re not, like, worried, are you? About how quick things have kinda gone? Because right now, well, it’s…”

Right now it’s what? Sunset combed through her mind, trying to find the word that would make sense without making her sound deeply unserious – or way too serious, for that matter.

Setting her palm back on the table, she glanced over at Twilight for just a moment, and found an encouraging smile.

“Right now,” Sunset said as she looked back, “it’s a bit of a surprise to us, too, I think. When Twilight asked me, I was definitely not expecting it. And I know it was a bit spontaneous on her end, too. So I mean, I guess, um… I guess we’re still learning a lot. It’s still pretty early, but when she asked, I just knew, um, that I– that I, um… that I’m not making any sense, or saying anything remotely convincing, and I guess just seemed to think that talking would make something profound come out of my mouth. I should probably just, uh, stop speaking words and maybe go find somewhere to bury myself.”

When she again glanced over to Twilight, that encouraging smile had contorted into an expression of utter bafflement.

“Wait,” Shining spoke up – probably for the best, since it appeared as though Twilight could’ve spent years trying to find a coherent response to Sunset’s lunacy. “Twily was the one who asked?”

That seemed to redirect Twilight’s mind enough for a response, conveyed with a grimace. “I already told you that.”

“Well, you probably did somewhere in the mumbled half-explanation you gave me a few weeks ago about suddenly having a girlfriend. But I can’t say I’d really thought about that until now.”

With a huff, Twilight turned to face Shining. “And are you gonna riff on me for having to be the one to ask, that no one would think to ask me?”

Sunset’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Shining responded first.

“What?” he balked. “What kind of BBBFF would I be if I did that? I think it’s awesome that you put yourself out there, especially, um… anyway, yeah. I think it’s great. I know we tease each other about a lot, but give me some credit.”

“Oh…” Twilight shrank uncomfortably in her seat. “I mean, thanks? I’m sorry, Shiny…”

As Shining brushed off the need for Twilight to apologize, Sunset turned away and looked down at her plate, her cheeks so flushed she could feel it. Not only had she completely failed to sell herself as worthy relationship material with her confused rambling, she’d also made Twilight feel utterly embarrassed about having had to ask her, and now she really was envisioning just which plot of land would make for a fitting final resting place for her dumb stupid–

“Are you okay?” It was Cadance’s voice, and it was directed at her.

She lifted her head. “Huh? Oh, um… I’m sorry. I think I just made everyone here really uncomfortable.”

Shining laughed softly, catching her eye. “Don’t sweat it, Sunset. You’re doing fine. You wouldn’t believe how bad it went the first time I had dinner with Cady’s nonna.”

Cadance shuddered. “Yeah…”

The words Cady’s nonna echoed in Sunset’s head until she suddenly felt a hand resting atop hers on the table. She turned and found a worried look in Twilight’s eyes.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made a big deal out of who asked like that. I swear I wasn’t trying to make you feel awkward, really.”

Sunset nodded, then flashed a smile. “That’s okay. I should have thought more carefully when I was trying to say um, everything before that.” She flipped her hand around underneath Twilight’s and then, before Twilight could instinctively lift it up, clasped it, and then placed her other hand atop it. “All good?”

Twilight, the worry dissipating from her face, smiled back and nodded.

“Awwww…”

They both looked over to see Cadance beaming at them.

“I have to apologize too, girls,” she said. “I didn’t mean to ask you questions that were hard to answer. It’s one thing after it’s been a while, but like you said… you’re both just kinda getting started, and this is pretty early for a dinner-with-family thing, even if we’re not Twilight’s parents. And even if Sunset and I’ve met before, kinda. I’m sure it’s all still kinda weird.”

You have no idea, Sunset narrowly stopped herself from speaking. “Maybe,” she said instead. “I’m also just a bit worn out, I think.”

“Oh?” Her head tilted. “How come, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Sunset blinked. “Well, uh…”

“Probably that bake sale, right?” Shining said.

“Yes!” Sunset replied, more forcefully than intended. “I mean yeah, basically. It was part of our whole big Camp Everfree fundraiser project.”

“Like the daycare Twilight was at?” Cadance asked. “It’s quite nice of you all to be helping out with that. More, well, altruistic than the fundraiser my students are running. Sour Sweet insisted we were supposed to have the Spring Dance on a yacht, and I told her if the school’s ballroom wasn’t good enough for her and her friends then she’d have to raise the money herself.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow, internally grateful the confusion from that statement was spawning a more natural reaction in her. “Wait, isn’t it a little late for the Spring Dance?”

Cadance nodded. “We delayed it after the Games while, uh, ex-Principal Cinch’s conduct was being reviewed. But now that I’m principal, I’ve set it for the end of the school year.”

“Crystal Prep starts and ends two weeks after CHS,” Twilight clarified, which Sunset momentarily acknowledged before a particular part of what Cadance had said overwhelmed her faculties.

Now that I’m principal

Principal

Princess

Was she her equal?

“But can we not talk about Crystal Prep right now?” Twilight added. “Sorry, I-I don’t meant to keep derailing the topic, but, um…” She trailed off.

“Oh, of course,” Cadance replied. There was a relieving little moment of silence as everyone collectively decided to take another bite.

Sunset took that moment to shift her focus to Twilight, who seemed a little stressed. She did have a habit of changing the subject quickly when the topic of her old school came up. Understandable, given everything, though having the chief administrator of the school as a soon-to-be aunt raised the question of exactly how much Twilight could realistically expect to avoid it. Of course, it had been barely two months since that fateful night in the CHS courtyard, as Cadance had indirectly noted, even if it was already starting to feel more like two years.

Still, she mused as she picked up her glass for a sip, maybe it’d be worth a more in-depth discussion–

“On that note,” Cadance said suddenly, “was there anything else you’d want to talk about?”

Suddenly the thought of discussing anything no longer seemed especially palatable. Sunset took a swig from her glass in lieu of a response, during which Twilight immediately had an answer-in-the-form-of-a-question: “The wedding?”

There was a split second where Sunset experienced complete and total cardiac arrest before she remembered exactly whose wedding her girlfriend was referring to. During that brief instant, her face went sheet white, and the liquid she was currently swallowing was rerouted to her trachea.

Sunset then demonstrated her excellent sense of decorum by grabbing the napkin off her lap and coughing violently into it, several times. She mentally cursed herself before peeking up at her tablemates, bearing a smile that, as she could attest with authority, was painfully forced. “Sorry, um, wrong pipe,” she said, before hacking again into her arm.

“Are you okay? Do you need any–”

“I’m good.” A final loud cough into the napkin followed, clearing the last droplets out of Sunset’s airways, before she inhaled deeply and got her breathing back to its normal rhythm.

Cadance, not looking convinced by Sunset’s words, nodded nonetheless before turning back to Twilight. Sunset decided the best course of action at the moment would just be to keep eating, in the most nonchalant manner possible. She picked the fork back up and stuck it into the pasta, briefly glimpsing Shining doing likewise.

Maybe he too was looking to stay out of that conversation, she mused. Understandable, she supposed. She imagined talking to a sibling about one’s upcoming wedding might feel fairly awkward.

Or maybe eating dinner is what being at the dinner table is actually for, Sunset thought further as she took a bite of the noodles, and making assumptions about one’s girlfriend’s sibling’s motives over something so minor wasn’t actually sensible conduct. Nor, for that matter, was making extrapolations about someone in another world based on their parallel universe double. Some food for thought that would probably linger for less time in her head than the flavors of the actual food would linger on her tongue.

Dinner was going just great.

“Well,” Cadance began, snapping Sunset back into the moment, “I guess it’s my turn to not have a very good answer for you. Right now, we’re only just getting started on the planning. We’ve looked into a few venues – well, really, it’s more that we’ve looked up a few possible venues online. But we’re a ways away.”

“Oh,” Twilight said. “Sure, um, I get that.”

“I really do wish I had more for you. But when you’re trying to plan a day that you’ve dreamed of when you were small, then you want it to be perfect. Right now, that means taking it slow and steady. I’m really glad you’re interested, but that’s basically all there is so far.” She smiled. “But I hope you can both be there when it happens.”

And there came the heart palpitations again. The thought of going to Cadance’s wedding – but not Cadance’s wedding – she’d always been so much into the idea of weddings, and love, and what her own wedding would be like–

She distracted herself with another bite, only to regret it as Cadance looked back in her direction. Though this time, seemingly having caught on to Sunset’s nerves, Cadance waited until Sunset swallowed before saying anything.

“I don’t mean to press if you’re uncomfortable,” she began, “but I don’t want you to feel like you got nothing out of this. Was there anything that you’d like to ask, specifically?”

Sunset blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s a lot I know about you, I think. I mean, after the Games, and everything, and seeing you do, um–” her eyes briefly darted towards Twilight, then back “–anyway. But I wanted you to feel like you have the chance to know me, while we’re here. Am I making sense?”

It made all too much sense, Sunset noted, even if she was almost certain the “a lot” Cadance must have learned from Twilight and the principals wasn’t actually all that much. (Their level of concern certainly didn’t seem to suggest she and Shining knew they were staring at a de facto alien in human skin, at any rate.) Regardless, this was an opportunity to ask something, and she knew had a lot of questions that were worth asking.

“Do you have any siblings?”

Too bad the stupidest question was the one that slipped out of her lips instead.

Okay, maybe that was unfair to herself, it was a meaningful question – that she needed to find a place to introduce casually into an ongoing conversation, not blurt out to start said conversation. She could only imagine the red flags that had to be flaring in Cadance’s mind as she wondered what in sun and moon could have spawned that line of thinking–

“Oh! You must have heard that Luna and I are family,” Cadance said. “That’s a bit of a misunderstanding that started during the last Games. I’m actually from Florentina. It’s a small community just across the provincial border. Mostly Oleandrite immigrants, which is how I got a lot of my recipes. My nonna and I moved to Canterlot just before I started high school, and I didn’t actually meet Celestia or Luna until the next Friendship Games, when Celestia was just a teacher and Luna was still finishing her degree. I got to know them well after that, but in terms of actual siblings, no, I never had any of my own.”

Huh.

Sunset was in such awe over how miraculously not-horribly that had gone over that she almost failed to notice what any of that actually meant. And when she finally did, her mental response was less critical thinking about the implications than it was simply filing down a checklist.

Florentina? Check. Oleandrite? Check. Moved to Canterlot? Check. Taken in by Celestia? Not check. Ascended to supreme power through a stupendous act of virtue? Seemingly not check.

Siblings with Sunset Shimmer? Not check.

So close, yet not close at all…

“What about you?” Shining asked.

And then all thought was gone as she seized up, slowly shifting her gaze in his direction and then entirely failing to respond verbally. She may have mouthed the word what, but she wasn’t definitively aware of if she’d done so or not.

“Do you have any siblings?” Shining clarified.

“Siblings? I…” Sunset knew her face had fallen, as Cadance’s started to mirror it. “Um…”

She glanced over to Twilight, as if for guidance, as if she was expecting to see anything on her face other than utter confusion that Sunset’s response hadn’t been a straightforward no.

“Uh…”

And now she realized she had little need to go out looking for a grave; she was already standing deep in one she’d dug for herself.

Cadence spoke up. “Shining, this was supposed to be her getting to ask the questions–”

“No, it’s okay,” Sunset said as she turned her attention back to her. Toward the image of her.

There was only one way to climb out of the pit.

“I, well… I did. A long time ago. My family situation is, well, hard to explain, and I guess I never really had a proper sibling either. But I had a po– uh, a person who felt like one, for a few years. I just… I just haven’t seen her in a really long time. Not since I started living here. And I miss her.”

For an interminable moment, there was heavy silence as Sunset’s head drooped, the image of the table in front of her glazing over with her eyes.

It didn’t really seem worth the effort to restore her vision right then. There was nothing about the inevitably shocked and horrified expressions she knew were on her tablemates’ faces she particularly wanted to see.

“Sunset?”

It was Twilight’s voice. After a moment, it was Twilight’s hand behind her back.

As she reluctantly blinked and shifted to face that voice, she realized how much her own had trembled in making the admission.

She also noticed a faint dab of moisture just under her eyelid.

“Twilight, I, um…”

It wasn’t a frown on Twilight’s face. It wasn’t shock. It was just… concern.

“I–”

And that concern quickly began to bore into her, agonizing, like fiery needles, and she tore her eyes away from it, pivoting them to Shining Armor. She found his expression was less worry, more bewilderment in a similar vein to that which she’d seen on his sister just a short while earlier. Uncannily similar, even, despite the stark differences in their face shapes.

But that’s how siblings are supposed to work, right? Different in so many ways, yet those similarities are absolutely unmissable.

And then she looked back at Cadance, and–

“I should just go. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” She scooted her seat backwards and started to stand.

Two hands caught her right arm. “Sunset!”

Still hovering just above her chair, she tugged, fighting the grip, without looking at the source. “I promise I’ll explain later, just let me–”

“Please.”

And then she looked. And she couldn’t leave.

She dropped back down into the chair, and suddenly Twilight was there too, arms wrapped tightly around her, rubbing soothingly down her back. Sunset let her head fall onto one of the shoulders stretched before her.

“It’s okay, Sunset.”

“No, it’s not, I should’ve told you before… Twi, I should’ve told you a lot–”

“You can tell me after we leave, okay? After. Let’s just be here right now.”

Sunset exhaled forcefully, shuddering in Twilight’s embrace. She reached up and wiped the liquid from under her eyes, wondering just how badly the small amount of makeup she’d applied beforehand had smeared. Somewhere, she knew Rarity was appalled and didn’t know why.

She peered up, slowly, and met the gazes of the two on the other side of the table.

“Hey, um, I–”

“It’s alright,” said Shining. “You and Twily can talk it out when you want to. It’s probably not our place.”

Sunset took another deep breath as Twilight gradually loosened her grip, reaching over with her left arm and pulling her chair right to Sunset’s side. “Thank you both, really, I’ve just been such a mess and I didn’t think… I didn’t think I… I don’t know. Something’s just getting to me, and I wish I could just tell you what, but it’s just, well, it’s too much.”

Twilight shifted back onto her chair, facing the others, but slipped her left arm behind Sunset’s back, giving it a soft pat. She leaned her head against Sunset’s side, and Sunset let herself relax a bit in turn.

Cadance gave a comforting smile. “I imagine it’s hard to find anyone who can truly relate to your story.”

The words bounced around for a moment inside Sunset’s head before clicking. “Wait, you… you know? Where I’m from?”

Shining nodded. “We didn’t want to bring it up, we thought it’d make you uncomfortable if you thought we were thinking of you strangely.”

“Sunset, I was there at the Games that night,” Cadance said. “I saw the other world. A talking horse looked me in the eyes and screamed at me. And I saw you, and everything you did for us. For Twilight. And after things were calm and Cinch left, Celestia and Luna gave me the debrief on everything they knew. Including you.”

Jaw now quite a bit slack, Sunset turned her gaze toward Shining.

“Cady told me,” he said. “I needed to know everything that happened with Twily, but she was still too shocked to talk about it, so I asked her, and, well, you came up. And I, um, I think our parents know, too.”

“They know I-I-I’m…” Sunset mumbled, staring at not quite anything in particular.

“I’m sorry if you wanted that to be a secret,” Cadance said. “I wasn’t thinking at the time that Twilight would stay at CHS with you. I didn’t go around telling everyone, obviously, but with everything that happened, and how important you were that night, I wanted to make sure Twilight’s family had at least as much information as I did.”

“It was a while before I was able to talk about that night with them,” Twilight added quietly. “And when I did, they already knew about you.”

Sunset nodded instinctively as she fumbled through the memory of the dinner up to that point, trying to figure out if there’d been a moment, a hint that they’d known she’d missed. But everything felt scrambled and messy.

Of course, if Cadance’s source had been Principal Celestia, then she and Shining still wouldn’t know all that much. As many questions as Celestia and Luna had asked, Sunset had dodged explaining a lot of her background to them, believing broaching the subject of Celestia having a doppelgänger that ruled the heavens would only deepen the hole she was in post-Fall Formal. (Among other reasons to avoid reflecting on her, anyway.) Twilight’s appearance had eventually revealed the concept of pony-human equivalents, but the principals hadn’t raised the issue of their own counterparts since the Games.

Right then, Sunset wasn’t sure if she was thankful or not that attempting to explain exactly who her sister was to the woman sitting opposite her wasn’t feasible at the moment. It might well have been a relief, to not have to wait to explain. But it wasn’t knowledge that would do any good for Cadance.

Twilight would learn, tonight. Later. But right now, the dinner just needed to end on a decent note.

“So… you’re okay with this?” she asked. “With me being what I am, and, well, d-dating Twilight.”

Cadance looked intently at her. “Like I said, I was there that night. I saw everything you did to help Twilight after so many people did wrong by her. And you’ve already done so much for her since then. Sorry if this is embarrassing for you, Twilight” – Sunset could feel the body against hers cringe in anticipation – “but she’s talked about you so much ever since. I don’t know why you’ve chosen to live in this world, but I know I’m glad you’re here for Twilight.”

“And just so you know,” Shining added, “tonight wasn’t about proving yourself, or anything. I know there’s been a lot of questions, and I’ll admit asking you about siblings was one where I probably didn’t think hard enough about what it could mean. But we just wanted to meet you, not shake you down.”

“Yeah,” Twilight chuckled beside her. “That’s what Mom and Dad are for.”

Shining laughed. “I will say you’ll probably need to work on preparing for family dinners a bit more before you get to them.”

Sunset forced another grin at the unpleasant thought of bungling a dinner with Twilight’s parents. “Point taken. I… I’m so used to being confident, and knowing how to handle myself, and just being able to talk when I need to, and… I wasn’t prepared for that to suddenly not be the case.”

Cadance shrugged. “Love makes fools of us all, I suppose.”

Shining balled a fist and lightly jabbed her in the arm. “I resent that.”

He earned a laugh and a return jab in reply. “You didn’t even need the love for that.”

“Oh, it’s on.”

Sunset could hear Twilight making gagging noises beside her, and she giggled.

“But thank you, really, for dealing with me tonight,” Sunset cut in. “And for the lovely dinner, that I at least got to enjoy most of before letting it get cold just now.”

She turned her head and leaned down, planting a kiss on the top of Twilight’s head.

“And thank you for keeping me here.”

Twilight’s other arm wrapped around Sunset as she straightened up beside her, and Sunset returned the gesture.

She heard a soft squeak from across the table, one she’d grown quite familiar with hearing any time her sister passed by an affectionate couple.

“Well then,” Shining spoke, “I think we should go ahead and bring out dessert.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Sunset said, smiling as her gaze fixed itself fully on Twilight.

That could’ve gone better, Twilight mused, grimacing as her eyes wandered the kitchen.

The taste of gelato still on her tongue, Twilight stood beside the dishwasher as Shining finished loading plates into it, her back resting against the counter. With Sunset in the bathroom, and Cadance wiping down the dining table in the adjacent room, she was grateful for the moment to themselves.

“Hey, um…” she started, before realizing she hadn’t really known how to finish the statement.

“Hmm?” Shining looked up.

“I’m sorry, for how that all went. I should’ve just said no, when you asked about doing this.”

He pushed the dishwasher tray in, then knelt down and picked up the detergent bottle. “Twily…”

“Sometimes I just forget how recent all of this is. That there’s still just so much we don’t know about each other.”

He poured in the fluid. “Sounds like a normal relationship.”

Twilight let out a deep exhale. “Maybe? But the fact that I asked her to meet my family, and never even thought to ask about hers, is just… I don’t know. I should be thinking through every step of this, and I haven’t, really.”

Shining capped the bottle and closed the dishwasher. “Hey, this is all new for you, right? Pretty much the biggest thing you learn in any relationship is that it’s not a formula. Just when you might start to think everything makes sense, something’s gonna shake it up. And that’s okay. The important thing is that you were there for her tonight, just like you said she’s been there for you. She’ll remember that.”

Twilight nodded as Shining pressed a few buttons, and she felt the gentle hum as the machine started up. “I hope so.”

She watched as he stood up next to her, then rested a hand on her right shoulder. “She will. Take it from someone who somehow managed to make it all the way to being engaged.”

She smiled, nudging the hand off of her as she stood up in turn. “I-I said I’d meet her by the door so, um, I’ll text you later.”

“Sounds good. Stay safe on that motorcycle of hers.” He grinned. “Let me know how things blossom.”

She ribbed him in the side with her elbow as she stepped forward. “Hard pass. See ya.”

Waving goodbye to Cadance as she stepped into the hallway connecting the kitchen and dining area to the front entrance, she turned and saw Sunset’s shadowed figure waiting at the exit.

There was still a long night ahead. But she’d be there through it all.

She needed to be.

Author's Note

For those unfamiliar, some details of Dean/Principal Cadance's background (including her home village of Florentina and its association with Italy-inspired Oleander) are references to Sledge115's background for Princess Cadance in Spectrum ("Interlude II ~ Child of Crystal") and The Rose of Florentina, with Sledge's writing being a big inspiration for this story in general.

Act 1, Chapter 3: Bravery

It was about a week and a half after meeting Sunset Shimmer that Twilight Sparkle had first been on the back of her motorcycle. She’d needed a ride home across town after missing the bus, not wanting to walk all the way back in a mini-heatwave. Sunset, who’d been staying late for yearbook club leadership elections, was happy to take her, but Twilight had found herself quaking in fear upon realizing exactly how she’d be making the trip home.

To Sunset’s credit, she’d let Twilight wear her helmet, given her lots of assurances, and taken her on a few slow laps around the parking lot to help her get used to the feeling. Unfortunately, it proved supremely ineffective at making the ride a pleasant experience, with Twilight having her arms wrapped so tightly around Sunset that, in retrospect, it was a marvel her new friend had been able to breathe, let alone pay attention to the road. Her eyes had been sealed tight as she’d tried desperately hard not to envision her fiery death, and while also dearly hoping the creature that had just begun to surface in her dreams wasn’t taking notes for future nightmares. (Ultimately, there were indeed a few, not that she had any inclination to tell Sunset about them.)

Still, once it was over and Twilight was safely deposited back home, the ride became simply another thing she’d endured and emerged out the other end from in one piece. And it had been, well, nice, in an odd way, getting to hold someone like that without any kind of question or interruption, to be so close to her friend… she hadn’t really bothered to examine why that was at the time, being more focused on the process of collecting data about her new friendship experiences and holding off on analyzing or drawing conclusions from it. But while she was far from itching to hop back on the motorcycle, the next time the opportunity came up, she didn’t refuse.

This ride marked her fourth, and the first she’d known about in advance. This time, she’d even had her own helmet.

Of course, she still didn’t quite understand the excitement Sunset got out of this mode of transportation. But now, riding with her arms closed around her girlfriend for the first time since their relationship status had changed, she could at least see where that raw data from earlier heavily supported her current working hypothesis of I really really really like hugging Sunset and knowing that she’s there for me.

There’d been a pall hanging over the ride, though, Twilight noted as she followed Sunset through the door into her apartment. Namely, the fact that they hadn’t said anything substantial since stepping out the door of her brother’s home, with the noise of the motorcycle engine making it all the easier to keep it that way.

Sunset may have been the one who was newly christened as Empathy by a set of magic rocks, and Twilight may not have been the best at picking up on vibes, despite her self-taught skill at reading expressions. Yet, as she watched Sunset switch on the string of lights that softly illuminated the large living space, she had enough sense to know that the moment of truth was fast approaching, and Sunset didn’t want it to arrive.

I should’ve told you before… Twi, I should’ve told you a lot–

What did those words really mean, though? Okay, so Sunset apparently had a sibling – a pony sibling – but that was okay, right? It was jarring to hear that, sure, but not exactly earth-shattering compared to every other thing she’d learned about, well, every other thing in the weeks that had gone by since the Friendship Games. It wasn’t the strangest thing in the world for a friend to not talk about their siblings, anyway. Case in point, it wasn’t until Twilight encountered Rainbow Dash laughing uproariously at a tall surfer dude in the main hallway, apparently over a failed exercise in flirtation, that Fluttershy had, with even more visible discomfort than usual, admitted said surfer dude was her older brother.

Was this mystery sibling something they needed to talk about? Almost certainly; she was very lacking in any information about Sunset’s family, or even much about where she came from beyond the alien nature of it. But what was so upsetting about that information that, when Sunset looked into her eyes at the dinner table, they seemed as though the stars had gone out?

Not eager to push the question herself, though, Twilight walked past Sunset, who had stopped to lean her elbow against a pillar supporting the bedroom loft above, and stepped over into the main living area. Looking back, she saw that Sunset hadn’t moved, her head rested in her right hand as she stared in the direction of nothing in particular.

“Sunset?”

No response.

“Sunset, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked, her tone sharpened. “This isn’t… I mean, this is weird, and I know… I know you feel like you should’ve…” The words faltered. “I-I’m not mad, Sunset. Please, just…”

The sentence collapsed fully into a sigh as Sunset finally looked over at her. “You can sit down, Twi. I’ll be there in a moment.”

With her arguing reserves immediately depleted, Twilight simply nodded and obliged, dropping down onto the cushions. She turned and moved her legs to the side of the armless settee, watching as Sunset pulled away from the pillar and ambled slowly to the left, stopping in front of the window.

The light outside was fading fast, and Twilight knew there was little of special interest to watch outside from the second floor. But Sunset’s head was tilted downward, forehead almost slumped against the glass. Her arms were resting at her sides, and Twilight couldn’t make out much of her shadowed face, hair hanging in front of her cheek.

“I was just thinking,” Sunset mumbled, just loud enough that Twilight didn’t have to ask her to speak up but wished she would anyway, “about that movie we saw the other day. The one Rainbow invited us all to go to.”

Twilight blinked. “The Turbulence Protocol?” What did a big flashy spy thriller have to do with all this?

“Yeah, that one. Not really about the plot, or anything. I guess it had one. But more just… what it’s like, I guess, to feel brave.”

What?

Twilight knew from experience that Sunset was smart, thoughtful, and wise beyond her years. She had also found that Sunset also had a serious habit of saying things so baffling and nonsensical that it made her brain feel like it was short-circuiting.

“That…” Twilight stammered. “That doesn’t… you’re the bravest person I kn–”

“I know how dumb that sounds,” Sunset interrupted. “I know that. But everything we’ve done, that I’ve done, just doesn’t–didn’t ever feel that way to me. Like I was making any kind of big choice, or sacrifice, or anything conscious, really. Not since maybe the Battle of the Bands, if even that. Everything else – the Games, Camp Everfree – it felt more like panic. Just these gut reactions that were all just automatic in me.”

Even in the dimness, Twilight could see Sunset’s fists clench.

“And maybe that’s a good thing. Or not even maybe, I know it’s a good thing that I can just be like that, without having to stop, without being overwhelmed. But it doesn’t feel brave to me; not really. I know it’s silly to put it in terms of some big action movie, but… bravery isn’t just doing something heroic in the moment.” Her hands relaxed. “It’s when there’s an actual choice in front of you, whether you actually take that mission or not. It’s when you have time to think about it, genuinely consider everything, and could get away with not doing it – and do it anyway.”

Her head slowly turned to meet Twilight’s eyes.

“And tonight I realized just how not-brave I’ve been, lately. That I’m still so scared. And it hurts, feeling like I can’t bring myself to do the things I know I should do until I have no choice but to do them.”

Twilight opened her mouth, but whatever thought she was trying to formulate fell apart long before reaching her vocal chords.

Across the room, Sunset’s gaze fell to the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you any of this before.”

There was a calm part of Twilight that wanted to tell Sunset it was okay, that she understood, that she could take her time. There was another, much more honest, part of Twilight that was sorely tempted to shout you still haven’t told me anything, I don’t understand what you’re saying at all, everything you’re saying about yourself right now is wrong and I don’t know how you could possibly believe that garbage. And since Sunset was thinking in bizarre movie cliches for some reason, that part was also making a convincing argument that maybe she’d respond if she got some sense shaken into her and told to snap out of it.

The internal war they were raging kept Twilight frozen in her seat.

“And it wasn’t even just you,” Sunset continued, stepping back from the window and looking up toward the sky. “There’s just so much I just didn’t want to talk about with any of our friends, didn’t want to say, because saying it would make it real and I couldn’t just keep pretending that… that everything made sense, that I’m where I should be, that I belong here–”

That last bit of word choice prompted a very quick mental cessation of hostilities and mutual resolution to the conflict.

And in Twilight's split second of understanding the words she was about to say before she said them, she'd expected the shock to be evident in her tone. She hadn’t quite realized just how much fire those words would be tinged with, however.

“Sunset, what are you saying? What do you mean, you don’t belong here? You’re talking about all this stuff like it makes any sense and it doesn't! It just… are you saying… are you…”

She also hadn’t fully planned on suddenly standing up. And as she trailed off, she found Sunset was now the one frozen, staring at her like a deer in headlights, bearing an expression conveying nothing but horror.

“No, Twi…” she stammered. “No, no, please, I didn’t–I didn’t mean–”

“Then tell me!” Twilight exclaimed, voice cracking. “Tell me what you mean, because I don’t know, I definitely don’t like the ideas I’m coming up with, and I don’t want to spend tonight guessing what’s making you feel like this!”

The last bits of her frustration exited her mouth with a slight amount of spittle, and she stood there, huffing, across from Sunset and her silent shock.

After a few moments, that shock leapt across the gap and hit Twilight full-on, in the form of her suddenly pressing a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, then repeated louder. “I’m really sorry, that wasn’t, um, I shouldn’t have–”

At the sound of a harsh sigh from Sunset, she quieted. She then watched as her girlfriend’s expression became downcast, slowly drifting away from eye contact.

“No, you’re right,” Sunset replied, voice weak. “You’re right, I’m still dodging the whole thing I brought you here to tell you, even after I messed up the whole dinner because of it. And it’s not fair, at all. It’s just… hard. I thought that, well, it’d be easier now because I was able to tell Rainbow, but it’s not. Not at all.”

Twilight tilted her head slightly. “You told Rainbow Dash?”

Sunset seized up again, volume quickly rising. “Just this afternoon! Right before I went over to dinner, it was, um, it was on my mind, and Rainbow said she’d listen, and, um, I was hoping that saying it to someone would help and it felt like it was too late to say anything to you, I was always gonna tell you right after–”

“Sunset!”

Silence reigned for a heavy few seconds.

“I’m not–” Twilight inhaled. “I’m not attacking you. I’m not trying to argue with you. I just…” Another breath. “However we got here, this is where we are. I just want you to tell me what you need to tell me. And if you can tell Rainbow, then you should be able to tell me, right?”

Sunset eventually nodded. “I can. I will. But it’s…”

“Hard. I get it.” Twilight lowered herself back down onto the settee. “Maybe just… start with something easier.”

Another nod. “Okay.”

And with that, Sunset finally started to walk toward her, a deliberateness in each step as she crossed over into the living area. Twilight shifted her body sideways, grateful her back was now against the cushion, watching as Sunset stepped between her and the TV set the couch was facing. As she did so, she glimpsed the blurred outline of herself in the inky reflection of the LCD monitor, and wondered if she looked as stressed as she’d sounded.

Two body widths away, Sunset sat down. Twilight scooted toward her enough to make it just one. Sunset didn’t resist.

Twilight leaned her head over and watched as Sunset’s mouth opened; after a moment of pregnant pause, words finally flowed from it. “Was there something specific you wanted to know?”

At that, Twilight rolled onto her side, facing Sunset, who was still staring towards the TV. Surprising herself, Twilight found she didn’t need to stop and consider what Sunset had asked, and simply spoke.

“Well,” she began, “when you said you don’t feel like you belong here–”

“I didn’t mean it like that, really, I–”

“Hey.” Twilight held up a finger, and the room went silent. “I’m not mad. I know I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like to just be in another body, another world, the way you are, all the time. I haven’t forgotten what you said that night at camp. I just thought that, uh, maybe I could ask about something… something you miss.”

Twilight, lowering her hand, detected a faint wince on Sunset’s face that immediately preceded her response. “W-what do you mean, exactly?”

“Well, like I said,” Twilight said with a slight shrug. “Something just, um, smaller. Doesn’t have to be emotional, or anything, just something in Equestria that, um, maybe you never considered being without before you came here.”

“Oh, ahh…” Sunset drifted away again, gazing towards the other side of the couch, and Twilight could imagine the sorting and sifting going on inside her brain. After a few seconds, she rolled over onto her side, matching Twilight’s position, looking at her. “That’s an interesting question, honestly. Especially because, for less than half an hour, I was back in Equestria, last fall. Just long enough to sneak around the hallway of a strange castle, discover a new princess and her Element of Harmony, come up with a harebrained scheme, and make a run for it, but it was long enough in my old body that I did think more, afterwards, about some of those real differences, even beyond the obvious ones.

“Like, if I’m being honest, I kinda really miss my tail.”

A response that was both not at all what Twilight had expected to hear, and yet, simultaneously, seemed to be exactly what she was looking for. “Uh huh?” she nodded, flashing a soft smile.

Sunset seemed to take the hint of encouragement. “It’s tough to really describe it to people, here. I mean, you’d probably think of, like, an animal. The way something like a dog wags its tail, and it’s super-meaningful in terms of body language. Or like Applejack’s horse swishing its tail. It’s not really like that, in Equestria. Tails are reactive, sure, but for the most part, I mean, we just talk, and stuff. And we can generally read faces pretty well. So it doesn’t really work the way humans would probably think, if that makes sense.”

Twilight nodded.

“But it was there, and then suddenly it wasn’t there, and it made everything about human bodies seem that much more wrong.” She turned towards Twilight. “It’s one of the only things about pony bodies, besides stuff that’s specific to certain tribes like unicorns, that doesn’t have any kind of equivalent on humans. Just this little stump of a tailbone that can’t move at all. I can’t feel it brushing against my legs, or sense it lift when I tense up, or feel it fanning me if it’s hot out. I mean, there’s some things that are kinda nice about not having to worry about it too, like laying it in the wrong place or knocking something over with it. But even now, it can still be a little surreal to just, well, not have it. It’s a thing that I really did kinda take for granted.

“Like, imagine if one day you woke up and suddenly you didn’t have your two little fingers. Not that they were cut off or anything, you just suddenly had hands that were built without those fingers. You don’t really need those two fingers, they weren't opposable, and you still have eight others. You could get by without them. But you’ll definitely notice they’re gone, and it’ll stick out more than you think.”

Twilight looked down at her right palm, reflexively curling her fingers, then unfurling them one by one, little finger last. “Or waking up and having fingers at all.”

A slight vibration in the cushion informed her that Sunset had cringed considerably. “Yeah. I was, uh, trying to keep it smaller than that.”

“Sure,” Twilight said, glancing back up, only to find that Sunset was sitting up once more and leaning forward again, away from her. “It, um, must be nice having some magic again full-time, though.”

“It’d be nicer if it was your magic,” Sunset said as she turned her head towards her, without moving anything else. It was enough, though, that Twilight could observe that the orange geode wasn’t around Sunset's neck.

“Oh.” Twilight mumbled, suddenly conscious of the feeling of her own necklace. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sunset replied. “It’s just that, um, telekinesis magic is basically the most everyday kind of magic for unicorns. It’s reflexive. Anything we need to move that’d be uncomfortable to do with a mouth, we generate a field and use that. It’s basically the first thing anypony is taught, magicwise. And when you could create the kinds of fields that I could growing up, you could do some pretty impressive stuff with them. Like, if this were Equestria, I could basically have the entire contents of this room perform a synchronized dance routine for you, and it’d be amazing.”

She smiled as Twilight giggled at the thought.

“I’m not gonna lie, though,” Sunset said, face returning to its resting somberness. “Losing that kind of everyday magic stung, to put it lightly. It took a lot out of me to get used to being without it. And for that brief moment when I was back in Equestria, I almost couldn’t even keep focus, because it was just so overwhelming to have it all back. My new magic is great in its own way, but it’s so, well, different from what I knew, and learning how to manage it is hard. Especially around you.”

Twilight felt her heart hitch in a way it hadn’t since that night at Camp Everfree. “Around me?”

Sunset scooted closer, leaving only around half a cushion space between them. “Yeah. Magic in Equestria does a lot of things, but in general, things like mind-reading, or stuff with memories… it’s not unheard of, but it’s certainly not everyday, and not something I ever really experimented with myself. There’s rumors of zebra potions and ancient artifacts, but as far as it goes for most ponies, reading others’ thoughts and feelings is uncharted magical territory.

“Plus, I mean, ponies are really expressive, in ways humans aren’t, at least not in comparison. You don’t see people, um, nuzzling each other’s bodies, for example. That’d look weird, right? But in Equestria, there are friends that just straight-up greet each other that way. And it’s a pretty standard thing to do to try to comfort somepony, or show affection. Humans really only ever touch each other with hands or lips. Ponies use their entire bodies. I mean, sleeping in a big pile together can be perfectly platonic in Equestria!”

Twilight felt a warmth inside her as she watched the joy of those recollections spread through Sunset. Finally, that wonderful light was starting to shine in her again.

And then it began dimming slowly as Sunset got herself back on track. “But the point is that empathy as a form of magic is completely new territory for me, and I want—I need to be responsible with it. It’s not fair of me as a partner if I can see what’s going on inside you anytime I touch you, and you can’t do the same. And it doesn’t help me with trying to understand my own feelings very well. So I’m gonna be careful about wearing my geode for a while, maybe finding a few times a day to test it out. But not on you, at least for now.”

Twilight nodded. “I understand. And I’ll try not to get too show-offy with my magic, if it makes you jealous.”

That got a surprising giggle from Sunset. “Are you kidding? I definitely want to see you get show-offy. I can’t promise everything I know will translate to how the geode works, but I’ll absolutely help you get the hang of it, if you want me to. I mean it wouldn’t be the first time that I… I, uh…” Her smile weakened, then collapsed, and she closed her eyes. “Taught someone how.”

Without hesitation, Twilight reached over and placed a hand on Sunset’s thigh. There was a brief shudder, before Sunset’s eyes opened and met Twilight’s own.

“I think that I… um…” She swallowed. “I think I’m ready to talk about my sister.”

Sunset fell silent, and Twilight withdrew her hand. “Take your time,” she said. “Be brave.”

“Okay.”

Another silence.

“How?”

A good question. Twilight pondered, trying to figure out how Sunset could explain it without getting lost in either fear or a tangent.

After a moment, she alighted on a solution.

“Don’t explain it to me as a friend or a girlfriend,” Twilight said. “Explain it to me like… like a teacher. Like you’re giving me a presentation. Sometimes it helps me.” She shrugged. “If I’d had longer to think about it, that’s probably how I’d have asked you out.”

“Heh.” Sunset smirked. “I’ll, uh, give it a try.” She stood up and walked over in front of the TV, turning to face Twilight as though the screen behind her was a whiteboard.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Twilight said. Sunset’s smile was flimsy, betraying her nerves; Twilight, leaning forward, returned it with a larger, stronger one in encouragement.

A deep breath got Sunset started. “Okay, so, remember what I told you after you met the other you?”

Twilight rested her chin on her knuckle as she thought. “You said that a lot of people here, probably everyone in Canterlot, has a double in Equestria that’s a pony, and the other me’s friends are that world’s version of our other friends. And the other world’s Principal Celestia is a super-powerful unicorn that’s the ruler of Equestria, and she used to be your teacher before you, um, had a falling out.”

“That’s mostly right,” Sunset replied, “though Princess Celestia is actually an alicorn, not a unicorn. She has all the powers of pegasi, earth ponies, and unicorns all wrapped into one, just like the other you. And according to Princess Twilight, she’s not alone anymore. Princess Luna is also ruling with her.”

With some effort, Twilight managed not to ask why other-Luna hadn’t been there before. She vaguely recalled Sunset had said something about her while they were stargazing the other night and looking up at the moon, but it seemed less-than-relevant and Sunset needed to stay on track.

She couldn’t resist one comment, however. “Wait, so the other me and the other versions of the Principals are both alicorns? How many alicorns are there?”

That seemed to hit Sunset harder than intended. “Just, um, one more,” she replied. “But I’ll get to that.”

The evening had already proved Twilight wasn’t the best at inferring things, but upon hearing that, she had a sinking feeling she knew exactly where the fourth alicorn would enter the story.

“Anyway,” Sunset went on, “there’s an important detail I kinda deliberately left out, because it was too much to explain right then both for you and for me. And it’s part of what makes this hard. So I’m just gonna say it as a fact, like you said. Princess Celestia wasn’t simply my teacher. She was the closest thing I had to a mom.”

Oh.

Oh, that’s…

“Your mom?” Twilight asked, not loudly, but bluntly.

“Well, I say ‘closest thing I had to one’ for a reason. And not just because she wasn’t my birth mother; I never knew my biological parents, and I never tried to find out. She took me in as both her student and her ward when I was very young, not even in my teens. She never formally adopted me, but if I had asked, she probably would have. I never did, though, because I never truly accepted the Princess as my mother. She, um, uh…”

Sunset looked away from Twilight, staring blankly towards the other side of the room. Twilight could hear her start to gently inhale and exhale, a calming technique. She almost interrupted before Sunset started back up.

“There’s a lot of reasons for that, and I’m not proud of any of them, really. I mean, you know the gist of my whole, uh, delusions of grandeur thing that ended with me in this world, but that’s just part of it. But that’s gonna have to be its own conversation. I need to stick to the point tonight, and I’ve been keeping you in suspense long enough.

“The point is that I wasn’t the only one Princess Celestia took under her wing. A-about a year after I first began my studies at the Gifted School, she left on a sudden errand, and when she came back, she wasn’t alone. In more than one way. See, Princess Luna wasn’t there back then, and I’ve actually never met her. When I was growing up, Celestia was the only alicorn in known existence – until she wasn’t.”

Twilight’s suspicions had been validated. “Your sister.”

A nod. “The first new alicorn in the modern history of Equestria. Not born, ascended. She’d been a pegasus, and through a means nopony understood, an act of selflessness and virtue had transformed her. The Princess told me she had seen it all happen, magically, and had traveled to bring her back from a faraway village.”

Sunset began to pace slowly in front of the TV set, facing the walls, turning around as she reached either of the speakers on each side.

“It was odd at first, to say the least. Early on, I was cold to her. She was both an affirmation that what I wanted was possible, and that I would never be the first to achieve it. And she was younger than me, to make it worse. But the Princess asked me to be her instructor in unicorn magic, and… putting aside the fact that it would’ve been tough to say no, exactly, she did genuinely have my curiosity. I started to learn more about her through those sessions – it’s hard to teach magic without getting to know who you’re teaching it to, because of how much learning to use a field and spells involves learning to control your own self – but we grew close. After a while, I thought of her as a genuine friend, maybe the only one I ever had before this world, and as we both grew up more, I even started to consider her family, in a way I never did with the Princess.”

She stopped. Her gaze shifted towards Twilight, but her eyes were clearly fixated on something only she could see.

“Shimmy. She called me Shimmy. Nopony else ever got to call me that. I’d have hurt them if they did. Even now, I’d tell Pinkie no if she ever tried. But she got to.”

Twilight forced a slight grin, affirming the fond memory while bracing for the other shoe to drop. Sunset began to pace once more.

“But once we were through with the main course of lessons, we had less and less time together, and even though neither of us wanted to, we drifted. Celestia began to have more and more direct lessons with her; she saw a future for her in politics, in diplomacy. Meanwhile, I was left more and more on my own, and over time, I lost sight of who my sister was. Only what she was, and that even after everything, I still wasn’t any closer to becoming the same. All that isolation got to me, and eventually I snapped. I left, and I left my whole world behind. Including her. I didn’t even tell her goodbye.”

The pacing halted again, Sunset facing Twilight’s left. Twilight’s grin had disappeared long ago, and all she could offer was a soft, sympathetic voice. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

There was silence once more, notwithstanding the elephant in the room that was trumpeting in Twilight’s direction.

There had been something missing from Sunset’s words. Something obvious, something important. Something Sunset could never have merely forgotten. Something that, however much Twilight hated to force a point she knew would be painful, she knew would have to press and squeeze out that last bit of bravery out from her.

The tension in the air was overwhelming, thick, oppressive to an impossible degree.

Cutting it merely took a simple set of four words.

“What was her name?”

The sentence had been spoken in a consciously, deliberately calm affect, and yet they seemed to chill the entire room around her. Sunset, in particular, had gone from merely standing still to being frozen in place.

The sun had fully dipped below the horizon by this point, and where the tension was starting to deflate, the shadows were zipping in to take their place.

And yet through the darkness, in the still-warm summer night air, Twilight swore she could see a frosty exhalation from Sunset’s mouth.

“Twilight… remember what you said about, um, doubles, across the portal?”

Twilight remembered. Twilight considered. Twilight deliberated.

Twilight realized.

Twilight gasped.

“You… you were asking her about her siblings… you wanted to know if she…”

She could feel the heaviness in the nod that followed. “I should’ve told you sooner. I have no excuse. I wasn’t brave. I was weak. I was hiding.”

“Sunset–”

Her name being spoken did nothing to stop her from a jarring about-face, walking at a frantic stride back over to the window. She stood before it, her back turned, her face shielded from view as Twilight heard the faint sound of a sniffle. “I know how weird it is. To learn your girlfriend’s sister is a doppelgänger alicorn version of your brother’s fiancee. Great conversation material. But I used that weirdness as an excuse. A cheap, scummy excuse to not tell you, something that was nice and easy to rationalize, and didn’t make me think about the actual reason why I never, ever wanted to have this conversation even though it was gonna happen one way or another.”

The sigh that followed was harsh and ragged enough to leave a gash in the open air.

“Every time I see her, it’s like staring at a ghost. Whether at the Friendship Games or tonight. And it stings, so much more than discovering this world’s Celestia ever did. When I met our principal, I thought it was the universe mocking me. But when I met Dean Cadance, I knew I’d played the joke on myself.

“Because Cadance isn’t a ghost. My Cadance. The one I abandoned. She… she’s still out there, somewhere on the other side of that portal, and I haven’t tried to find her. I haven’t tried to find anyone. I can’t bring myself to look. Every time I chat with Princess Twilight, I never let myself ask about anypony I knew, because it’d just… it’d just make it real…”

She stepped back, and turned her head towards Twilight. “I don’t want to leave. At all. This place is my home. I’ve never felt more comfortable as myself than I have these last few months, and I can’t give it up. I can’t lose that; I won’t lose that. Not for all the magic in Equestria. But I don’t know… I don’t know how I could ever look at any of them – how I could ever look at Cadybug – and tell… and tell her…”

Cautiously, Twilight stood up from the settee, facing Sunset at eye level. “Sunset, she’s your family. Don’t you think–”

“No. I don’t,” Sunset cut in, body rotating to fully parallel Twilight’s. “Because there’s still one thing I haven’t told you yet. The reason I can’t bear to ask about how things have changed since I left. Because there was one thing Princess Twilight did tell me, just in casual conversation. Not about Cadance specifically, but everything in Equestria.”

Sunset curled her hands into fists, shutting her eyes and visibly clenching her teeth. Her face was raw, and there were beads of water visible on her face.

“I left Equestria a little over two-and-a-half years ago. And for most of that time, the portal between worlds was closed. And when it was closed… time moved differently, both here and there.

“Y-you might have noticed I didn’t bring up Princess Twilight when I was talking about the alicorns that existed when I was growing up. That’s because when I left, that Twilight Sparkle was still months away from even getting an entrance examination at the School for Gifted Unicorns. She hadn’t ascended. She didn’t even have a mark yet. She was a filly.”

The shockwaves of what Sunset said next began to pulse through the air before she even said it.

“It hasn’t been two-and-a-half years in Equestria since I left, Twilight. It’s been ten.”

And the beads multiplied, and morphed into full-blown streaks across her face as Sunset began to crumble, her knees buckling as she stumbled forward, catching herself before she could fall all the way. Her breathing intensified as the weight of the words that had been pressing on her for so long spilled out into the open air, her lungs unable to adjust to the sudden and violent change. And in that moment Twilight was there, holding her, maintaining that fragile balance and keeping her from toppling over, absorbing the pounding pulse of her heart and the rapid heaving of her chest.

She pulled Sunset in, and Sunset didn’t resist as her head was drawn closer to Twilight’s own. The damp right cheek became pressed to Twilight’s, a few more droplets sliding down onto the meeting of the faces. Twilight held her position as Sunset’s body shuddered against hers, wrapping her arms tighter around her girlfriend’s torso against the sound of choked sobs.

After another moment, she gently squished her face further into Sunset’s, and began to slide it, slowly, up further, towards the ear and cranium. Then she shifted it, equally slowly, back down.

As she began to rhythmically repeat the action, gradually incorporating arm movements up and down the backside, the agonized noises from her partner began to slow, steadily, and the feeling of heavy breathing against her began to cease in intensity.

“T-Twi-?”

“Have I been doing it right?”

A pause. “Doing what?”

Twilight stopped. “Nuzzling you. Is this how peop–how ponies nuzzle in Equestria?”

A longer pause.

“Sunset?”

“It… it’s… yeah, Twi. It feels… nice. I, um, well… keep going.”

“Okay then.”

Twilight pressed her cheek in once more, and felt the face beside hers pressing back. For a few minutes, at least, all would be well.

Act 1, Chapter 4: Comforter

Somehow, the two of them had ended up on Sunset’s bed.

Sunset wasn’t quite sure exactly how that had come to be.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She remembered the mechanics of what had happened in the aftermath of that last big admission, how they had physically transitioned from being in the one place to the other. But the why was escaping her. It might never have really been there in the first place, beyond some compulsion to flee the scene where she’d laid out so much of her soul on the ground before Twilight that it’d be near-impossible not to step on it.

She remembered Twilight had nuzzled her. Then nuzzled her again, and eventually, Sunset had started to nuzzle back. It wasn’t clear to her how long this had lasted – the last time she’d consciously checked the time was just after dinner – but Sunset had needed to turn on more of the lights, with the sun having dipped thoroughly below the horizon. Providing further evidence of how automatic her reactions had gotten in the aftermath of clearing her head of guilty thoughts – or at least the first wave of such things – she’d gotten up and walked over to the freezer to grab ice cream for her and Twilight, only to remember they’d already had dessert that evening. So maybe going upstairs had been a pivot to make standing up not seem like an entirely pointless move.

But now they were sitting side by side on Sunset’s bed, backs rested against the pillows as they both faced forward, Sunset trying not to look at anything in particular as she did so.

Twilight hadn’t questioned the new choice of location. It wasn’t clear why. Maybe she’d gotten too used to Sunset’s erraticness that night. Maybe she was afraid to push back and potentially upset her further. Or maybe she just thought it’d be good to have a place to rest her legs.

Whatever her reason, Twilight was now on Sunset’s bed, for the first time ever. Under probably the dumbest circumstances possible.

A sudden shudder jolted through Sunset as she felt a sudden, unexpected touch. She glanced downward, and found her left hand, resting down on the covers, was now covered by Twilight’s right.

She only had just long enough to process that sensory information before hearing Twilight’s voice. “Was… was there more you wanted to talk about?”

So Twilight hadn’t thought anything untoward about going up to Sunset’s bed at all, clearly, if that had been her first question. Which, when Sunset considered it, made sense – Sunset couldn’t imagine she was giving off any vibes at the moment other than despair.

A more sarcastic voice than Sunset had intended left her lips as she turned her gaze forward once more. “Want’s a strong word.”

There was a pause. “Need, then.”

Underneath Twilight’s, Sunset’s hand clenched into a fist, nails digging into herself. Twilight withdrew as Sunset relaxed and uncurled her digits.

Then she curled them back, this time more gently, simply resting her nails on her palm. She did the same with her other hand, and held them up in front of her face. Then she brought the fists together, fast enough to feel the force they brought against each other, the collision. She did it again, before she heard a sound beside her and looked over.

Twilight was imitating her, staring curiously at her knuckles as they hit each other. She noticed Sunset’s eyes finally drawn towards herself, and lowered her hands. Without looking back, Sunset knocked her fists together one more time before letting them drop onto the bed.

“What’s it feel like?” Sunset asked.

Twilight shrugged. “You’d know better than I.”

“It’s…” Sunset stopped, recollecting. “It’s something I did a lot, earlier. When I wasn’t so adjusted to my, well, myself, here. When I would look in the mirror and see something that made me think of illustrations of centaurs in old storybooks, not me. And hands…” Sunset leaned over more fully onto her side, her left arm laid between herself and Twilight, fingers briefly waggling. “I mean, it’s impossible to make them feel the same as hooves. But balling them up and doing that was as close as I could really approximate. And it was, well, a little bit of a comfort.”

“Uh huh.” Twilight looked down at Sunset’s hand, before drawing her eyes up towards Sunset. “I wanted to ask, um, if you– if you could be a pony again, but in this world, would you?”

Sunset blinked. “Oh, umm…”

It was a good question, one that she’d thought surprisingly little about over the years. Of course she’d spent so much of the before-times cursing her new form and longing for the obvious perfection of her original, clearly superior body. But it didn’t exactly take the form of imagining herself strolling about the sidewalks of Canterlot City as a pony. In her mind, a return to unicornhood would naturally have meant a triumphant return to Equestria, and when she found herself longing for one of her old abilities in daily life as a human, like telekinetically picking up her daily coffee mug, it was moreso a craving for that specific talent, and less a desire for the body it was attached to.

Would she want to be a pony in this world? She took yet another prolonged pause in an evening that was already overstuffed with them to formulate her answer.

“I guess that, well, maybe I’d kinda like to be able to… switch, I think. Like I’d love to just have my body back, and show you everything I can do with it. But I’ve put a lot into learning to appreciate the one I have here, too, even before adding all our new magic to it. So I’m cheating and saying yes and no.”

Twilight nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Hmmm… collecting some data.”

“Heh,” Sunset said, smirking. “Nice and noncommittal. I can appreciate that.”

At that comment, Twilight shifted downwards, her body sliding further along the length of the bed until her head was at the level of the pillows. She rolled her body onto its side, elbow pressing into a pillowcase as she rested her head against her hand. The movement dislodged her glasses, and she took a moment to readjust them with her other hand before meeting Sunset eye-to-eye once more.

Surprised, Sunset frowned. “I, um, didn’t mean to offend.”

Twilight simply smiled, then extended her free arm and placed a hand on Sunset’s cheek. “It’s okay, Sunset. I just want things to be comfortable enough for you to keep talking.”

Sunset was just starting to relax at the feeling of Twilight’s warm palm against her skin when the words killed off the budding comfort. “To keep what?”

“I asked you if there was more you needed to say, remember?”

Technically, Sunset did remember, but only in the vaguest of senses. It felt like hours ago. She shuddered. “Do I have to?”

Twilight gently withdrew her hand. “I don’t mean to pressure you, and if you really can’t tell me… that’s okay. But it’s easier to get it all out at once. Trust me. When I, um…” Twilight’s hand drew back. “About a month back, when I first told Shining Armor about Midnight and what happened at the Games, it was painful. I didn’t want to do it, because it meant facing stuff that I was afraid to deal with, and maybe even disappointing him by saying how bad I’d felt about Crystal Prep for so long, when he’d always been so enthusiastic about it. I even tried to leave before I had to say anything. But once I finally started talking, I just let it all out. Everything I could think of to say, I said it. And after it was over, there was just… relief. Knowing that I didn’t need to try and hide, to look strong for no reason, when all he wanted to do was understand. And he did.

“I tried to replicate that when I asked you out, kinda,” she added, with a weak grin emerging. “But that had a whole other kind of nervousness that complicated things. Though there was still a lot of relief afterwards.”

Sunset laughed, just a little, and that brightened Twilight’s smile. Upon noticing it, Sunset longed for the strength to make a smile of her own whose existence could be measured in a timeframe beyond milliseconds.

“But you also did something really special for me, after I asked you and it got kinda awkward,” Twilight continued. “You told me that, no matter what, you’d still be my friend at the end of the night, and that you wouldn’t punish me for opening up to you. I don’t know if anyone outside my family has ever said anything like that to me before – and I’m not saying our other friends wouldn’t do that for us, but, well, that’s not the point. The point is that it was you who said it, and it really stuck in my head, and given how you’ve been just so uncomfortable telling me all this… I really want you to know that, whatever you need to tell me, you can tell me. I’ll listen, I won’t judge; I’ll be honest with what I think, but I’ll support you as much as I can. And when you’re done, we’ll still be together. I promise.”

“Twi–”

“I owe you that much.”

Sunset sat up, scooching backwards towards the pillows, facing forwards once more. Twilight, seemingly by instinct, mimicked her movement.

“Twilight, I… I mean thank you, but…” Sunset’s gaze drifted downward as she fumbled for words, her mind wrestling over whether to make further expressions of gratitude, to apologize for now having forced her into the position of being comforter rather than comfortee, or to earnestly try to follow Twilight’s command and say what needed to be said.

Because Twilight was right – that something was there. The only issue was trying to figure out how to positively identify what it was and express it.

Before she’d come to any decision, Twilight’s voice cut in. “I can give you somewhere to start, if you want.”

Sunset diverted her thoughts to ponder the suggestion. Given the state of her mental deliberations, a starting point was a pretty tantalizing offer. After a moment, she replied. “Okay.”

Twilight lurched forward off of the pillows and fell onto her knees. She scooted forward on the bed until she was positioned right across from Sunset. In instinctive shame, Sunset’s eyes darted away, towards where her partner had been sitting before – but shortly after, they returned to meet Twilight’s, which had been waiting patiently and expectantly.

“Lay it on me.”

“Alright.” Twilight took in and released another deep breath. “So… I guess I was trying to think about how some of our friends might try to help you, if they were here. Because, well, I know a lot of them could probably make a lot more sense of this than I am. Not that I’m confused, but, well, I’m just thinking how I’m probably not a match for Fluttershy’s Kindness, or Rarity’s Generosity. They’d probably know the perfect thing to say to you right now, Th-they’ve been there for you before.

“...Wait,” she added after a lull, before the gap in her words went on too long and Sunset tried to interject. Not that Sunset had much of an idea how to respond in that moment. Thankfully, Twilight got back on track after not too long.

“But if I–if my geode is Magic, and Magic, like you said, is formed from all the other elements in Equestria, then I need to understand those qualities, personally. And tonight, well, I think I need to try and take some inspiration from Applejack. Honesty.”

Oh, Sunset thought. This might be rough.

She knew Twilight had felt a lot of guilt over the lies and half-truths she’d put her friends through in the early days. Whether under the heel of Principal Cinch or consumed by fear of Midnight Sparkle, Twilight had very often chosen to hide herself, shrink down, and avoid even the barest possibility of rejection. Even at Camp Everfree, she’d desperately asked Sunset to keep secrets for her. Yet slowly but surely, Twilight had been kicking the habit, the relationship the latest in a series of clear and obvious confidence boosters that had made openness with her friends far more natural than it had once been. Tonight had already done a lot to show how far she’d come.

So for Twilight to only be thinking of herself as embracing honesty now, after a whole night of helping Sunset to come clean about her past… that meant an especially brutal truth was inbound.

“But the point is…” Twilight trailed off, then resumed at a rapid pace, seemingly to ensure she forced all the words out. “The point is that I really think you have to get in touch with them. As soon as you can. Your Cadance, your Celestia, you need to tell them that you’re here, you’re okay. I-I know that probably seems like really obvious advice, but I still think it needs to be out there and…” She swallowed. “I just don’t see how this doesn’t keep eating at you if you don’t reach out.”

Sunset heard the words echo through her head as a chill ran down her spine.

Twilight was right. It was obvious. It was something Sunset had imagined many times.

And she was right that it needed to be said, too. So that Sunset could make Twilight understand why that was absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent impossible.

She just had to figure out how to convey that. Though her expression was apparently doing a marvelous job of it already, because she noticed Twilight cringe at the sight of it.

Sunset’s voice quavered. “Twi–”

“And I can help!” Twilight blurted; Sunset wasn’t sure if her own attempt at speaking had been noticed or not. “I know– I mean, I don’t know your Cadance, but I know a Cadance; I mean, before she was my future sister-in-law she was my Dean, and before that she was my babysitter back when I was in elementary school. I can… I can help check your words, or figure out what to say, or… anything, Sunset. Please. I want to help. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

Twilight reached out and placed a hand on Sunset’s knee, and it hit Sunset like a punch in the gut.

I don’t like seeing you like this… Sunset knew right then there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t disappoint Twilight. Not without lying, starting another cycle of pretending like she would do it and never following through. Because she couldn’t follow through. But she couldn’t string Twilight along like that. Better the short-term emotional pain now than deceit and deeper hurt.

“Twilight,” she said, almost a whisper. “I can’t do that.”

She was met with an expression that suggested she’d accidentally spoken the words in a made-up language Twilight couldn’t possibly hope to decipher.

Then there was a look of dawning comprehension, horror, and, as Twilight’s hand withdrew, Sunset spotted what looked like a tinge of anger.

Twilight didn’t get angry at people. Not that Sunset had seen. Annoyed, certainly. Frustrated, baffled, disappointed. She’d certainly displayed all of those traits that night, and Sunset couldn’t deny that she’d given her plenty of reasons for each. And Twilight definitely had the capacity for anger at things – buggy computer programs, bad internet connections, and stubborn experiments could drive her into a miniature fury under the precise wrong circumstances.

But Twilight didn’t get angry at people. Not truly. Right?

Or did she?

Was this anger? Or was Sunset seeing things?

Regardless, Twilight’s reaction made clear she was far from pleased with Sunset’s phrasing. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

Sunset’s breath hitched. Twilight’s words hadn’t been as curt as Sunset had initially braced for, but they’d stung all the same. “Please, just let me explain–”

Now it was her turn to speak rapidly, fearing she wouldn’t have the chance to finish otherwise.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I do, but I already know what will happen if I try. I literally know, no ambiguity. I’ve seen it. I saw it before I met you, back when I was saved from myself at the Fall Formal. I saw it all. It was a vision, Twi. And not just of everything that had gone wrong with my life – of what I’d done to wreck my life – but the consequences. There’s a lot I can try to fix, but Equestria? I burned my bridges, completely. If I go back– it won’t be a punishment. It won’t be rejection. It’ll be apathy.”

The last word came out as something of a gasp, visibly startling Twilight. Sunset’s heart rate was accelerating, and her breaths were becoming irregular. Her partner’s frown softened with worry as Sunset reached her hand to the side, grabbing the pillow Twilight had been laying on before and holding it just in front of her face.

“They won’t be angry at me, because they won’t care… they’ve moved on, Twi. It’s been a decade. I saw it in their faces, the Elements showed me… it was worse than hatred. It was nothing. They were my whole life for so long, and they felt nothing for me… nothing at all… because their lives were bigger, are bigger, than mine ever will be. They don’t have time to, to…”

In front of her, the pillow was vibrating as Sunset’s arms shook nonstop.

“To worry about the stupid little filly who didn’t appreciate what she had… or to care if she comes back.”

Sunset pressed the pillow to her face, and a muffled scream tore through it.

She left it there, blocking out all view, all sight. A brief flash of what Twilight’s expression must have looked like – and then a different version, and then another one – popped into her head, and she pushed it out. And then regretted it, as it was replaced by the very images she’d just described moments ago.

The faces of ponies whose expressions bore nothing.

Convulsing, Sunset slowly began to topple over onto her left side, pillow still held to herself as she slumped onto the covers. Her breaths became more and more agonized as the oxygen level depleted, and, defeated by her biological necessities, she finally relaxed her grip and let the pillow fall away, inhaling and exhaling sharply.

She rubbed some water away from her eyes and found Twilight, still seated where she’d been, apparently unsure exactly what to do. Sunset could hardly blame her. She could only imagine what was going through Twilight’s head, realizing this was who she’d been so excited to get into a relationship with. If she’d had the time travel spell she’d probably go back and warn herself not to–

Her train of thought derailed when she noticed Twilight leaning to her side, sliding her legs out from underneath her, and scooting over in front of Sunset, moving the pillow out of the way and paralleling her position.

“Sunset, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t– I shouldn’t have been so short with you just now, I told you I wouldn’t judge you, it just, um, reminded me…”

Twilight wrapped an arm around Sunset’s torso, pulling it closer to her. She slowly began to lift herself back up, and Sunset moved with her, just enough for Twilight’s other arm to snake in underneath and complete the hug. They got themselves upright, resting on their knees, and Sunset leaned fully into Twilight, engulfing her in her own arms and clinging tightly. She felt Twilight’s hand begin to gently rub up and down her back. The position wouldn’t really work for more nuzzling, sadly, but it was more than adequate.

“It’s been a while since you’ve been this sensitive with anyone, hasn’t it?” Twilight asked. “About yourself, at least.”

“Mmhm,” Sunset mumbled. “I mean… the others tried, sometimes, when I was first figuring things out after the Formal. But I was still guarding myself. Rarity and Fluttershy both came close, though. To cracking me.”

“Sorry to be the one to finally succeed,” Twilight replied.

Sunset exhaled, head rested on Twilight’s shoulder. “I suppose someone had to. But now you know.”

“I… I know why you’re afraid,” Twilight said. “But there’s more I want to ask.”

Sunset didn’t respond. She just sank deeper into the embrace, letting herself be lost in the feeling of Twilight all around her, of the only good thing that existed in this moment of pain and dark memory, of the assurance that Twilight hadn’t lied when she said they’d still be together at the end of all this.

It seemed Twilight took the silence as affirmation, pausing the backrub. “I know it must have been really vivid, and real, but what makes you so, um, certain, I guess, that that vision is really going to be what happens?”

Her body tensed, but Sunset fought the instinct to jerk back. It was a question worth asking. “Because it came from the Elements. And like you said… one of the Elements is Honesty. They couldn’t have shown me a lie. They showed me the truth of what I was, and what I’d brought on myself.

“I saw the world I’d created for myself, this huge assembly of memories past and present, through my eyes and the eyes of ponies and people I knew. I watched every relationship I’d ever built disintegrate, all through my own choices, my own stupid blind jealousy and ambition and refusal to accept that I didn’t have to be better than them to be worthwhile… until it all imploded around me, and the last thing I saw was that last truth. That for all I’d wanted to be the one nopony could ever forget, the most important pony in the world… the two ponies I cared about more than anything in the world wouldn’t even remember I existed. And then there was nothing, nothing left but the monster I’d become, screaming into the void.”

She squeezed Twilight as tightly as she could, and felt her squirm and struggle within her grasp. She relaxed the grip just enough to allow her oxygen acquisition, before burying her face in Twilight’s shoulder, wiping away more liquid from her under her eyes.

To Sunset’s surprise, Twilight only needed the time it took for her lungs to recover before she responded. “I believe you, Sunset. I don’t doubt anything you’re saying. I just want to know, well, do you think that is the truth, still? Or was it just the truth back then?”

“I–” Sunset had a response, or she thought she did, but then Twilight started rubbing her back again, and all her thoughts were muddled.

“I mean, maybe it’s true that the you who had that vision couldn’t have fixed things, or been worthy of the attention you wanted. But that’s not you anymore, is it?” Twilight asked rhetorically. “Just think of everything you’ve built since then! Of everything you’ve done for people – of what you did for me. Sunset, you became a literal angel, or at least the closest thing I’ll ever see to one. I can’t say if that measures up to two alicorns, but it can’t be worthy of nothing, evenfrom them. I know it can’t. No one can look at you and think you’re worthless.”

There was a brief, pregnant silence in the room. Then, Sunset gradually slid her arms down, until they dropped from Twilight’s body entirely. She leaned back as Twilight’s arms withdrew from her, shifting their legs into criss-cross positions to relieve their heavily abused knees, and, with only a pair of glasses in the way, their eyes stared directly into each other’s.

“So,” Sunset asked weakly, “what are you saying?”

Twilight put a finger up to her chin. “Well, I can’t say quantum physics has ever really been my preferred field to study, considering part of why I became so interested in science growing up was just, well, wanting to know things. It was always kinda hard for me to understand things that aren’t really certain, necessarily, and I liked finding explanations. So it was a little frustrating, on a personal level, to learn there’s a whole branch of science that teaches that different things can be true, or some things can’t be understood all the way with direct observation.” She removed the finger. “But to get back on topic, well, I think what the Elements showed you both is and isn’t true.”

Sunset blinked. “How.”

Despite the intensely flat affect and lack of any elaboration of meaning, Twilight successfully registered the question. “Basically, um…” She trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m not Applejack. Or Rarity. They could probably make this make sense, but I just, uh, I’m not figuring out the right words. I guess what I mean is that what you saw was the truth you needed to see, right then. What you needed to break the monster, to become who you are. The you that existed then couldn’t have fixed things, or reconnected. But you can. Because you’re not her.”

By the end of Twilight’s speech, there was a warm, encouraging smile on her face, on that Sunset, as she contemplated what had been spoken, felt almost capable of believing.

But it still just wasn’t right, no matter how hard Twilight tried.

“That–” Sunset stammered out “–that makes sense, when you say it like that. I won’t lie. And don’t worry about how it sounded, I got your meaning. All of it. It’s me who can’t convey things right – I can’t make you understand how it felt. How it was. I’m making it sound like the Elements just taught me a lesson and scared me straight, but it was so much more… the best way I’ve figured out how to describe it is that becoming the demon tore my soul apart, and then the Elements stitched it back together without anesthetic. I felt it on a level I can’t convey, not even to you. Just like there are things about Midnight that I’ll never truly understand.”

Twilight’s face was alternating between a worried frown and a frustrated variant of the same. “Sunset–”

“But once it was all over, I knew it, in my heart, when Princess Twilight said that if I didn’t take the chance she offered, that I would be forever alone. I could’ve made a run for the portal while it was still open, and disappeared somewhere far away in Equestria, or even beyond the borders, where no one would recognize me. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t start my life over in the world where I’d be reminded, every time the sun rose, of what I’d lost. So I stayed in the place where I could at least try and move on, and eventually forget I was ever a pony.”

Instinctively, Sunset curled her fists and knocked them together.

“You’re right, though," she added with a sigh. "I’m not the monster I was. I know that. But I’m still the runaway. I’m still the one who looked at every special privilege I had in my life and decided it still wasn’t good enough. When I left, I told my family that they were worthless to me – not literally, but I might as well have. I can’t try to reach out now and expect anything different from them.”

The expressions on Twilight’s face coalesced into a somber concern as Sunset’s gaze broke away, trying and failing to find a new place to focus on before settling on a blank stare directed at the wall. It didn’t last, though, as Twilight once again swiftly grabbed her attention, this time by getting onto her hands and knees and crawling back over to Sunset’s left, sitting beside her. Almost instinctively, Sunset began to lean towards her, and Twilight did nothing to stop it. She didn’t lean back, though.

“I don’t want to be mean,” Twilight said. “But that’s just an excuse. Trust me, I would know.”

Sunset’s voice was exhausted and broken. “What?”

“Not directly, I mean,” she continued hastily, perhaps sensing Sunset’s jaw going slack beside her. “I mean, well, that’s probably the wrong phrasing, but, uh… look, you’re right that I can’t really understand what happened with you and the Elements. What happened to me at the Games wasn’t the same. But I do know what it’s like to just, umm… to just be certain, to know that there’s no way to make things better, to give in to that hopelessness – and then realize that wasn’t actually true.”

Twilight backed away, shifting her body to face Sunset’s, and Sunset looked over as she got herself back upright. “What do you mean?” Sunset asked, even as an idea of the answer formed in her head.

“Sunset, when I told you about when I talked to my brother about Midnight, and Crystal Prep, this is what I was talking about. Everything you’re saying to me just sounds so, so much like how I gave up at Crystal Prep. Just letting myself be bullied, intimidated, lonely, and miserable, because I was absolutely convinced there wasn’t a way out. Anything I did to try to leave would have inevitably shamed my family, hurt the reputation of a good school, made Cadance look bad, gotten me all kinds of horrible attention I didn’t want – that’s what I told myself, and I believed it, with all my heart. I earnestly thought my parents, and my brother, would think less of me because I didn’t want to stay somewhere where I was feeling terrible. And it’s only now that I can see what a dumb and awful reason that was not to act.

“But even when I found what seemed like a real way out, that wouldn’t be shameful – getting into Everton’s independent study program – I still couldn’t. Cinch wouldn’t let her best student leave. She dragged me to the Games to humiliate me – she said she would sign my application if I did, but I’m not sure she ever really would have. And the longer it went on, the more I felt myself giving up again.” Her eyes drew downwards. “I knew, with all my heart, that this was just how things had to be for me. I… I took Midnight into my life because it was easier than telling my family that I hated what my life had become.”

Now there were glints of liquid below Twilight’s glasses.

“And then, after everything, I had to tell them all of that anyway,” she finished. “And… none of what I was afraid of happened. Things were okay. If anything, they were only disappointed that I’d hid things until it reached that point.”

Sunset didn’t have a response for that. She could only watch as her mind warred over the need to process what had just been said and to be in the movement and give comfort, as Twilight began to sniffle.

The compromise, apparently, was to limply rest a hand on Twilight’s leg, which was at least enough for her to look up. “D-do you, um, have any tissues?” she asked.

At that, Sunset lit up, grateful for the opportunity to do something other than sit uselessly on the bed. She could probably use a tissue herself. “Yeah, I do!” she said, definitely too enthusiastically given the circumstances; she cooled herself down for the follow-up statement. “Let me, um, just go get the box.”

She scooched past Twilight and swung her legs over the bed, standing up for the first time in what had felt like far too long. There was a bit of stiffness as she made her way around to the dresser on the other side. As she reached up to grab the box, she was caught off-guard when Twilight spoke again.

“That was why I got angry earlier, by the way. When you said you can’t reach out. It just hurt so much to hear, because that might as well have been my mantra, the number of times I told it to myself.”

There was enough roiling in Sunset’s headspace at the moment that she didn’t feel up to making a concrete response to that. She simply pulled out a tissue, blew her nose, then tossed it into the bin on the other side of the dresser. Then she grabbed the box and brought it over, pulling out one and holding it out for Twilight.

It was quickly snatched out of her hand by her grateful partner. “Thanks,” Twilight said as she lifted her glasses and rubbed the tissue under her eyelids, then moved it to her nose and made a trumpeting noise.

All the while, Sunset remained standing, only leaning over to set the box down on the bed.

When she’d finished, Twilight got up, walked silently past her, and threw the tissue away. She then sat back down at the foot of the bed, looking off toward the railing while Sunset stayed in place.

Twilight’s voice was tired when she spoke once more. “I don’t know if any of that made any difference. Or made sense. I mean, I know it’s not the first time I’ve talked about how Crystal Prep was, but… I don’t know.” She swiveled her head around to meet Sunset’s eyes. “I hope it helped.”

In spite of herself, Sunset nodded.

At that moment, her mind was a laundry machine filled with swirling, waterlogged thoughts. Images, voices, and words popped into visibility through the door, then disappeared back into the chaos. The old gnawing doubts briefly gained the upper hand on the newfound insights and came to the forefront, but then were pulled back into the fray once more. She didn’t know who to root for, what to root for.

She couldn’t even keep track of what metaphor she was using for her mind. Somehow it had gone from a front-load washer to a cartoon brawl. Maybe she was getting tired.

All she knew was that what once had seemed so clear, so obvious, so concrete, was now murky.

Everything except Twilight.

Everything except the painful earnesty, the desperation for Sunset to see past the doom that felt so certain and feel hope again, the same hope that Twilight might not have ever gained if it weren’t for Sunset to begin with…

And as the ramifications of her own nod began to hit, she decided, with heavy reluctance, to trust her mouth to figure out the right words where her conscious mind couldn’t. She gingerly walked over to the end of the bed with Twilight, sitting down a short space away from her, and looked at her. Not in the way she had so many other times that night, with a heavy feeling of regret and an active desire to not make painful eye contact, but truly, genuinely looked.

At her dark hair and its brilliant violet streaks, bound up and hanging down the length of her spine in the hairstyle whose name Sunset always found so amusing, yet so appropriate.

At her purple eyes reflected in the back of her glasses, wide and sad.

At her position, conveying meaning in a language Sunset had taken very long to get adjusted to. Her feet pulled up, heels pressed against the side of the bed as her knees jutted out, arms resting on top of her legs. Not quite fetal position, but resembling it enough for Sunset to know just how troubled she was.

A month ago, Twilight could never have made it through a conversation like this. She would have left in tears, convinced she’d ruined everything, despondent that she’d made one of her friends upset and believing it was proof she was unworthy. In the immediate aftermath of the Friendship Games, there’d been more than a few instances of Sunset, or one of the others, having to stop her from a nervous flight away from an upsetting comment, and even by Camp Everfree, any remark that made her feel like a problem, regardless of intentionality, was a quick way to get her to leave the area.

So the fact that Twilight had held on this long spoke volumes. Not merely about how much she’d improved over time, the further away she got from Crystal Prep and Midnight, but about how much Sunset must have meant to her.

The thought of anyone being this dedicated to her made Sunset feel almost nauseous. It wasn’t right for someone to care about her like this.

Was it?

Not that she couldn’t imagine some of her other friends being willing to try talking her through this – as had been noted, Rarity or Applejack probably could have. Fluttershy, too, though she probably would have done more listening than talking herself. But that was their temperament. They had the innate resources to handle a heart-to-heart, to talk things out. But Twilight?

Everything she knew about Twilight Sparkle told her that she was in agony right now. Seeing Sunset Shimmer caving to her fears – that was why I got angry earlier, by the way. When you said you can’t reach out – and then knowing she had to try to be the one to talk her through them, only to get absolutely nowhere, as far as she could perceive. And yet she still fought on…

Sometimes, Sunset forgot that the word girlfriend might mean something different to Twilight than “best friend with kissing permissions.” And that maybe it should mean something different to her, too.

In the end, Sunset found she could only keep saying no to her girlfriend for so long.

“You made sense, Twi. I-I understand. I’m just– ugh. I’m supposed to be Empathy, and I’ve been stuck in my head all night while you’ve been trying to figure out how to reach me. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about that. You’re allowed to be upset. It’s not like I’ve never been upset in front of you. And you were listening, I could tell, and that’s what mattered.”

“Maybe,” Sunset said, shrugging slightly. “But still, I just… it’s like I’m fighting myself, because I know what you’re trying to say, and it makes sense. But it doesn’t change how much it feels like I’d be walking toward that vision. To going from feeling certain it’s real to knowing it’s real. And I don’t know if I can take that.”

Twilight scooted closer to her. “I know that feeling, too. Remember Everfree? Being so confident that I was causing all the problems through Midnight, and then trying to run away so I wouldn’t have to face it, even though that wasn’t even what was going on? I couldn’t have overcome that fear without you stepping in and stopping me. I couldn’t have overcome Midnight without you and our friends.” She stopped and took a concentrated breath. “You’ve done so much for me. I can’t thank you for saving me from my demons by letting yours eat you like this. Not when they’ve got you wondering if you even belong here.”

I couldn’t just keep pretending that… that everything made sense, that I’m where I should be, that I belong here.

Sunset froze up at the memory of her earlier words, and how they must have registered to her girlfriend who happened to be from this world. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“I know. And I believed you, when you said you don’t want to leave, that this world is your home. I just think, maybe… maybe it’ll feel more comfortable, for you, once you’ve finished moving out of your old one.”

That sent a sharp pulse through Sunset’s mind, one that failed to reach its destination after Twilight laid a hand on Sunset’s knee. Their faces turned to meet each other once more.

“I’m not saying you have to go straight to Equestria and meet your Cadance and Celestia,” Twilight elaborated. “I’m not saying you even have to send them a letter. Right now, you just need to contact the other me about this, and tell her what you told me. At least the stuff that matters most.”

On each side of herself, Sunset’s fists clenched once more as shifted her gaze towards the floor. “I… but she… she knows them. I know she knows Celestia, she was a student of hers like me, and she probably knows Cadance too, for all I know she could just relay this directly to them…”

“But she’s your friend. If you asked her not to reach out immediately, she’d respect that, right?”

“Um–” She let her hands relax, before glancing back towards her partner. “Look, far be it from me to doubt the expert on being Twilight Sparkle in this room, but it, well, feels a little risky.”

“You don’t trust her?”

That Sunset had to stop and consider whether she trusted Princess Twilight Sparkle, the one to whom she still owed more than she could ever repay for her second chance at a life worth living, to do the right thing on her behalf, really illustrated to Sunset just how much her fears had clouded her logic.

Not to mention that arbitrarily distrusting one Twilight Sparkle probably wouldn’t do wonders for her relationship with the other.

“I do,” Sunset said, just soon enough for the pause to not reach deeply uncomfortable levels. “I’m being silly. I just, well, still need to figure out exactly how I’m gonna do this.” A thought occurred. “When you said right now–”

“I mean tomorrow,” Twilight clarified. “Tomorrow evening. Sorry, I didn’t mean– we should cool down, I think. Tonight’s been a lot.”

“Yeah, it has.”

With that, Sunset turned and wrapped her girlfriend in a tight hug, one that said girlfriend seemingly had not been expecting given the way she jolted and had to reposition how her body was situated on the bed. Once they weren’t on the verge of tumbling to the ground, however, the hug was reciprocated.

“Thank you… Twi, thank you…”

“I’m just glad I could be the one to help, this time.”

“And you did so well, really…”

Without breaking the embrace, Twilight pulled back just enough that Sunset could see the smile on her face. “I had some good teachers. One especially.”

Sunset half-laughed, half-cried as she tugged Twilight back to her, bodies sinking into each other. She felt Twilight rubbing her back with her hands, nuzzling her head against Sunset’s own, and now the tears were really starting to streak from Sunset’s face as sheer wonderful relief washed over her.

“Just don’t…” she began to blubber. “Just… don’t…”

“Don’t what?” she heard Twilight whisper back to her.

“Don’t tell Rainbow how much I cried tonight.”

At that, she felt Twilight’s form start to shake against hers, starting slow, then becoming more noticeable. There was a faint snickering next to her that began to build as well, until it reached the level of a cackle. One of the hands left Sunset’s back so it could stifle the laughter, but it fell short of that goal as Twilight burst into a guffaw beside her, and the joyful sound reignited Sunset’s own laugh until she found herself hiccuping on Twilight’s shoulder.

“I mean it–hic–”

“Don’t–heehee–worry, I won’t tell Dash she’s–ahaha–so much more of a tough girl than you–pfft.” Twilight again tried to stifle the giggles with her hand; when that failed, she buried her face into Sunset’s shoulder.

Sunset, releasing Twilight from her grip, gently patted the top of her head. “There, there, it’ll hic be alright,” she said with a wry grin.

“Shut up,” Twilight replied, muffled. She drew back and looked up, beaming in spite of her unconvincing feigned frown.

“Never, you’re hic too cute not to make fun of,” Sunset replied, sticking out her tongue. She took some focused, deliberate breaths to stop the hiccups. “Ah… what time is it? I should probably get you home soon, right?”

A response was delivered via a blink, then a stare, and then a single word. “Home?”

“You know, the place where you live and stuff? Didn’t it just come up a minute ago?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Miss Dictionary-Pants. I’m staying here tonight.”

After that, it was Sunset’s turn to stare. “Why?”

The hug had effectively been broken since Sunset had first brought home up, but Twilight formalized it by dropping her arms from Sunset’s backside, instead grasping one of Sunset’s hands as she pulled back. “Because I can’t just leave you here all by yourself after all that. I don’t want you to be up all night with those nervous thoughts. Trust me, I know.”

“Oh,” Sunset said, barely louder than a mutter. “But–”

“Besides, I did say that when we finished, we’d still be together. So we’re staying together. I’ll text Mom in a minute. We’ve got the car wash in the morning, so I told her I might end up spending the night.”

Sunset’s jaw went slack. “And she’s okay with that?”

“Well, I did frame it a bit more like a normal sleepover, but…”

“But you didn’t bring a sleeping bag… should I sleep on the–”

Twilight, looking oddly at her, pointed toward the other side of the bed with her free hand. “Isn’t this big enough for two?”

At that, Sunset felt the blood drain from her face. “Ummmmmm…”

Yet again, she experienced the sensation of a litany of potential reactions all crashing into each other in a futile effort to be the one selected for a verbal response.

Her girlfriend frowned, and this time it was plenty convincing. “Look, I’m not asking for anything sexual, alright? Considering we haven’t really done a progress update on the whole ‘attraction’ thing, I don’t think we’re at that point in the experiment and even if we were, neither of us are up for much beyond sleep tonight. Maybe… maybe I’m being blunt and weird about it. But it just doesn’t seem like there’s much of a point in being here for you if you’re down there on the couch and I’m nowhere near you.”

The jury was out on “weird”, but Twilight wasn’t wrong about being blunt; Sunset had nearly felt her eyes bug out of her head on hearing her say the word sexual about them out loud. She had at least enough sense, though, to register that Twilight probably wouldn’t appreciate further commentary on the topic at the moment.

In the end, Sunset couldn’t figure out a counterargument that wouldn’t be made up of incredibly awkward speaking-without-speaking and trying to bring back the elephant that Twilight had just ushered out of the room. “Sorry,” she said. “I was just surprised. Um, yeah, you can stay here, if you want.”

“Great,” Twilight replied with a smile, before leaning in again, hugging Sunset, and planting a soft kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be right back, I need to go to the bathroom.”

And mercifully, Twilight was gone before she could see all the blood that had previously left Sunset’s face come surging back all at once.

Somehow, the two of them had ended up in Sunset’s bed.

Sunset wasn’t quite sure exactly how that had come to be.

There had been a temptation, all too briefly, for Sunset to stealthily put her geode back on and try to figure out what in the world was going on in her partner’s head. Every time Sunset felt like she’d begun to figure out Twilight Sparkle on her own, something like this threw her for a loop.

This relationship experiment had somehow only managed to get more experimental since that night at camp, even as it also became more entrenched.

With Twilight only a miniscule amount taller than her, Sunset had been able to offer her some of her pajamas, and afterwards they’d brushed their teeth side by side. It was late, and, as Twilight had correctly observed, neither of them had energy left to do anything else that night. And just after Sunset finished setting an alarm for the following morning to ensure they woke up for the car wash, she’d found Twilight had already put away her glasses and was under the covers on the left side, body facing inward, eyes closed.

Sunset was amused by the hustle. A desire to slip out of consciousness before any nagging thoughts could catch up with her? An effort to further assure Sunset that she had no expectations of any activities beyond slumbering? A desire to make up for lost time on her sleep schedule?

Or maybe the night had just been that emotionally exhausting.

That probably made more sense.

In any case, she could tell Twilight wasn’t actually asleep already. And as Sunset switched off the overhead lighting, leaving them with the soft glow of the string of bulbs along the railing, and slipped under the bedsheets, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Twilight Sparkle, cozy on the opposite side of the bed. Her bed.

Whatever weird feelings this was giving Sunset, Twilight was there for her sake. For her comfort. For her well-being. Just like she’d been there all night.

There’d be more things to tell Twilight; the hardest admissions were over, it seemed, but there was only so much she could explain in one night. And she’d have to say a lot of the same things to the rest of her friends as well, even if Rainbow Dash had given her a roadmap earlier on that front. And then there was the Princess, and everything that entailed… everypony that would eventually entail…

But for all of those and more, Twilight would be there for her. Like she’d said.

Like Sunset would have been for her, without hesitation.

There was no doubt that the night had left her with a lot more uncertainty than she’d had before. Even with all the weights that had been lifted, there was still some deep-rooted doubt and worry. But the fact that it was doubt at all, and not certainty of doom… that was a change for the better, in and of itself.

Later, she’d reflect that Twilight’s presence in bed had indeed helped keep the intrusive thoughts of everything that had just happened at bay. Thankfully, she did not have said observation right then, given that would inevitably lead her straight to those intrusive thoughts.

She slid up to Twilight and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Good night, Twi.”

And before she could slide back onto her own pillow, Twilight had moved in response, pressing her own face to Sunset’s. In the dark, and with no glasses on, Twilight’s angle of attack led to her lips directly meeting Sunset’s own, for several seconds.

“G’night, Sunset, you’ll do great tomorrow…”

And as Twilight absentmindedly fell back onto her pillow and began to softly snore, the intrusive thoughts that created cost Sunset at least another 15 minutes before her tiredness finally overtook her.

Author's Note

If you're wondering about the conversation between Twi and Shining Armor mentioned in this chapter, that's chronicled in my earlier short story Milkshakes, Marionettes, and Midnight (click title for link), which shares continuity with this story.

Interlude: A Dream of Manes and Hooves

The grass was light under Twilight Sparkle as she bounded through the field, a sensation alien to her, yet comforting all the same.

It did not have the feel of running through grass barefoot; there were no toes for the blades to slide between, no heel to press into the dirt, not even nerve endings to transmit what she knew she should be experiencing. And yet she could sense the way each hoof pushed into the ground, the impressions she made in those brief points of contact before her limbs were again in the air, one at a time with each new gallop.

She was laughing as wind whipped alongside her, her ears flicking. The sun was shining down on her as she felt her heart pulse, her lungs expand and contract, and her chattering mind quiet down as the image before her overwhelmed it.

She was staring into the rich amber visage of the unicorn beside her, the flame-tinged mane whipping through the air, the face illuminated perfectly by the light that had chosen them above all others.

Sunset Shimmer was laughing too, and all was right.

And yet there was something else—